Straight-talking Tessa Marshall is hopeful of being the second Green candidate elected to represent Caerdydd PenarthTessa Marshall on the Green Party’s chances in Wales
A month before we sit down in Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre for this interview I’d watched Tessa Marshall at a Green Party campaign event. “I’m a queer, deaf, disabled woman from Cardiff,” were her opening words to the packed church.
Within a few seconds of our interview starting I realise that she is just as plain speaking whether on a stage or chatting one-on-one.
Originally from Whitchurch in Cardiff the 29-year-old grew up in Cardiff and went to Glantaf high school.
Politics was part of her life – her mum was a union rep for the NUT and when the economic crash happened in 2008 it came at the worst time for her family who had just bought a house. She remembers her mum being “wound up” by the political world and being aware how close the family came to losing their home.
She was 15 and in a consensual relationship when she found out she was pregnant. If she had continued the pregnancy she would, for a start, have an almost 15-year-old child, she says.
“It would be completely different, I wouldn’t have a master’s degree. I might have a degree but it would unquestionably be different.
“That’s not wrong, that was my decision, but the fact is I had the opportunity to make that decision and so many people don’t have that opportunity and that’s heartbreaking really because, for me, that was through a consensual relationship and then I had the opportunity to choose whether or not I wanted to carry that child. So many women do not have that opportunity”.
She is of the generation who, in her words, “grew up online” but she was clearly a big thinker even then. “I was very plugged into this activism community. I was learning about feminism, I learning about women’s rights,” she says. “When I was 15 and I had an abortion I was really aware because I’d kind of learnt out the pro-choice movements, the anti-choice movements, how all of that intersects online.
“It really made me very aware that our rights are not guaranteed and if I was born in Northern Ireland or Ireland. I wouldn’t have had that choice,” she says.
She speaks about a school project where they had to research and decide whether they were pro-choice or not. “The first time we did it I thought: ‘You’re destroying a life so I would be anti it’ and then I did some more research and we had to redo the piece and by the time that I redid the piece I was the complete opposite and I was pro-choice because I was like: ‘It’s just a group of cells – there’s no heartbeat or consciousness there’ and actually a woman’s life is more important than just what is happening inside her.
“So by the time i did have to have an abortion I actually felt I understood what was happening and why.
“This is one the safest medical procedures that you can have and it’s something that protects women. I know that there’s a group of people out there that will absolutely hate this but for me personally I can see what’s happening in America, I’ve seen what’s happening around the world.
“I can hear what Nigel Farage is saying about how we should have shorter periods of access to abortion and things like what Matt Goodwin is saying – who is saying like: ‘Oh childless women should be taxed’ – and knowing that some of the far-right groups in America which have funded MAGA are actively funding groups and organisations in the UK to try and kind of claw back women’s rights and kind of take us backwards, I think it’s really important for us to be very clear that body autonomy is like a non-negotiable.
“We’re not going backwards. This is something fundamental to women’s rights.” For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here.
The Senedd which forms after May’s election will, polls project, see Labour removed from power and a battle between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK at the top.
Leader of the Welsh Green Party Anthony Slaughter, deputy leader of the Green Party England and Wales Rachel Millward, and Tessa Marshall pose for a photograph while campaigning(Image: Matthew Horwood)
“One of the reasons why I’m [standing for election] is because [Reform UK] will say the most heinous s***. They will be talking rubbish about people that they have no idea what it’s like to be. They have no idea what it is like to live as a woman, as a queer person, as a trans person, as a person of colour, as Muslim – they will have no idea about any of this and it’s so important that we have people in the centre who are able to push back against it.”
She has chosen to talk about her abortion, a topic that drives huge emotion, openly, in the midst of an election campaign where she could find herself elected for the Green Party in the Caerdydd Penarth seat. Why, I ask her.
“Firstly, it’s about just raising awareness of the importance of sexual health education, RSE, all of these things.
