Should the Greens Stand in Makerfield?

Now that Labour's NEC have given Andy Burnham the okay to stand in Makerfield, the Greens have got to decision to make: should they stand? The party put out a statement saying they were doing just that, and the ball had started rolling on candidate selection. This was followed up with Caroline Lucas saying that she hoped the decision to stand "wasn't true" and this was a moment to "put country before party" and give Burnham a clear run. Not only to minimise the risk of Reform getting in, but to secure "fairer voting", something Burnham is a long-standing advocate of. By chance, they're appearing on stage together in a fortnight's time.

Lucas presents a compelling case encouraging the Greens to sit this one out. But, as one Green spox put it, which version of Burnham is going to turn up? For instance we hear that he's about to drop his bid to rejoin the EU, ostensibly to court and/or neutralise Reform support in Makerfield, while the Telegraph writes that he stands by his pledge. Which is which? Those with long memories might recall his being all over the place during the 2015 Labour leadership contest - has he changed?

There's going to be a lot of pressure on the Greens to stand down. For one, there's the usual vote-Labour-or-get-Reform "argument" that worked out so well in Gorton and Denton. Though, in this case, the Burnham factor means there's more heft to it. Then there are the expectations of the Greens' new members and voters, a good chunk of whom are effectively refugees from Labourism. Not a few of them will share Lucas's positive views of Burnham, as well as her diagnosis of the stakes. If a Green candidacy is seen costing Labour the seat under these circumstances there might be a price to pay.

In my view, if the local Greens are minded not to stand they shouldn't sell their cooperation cheaply. What Labour seem determined to learn the hard way is that its monopoly on left wing votes is long over. If the Greens are to cede them ground, then Labour needs to work to make it worth their while. Burnham should be challenged on Green priorities to make public promises on them. What springs to mind is the aforementioned electoral reform, but I would also add wealth taxes, action on low pay and precarity, more action on solar and wind, and ending the race to the bottom on immigration and asylum. If he cannot commit, then that suggests any Labour Party he ends up leading will be marked by the same rudderless malaise we've seen under Keir Starmer. Go on, Andy. If you want the Greens to stand down then give them a reason.

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A Reform Victory is Far From Inevitable

What a catastrophic set of election results for Labour. In Scotland, Anas Sarwar's branch office took a bold step backwards as support fell to 17 seats on 19% of the constituency and 16% of the list vote, breaking through the floor he sat at the 2021 elections. The electorate sealed their verdict on his miserable performance by voting him out of his Cathcart and Pollok seat, but thanks to the list system he'll be back when Holyrood reconvenes. Likewise in Wales, Labour smashed its terribly low expectations with a plunge from 29 seats to just nine, losing two-thirds of its vote and also consigning its leader, the hapless First Minister Eluned Morgan, to the political dustbin.

Labour's devolved government woes overshadowed a disastrous night for the Tories too. They went from 31 seats to 12 in Scotland, and from 16 to 7 in Wales. A fraction under 12% and 11% respectively, they look increasingly like an utterly spent force. Unfortunately, that's because a great deal of unionist energy is now stored in Reform's political batteries. On 34 seats and 29% of the vote, they are the second largest party after Plaid Cymru and will be the opposition, as well as the standard bearer for continuing the union in Wales. In Scotland they are tied with Labour on 17 seats, thanks primarily to the list system. Here it too is the ascendant voice of unionism, making the link between the preservation of the UK state and right wing extremism something the socially liberal SNP are sure to exploit.

Likewise, in England it was a pitiful night for Labour. Keir Starmer achieved its worst result in English local elections since it became a party of government. The low of 1,300 councillors lost by Jim Callaghan in 1976 was surpassed as Labour gave up 1,496 seats. The party relinquished control of 38 councils, and scored a projected vote share of 17%. No wonder more Labour MPs are finally breaking cover and calling on the Prime Minister to go without waiting for the would-be successors to get all their ducks in a row. As forecast by sundry pundits, councils in the north tumbled in Reform's favour, while right on cue a clutch of London councils fell to the Greens, along with two directly-elected mayoralties.

Though you wouldn't know it from Kemi Badenoch's upbeat countenance, the Tories' performance in England almost matched the Scottish and Welsh disasters. 563 fewer councillors will be paying in tithes to their local Conservative group. Still not convinced that this once-mighty party is in long-term decline?

It was, again, Reform's night. A projected 26% of the vote and 1,451 new councillors puts them head and shoulders above the other parties and, thanks to the dysfunctional verities of first-past-the-post, would get them close to an overall majority if this was repeated at a general election. 14 more councils fall under their sway, and undoubtedly deals will be done in other local authorities that will see them govern in coalition with others, such as Tories and/or localist independents. There is no cordon sanitaire in British politics! The Greens inched ahead of Labour and took second place, with a projected 18%, 441 more councillors and five councils - again more or less matching forecast expectations and turning in the party's biggest ever win.

So much for the new state of play, but what about the underlying politics? John Curtice's position, that a decline on last year's vote share would represent a stalling of Reform's chances, regardless of how many councillors they picked up, was borne out on Thursday. Their share is down four points on the 2025 elections. But taking differential turnout into the equation, it's possible these results flatter Reform's level of support if a general election was to be held imminently. Which, of course, is not going to happen.

To restate the argument, polls consistently show that Reform, like the Tories, are demographically dependent on older people for their support. There are several reasons for this. This matters because it is well known older voters and particularly the retired are more likely to fill out their postal ballots or turn up at the polling station than the bulk of working age people. Therefore, the right has an important advantage going into elections. By way of an example, if retired people has stayed at home on EU referendum day a decade ago then Remain would have won. Where second order elections are concerned, most voters believe these "matter less" than general elections. Turnout goes down across the board, but the reduction is disproportionately greater for younger cohorts, strengthening the advantage of the right.

In Reform's case, its 29% in Wales and 15.8%/16.6% tally in Scotland are likely to overstate their real level of support vis a vis a general election. Ditto for England's projected 26%. And yet that figure is roughly in line with what pollsters report from their balanced samples. Does this suggest differential turnout is a mirage? Polls are always models and are, at best, only indicative. They are trumped by votes cast and, arguably, the analysis of those votes. Second, pollsters know this themselves which is why numbers given are caveated by margins of error. Dealing with the effects of differential turnout, I would suggest that the reversion from the right's second order election advantage to the weaker one it enjoys at general elections could reduce the Reform (and the Tory) score by two to three points as other cohorts turn up to vote. Not a massive amount, but one that matters when politics is this close run.

For the same reasons, there is a strong case that in England, perhaps less so in Scotland and Wales thanks to the SNP and Plaid Cymru, the Greens' 18% is an underestimate of where the party actually is. To have scored so highly, outperforming Labour (who suffer a similar disadvantage) and the Tories (who don't) is all the more remarkable considering the Greens' working age/young base is comparatively less likely to show up. A confirmation that Zack Polanski's Green-left populism is the right strategy for the right time.

Obviously, this comes with further caveats. Above all, geographical variation. Reform's 29% in Wales suggests the party is proportionately stronger there than elsewhere. Though looking at it from a right bloc/liberal-left bloc perspective, it's a 41%/58% division, which is wider than the same 43%/51% division for the English local elections (the untidy splits denote independents/others). Seat variation also matters. Bradford, for instance, saw Reform take 23 seats on 26%, but the Greens just seven on 22%. Nevertheless, the direction is clear. We, rightly, hear concerns about the danger from the right, the damage they do, and the atavisms they enable. They could win an election. But the numbers and the political direction shows greater numbers and the greater potential for mobilisation to their left. Reform and the right can be defeated. They are not inevitable.

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Wallowing in the Gutter

"Today we announce a new policy." These were the words Zia Yusuf used to introduce Reform's intention to set up networks of "detention centres" for deporting tens of thousands of people at a time. Their precious promise? To ensure none are situated in constituencies with Reform MPs or local authorities run by the party. They will, by and large, be placed where there are Green councils or Green MPs. In doing so, Yusuf was able to win the attention wars for the morning of Bank Holiday Monday in the most repugnant way possible.

