Sanders moved to the United Kingdom in 1968. He was active in the Labour Party in Oxford in the 1980s. He left the Labour Party in 2001 because he felt that it had moved too far to the right under Tony Blair, and joined the Green Party. Sanders was a Green Party county councillor representing the East Oxford division on Oxfordshire County Council, until he retired from the Council in 2013. He was a candidate to be the Member of Parliament for Witney. He came in fourth place.