“I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have had to have an abortion if I had actually had sex education at school.
“I think it’s really important for young people to understand what’s going on with their bodies, make their own choices, because at the end of the day, especially now in this world, there’s lot of people that will have access to young people who would never have had access to them before and they need to understand what is going on with your body, what is the risks associated with you being out in the world, and actually you can make decisions for yourself.
“For LGBT people it’s super-important to have that education and for others around to have education as well because the world can be so uninclusive and inequitable towards LGBT people that having education – talking about things like HIV, AIDS, talking about how now, when you have treatment it can be undetectable – it’s something that you can get easily but also something that you can manage.
“There’s a community out there for you – you have bodily autonomy, you are allowed to make your own choices.”
She says she has not been targeted by those who oppose abortion since she first spoke about it but has been targeted in other ways. “I think there’s something about being like a young person in politics who is fat, queer, you know, I think they just kind of think: ‘Oh, she’s not important’,” she says.
But she says she has been subject to a death threat for talking about Reform’s environmental policies in a manifesto.
“When I had the death threat that was like: ‘Okay – this is a moment. This is like the tip of the iceberg, this is only going to get worse’. And so kind of building in that emotional resilience is really important, taking everything with a pinch of salt,” she says.
She wants to see social media companies made to have human moderators. “We actually need our governments to act on this.
“Banning 16-year-olds from social media is not a sustainable way forward especially because we know in Australia, for example, where they have banned them those young people become super-isolated. If you’re living in a rural community, if you’re an LGBT person, if you are a person of colour all these young people do rely on social media to meet others who are familiar to them or similar to them and to talk to their friends.
“It’s a complex conversation.”
She could, if she gets elected on May 8 when the votes are counted, be one of the younger voices in the Senedd. She doesn’t have direct political experience but her background is in advocacy and policy for the last five years and grassroots activism for 15 years. She currently works in policy and public affairs for Wales Environment Link.
“I want to go into politics because I’ve lived through so many crises. I’m not even 30 and we’ve had multiple economic crashes, we’ve got global warming and nature degradation, one in five species at risk of extinction. Now we’ve lived through the genocide in Gaza, which is still ongoing, we’ve got war in Iran, we’ve had Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the war in Ukraine, and then that’s before even talking about Covid.
“So literally crisis is all I’ve known in my life and what that means for Welsh people is insecurity and lack of stability means that we’re constantly just kind of being battered around by what’s happening in Westminster, what’s happened in Washington, and we have no control over how that actually impacts our lives.
“We can’t control either of them so it’s very much about how do we create a system here in Wales which supports people, which helps people live long healthy lives where they can have a family and not become bankrupted by the cost of childcare or the cost paying the rent.”
She says her support for the Green Party is because its core values align with hers – things like “the access to democracy, the importance of freedom, the importance of equality and justice, accountability in politics” – but she’s also been someone living in a flat with mould.
“It’s 2026 and we still have some of the oldest, coldest, mouldiest homes in the UK and they’re not fit for human habitation and that is the housing stock that our young people are living in and they are paying through the nose for it as well,” she says.
“So that is why it’s really important that we actually create a system of economic stability through rent freezes, through the £1 buses or the free buses, through actually retrofitting our homes.
“But what I’m interested in as well is creating that foundation for the future where we can say at the end of this four-year term people in Wales are saving money because their homes are better insulated, they have got a better system of rent, they’re not paying the same level of council tax but a land value tax, but also we’re not just kind of mitigating what’s happening at the global level – we’re actually looking at how can we bring wealth into Wales, how we can create a robust system where people are engaged in civic life, where people feel like they have access to justice, and where we are actually moving forwards together as a society instead of being fractured.”
The Greens are on track to take seats, plural, in the Senedd. Until now the party has never had someone elected to the Welsh Parliament and, while polls vary, one YouGov poll projected them getting double figures.