There is a mass market for political thuggery, but that market doesn't extend beyond the 15-20% of the electorate that are the party's base. And it might give its softer "I'm not racist, but ..." some pause ... before they vote for Reform anyway. It does, however, limit their appeal beyond this. Strategically speaking, ahead of a set of local elections that look poor for the Tories and cataclysmic for Labour, it might be read as a call to turn out their supporters. A bit of racism, plus a poke in the eye for clueless middle class do-gooders that don't live with the consequences of mass migration. This is the vibe Reform are trying to ride. The problem they could encounter here is boosting the support for the Greens, which already has had some success with the "it's us or Reform" framing. Of course, Reform know this too. They've reasoned that in places not like Gorton and Denton, left wing politics and defending migration is much less palatable than themselves, and will put disaffected centre-leaning voters off from lending them their support. A strategy Reform thinks could cement divisions on the broader left they can capitalise on. We will see.

Reform are also teeing up for another summer of shouting loudly about immigration. Improving conditions in the Channel means more small boat crossings, and with it another round of tabloid hysteria. Months of right wing efforts at re-stoking the 2024 summer riots lie ahead. Unfortunately for Reform, and for everybody else, the cost-of-living crisis is to spike as the American/Israeli stand off with Iran remains unresolved. This, not Labour "getting tough" on immigration, is why immigration has fallen down priority list. And because the Gulf isn't about to sort itself out, and is looking more fraught at the time of writing, it's not likely another round of scaremongering is going to work as a distraction from a crisis cooked up between Washington and Tel Aviv. And that's a problem for Reform, because they have nothing that can address this crisis and, as Keir Starmer mentions every time he's near a TV camera, Farage wanted the UK to back the US-Israeli war on Iran in the first place.

Reform has plumbed new depths for British politics. A reminder to Labour's clever, clever strategists that it can never out-right wing an extreme right wing party on race and immigration. But, like the Tories before them with their awful Rwanda deportation plan, Labour have stirred the pot by scapegoating refugees and refusing to challenge the lies put out by the press, cultivating an inchoate, atomised, reactionary mob who find embers of collectivity and connection through spite and by punching downward. Who'd have thought jabbing an endless river of toxins into politics might have resulted in something entirely malignant that, in turn, threatens to consume them. They made this politics possible, and I might have said serves them right. If the results of their poison didn't threaten us all.

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On Labour-Green Defections

One of the culprits for rendering Your Party a nullity was its importation of Labourist culture. The bureaucratic shenanigans, the behind-the-scenes bullshit, the flouting of democratic votes and "abbreviations" of its constitution have turned a promising project into a Corbyn Glee club, minus decent tunes and a promise of joy. So it's of interest that, according to The Graun, would-be defectors from Labour to the Greens want to bring something distinctly Labourist along with them: a God-given right to "their" seat.

We read that among the chats/negotiations Zack Polanski and other leading Greens have had with disaffected Labour MPs, the issue of guaranteed seats has come up. I.e. If they make the jump, that want to be sure they will be the Green candidate in the subsequent election. This is custom and practice among the other parties. Remember when Christian Wakeford waltzed over from the Tories to Labour? His automatic reselection for Bury South was part of the deal. Of course, when politics is just another career you can imagine politicians treating defection as a shuffle sideways from one position to another, with the same perks and pay intact. This attitude is baked into Labourism, seeing as the party's constitution enshrines it and successive generations of parliamentarians treat Labour as an apparatus to serve them. Hence their utter horror when the party started showing signs of a democratic life of its own during Jeremy Corbyn's tenure.

That, presumably, left wingers thinking about crossing the floor have the same attitude is disappointing, but not surprising. What's bred in the bone will out in the flesh. The problem, unlike Labour, is it's not in the gift of the party leadership to guarantee seats. Mandatory reselection sensibly rules in the Greens, as does a more decentralised structure of party affairs. An approach that has deep roots in Green parties across Europe as a collective prophylactic against bureaucracy and institutional capture by unelected party officials. The relevant part of the party's constitution lays out the procedures for candidate selection, a process that sitting MPs would, at present, be expected to go through prior to the next election. In terms of the rules, there are no privileges that attach to being a sitting member. Formally speaking, everyone is equal in candidate selection.

There are provisions for leadership intervention where no candidate has been selected, which would be appropriate to a snap election like 2017, or where a selected candidate drops out for whatever reason and a replacement needs slotting in hurriedly, but that's it. The party membership are unlikely to vote in a Labour approach simply because they like being in a party in which the membership are actually sovereign. Nor are the leadership likely to expend political capital bending over to accommodate the uncertain pledges of defectors. Right now, heading into the local elections, as the rising electoral power the Greens have the psychological whip hand. New MPs coming from Labour are a nice-to-have, but are inessential. If Labour politicians are serious about coming on over, they have to leave the belief in the supremacy of MPs, the chief tenet of Labourism, at the door.

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On Anti-Green Hysteria

Maybe I have a weird sense of humour, but I found Tuesday morning's YouGov poll putting the Greens in second and Labour a distant joint third hilarious. Reform on 23%, Greens 21%, and Labour and the Tories both on 16%. As the world can see, Labour's attempts to bounce back after the the Gorton and Denton drubbing have not proven successful. Who could have guessed that the Prime Minister's decision to equate Reform and the Greens would not go down well with the voters he's losing? Meanwhile, things aren't looking fantastic for Reform either. A weekend spent telegraphing what sore losers they are, Moreincommon finds Reform topping its negative poll tracker on 38%, with Labour on 34%. Its looking like the crisis in establishment politics has taken a turn for the worse.

The reasons why Labour are sinking are well rehearsed, and doesn't bear repeating. But the steady evaporation of the party under Keir Starmer is a problem. Labourism from its earliest manifestations was always a means of reconciling the organised working class with the social order, of aligning the industrial incrementalism of trade union struggle with the coalition-building and proceduralism of constitutional politics. It was and, in its best moments, remains less a moral crusade and more a means of integrating the working class into the politics and (sensible) management of British capitalism. For it to do this, Labour needs to keep its base among the popular layers. However, it's been evident since Starmer became party leader that he either does not understand this or doesn't care. Because his approach to politics is both managerialist and obsequiously deferential to business, above all the City. Yet hollowing out the party before it even took office is to undermine Labour and Labourism's utility to British capital. Apart from its hyper class conscious and, therefore, paranoid elements, capital likes Labour because of its historic role in dampening down aspirations and movements from below. They appreciate Rachel Reeves's orthodox approach to state finances, but that's a nice to have. Labour is supposed to manage and police the class relations of British capitalism for capital's benefit from within the organised workers' movement. Something it cannot do if the mass support has vanished and has gone, in the main, to a radical upstart.

This is where the hysteria seen across the Tory press since Thursday's result comes in. It has been occasionally noted that the collapse of the Tories hasn't occasioned much soul searching or panic on the right. The reason being that Reform are available to articulate the interests that have hitherto animated the Conservatives, and that despite occasional argy-bargy between Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, it's clear that should the situation demand some kind of electoral arrangement or governing coalition deal could be struck. With Reform leading the polls, the right are intensely relaxed about the vestigal status of the Tories. But, having driven all before it, if they weren't expecting Reform to win in Manchester they too believed the polls about how close the contest was. Instead they were handily seen off. This shouldn't be too much of a concern considering the character of the constituency, but have inhaled their own fumes. They - like the Labour right - caricature the working class as racists moved by the same oddball concerns as they. Having had their reality impinged upon, and seeing green left populism crowding out their tired old shtick, all of a sudden they're worried. Farage's cache is anti-political establishment, of being the "change" candidate. That the Greens have successfully contested these claims on one occasion, the right are now worried that they were getting high on their supply, and that we could be back in 2017 again. A fear reinforced by Reform's stalling in most national polls.

