Siân Berry

Siân Rebecca Berry (; born 9 July 1974) is a British politician who has served as the member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion since July 2024, succeeding Caroline Lucas. She was a co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales alongside Jonathan Bartley from 2018 to 2021, and was its sole leader from July to October 2021. From 2006 to 2007, she was one of the Green Party's principal speakers.Siân Berry's biography
''Green Party of England and Wales''

Berry was a member of the London Assembly (AM) from 2016 until she resigned in 2024, serving as a London-wide member elected under the additional member system. She also served as a Green Party councillor on Camden Council, representing Highgate until October 2023.

Early life and career

Berry was born on 9 July 1974 and brought up in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. She was educated at Pate's Grammar School, a state grammar school in Cheltenham, where her parents were teachers. She studied metallurgy and the science of materials at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating with a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree. Upon graduating in 1997, she moved to London.

Berry worked as a medical copywriter. From June 2011 to late 2015, Berry worked as a roads and sustainable transport campaigner for the charity Campaign for Better Transport.

Green Party politician

Berry joined the Green Party aged 27.

In her first major party political role as the party's campaigns co-ordinator, Berry led the Green Energy Works campaign, calling for low carbon, non-nuclear energy to tackle climate change. She also led a campaign against the renewal of Britain's nuclear weapon, the Trident submarine, travelling to the nuclear submarine base in Faslane, Scotland, to protest.

Berry failed to be elected to Camden London Borough Council three times: once during 2002 and twice in 2006. In the 2002 local elections, she came fifth in the Highgate ward with 811 votes, 38 votes behind the third place required to gain a seat. , ''London Borough of Camden'' The 2006 local elections saw her contest the neighbouring Kentish Town ward, in which she gained 1,057 votes and came sixth out of 12. A 7 December 2006 by-election in Kentish Town ward saw her come second out of four with 812 votes, behind the Liberal Democrat winner on 1,093 votes.

In 2005, Berry was the Green Party's parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency (which included Highgate ward) at that year's general election. She received 5.3% of the vote, coming fourth; the seat was held by Labour's Glenda Jackson.

Berry was elected as the Green Party's female Principal Speaker unopposed in autumn 2006, succeeding Caroline Lucas MEP and, working alongside male Principal Speaker Derek Wall, served until autumn 2007, when Lucas resumed the post following an election. She wrote a regular blog for the ''New Statesman'' magazine from November 2006 to July 2008.

On 12 March 2007, the Green Party announced that Berry would be the party's candidate in the 2008 London mayoral election, after she received 45% of the votes in the London Green Party's internal election. Berry recommended that her voters back Labour Party candidate Ken Livingstone as their second preference and Livingstone advocated an equivalent preference for his supporters. Berry was endorsed by ''The Independent'' and ''The Observer'' newspapers, with Ken Livingstone as second preference. Berry came fourth, with 3.15% of first preferences and 13.50% of second preferences.

Camden Council

In the 2014 local elections, Berry was elected to the Highgate ward of Camden London Borough Council, holding the seat of outgoing Green councillor Maya De Souza in a split result for the ward.

Berry has supported local services in Camden threatened by redevelopment projects. She has advocated "green development" in Kings Cross Railwaylands (the largest brownfield site in the UK) to provide more family-housing.

London Assembly

On 2 September, it was announced that she had won the internal party election to stand as the Greens' London mayoral candidate and first place list candidate for the London Assembly elections in 2016. She was one of the few candidates in the race to rent rather than own her home and made private renters' rights a centrepiece of her campaign. She was described by ''The Guardian''s London specialist Dave Hill as having "like her party, grown more formidable with experience".

Berry came third in the first preference voting round for the mayoralty, and thus did not make it to the second round. However, she was elected to the London Assembly as one of two Green members.

At the 2017 general election, Berry ran as the Green candidate for Holborn and St Pancras, which includes her Highgate ward. She finished fourth, and the party lost its deposit in the seat, which was retained for Labour by Sir Keir Starmer.

At the May 2021 London Assembly elections, delayed by a year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Berry was re-elected. The same month, alongside celebrities and other public figures, Berry was a signatory to an open letter from ''Stylist'' magazine which called on the government to address what it described as an "epidemic of male violence" by funding an "ongoing, high-profile, expert-informed awareness campaign on men's violence against women and girls".