Candidate Tessa Marshall chats with fellow hopeful Tavgar Bulbas(Image: Mark Lewis)
What does she think has changed?
“It’s pretty exciting,” she says. “In Cardiff we’ve been working really hard for years and years and over the last five years, in 2022 we got 17% of the vote in Common Ground, in the last general election we came second in the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency,. we won the Grangetown by- election and then in Splott and Penarth we came second,” she said.
That chipping away in Cardiff makes sense, I tell her, but until a few months ago no-one thought anyone other than their top candidate Anthony Slaughter would be elected, now there is a chance there will be Green representation covering Wales.
They, she says, are great local activists who are “grounded in their communities”
She also credits Zack Polanski, the leader since September 2025, who is driving huge support at a national level.
“He’s done a lot of work in order to kind of bring attention to the Greens and show people across the UK that actually the Green Party is not kind of just on the edge of politics. We’re not just a periphery party. We have a suite of policies about social justice, environmental justice, about access to culture, about building the economy, about transport, education, all of these areas which are absolutely key.”
I tell her how surprised I was at the event in Canton to see so many people from different backgrounds, some new members, some not members at all, and how it felt palpably different to other events.
“That excitement is something that you literally feel when you’re in the room. Everyone’s excited to be there.
“People are often promised, over-promised, under-delivered and with the Greens like the thing for us is making sure that people know that we will be there representing them, fighting to make sure that the next Senedd actually delivers for our communities because we can’t continue to kind of live in a system which is like just failing to deliver, failing our communities.
“People want change, people voted for change in the last general election, they didn’t get it, they got more of the same, they’ve got more austerity and that is why we’ve seen more people come to the Greens and it’s about us effectively communicating that to as many people as possible because we know we’re the party that will deliver for our communities.”
Tessa Marshall (second left) speaking to activists ahead of the Senedd election on May 7(Image: Matthew Horwood)
With that comes responsibility too and a big unknown in this election is how many people will actually turn out to vote. “It’s a bit worrying that people don’t really necessarily know that the election is happening.
“This Senedd is super-important for cost of living, it’s for our health service, it is important for making sure we have the workforce that’s able to actually come into social care, to come into the health service, come into education, actually provide basic decent services, deliver nature restoration as well.
“We know that if this Senedd doesn’t change the way things are going for nature we’re going to be seeing some serious extinctions in Wales. We’re going to see the extinction of salmon from our rivers in the next 10, 20 years.
“We will see the extinctions of curlew in 10 and 20 years – these kind of iconic species that have been in the Welsh landscape for literally millennia will be gone because of our actions.
“So it’s important the Senedd doesn’t just kind of think: ‘Oh, we’re going to tinker around the edges’; ‘Oh, we’re going to have more commissions, we’re going to have more committees’. No – it’s about doing it.”
If she gets in it will be in the fifth or sixth seat in a constituency which pollsters project will be spread between Labour, Plaid, the Greens, and Reform.
Tessa speaking at the party’s election campaign launch in 2026(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Standing wasn’t something she necessarily expected to do but she knew she wanted to be involved in politics. She was involved in the Save the Northern Meadows grassroots campaign and wasn’t considering standing for the Green Party until 2022 in the local elections when someone suggested she did.
“We took the Greens from zero to 1,800 votes,” she says.
What spurred her on was on was a number of things. “For me it’s about having impact,” she says.
“When I stood for the Greens and then in 2022 actually I felt like: ‘Oh, this is another way for me to have impact and actually deliver for the community’.
“That has then become a path because I could see there’s an opportunity here for me to actually deliver something good.
“I’m engaged – I worked in public affairs for five years and I’m watching it with my head in hands like: ‘Oh my God – I could do better than this’. We deserve better than just like people sitting on their hands at the Senedd saying: ‘We’re going to ask Westminster for more money’.”
The other parties standing in Caerdydd Penarth are listed in full here.
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