Here then is the problem. Labour are no longer suitable as a vehicle for mass politics, and therefore cannot be a reliable pacifier. Meanwhile, the great white hope of the right is not as popular as they thought it was. Centrism is, once again, a dead letter. And the right might not be strong enough to win an election, be it a Reform government or a coalition with the Tories. At the same time, as far as both parties are concerned the insurgent Green Party has come from nowhere and threatens to drag politics as a whole into confrontation with property, work, income, living standards, and why the rich have prospered at everyone else's expense. I.e. The class concerns politics normally works hard to obfuscate, smother, and deny. It follows that the press will try everything to shove hope back in its box - character assassinations, gossip mongering, smears, scare mongering, whipping up new scapegoat campaigns. But ultimately, these efforts are doomed. Since the final defeat of Corbynism in 2019, the Tories, Reform, and especially Labour have done everything possible to keep the left out of politics. And yet here we are - the Greens are becoming the new vehicle for working class interests and is mounting a renewed challenge to the establishment's class compact. No wonder so many of them are panicked.

Labour after Gorton and Denton

It wasn't even close. While the pollsters kept coughing up the Gorton and Denton numbers that put the three parties inches from one another, the outcome was the Greens 12 points clear on 41%. Reform managed 29%, and Labour mustered a poor third on 25%. Also, shout out to the Tories for losing their deposit and managing their worst ever parliamentary by-election result. Behind this survey of the scores after the doors is a profound shift in British politics - the first time since the war when neither of the two main parties of government came first nor second, the first time the momentum behind Reform has been stymied despite receiving their customary flattery, hype, and media over-exposure. And, for the Greens, its first ever parliamentary by-election win. A day for the history books, and more signs that the Greens are becoming the new party of working class Britain.

It was also, without a shadow of a doubt, a catastrophe for Labour. They threw the kitchen sink at Gorton and Denton. Campaigning by the Prime Minister, virtually every available MP timetabled for door knocking, huge events that scraped together thousand-strong campaign days. Dodgy leaflets, off-the-scale negative messaging, all of it came to nought. The margin of victory between the Greens on the one hand and Labour on the other, while Reform cornered the constituency's right wing vote, had something more than tactical voting behind it. Like Caerphilly, Labour's traditional backers wanted change and in Hannah Spencer elected a working class woman on a socialist platform. The size of the win was also an endorsement of a different kind of politics instead of the miserabilism with dashings of racism offered by the other parties.

The cope though, the Labour Party cope, it's been a pitiful sight. Doing the rounds on breakfast TV this morning Heidi Alexander put the rejection of her candidate down to "impatience". This is the narrative that has emerged over the last six months to explain electoral reversals. After 14 ruinous years of Tory government, the punters want to see change for the better and are impatient for it. The implication being that once Labour delivers Beijing-levels of annual economic growth, wages go up, new workers' rights are bedded down, and parents feel the benefit of breakfast clubs the polling numbers will recover, delivering a renaissance at the ballot box when 2029 swings around. What poppycock. People aren't fed up with Labour because they want to see a better world yesterday, they're disgusted because the government made decisions that made life worse. Scrapping winter fuel payments for everyone bar pensioners on the lowest incomes, stupid. Relishing the opportunity to cut £5bn worth of social security support to disabled people. Stupid. And getting caught with their muzzles in the freebie trough, and then defending it. Utterly, utterly stupid. Throw in their support for the genocide in Gaza, its Farage cosplay, and the unforced error of appointing Peter Mandelson, is it any wonder that Labour's base is splintering?

Going by the commentary offered by sundry Labour MPs on social media after the by-election, it's telling that those closest to the realities of working class life understand the issues. Clive Lewis's criticisms were particularly blunt and spot on. But what chances does Labour have of learning from this disaster? The track record is not looking good. When the SNP annihilated Scottish Labour in 2015, did the party pause and reflect? Did it think about who its voters are, or ask why so much of its working class base demonstrated little loyalty to the party's unionist shibboleth and switched from voting for an anti-independence to a pro-independence party? It did not. There was scant movement for the next nine years, hoping that the vote would return without changing much. And, as it happened, enough voters were cheesed off with the SNP in government to give Labour another go. And as polls now show, most of them now have buyer's remorse. That's the record, and in his leader's letter to MPs, Keir Starmer has argued that carrying out "change" means not changing anything at all.

It's an entirely predictable epistle. There's the retread of Alexander argument that it's all "impatience", and the woe today will surely be followed by jam tomorrow. And that the Greens' win is a one off. They "simply do not have the resources, the activist base or the local knowledge to replicate this victory across the country". Brave words from a campaign that spectacularly misread the constituency's mood in what was, before yesterday, Labour's 34th safest seat. He goes on and blames the "endorsement from George Galloway" and "sectarian" politics. This latter charge is typical of a party that is just itching to attack Muslims if they have the temerity to vote for anyone else. As plenty of people have pointed out, how sectarian is a vote that has endorsed a white women standing for a party led by a gay, Jewish man? Labour think they have the Greens bang to rights because the party issued a leaflet in Urdu that pictured David Lammy with Benjamin Netanyahu and Starmer with Narendra Modi. Proof that the Greens are in the gutter of communalist politics? Only someone utterly ignorant could make such an argument in good faith. Netanyahu is on there because his government has murdered over 100,000 Muslims, with the support of Labour. Modi is on there because under his premiership, he has encouraged Hindu extremism and anti-Muslim pogroms, all the while subjecting Muslim-majority Kashmir to brutal occupation. How dare British Muslims care about their friends and relatives and be disgusted at Starmer's efforts to cosy up with the BJP. If Starmer wants to lecture others about division, he might want to reconsider his own policies first.

Starmer's letter pledges to carry on regardless. Just as his campaign tried to ignore the Greens by pitching the by-election as Labour Vs Reform, he's as intent on ignoring the reasons for Labour's defeat. An obviously suicidal attitude to take, but one typical of Labourism. Nevertheless, most Labour MPs quite like being Labour MPs and will be drawing their own conclusions. For every Clive Lewis or Nadia Whittome prepared to break ranks, there are scores of others who, quietly, know what the issues are. Yet, paradoxically, despite a humiliating defeat Starmer's position is probably strengthened in the short term. His reason for existing, to absorb the body blows of the coming meltdowns in Wales, Scotland, and the English local elections remains the case - ahead of the party selecting a new leader. Meanwhile, the Green insurgency continues. A new MP, 200,000 members, a confidence that left wing politics can see off Reform, whoever comes after Starmer it's hard to see how Labour can win back the activists, supporters, and voters it has so carelessly and needlessly shed. On the occasion of Labour's 126th birthday, Starmer's gift to the party has been a new historic low. One that, on its current trajectory, could be the first of many.

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Where Now for Your Party?

It's been one of the most bad tempered elections seen in many a year. Opponents accused opponents of all manner of things as the contest itself descended into mudslinging and skulduggery. No, this is not the Gorton and Denton by-election but the vote for Your Party's Central Executive Committee, the results of which were announced on Thursday morning. The Jeremy Corbyn faction, For the Many, won 14 seats. The Zarah Sultana-backed Grassroots Left took seven seats, and the remainder went to independent candidacies. Corbyn and Sultana are also two of the four elected public office holders under the collective leadership arrangements, with Corbyn set to be YP's parliamentary leader.

Following the results, Corbyn released a mom and apple pie statement that said he wanted to build a "positive and inclusive party" and congratulated members on voting for a "mass socialist party that takes the fight to Starmer and Farage." Sultana likewise put out an emollient piece that emphasised the need to work together, but that calls for accountability and transparency "need to be respected". After the heat, may there be light?

Unfortunately for YP, it's likely this leadership election is going to leave lingering bad feeling. As late as yesterday Laura Alvarez, Corbyn's famously combative significant other, was absurdly musing about infiltration from Labour Together into YP. Which invited supportive comments that, in terms of tone, one might expect of a frothing conspiracy theory Facebook group. And this was typical of the standard of debate that raged across social media. There was precious little discussion about strategic direction, and a great deal of questioning the motives of those unwilling to extend Corbyn saintly status. Those supportive of the Grassroots Left were little better, as false character assassination and boilerplate Trot denunciations were flung in the opposite direction.

