The Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2023 | |
| Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales | |
| In office 3 September 2012 – 2 September 2016 | |
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | Caroline Lucas |
| Succeeded by | Jonathan Bartley andCaroline Lucas |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 15 October 2019 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Natalie Louise Bennett (1966-02-10)10 February 1966 (age 59) Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia |
| Political party | Green Party of England and Wales |
| Residence(s) | Sheffield,South Yorkshire, England |
| Alma mater | |
Natalie Louise Bennett, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle[1] (born 10 February 1966), is an Australian-British politician andjournalist who was the leader of theGreen Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016.[2][3][4] Bennett was given a peerage inTheresa May's 2019 resignation honours.[5]
Born and raised inAustralia, she began her career as a journalist with regional newspapers inNew South Wales before leaving in 1995 for Thailand, where she worked forAustralian Volunteers International and theBangkok Post newspaper over the next four years. Since settling in Britain in 1999 she has contributed toThe Guardian,The Independent, andThe Times. Her election as leader of the Greens came six years after she joined the party in January 2006.
Bennett was born on 10 February 1966 inEastwood, a suburb ofSydney, Australia,[6][7] the daughter of John and Joy Bennett.[8] She was born toworking class teenage parents: a part-time secretary and an apprentice carpenter. Her mother was killed in a car crash in 1989.[9]
Having been awarded ascholarship, she was educated atMLC School, anindependent day school for girls inBurwood,New South Wales.[7][10] She then took the degrees ofBachelor of Agricultural Science (BAgrSc Hons) at theUniversity of Sydney,Bachelor of Arts (BA Hons) in Asian Studies at theUniversity of New England andMaster of Arts (MA) inMass Communication from theUniversity of Leicester, graduating from the latter in 2001.[6][11][12] She was the first member of her family to attend university.[9]
Bennett began her career in journalism inNew South Wales, where she worked for various regional newspapers including theNorthern Daily Leader inTamworth. She left Australia in 1995,[10] and lived for four years in Thailand where she worked forAustralian Volunteers International in the Office of the National Commission of Women's Affairs, before moving to theBangkok Post newspaper, where she was chief foreign sub-editor.
She settled in the United Kingdom in 1999, and said in a 2013 interview for the AustralianInside Story website about the country of her birth: "I can’t imagine going there by choice."[10] In Britain, Bennett has written forThe Guardian's "Comment is Free" section since 2006.[13] Bennett was also a blogger.[14] She was deputy editor and then editor ofThe Guardian Weekly from December 2007 until March 2012. She has also worked for the London-basedIndependent andTimes newspapers.[12] In 2012, she tookvoluntary redundancy and left journalism.[9]
Natalie Bennett joined the Green Party on 1 January 2006.[10] Later the same year she stood for the Greens in theCamden Council election in the Regent's Park ward and again in theCamden Council election of 2010 in theSomers Town ward, but was not elected on either occasion. She was the internal communications coordinator on the national executive of the party from September 2007 to August 2011.
In January 2010, she was selected to stand for the Parliamentary seat ofHolborn and St Pancras.[15] She came fourth with 2.7% of the vote.[12] She stood next in theLondon Assembly elections of 2012, as the fourth placed candidate on the London-wide list for the Green Party.[16]
On 3 September 2012, Bennett replacedCaroline Lucas as leader of theGreen Party of England and Wales.[17] 3,127 ballot papers were returned in the2012 Green Party leadership elections, a turnout of 25.1%.[2] This turnout was explained by Bennett in a BBC interview: "if you hold an election in the month of August you kind of expect that turnout won't be particularly high".[18] On election as party leader Bennett told a press conference that the policies of the Green Party were "the only viable way forward for British people, for the world".[3]
In May 2014 she was selected again to contest the Parliamentary seat ofHolborn and St Pancras.[19] She was re-elected unopposed as leader of the party inSeptember 2014.
In February 2015, Bennett gave an interview regarding the funding of house-building on the talk radio stationLBC, which she later described as "absolutely excruciating".[20] In the interview, she struggled to explain how her party would pay for 500,000 new council homes it pledged to build. She told Nick Ferrari the policy would cost £2.7bn, prompting the presenter to ask: “Five hundred thousand homes – £2.7bn? What are they made of – plywood?”
In January 2015Ofcom ruled to exclude the Green Party from the televised debates surrounding the 2015 election, on the grounds that the party had not demonstrated "significant past electoral support in General Elections".[21] Bennett called the ruling "disgraceful and indefensible" andDavid Cameron claimed that he was "quite happy for there to be no debates at all" if the Green Party was not included. This decision was later reversed, after which the Green Party's support increased again. Theseven-way debate ultimately took place on 2 April, with Bennett present.
