Green party members voted at their conference to drop the party's longstanding commitment to phase out nuclear power, replacing a "blanket opposition to nuclear fission" with a policy that assesses nuclear alongside other low-carbon technologies.
The motion, which removes the previous opposition, prioritises offshore wind, onshore wind and rooftop solar as the main sources of electricity but allows elected representatives to support new nuclear reactors individually.
Green MP Carla Denyer said the decision reflects the reality that nuclear has a part to play while the country shifts towards a primarily renewable system. "This evolution of our policy does not commit the party to backing new nuclear, but accepts this power source is here to stay for now, while we transition to electricity generation based primarily on renewable sources," she said.
Denyer, who in 2023 described nuclear energy as "incredibly slow and incredibly expensive" and said renewables were the way forward, now argues that keeping existing plants running could be low-carbon because much of their emissions come from construction. Her position as energy secretary, she said, would be to keep existing plants in operation while considering new proposals carefully.
Other senior Greens had previously criticised nuclear power. Party leader Zack Polanski has called it outdated and compared investment in new reactors to "creating a fax machine." Last year, then co-leader Adrian Ramsay criticised government support for Sizewell C, calling it a "nuclear gamble" and urging that money be spent on home insulation instead.
The party's original opposition to nuclear fission was rooted in its founding stance against nuclear weapons.
Eugene McCarthy, a co-founder of the group Greens for Nuclear and a supporter of the motion, said the climate crisis demands an open mind. "We are at the throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-it phase of the climate crisis where you cannot be ruling anything out for things like Chernobyl happening in the 1980s," he said. The motion, he explained, lets MPs assess each proposal on its merits rather than taking a blanket position for or against the technology.