It might be possible to overcome the entrenching of divisions in YP this election has thrown up, but there remains significant obstacles to internal harmony. The first is the propensity of the nascent bureaucracy to trample over membership decisions. For instance, the instruction from conference was to allow dual membership with other parties (i.e. keeping YP open to other far left organisations), but it was down to the CEC to sort that out. This was ignored as "known" and "suspected" members of said outfits were barred from standing in these elections. A case of starting as they mean to go on? And then there was the edict that suggested people who served as officers in active unofficial YP branches would be ineligible to run for lay positions when they're finally inaugurated. A right recipe for the "inclusion" Corbyn waxed about in his statement.

And this is before we get to the main problem: how YP has spectacularly wasted its opportunity, and in so doing allowed the Greens to almost triple in size, become a true mass party and is now the vehicle for the political recomposition of the working class. A prize that was in front of YP's leadership cadre, but decided to pass it up for criminally petty reasons. That said, politics buzzes with volatility. If YP is able to stabilise, set aside its internal nonsenses, and start facing outwards it could build up a presence through consistent community, workplace, and street campaigning. And if it does, this would be a good thing for British politics. A small but viable presence could, in the spirit of socialist competition, act as a means of keeping the Greens honest. It could threaten swathes of inner city Labour-held seats where the Green presence is hitherto patchy, and a second strong radical force could work to tilt British politics as a whole further left. Cue a return to 2015-2020 levels of mainstream media hysteria and howls of outrage from politicians who treat their Commons sinecures as private property.

This is where YP can go. But it's now up to them - is this where they want to go, or is further recrimination and needless bloodletting more its style?

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Why Labour Can't Argue with the Left

Desperation. The word that, seen from afar, sums up Labour's campaign in Gorton and Denton. And the source of their fear is not the prospect of losing yet another seat to Reform, but conceding ground to the resurgent Greens. Having nixed Andy Burnham, the candidacies say everything about the two parties' respective trajectories. The Greens' Hannah Spencer, a plumber drawn to the party out of disgust with the political establishment. And Labour's Angeliki Stogia, a corporate lobbyist trudging a path into the parliamentary party beaten by so many others. Please tell me which is the pro-capitalist, petit bourgeois party and who is the organisation standing up for the working class in this by-election?

There have been two phases to Labour's campaign. It started with a studied failure to acknowledge the Green Party's existence. This is a fight between Labour and Reform, goes the party line, and progressive voters must get behind Angeliki to keep Reform out. The party even provided a Liberal Democrat-style bar chart putting the Greens in third place, which was hung from the property neighbouring Green campaign HQ. The problem, however, is that constituency polling - such as it is - have the Greens out in front and Labour in third. The betting markets, not that they have any special insight, also favour this outcome. Having decided pretending the Greens don't exist isn't working, they've moved on to gutter politics.

You might have thought that Reform's Matthew Goodwin, former pol prof and full-time far right grifter would have attracted Labour's ire. He's provided enough targets. He, after all, has called for a system of punitive taxation against women who do not have children. In Labour land, if it is between them and Reform then surely, surely their fiercest attacks should be turned toward the right. Instead, we get Keir Starmer calling the Green Party's public health-led approach to drugs "disgusting", and Sarah Jones, his policing minister, saying Zak Polanski wants to turn Britain's playgrounds "into crack dens". Brave considering the fondness several highly placed Labour figures have now or formerly had for the old nose powder. Labour's attitude is best summed up by Mike Tapp, the part-time home office minister and full-time clown from Dover and Deal. His vitriolic attack on the Greens stands out on his Twitter feed in sharp relief against a series of mild admonitions, at best, of Reform.

Writing in the New Statesman, John Elledge argues that Labour's hostility to the Greens, and bracketing them alongside Reform is only going to hurt Labour. What's left of their support knows there's no equivalence between the two parties. One party wants to welcome refugees, the other wants to deport Britons who don't meet their arbitrary criteria of national purity. One wants to help renters, the other wants to give landlords carte blanche to rinse tenants. You get the picture. And so do most Labour MPs, even those who performatively affect otherwise. They also know that the party's coalition has cracked and supporters are streaming to the Greens. It's not Reform that is Labour's biggest headache.

Which begs an interesting question. Labour's pandering to Reform and its attempt to outflank them from the right was and is justified by needing to win over Nigel Farage's fans. But this never applies in the opposite direction. Why doesn't Labour go harder on renters' rights, wages, workplaces, etc. to keep existing support on board? To my mind, there are two answers, both of which are baked into the party's politics. Firstly, according to the wisdom passed down from the disgraced Peter Mandelson, the electorate respond favourably to ... the spectacle of Labour attacking the interests of working class people. In this way, the stupid mistakes Starmer and Rachel Reeves made shortly after entering Downing Street - taking away winter fuel payments from "better off" pensioners, then threatening to cut support to disabled people - makes sense. They, or at least the dearly departed Morgan McSweeney, thought this would win plaudits with the press and therefore admiration among the punters. Imagine their confusion when this article of Blairist faith turned out not to be.

And the other? An inability to combat left wing critiques politically. Or, to be more accurate, offering convincing counter-arguments. The right won back control of Labour by lying its head off, and then using the bureaucracy to chase out the left. During the Corbyn years, it was the smears, the cry-bullying, and using remainerism as a proxy. None of them came up with an alternative programme that could persuade and convince. And the same is true today. Compromised by the government's support for a genocide, its scapegoating of the powerless, and a programme of weak and meek changes, Labour's biting back at Green Party criticisms would be a vain effort at gumming them to death. This is a consequence of the managerialist cadres Labour selects for its parliamentarians, typified by the man at the helm. These people are unaccustomed to hearing the word "no". But this comes on top of the Labourist tradition that, for over a century, had a political monopoly on the most organised and conscious sections of the working class. When its opponents to its left were the official Communist Party or the extra-Labour Trotskyist left, they could be ignored. When it was internal, as per Militant, they could be excluded. And on occasions when a left wing challenge pushed through, such as George Galloway's trio of election victories, or when Jeremy Corbyn and the so-called Gaza Independents won their seats, it could be put down to local circumstances. Labour has serious difficulties facing a mass left wing challenger party because it's never had to.

The result of all this is what we see today, peddling smears against the Greens that wouldn't be out of place in a Sun editorial or, for that matter, a Reform leaflet. If by some fluke Labour hold on to Gorton and Denton on Thursday, or if they somehow come ahead of the Greens, these points remain. Labour is unsuited and unprepared for a challenge from its left flank, and there's no sign, at least under this leadership and its heirs apparent, that it ever will be.

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From Your Party to the Greens

Had a chat with the Byline Times podcaster and producer, Adrian Goldberg yesterday. We talked about Your Party, the changing character of British politics, the Greens, and why I decided to join them.

Why I Have Joined the Greens

While defections are in the news, there's another that might be worth reporting on. My own. Yesterday I cancelled my Your Party membership and signed up to the Green Party. The local party meets next week, and I'm looking forward to becoming actively involved. For those interested in such things, here's the politics bit.

Binning off Your Party wasn't a difficult decision. Joining that was more a duty than anything approaching enthusiasm. Never has the left outside of Labour been handed such a golden opportunity, only for it to be squandered by prima donnaism and control freakery. Without re-litigating what happened in depth, Zarah Sultana should not have unilaterally launched the membership. The timing was right, but had she acted with the pre-party collective and abided by its ad hoc discipline the momentum would have still been there when it did go live, which was about a fortnight later. But once the die was cast, Jeremy Corbyn and his minions should have swallowed it - just as they did in the summer when Sultana announced that the new party was happening - and rode the wave. Doing so would have avoided bad blood and, most crucially, would have built on the 800,000 that signed up the mailing list. A party of more than 200,000 was in reach ... and Corbyn blew it because his helpers would rather run a much smaller, tightly controlled outfit that guaranteed them a living. Labour Party mk II not in name, but certainly in form.