Bennett came third in the election to the Labour and Conservative candidates (futureprime ministerKeir Starmer held the seat for Labour), and in 2016, at the end of her second two-year term, did not stand for re-election as leader.[22] At the party's 2016 autumn conference in Birmingham, Lucas andJonathan Bartley were elected as co-leaders of the party in a job-share arrangement.[23][24][25][26]
On 7 October 2016, it was announced that Bennett had been selected to contest theSheffield Central constituency for the Green Party in the2017 general election.[27] Bennett's candidacy saw a drop of 7.8% in the share of Green votes as well as a drop in its position from second to third (out of eight candidates) with 3,848 votes.[28]
Bennett was nominated for alife peerage in September 2019.[29] On 7 October 2019, she was created Baroness Bennett ofManor Castle, of Camden in the London Borough of Camden.[30][31] She becomes theGreen Party of England and Wales' second current member of the unelectedHouse of Lords, joiningJenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. She wasintroduced to the Lords on 15 October 2019 by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb andJohn Bird, Baron Bird,[32] and made hermaiden speech on 17 October 2019.[33]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Nasim Ali * | 1,329 | 42.4 | −6.0 | |
| Labour | Theo Blackwell * | 1,204 | 38.4 | −7.1 | |
| Labour | Heather Johnson * | 1,172 | 37.4 | −7.3 | |
| Conservative | Michele Potel | 814 | 26.0 | −2.4 | |
| Conservative | James Morris | 804 | 25.6 | −1.6 | |
| Conservative | John Iredale | 792 | 25.3 | −0.7 | |
| Green | Natalie Bennett | 616 | 19.6 | −4.7 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Anne Brown | 586 | 18.7 | +4.1 | |
| Green | Stephen Plowden | 463 | 14.8 | −8.0 | |
| Green | Joel Derbyshire | 434 | 13.8 | −5.6 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Lawrence Nicholson | 424 | 13.5 | +2.7 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Richard Waddington | 330 | 10.5 | −0.3 | |
| Turnout | 8,968 | 36.8 | |||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Roger Robinson * | 2,744 | 52.9 | +7.8 | |
| Labour | Peter Brayshaw | 2,650 | 51.1 | +10.4 | |
| Labour | Samata Khatoon | 2,614 | 50.4 | +11.3 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Abdus Shaheed | 1,024 | 19.7 | +5.7 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Dave Hoefling | 1,011 | 19.5 | +8.8 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Frederic Carver | 927 | 17.9 | +7.7 | |
| Green | Natalie Bennett | 738 | 14.2 | −2.5 | |
| Conservative | Adam Lester | 721 | 13.9 | −0.3 | |
| Conservative | Brian Rice | 701 | 13.5 | −0.3 | |
| Conservative | Patsy Prince | 688 | 13.3 | −0.3 | |
| Green | Matty Mitford | 467 | 9.0 | −2.9 | |
| Green | Cathryn Symons | 422 | 8.1 | +1.2 | |
| Turnout | 5,190 | 57.2 | +18.2 | ||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Frank Dobson | 25,198 | 46.1 | ||
| Liberal Democrats | Jo Shaw | 15,256 | 27.9 | ||
| Conservative | George Lee | 11,134 | 20.4 | ||
| Green | Natalie Bennett | 1,480 | 2.7 | ||
| BNP | Robert Carlyle | 779 | 1.4 | ||
| UKIP | Max Spencer | 587 | 1.1 | ||
| Independent | John Chapman | 96 | 0.2 | ||
| English Democrat | Mikel Susperregi | 75 | 0.1 | ||
| Independent | Iain Meek | 44 | 0.1 | ||
| Majority | 9,942 | 17.8 | |||
| Turnout | 54,649 | 62.9 | |||
| Registered electors | 86,563 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Keir Starmer | 29,062 | 52.9 | +6.8 | |
| Conservative | Will Blair | 12,014 | 21.9 | +1.5 | |
| Green | Natalie Bennett | 7,013 | 12.8 | +10.1 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Jill Fraser | 3,555 | 6.5 | −21.4 | |
| UKIP | Maxine Spencer | 2,740 | 5.0 | +3.9 | |
| CISTA | Shane O'Donnell | 252 | 0.5 | New | |
| Animal Welfare | Vanessa Hudson | 173 | 0.3 | New | |
| Socialist Equality | David O'Sullivan | 108 | 0.2 | New | |
| Majority | 17,048 | 31.0 | +13.2 | ||
| Turnout | 54,917 | 63.3 | +0.4 | ||
| Registered electors | 86,764 | ||||
| Labourhold | Swing | +2.6 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Paul Blomfield | 33,963 | 70.9 | +15.9 | |
| Conservative | Stephanie Roe | 6,215 | 13.0 | +1.9 | |
| Green | Natalie Bennett | 3,848 | 8.0 | −7.8 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Shaffaq Mohammed | 2,465 | 5.1 | −4.6 | |
| UKIP | Dominic Cook | 1,060 | 2.2 | −5.3 | |
| Yorkshire | Jack Carrington | 197 | 0.4 | New | |
| Pirate | Rob Moran | 91 | 0.2 | −0.1 | |
| SDP | Joe Westnidge | 38 | 0.1 | New | |
| Majority | 27,748 | 57.9 | +15.7 | ||
| Turnout | 47,877 | 62.0 | +4.6 | ||
| Labourhold | Swing | +7.0 | |||
Bennett has considered herself a feminist since she was a young child, claiming that it was her "first politics".[41] She also founded the Green Party women's group and was a trustee of theFawcett Society between 2010 and 2014. She became interested in environmental issues when she obtained a degree in Agricultural Sciences.[12] She is in favour ofabolishing themonarchy.[42] In an April 2015 interview, she said that she supports the Green Party policy of an economic and culturalboycott of Israel, and also thought that Britain should cease arms sales to Saudi Arabia.[43] She has also voiced support forpolygamy andpolyamorous relationships.[44]
She opposesHS2, a high-speed railway, arguing that the project is unhealthy socially, bad for the environment, and harmful to local economies.[45][46]
Baroness Bennett is single and lives inSheffield.[47] During her time as leader, her partner was Jim Jepps, a left-wing activist who was a member of theSocialist Workers Party (SWP) for approximately a decade until 2003.[48][49]
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Editor ofThe Guardian Weekly 2007–2012 | Succeeded by Abby Deveney |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of theGreen Party of England and Wales 2012–2016 | Succeeded by |
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