The Greens have won their first outright majority on a UK council in what it hopes cements a “coming of age” moment as a mainstream party.
Mid Suffolk fell from a minority Conservative administration to sole control of the Greens as they made inroads elsewhere during the local election results on Friday.
The left-wing environmentalists have controlled local authorities in minority and coalition administrations before, but this is the first time they will have outright control.
With eight more results to be declared, the Greens’ victory was declared when they won 18 of the East Anglia council’s 34 seats.
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay told the PA news agency: “For the first time anywhere outside Australia we’ve seen the Greens take the majority control of a council.
“It’s enormous because what we’ve seen over the last four sets of election since 2019 is the Green party really coming of age as a mainstream party in this country.”
Elsewhere in the polls, the party picked up a further 241 councillors in what was a historic night for them.
But the swing has been mysteriously ignored by the Beeb – despite the broadcaster giving significant coverage to a similar UKIP surge in 2014.
At the time, Nick Robinson described UKIP picking up 166 councillors as a “political earthquake” and penned this sentence:
“It was soon clear that we were witnessing something very significant – the emergence of a fourth national political force capable of disrupting the hopes and plans of each of the established three parties.”
Looks like there may be a new form of greenwashing going on inside the BBC HQ.
Related: Police criticised over ‘incredibly alarming’ arrests before coronation