And things have not improved. Despite handily winning positions aligning Your Party with an inclusive conception of class and democratic organisation, it's as if the conference votes never happened. Exclusions of members of left groups still stand, and candidates for the Central Executive Committee have been barred if they are suspected of paying subs to another organisation. Funny how there were never any complaints when the likes of Michael Lavalette, for example, was travelling around the country stumping for the new party and encouraging people to sign up. This is a violation of the spirit of what was voted on in November, and a big up yours from the unaccountable cabal that runs Corbyn's show to the membership. It now looks like this bar will be affirmed, assuming that Corbyn's slate of loyalists and idolaters sweeps the members' CEC ballot. Which it is likely to do. On top of that, there is the utter stupidity of the party's name, which alone demonstrates Corbyn's lack of political nous. And, let's be frank, Sultana's absence of political judgement. From childishly calling the awful Tory London Assembly Member Susan Hall a "boomer", boycotting the first day of her own conference, wanting to "nationalise everything", and being unnecessarily spiky toward the Greens is just daft. No confidence in the Corbyn clique, no confidence in Sultana, and no confidence in the prospect of Your Party becoming anything other than a shrine to St Jeremy. It didn't have to be this way.

But the Greens? It's doing rather well, and unlike Your Party has not bungled its opening. As the class composition of this country has changed, as recounted in the book, countless talks and podcast interviews, and on this blog on many, many occasions, politics has shifted too. A shift that the Greens are handsomely benefiting from.

Key to this is the growing importance of immaterial labour. In the post-war period in Western societies, the expansion of the state saw millions of workers taken out of private employment. Their jobs were less about producing material goods for private profit, and shifted toward producing services the public consumed. Education, welfare and social services, health care, the administration of the growing state at all levels. To use the old language, large sections of the work force were paid a wage to reproduce the conditions of capitalist production. They were tending to the gaps in the system, paving over the cracks, cleaning up the messes, making people broken or maimed by the system better, looking after those it discarded, and preparing generations of children for life under it. Alongside this the increasing complexity of production and the division of labour created similar roles within businesses. The expansion of management, the need for planners, logistics workers, technical specialists, office workers, cleaners, service-oriented work has come to absolutely dominate most advanced economies in terms of people employed and volumes of capital tied into and produced by services. Alongside this, postwar affluence kicked off mass consumption and the rise of privatised leisure activities. The casualties of this, at least in Britain, was declining church attendances, the withering away of the millions-strong political parties, and an erosion of working class community culture - which accelerated following the Conservative attacks on and defeats of the labour movement in the 1980s. But the expansion of immaterial labour selected for certain traits. In service work based on the production and maintenance of social relationships, sociability, knowledge, patience, and care were the key forces of production increasingly mobilised by the emerging post-industrial economy. Despite the privatisation of many state services and the intrusion of commodification into all facets of life, this "immaterialisation" of labour has continued apace.

The consequence for culture and politics has been profound, but to stop this from becoming another book, there are two key developments that are reaching fruition now. Because the nature of labour has changed with the object of work being the production of social relations, care, knowledge, social roles, etc., which in turn places a social premium on relatedness and sociability, this has resulted in a long-term tendency toward tolerance. Or, in other words, the gradual replacement of social conservatism by social liberalism. Each generation becomes increasingly comfortable with difference as they are socialised into and experience life as an immaterial worker. The generational differences we see in values surveys are not a reflection of lefty schooling or an essential tendency toward conservatism as we age, but a class cohort effect. There is a direct link between class, of being socialised into and working for a living in the post-industrial economy, and accepting socially liberal values as the everyday commonsense. Generation Z are the most radical, most socially liberal generation so far. And are likely to surrender that title to the younger people coming after them. The mores are cumulative, and we're now at the point where social conservatism is a minority outlook, and one that shrinks by the year.

The second consequence of this is overtly political. Faced with a politics that tries screening out the interests of the rising layer of workers, a typical mass response is disengagement and abstention, but for others it's a marked tendency to vote centre left or left. The first coming of Corbynism and, for a period, the rapid passage of the Labour Party from a husk to a true mass party - and then the 2017 general election - was the first mass electoral flex of the political conscious sections of the new working class. Though Corbyn lost badly in 2019, his real achievement, buried under the self-serving rubbish about the worst result since the 1930s, was hitching Labour to a new political articulation of class relationships. And one the party needed to build on for sustainable success. Unfortunately for Labour, it elected Keir Starmer whose project ever since has been to disperse this coalition to the point where his party courts extinction. But that dispersed support doesn't simply disappear. This is not 1997, it does have somewhere to go. Your Party looked like it could have been it, until they derailed themselves. And so, the Greens. A socially liberal party with left wing positions on a raft of issues that speaks to the class interests and outlooks of immaterial workers, stands up against the scapegoating and racism of the mainstream, and being the only party that really takes climate change, energy challenges, and the green transition seriously, Zack Polanski's leadership and his adroit interventions have catalysed and coalesced mass support around the Greens.

As argued here previously, there are two types of Green Party. The so-called realists, who elevate members to high office and inevitably disappoint - much to their cost. Like the German and the Irish Greens. And those parties that go down a Nordic path, that are to all intents and purposes Green-Left radical parties. This is currently the trajectory GPEW is on - the Scottish Greens being their own, somewhat different, thing - and is likely to draw in more members and more supporters on that basis. Far from the petit-bourgeois party as labelled by the little Lenins, the Greens are being taken over and getting filled out by our class, our rising class, and are inhabiting it as an instrument of our collective interest. It is a party that is becoming, a symptom and driver of a wider politicisation. It is occupying the position Your Party could have taken, but rejected. As Labour under Corbyn was one moment in developing the generalised political consciousness of a class, this is another. That task has fallen to the Greens. These are my reasons for joining. And why you should too.

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Going Beyond Corbynism

On Saturday evening I was in a foul mood. Throughout the day, on social media and YouTube, from text messages to WhatsApp updates, the news was the Your Party founding conference was the shit show everyone thought it would be. Inconvenient amendments not being heard, members being barred from conference - some, but not all, were SWP supporters, the forced removal of a Stand Up to Racism stall pn the orders of "a Scottish woman called Karie", an apparent diddling with the naming options before conference, and Zarah Sultana's own boycott of the first day promised a catastrophic waste of time. And then on the second day, things got ... better.

On single leadership vs collective leadership, the latter won. On keeping the ban on dual membership, Team Jeremy lost. On enshrining trans liberation in the constitution, that vote was won. All these might have been tighter or lost if the secretive organising committee hadn't ham-fistedly imposed themselves on proceedings on the previous day. And in ballots over the weekend, measures emphasising local branch democracy and initiative, anti-cuts principles, trade union relationships, and positioning YP as an explicitly working class socialist party all passed. The only thing Corbyn got his way on was the ridiculous Your Party name. It was good to see him strike a contrite note in his interviews, and likewise Zarah Sultana apologise to conference for her role in making the founding of this party a mess. In all, despite the overdramatic protestations of Corbyn superfans, something was achieved. If YP was in the toilet following the last round of bilious fallings outs, the membership scooped the project out of the bowl as the party's would-be elites yanked hard on the chain.

There are still unresolved issues. Who gets to be the leadership now? With MPs and councillors barred from the incoming executive committee, this is an opportunity for the party to put forward a new generation of leaders. Corbyn will forever remain YP's figurehead, but there's now a chance the party can transition from one-man-band status to something other than his needy dependent. And though existing self-declared Leninist outfits are not barred, what kind of relationship they should have in the new party is in the new committee's gift. Keep them as is, require them to fold into party platforms, re-impose the block? Whoever the leadership will be and whatever they decide to do, the membership have already demonstrated good sense. The chances of the SWP or the other little Lenins taking over or wrecking it through sectarianism is thankfully, for once, remote.