On 14 July 2021, Berry announced she would stand down as the Green Party's co-leader, citing an internal party conflict over transgender rights and stating that "there is now an inconsistency between the sincere promise to fight for trans rights and inclusion in my work and the message sent by the party's choice of frontbench representatives."

In August 2023, she announced her candidacy for the 2024 London Assembly election, to be held in May 2024. Berry won a seat, but resigned three days later to hand it to Zoë Garbett, who had come fourth in the 2024 London mayoral election, for which she was criticised.

House of Commons

On 13 June 2023, Berry announced her intention to stand to be the Green Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion constituency, a seat that is being vacated by incumbent Green MP Caroline Lucas. On 19 July 2023, she was confirmed as the Green candidate, having secured 71% of first preference votes.

On her selection she said that "Labour's lurch to the right would help the Greens hold the seat". This raised questions about whether she would continue as a councillor, after saying "I will work every moment between now and the general election" in Brighton Pavilion. On 20 October 2023, Berry stood down as a councillor in Camden to focus on her general election campaign in Brighton Pavilion.

In the 2024 general election, Berry was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Brighton Pavilion with 28,809 votes (54.8%) and a majority of 14,290 over the second-placed Labour candidate. The Greens would win a further three seats for their best-ever election result: Ellie Chowns and Green co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay joined Berry as first-time MPs, making them amongst the party's first five MPs ever alongside the retiring Lucas. She made her maiden speech on 17 July 2024 during the debate following the King's Speech.

Berry is a co-sponsor of Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on assisted suicide.

Non-party activism

Environmentalism

Berry was a founder of the Alliance against Urban 4×4s, which began in Camden in 2003 and became a national campaign demanding measures to stop 4×4s (or sport utility vehicles) "taking over our cities". The campaign is known for its "theatrical demonstrations" and mock parking tickets, credited to Berry (although now adapted by numerous local groups), some 150,000 of which have been placed on 4×4 vehicles by campaigners. The group was successful in getting the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, to adopt one of its founding principles when he introduced a higher congestion charge for vehicles with high emissions. The Alliance campaigns further for greater taxes and stricter controls on advertisements for 4×4s. An international '4×4 Network' has now been founded.

In 2009 she was a driving force behind the Reheat Britain campaign for boiler scrappage which secured funding to replace some of the most inefficient boilers in the UK through the 2009 annual Pre Budget Report.

Anti-war

Berry has also campaigned against the Iraq war. She initiated the Census Alert campaign to stop Lockheed Martin from running the UK Census.

Humanism

Berry is a humanist and a patron of Humanists UK (formerly the British Humanist Association), a UK charity representing non-religious people who want a secular state. On 15 September 2010, Berry, along with 54 other public figures, signed a BHA open letter published in ''The Guardian'', stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK. In a 2021 video recorded for Humanists UK's 125th anniversary, Berry stated humanism was "an approach to life shaped by a rational, evidence-based understanding of our society and the problems we face – not only as individuals, but collectively" and rooted in "concern for other living beings, for our planet, and for future generations".

Following the 2024 general election, Berry was elected Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group.

Other activism

She is a patron of the Fair Pay Network.Siân joins new attack on poverty pay
''Green Party of England and Wales'', 25 February 2008 She has campaigned against genetically modified foods.

Monitoring by police

In April 2016, it was reported that Berry had been monitored by the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit, in apparent contradiction of assurances by Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, that the unit would not target peaceful campaigners.

Author

Berry is also author of a number of books, including ''50 Ways to Greener Travel'', ''50 Ways to be a Greener Shopper'', ''50 Ways to Save Water and Energy'' and ''50 Ways to make your house and garden greener''. In 2010 she published ''Mend it!'' and in 2011 ''Junk for Joy'' on upcycling projects.

References

External links

Official website
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on the Green Party website

Sian Berry's blog
at the ''New Statesman''

Alliance Against Urban 4x4s

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berry, Sian
1974 births
21st-century British non-fiction writers
21st-century English women writers
Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford
Councillors in the London Borough of Camden
English anti–Iraq War activists
English environmentalists
English humanists
Green Party Members of the London Assembly
Green Party of England and Wales councillors
Living people
People educated at Pate's Grammar School
People from Cheltenham
Sustainable transport pioneers
Women councillors in England
Leaders of the Green Party of England and Wales
UK MPs 2024–present
Green Party of England and Wales MPs
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
London AMs 2016–2021
London AMs 2021–2024
London AMs 2024–2028
UK councillors 2014–2018
UK councillors 2018–2022
UK councillors 2022–2026