Green Party (UK) 54,299 votes. 1985 was a time of political change in the UK. After the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), there were noises being made that the UK needed a "green" party. In response to the rumours that a group of Liberal Party activists were about to launch a UK 'Green Party', HELP (the Hackney Local Ecology Party) registered the name "The Green Party," with a green circle, designed by Steve O’Brien, as its logo. The first public meeting, chaired by David Fitzpatrick (then an Ecology Party speaker), was 13 June 1985 in Hackney Town Hall. Paul Ekins (then
Ecology Party Election, entitling them to radio and television election broadcasts. Though many considered this a gamble, the plan, encouraged by Porritt, worked, as the Party received 39,918 votes (an average of 1.5%) and membership jumped tenfold from around 500 to 5,000 or more. This, Derek Wall notes, meant that the Ecology Party "became the fourth Party in UK politics, ahead of the National Front and Socialist Unity". Following this electoral success, the party introduced annual spring conferences to accompany autumn conferences, and a process of building up a large compendium of policies began, culminated in today’s "Policies for a Sustainable Society"