To be sure, Your Party is taking risks organising this way. As others have pointed out, in politics having a stand-out figure is a boon. Ask Reform. Ask the Greens. Without that, how can YP capture the public's eye? This is now especially difficult as September's stupidities have ensured Zack Polanski is hogging much of the space that was YP's for the taking. Where there are still openings is where the left are much stronger than the Greens. I.e. In the workplaces, in community organising, in street movements, in solidarity campaigns. We build from there. Owen Jones argues that time is of the essence, and that's true. But he also knows from his labour movement history and that building the political capacity of our class isn't dependent on elections. There are other ways, and the existing collective experience of YP can counter Labour and the rise of Reform outside the ballot box. It's not the mainstream way of doing things, but then again YP is not a mainstream party.

Doesn't collective leadership and the recall of lay officials suppose permanent factional struggle? Yes. But if the project is organising our class as a political party, it cannot be any other way. The working class is as diverse as it is vast, and anything aspiring to this role has to be a clearing house for experiences and opinion. Discussion, debate, the freedom to form platforms and factions around positions, all these are necessary for formulating strategy. The way forward is not going to be handed down from superhumans living on a higher plane. A democratic workers' party is a noisy party, not a personality cult, not an agreement of diplomatic silences, not a narrow mono-idea sect. This is the challenge YP's membership has set. Which demonstrates a level of political maturity over and above the caricatures attributed to the left - even, sometimes, by itself.

Politics is not easy, especially class politics. Nor are there any guarantees. YP's membership have chosen a difficult path, but in the circumstances, it was the right path, the only path. Drawing a line under the mistakes and idiocies of the last few months means moving on from Corbynism. With all the dust having settled, it's clear this is what Your Party has started to do.

The Joy of Wealth Taxes

With the budget set to land on Wednesday, there's been a wealth of speculation and, of course, several leaks. Tax has frequently come up in discussion, thanks to Rachel Reeves herself holding an early morning press announcement suggesting she might break manifesto promises. Something Labour could have pulled off, had the government not spent the last 18 months pouring political capital down the drain of stupid and obviously counter-productive policies. Yet debate in more polite circles than this disreputable corner of the internet have focused on taxing wealth, seeing as Zack Polanski and the surging Greens have made headway - and put on polling numbers - partly thanks to pushing this point.

There has been some pushback from centrist sensiblism. Duncan Robinson, writing as Bagehot in the regular Economist column attacks wealth tax populism as a measure that won't raise a great deal, and certainly not as much as Polanski supposes. It peddles the myth that the refurbishment of public services can't be managed without taking more tax off most people. As such, this is irresponsible politics. If this was put to the test, the measure would fall short and state revenues would have to be found from elsewhere. This is a recipe for political damage and disillusionment if the Greens or the left or whoever tries flying in the face of fiscal realities. That, and it would scare the wealthy off. In short, Polanski is promising "a world of common good without sacrifice; a vision of socialism without society."

Two points are worth mulling over here. Polanski and the Greens are absolutely correct to push for a wealth tax. It's a demand designed to shift the political direction of travel away from the right, both in terms of the oligarchical economics the main parties embrace and the racist gutter politics of immigration and asylum. That the political establishment, from the mainstream to the far right have united against wealth taxes is a sign that the Greens have hit a common sensitive spot.

The second point is on what taxes are for. The Economist, as the bourgeois house magazine, deals in common sense. Their common sense. The state's finances are like a household budget, and taxes go into its "current account" - the consolidated fund, which is held by the Bank of England. Like any normal account, its income and outgoings have to be managed and it's not great if the latter exceeds the former. Hence the need for more tax revenues if we want to fund more things. Leaving aside well-worn critiques of this, such as the state being able to borrow from itself, having the power to structure its own debt, and how public spending can boost the tax take through multiplier effects, there are other ways of looking at tax. Chris Dillow, for example, makes the case of using tax to reallocate labour to priority areas. Another way of looking at it, the socialist way, understands that tax isn't about balancing the books. It's a tool for remaking society.

In addition to tax measures that disproportionately hit the wealthy as helpfully outlined by Prem Sikka, if anything Polanski's wealth tax does not go far enough. Steeply progressive income tax, graded rates of employers' National Insurance Contributions based on staff levels and turnover, taxes on dividends, City capital flows, levies on rental income, punitive multiple property ownership taxes, measures aimed at high end luxury consumption, action against offshore wealth repositories under British jurisdiction, and so on. This would be accompanied by tax incentives to encourage cooperatisation, democratise workplaces, the meeting of certain social, civic, and environmental objectives, etc. The concerns of such a tax programme is not primarily about raising money, but lashing capital in chains, abolishing the super rich, removing power from the unaccountably wealthy, and making inroads into the private ownership of the means of life. Obviously, such an approach to tax can't stand up on its own. It needs a mass movement behind it, concerted activity with others across the globe, and a political understanding that they would meet fierce elite resistance - and a programme to defeat it.

In other words, tax needs to be recognised as a weapon. The establishment knows it can be used against them, just as they've used it against us. And for that reason, the left, regardless of its party colours, should keep pushing for wealth taxes.

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The Your Party Debacle

The left in this country doesn't need agents provocateurs to stuff things up, it's more then capable of doing that itself. And here are two more etchings for the incompetence ledger. A public briefing in the name of the Independent Alliance MPs against Zarah Sultana, a parliamentary group she's apparently a member of. And the resignation of Blackburn's Adnan Hussein from the "steering process" of Your Party. A favourable contrast to the Greens these latest developments do not make.

The fallout from September's public arguments got the Geiger counters twitching last month. Your Party "insiders" briefed the press that it was taking legal action against the directors of MoU Holdings Ltd. This was the company set up by Andrew Feinstein, Beth Winter, and Jamie Driscoll ahead of the launch of Your Party, and was to hold some money and data gathered during the initial phases of the launch. Sultana climbed on board in the summer with her quitting Labour, announcing she would co-lead the founding process of a new left party. This was the occasion she announced a mailing list, attracting about 850,000 sign ups. The starting pistol on the foundation process had been fired, somewhat to the annoyance of Jeremy Corbyn and the people around him. Then Sultana jumped the gun again two months later, announcing Your Party's membership was open. About 20,000 joined inside a day, until Corbyn intervened and said no, this ain't happening. There was a public row with legal threats flying about, reports to the information commissioner, and a great deal of rancour. Then, about two weeks after, the "official" membership portal was launched.

Here lies the problem. The details and monies of the first "launch" sat with MoU Holdings. To be "official", members would need to either join again via the new route, or wait until the information and cash was transferred over. Unfortunately, this is a far from a straightforward matter. Legally, the monies and data can't simply be given. It's not like writing a cheque and sharing the relevant passwords. MoU is liable for bank charges for processing refunds. Second, there are more costs associated with navigating the transfer of the sum, winding up MoU, and settling the resulting legal bills. When YP "sources" threatened legal action against the directors of MoU, claiming they were withholding funds and accusing them of having "gone rogue", that same someone was lying. They knew there were legal complexities, and why Feinstein, Winter, and Driscoll were not prepared to shoulder the costs. I.e. It was not they who initiated the premature membership drive. That was Sultana. To try and resolve the problem, the Independent Alliance MPs were invited to become MoU directors but they turned it down, knowing they'd be on the hook for the costs. The existing directors then resigned, with Sultana becoming the sole director. Undoubtedly an expensive decision for her, but a willingness to take responsibility for the problems her premature membership call caused. Something she deserves credit for.

On Thursday Sultana was able to transfer £200k from MoU to YP, and for this she was targeted for a hostile briefing. Issued in the the name of the IA MPs while she was on BBC Question Time, it was an act of deliberate sabotage. Corbyn has apparently disowned the statement. It says everything that was said previously. All MoUs monies should be ours, we demand an immediate transfer, blah blah, yeah yeah. A move designed to undermine Sultana and throw more discord into the mill of pain the nascent party has become. Who is responsible? One of Corbyn's close allies who want something between a personality cult and Labour mkII, albeit with less democracy? Someone who enjoys being important and at the centre of things, and can rely on Corbyn's indulgence? Or someone else?

