16:08

Ukip’s isn’t the only party conference kicking off today. The Green party is also gathering for its largest ever autumn conference, in the same venue that the Liberal Democrats welcomed their new leader Tim Farron last week.

The party’s leader Natalie Bennett told an audience of around 500 people in Bournemouth that global politics was moving towards policies the Greens have consistently pursued for decades.

Bennett said historians would look back and see 2015 as the beginning of great political change, “the year that a fundamental shift in politics saw it move away from the mantra of ‘greed is good, the environment doesn’t matter’ that rose with Margaret Thatcher and will fall with David Cameron”.

Greek leader Alexis Tsipras this week in his victory speech thanked the European Greens for their support for a different kind of Europe. The clear re-election of Syriza in Greece and the strength of Podemos in Spain are just two examples of the future of politics in Europe.

Bennett, who has been the party’s leader since 2012, said that Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory in the Labour leadership election, the Green party’s best ever election result in May and the domination of the SNP in Scotland were all evidence that politics was moving towards the Green party’s position.

The party’s position as the more leftwing alternative to Labour has been thrown into question by the election of Corbyn, who champions many traditional Green policies.





In a veiled reference to the divisions that have emerged in the Labour party since Corbyn’s win, Bennett said: “In the Green party we know what our policies are, we know that our values and principles are solid, unmovable foundations. We don’t tack around with the political winds: we stand up for what we believe in.”