co-opted back into the deputy leader role until December 2019. Lauren James was selected to replace her in April 2020. Membership As of July 2018, the Wales Green Party had around 1,500 members. By the end of 2019, the Green Party in England and Wales had a combined 49,013 members (up from 38,707 in 2018). History Pre-1990 The Green Parties in the United Kingdom have their roots in the PEOPLE Party which was founded in 1972, which became the Ecology Party in 1975, and then the Green Party in 1985. In 1973, three Welsh Green candidates (P. Jones, W. Jones and V. Carney) won seats in the inaugural Welsh district council elections in the Gadlys and Town wards on Cynon Valley Borough Council. The party narrowly missed out on a fourth seat to the Labour Party. Early years (1990s) In 1990, the Scottish and Northern Irish branches left the UK Greens to form separate parties. The English and Welsh parties became the Green Party of England and Wales, with the Welsh branch being semi-autonomous. In 1991, Marcus Hughes and Brian Stringer were elected to represent the Bynea and Dafen wards on Llanelli Borough Council In 1995, both then stood unsuccessfully as 'Independent Green' candidates, losing their seats to Labour on the new Carmarthenshire County Council. In 1993, the Party won a county council seat on Ynys Mon after a sitting councillor in the Aethwy ward had joined the Greens, but the Party did not defend this seat or stand any other candidates at the 1995 Isle of Anglesey County Council election two years later. At the 1992 general election, local Greens entered an electoral alliance with Plaid Cymru in the constituency of Ceredigion and Pembroke North. The alliance was successful with Cynog Dafis being returned in a surprise result as the MP, defeating the Liberal Democrat incumbent by over 3,000 votes. The agreement broke down by 1995 following disagreement within the Welsh Green Party over endorsing another party's candidate, though Dafis would go on to serve in parliament as a Plaid Cymru member until 2000, and in the National Assembly for Wales from 1999 until 2003. Dafis later stated that he did not consider himself to be the "first Green MP". On 29 August 1997, the Wales Green Party issued a joint declaration with the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, supporting the 'Yes for Wales' campaign and the establishment of