The timing of Adnan Hussein's resignation makes for an interesting coincidence. He references "becoming drawn into very serious and damaging internal disputes on matters relating to organisational conduct and governance", a barely-concealed Islamophobia ("I am troubled by the way ... Muslim men have been spoken about and treated ...I witnessed insinuations about capability, dismissive attitudes and language that carried ... veiled prejudice."), and how YP was at odds with its billing - a "movement that welcomed diversity of background and thought." It also came hours after Novara Media put questions to him that he and others in the IA were minded to dump the new party.

To be honest, the independent MPs should be nowhere near this process. As a "source close to Zarah Sultana" was quoted as saying in the New Statesman, "this shows what a stupid idea it was to transfer control of the founding process over from a decision making body, appointed by Jeremy and containing a broad array of left-wing figures, to the six MPs, some of whom do not remotely share the politics of the 800,000 people who signalled an interest in Your Party". Quite.

For example, trans issues are not a shibboleth to be fought over like one's attitude to the dead USSR, but a live issue used by sections of the media in a crude divide-and-rule effort. The government have jumped on the campaign to attack trans health care, and have made the lives of trans people a misery, stoked up prejudice, and driven some to take their lives. These are direct attacks on our class in all its diversity, something Hussein had the cheek to invoke in his Dear John letter. Anyone who alibis this are unsuited to be an elected representative of a class-based left party, never mind play a leading role in its founding. The same is true of MPs who defend first cousin marriages, the criminalisation of abortion after 24 weeks, call on the army to fill in for striking workers, or have significant landlord interests. Collaboration and cooperation in parliament, yes. Friendly relations and persuasion to win them over, also yes. Roll out the red carpet and give them leadership positions in a socialist party? No. This is so obvious that no one should need to say it.

Unfortunately, we know who is responsible for this. And that's Corbyn. He's responsible for the people he's promoted to the heart of the new party, he's responsible for bringing the IA MPs into the fold while overlooking questionable and anti-working class aspects of their politics, and he's responsible for dragging his feet - even having to be bounced into starting a mailing list. The only thing preventing this from being a complete write off is that despite the shenanigans and stupidities, upwards of 50,000 people have joined - in the face of the serious alternative presented by the Greens. By all accounts, where regional assemblies are taking place members are showing up. And across the country, unofficial branches have convened. A dynamic independent of the centre's gatekeeping and the dithering is underway, and is refusing to be snuffed out by the idiocies leading figures keep inflicting on the project. Yes, it's hard to believe right now but this resilience shows Your Party, or whatever it will end up getting called, can come out the other side of these squabbles. It could overcome its over-dependence on Corbyn. It may yet realise its potential and have a great future ahead.

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The Second Green Surge

Congratulations to the Greens. Doubling the size of the party in two months to 140,000+ members and leaving the Tories in the dust is no mean feat. Especially with politics being as it is, with right wing talking points crowding other views out of the mainstream and Nigel Farage parading around as the establishment-sanctioned anti-establishment alternative. Yes, the Green Party in on an upward trajectory as long forecasted around these parts, but what's driving it?

Since the election of Zack Polanski, no one can fault the Green Party for making the most of him. Polanski is doing a good job of making the most of his fresh face status. His "eco-populism", which emphasises the us vs them populism characteristic of Corbynism at its most successful has leant itself to spiky social media posts and a refusal to play the usual media game. Polanski promised he would be a Farage-like figure, albeit from the left, and he's making a good fist of it. His social media shorts have gone viral, he's earned praise from Alastair Campbell(!) for his easy style and the slogan "make hope normal again", and following a short campaign he was granted a slot on Laura Kuenssberg after he was "overlooked" during party conference season. Less noted but also important is Polanski's new podcast, Bold Politics. Featuring interviews with well known left and radical figures, such as Grace Blakeley, Owen Jones, and Gary Stevenson, this has drawn in a layer who spend less time on your Twitters and Blueskys and more cycling around the politics podcast circuit.

We make our own history, but not under circumstances of our choosing. Polanski and the Greens are fortunate that there are two more things in their favour. Which, interestingly enough, almost repeat what happened a decade ago. Though this time as triumph, rather than tragedy or farce. Obviously, enthusiasm for the Greens is a blowback against the reactionary cul de sac Labour has parked mainstream politics in. In their cynical and reckless fashion, Keir Starmer and galaxy-brained Morgan McSweeney have charged to the right in an effort to dampen any progressive expectations their support might have following 14 wasted years of Tory government. Being racist and posturing hard on immigration is ideal: the lure for Labour is the same as it was for the Tories. Create scapegoats, stir up panics against them, and reap the benefits from clamping down hard. The overall balance of forces in the country remain unchanged, but the government gets to look effective. For Labour, to McSweeney's mind this tees up the support for Reform, but in the absence of any positive sell in 2029 the choice is between Starmer and Farage. That's right, this Labour government would rather risk opening the door to a government of the extreme right than abandoning its present course and tipping toward the centre left.

The Green surge of 2025 is then a larger echo of the Green surge of 2015. Millions of people are sick of this politics. No one voted Labour last year to chip away at social security, starve public services, give NHS data to private corporations, rip up the green belt, arm a genocide, outbid the racists on immigration, demonise trans people, or slavishly kowtow to billionaires at home and abroad. The Greens are well placed to intersect with this discontent, because Polanski is just about the only politician talking about these issues. Had history pivoted the other way and Adrian Ramsey and Ellie Chowns won the leadership, would they have made the most of this? It's doubtful.

I said just about the only politician, because the others who might have capitalised on this are Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Arguably, as Your Party is going through its founding process and there not being much to join might have counted against their appeal. But undoubtedly, last month's fireworks have put plenty of would-be recruits off. Just the idea that the new party could fudge it on landlords, and could fudge it on trans people, the opaque moves and secrecy, and now the lack of faith in its leading figures because of all this rubbish, why not head to a party that has name recognition, a support base, a ready-made structure that is very democratic, and a seeming absence of the back biting and media leaking some are intent on importing into Your Party from Labour and the trade union movement? The Greens are taking off, in part, because the main player in the new party has dithered and delayed, and then the project was almost tossed into the skip. Politics waits for no one. If there's an opportunity, someone will move on it. Zack Polanski has, and this is why the Greens are surging and Your Party will have to play second fiddle to them. For good or for ill.

The Greens' Historic Opportunity

Congratulations to Zack Polanski for his emphatic victory in the Green Party leadership race. Carving out an 84% share of the votes shows a depth of support that can't simply be written off as refugees from Corbynism. Even under the outgoing leadership of Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the party's left wing turn had powered it to a record number of MPs, councillors, and London Assembly members. Armed with an unapologetic "eco-populism" unafraid of attacking concentrated wealth and using class-based arguments to criticise Labour's doomed efforts to out-barbarise Nigel Farage and Reform, Polanski has a clear strategy for appealing to the disaffected. But is it reasonable to suppose the Greens' upward trajectory will continue?

There's a yawning gap for the party to fill. While the Greens have traditionally been seen as a radical petit bourgeois party because, in all honesty, they were, its environmental and social justice messaging is resonating far beyond its narrow, traditional support base. There are events like the Palestinian genocide, the racist scapegoating of asylum seekers, the junking of environmental protections, and the experience of being at the sharp end of class inequality that are neglected by the mainstream but are nevertheless shaping politics, and are issues the Greens have ready answers for. And there is the wider shift in class relations as well, where the growing dominance of immaterial labour is reinforcing socially liberal values. The Greens' vibes resonate with ever wider layers of workers while its policy platform is largely consistent with their perception of their interests. For example among the cohorts most thoroughly socialised into the social competencies immaterial labour requires, the latest YouGov poll reports they are on 27% among 18-24 year olds, four points clear of Labour and 12 points ahead of the Tories and Reform combined.

