On Thursday 6^th May there were the local elections in England, Scotland and Wales, and slowly over the days since the results have come trickling in. They reveal a number of interesting trends.

The first is that these have been another outstandingly good set of election results for the Green Party. Their vote share went up in most regions of England, Scotland and Wales. There were no elections in Northern Ireland. The Green Party of England and Wales gained an extra 88 councillors, and were very close to winning a number more. Bristol was perhaps the biggest achievement, gaining 13 new councillors and where the Greens and Labour each now have 24 councillors. Green made impressive gains in many counties of southern England, from Kent and East Sussex to Suffolk and Norfolk, and also made impressive gains in northern cities such as Burnley, Birkenhead in the Wirral, Kettering in North Northamptonshire, and in Shrewsbury and Oswestry in Shropshire. They made gains in many other places. All this bodes very well for the future of Green politics.

The second major trend is the very different directions the various countries and regions are headed. Scotland is fired up for probable independence and a strongly Nordic policy direction firmly geared toward regaining a place in the EU, and promoting a wellbeing focused economy. The SNP remain the dominant political force in Scotland, but the party which gained the most seats was the pro-independence Scottish Green Party, sister party to the Green Party of England and Wales, and they can happily work with the SNP. Boris Johnson and right-wing populism have no appeal in Scotland, and post-Brexit unionism is looking increasingly like outdated English imperialism. Labour and Liberal Democrats in Scotland lost more ground, linked as they are to the union.

The Labour party lost ground in the traditional working class northern towns, but they remain strong in many other parts of the UK, especially where there is a distinctively local leadership asserting its independence from central control. Mark Drakeford in Wales and Andy Burnham in Manchester are two good examples where the case for a radically devolved politics is being forged, and both proved electorally popular.

Richard Murphy wrote an insightful blog about the intellectual bankruptcy of the traditional three main parties. Boris Johnson is pursuing a populist, divisive and corrupt form of governance that will inevitably end in disaster. Murphy sees this creating a political void, waiting for a new and hopeful path. May I suggest that it is the Green Party that fills that role? The climate and ecological emergency requires a new political direction. It is significant that many of the new councillors for the Green Party are climate activists, keen to provide the political leadership needed to bring about the required changes.

A globally unified, yet highly decentralized network of regions seems to me to be a way forward as we confront the monumental challenges left to us by the dying era of nation states, of fossil fuels, of pollution and plunder. The Green vision of the future is gaining ground globally. We don’t have all the answers but we are committed to giving it everything we have. The path has to be one of peace, of sharing and of justice. Justice of every kind: economic, social, political, racial, of climate justice and resource use justice. That requires global transformational change. We saw a little bit of it at these local elections. We will see more in the German Federal elections in September. Millions of small steps are being taken by people in many communities around the world. The old order is crumbling; the new one is struggling to be born.