As noted previously, there are a couple of obstacles in the Greens' way. Can Polanski keep hold of the small c conservatives that supported the party in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire while going for the broadening progressive vote? And what about the new Corbyn/Sultana party? Indicative polling shows it could command up to a fifth of the electorate right out of the gate, and the silly numbers that have signed up to the mailing list casts a shadow that dwarves the aggregate size of the rest of Britain's political parties. The new left party will be fishing in similar waters, and then some. Polanski knows this, and welcomed its formation while holding out the possibility of cooperation. A putative alliance would apparently attract a third of all votes as a starting point.

You'll note that Labour isn't listed as an obstacle. Bullishly, Polanski has declared his ambition to replace it. After a summer of chasing Reform voters and reaping the reward of ever-declining polling, Labour are now congenitally incapable of fielding political arguments against the left. For example, this sponsored(!?) piece on LabourList tries building something out of Keir Starmer's "power, not protest" drivel. With a straight face, Robert Knowles-Leak, a self-styled specialist in combatting the Greens in (*checks notes*) Bristol, shamelessly accuses Polanski of pushing divisive politics and offering false hope. He says the Greens offer easy solutions and have broken promises in his home town by selling off council houses, without noting that Labour have done little to nothing to replace the 22,000 lost in the city since the early 1980s. An oversight, I'm sure. Summing up, he says serious parties listen to the electorate. But the Greens are listening to the electorate, it's Starmer, McSweeney and co. that have decided the people's priorities on the environment, on Gaza, on housing, and on the NHS are not worth bothering with. In other words, a weird little piece that reproduces every accusation-is-really-a-confession trope.

With nothing to offer progressive voters, Labour's defences against Polanski's eco-populism are so many chocolate fireguards. The Greens stand on the threshold of an historic opportunity, and every sign points towards their readiness to capitalise on it.

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Zack Polanski's Green-Left Populism

Zack Polanski's announcement that he's standing for the leadership of the Green Party has set the hares racing. Over the last couple of days, he's done the rounds of left media, had write ups in the Graun, and - predictably - attracted hostile commentary from the right wing Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News. My Bluesky feed, which heavily leans on left and progressive-types has witnessed an outpouring of support and not a few signing up to the Greens to back his candidacy. Could it be that we're finally seeing something positive happening on the left?

There's certainly the space for it. For a variety of reasons, which you can put down to sectarianism, foot dragging, and the continued fealty to Labour on the part of those MPs who've already been chucked out of the party, there is a void to Labour's left dying to be filled. So wide it is that even Nigel Farage has said opportunist things about nationalising steel and liking trade unions. Therefore, as a socially liberal party that has been pushing a radical left platform for a while now, it would be a dereliction of political duty to not tread where Jeremy Corbyn and the independents and sort-of groups around him fear to go.

What has been encouraging about Polanski's pitch is a recognition of the Green's weaknesses and the kind of politics that have to be pushed to wrest the radical mantle away from the extreme right. He says the Green Party is "too nice", which reflects dominant sections of its base among the middle class. I.e. Professionals and the highly educated, tending to cluster in the public and third sectors. The moment however demands a left populism that centres wedge issues around class, inequality, wealth, and environmentalism. You might say an approach owing more to Marx than Malthus. And there is an appetite for this politics. On a larger scale, Corbynism has twice demonstrated it has more popular appeal than Starmerism at its height, and so there is a constituency for the taking. Next year's metropolitan local elections across Labour strongholds are going to be very interesting.

The question is can the Greens become the left alternative if Polanski wins the leadership? One can look around at the, to put things euphemistically, patchy record of the party's co-thinkers across the continent. In the UK, Brighton council, Mid-Suffolk council, and the Greens' performance in the Scottish government hardly heralded red dawns. But neither were they worse than your average Labour council, for whom attacking workers and slashing services have long been the norm - even before the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition imposed ruinous cuts on local government after 2011. The alternative path away from that trod by establishment green parties is that taken by the green-left parties of Denmark, the Netherlands, and the Nordic Green-Left Alliance. There are no insurmountable reasons why taking a Scandinavian turn is impossible.

But there are two difficulties an explicitly left wing party faces. The first can be more or less ignored, and that's the scepticism many on the established left - your writer included - has toward political organisations not explicitly based on class. This is unlikely to prove an electoral obstacle, but puts a ceiling on the numbers of established left wing activists a Polanski-led Green Party can attract. Though, to be honest, he's not waiting around for any of their approvals. Perhaps the politics of the electoral deed might sway them. The second is more substantial: the Greens' non-radical wing. This is best represented by the local government inroads made before Reform was anointed the establishment's anti-establishment party of choice, and was recently highlighted when current co-leader Adrian Ramsey went off-script in an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson and equivocated instead of pushing the party position on trans issues. There is a possibility that some of this layer could do a reverse Polanski and move from the Greens to the Lib Dems.

That said, there is undoubtedly a prize to be seized. With the extra-Labour left unwilling to move beyond marches and rallies, a radical Green Party that speaks to the interests of the rising class of workers, reflects the dominant socially liberal outlook of tens of millions, and is starkly posed as an alternative to the extreme right and what Labour are selling, could chime with the vibes of the moment and build that elusive left-populist insurgency this country's politics has so far lacked. Therefore, while I won't be joining the Greens, there's a good chance the tidal surge of a Polanski leadership could lift all our boats.

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On the Road to Somewhere

It didn't attract much coverage, but last week The Spectator reported that the co-called 'Gaza Independents' will be registering as a political party in the new year. This follows months of off-again, on-again talks between Jeremy Corbyn supporters, a handful of left notables grouped as Collective, and sundry others. After 30 years of false dawns for new left alternatives, could this be a contender?

A couple of things in the gravy should get picked out before we reach the meat. First, that the political space to Labour's left is so obvious that even the bourgeois press are picking up on it. Patrick Maguire wrote about it for The Times last Thursday, and it got coverage from UnHerd, albeit through the prism of a whinge about religious sectarianism. Because the website's founder would never endorse divisive, extremist politics.

The second point, overlooked by professional politics watchers, is what's happening in the Commons. On 9th December, the Commons Procedure Committee announced an inquiry into the status of independent MPs. This is being explicitly convened to address the formation of the Independent Alliance, the grouping of Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan, and Iqbal Mohamed. This is to establish whether ad hoc groupings can be afforded the same rights as those sitting for registered political parties. It will also examine the "status" of independents, whether they're elected as such or end up losing a party whip. That the IA announced they were formalising themselves as a proper party the day after is sensible lest the committee finds ways of limiting their access to resources.

Considering the party itself, as noted on other occasions Corbyn isn't overly keen at the prospect of a new organisation, favouring a slow and steady community building approach. The issue with this is its strategic indifference to the political opportunities opening now to build something new. Such as the suspension of seven Labour MPs because they stood up for our people. The problems facing a new left party are well understood and have been covered here almost to death. There's the fractious character of the left and the legacies of bureaucratic manoeuvring and little Lenin syndrome, the Greens' left turn, and the outsized privilege any parliamentarian would enjoy in a new organisation. And this is an issue when you look at some of them criticising Labour's tax on landed wealth from the right, and opposition to banning on first cousin marriage. No party discipline works for the Greens because, among their four MPs, there's a great deal of policy agreement. Among an IA left party it's a recipe for internal dissension, chaos, and paralysis.

If these can be overcome, there is a big prize waiting. Of the Westminster parties, none speak to the reality of workers' lives in the 21st century. Labour doesn't, but its commitment to Blue Labourism seems like an excuse to do right wing things rather than a genuine and serious strategic orientation to the working class. The so-called Workers' Party of Britain seeks to fill the sweet spot identified by political scientists - economically radical but socially conservative. George Galloway has said that the "Arab world is dead to me" following the collapse of the Syrian regime, so that gives you an idea about the direction that project is heading. And then the Greens, economically radical and socially liberal - so the party enjoys congruence with most people's outlooks. But the absence of an explicit class orientation in words and deeds does and will continue cutting them off from the most disenfranchised voters - the people the left need to win and activate as a political force. The new alliance, if it gets the class orientation right, could supply Labour with more than a few migraines over this parliament. But, as ever, it depends on the politics and as they stand at the moment it would be wise to temper one's expectations.

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