Labour in power have been underwhelming. Despite managing expectations to subterranean levels before the election, many voters are dismayed by what feels like a Tesco Value government. On the left, there’s a growing appetite for something more Waitrose—aspirational, middle-class, maybe even with recyclable packaging.
This week, we turn our gaze to two of the main contenders vying to fill that space: the Green Party and, the latest incarnation of the Corbynite left.
Tactical Voting and the left
Of all the factions on the left, the Greens are the least likely to vote tactically. At the recent Runcorn and Helsby by-election—won by Reform with a margin of just six votes—it was Green voters’ refusal to back Labour that handed Nigel Farage another MP. It’s not the first time: the Tories held on to Oxford and Abingdon for the same reason.
For many Greens, compromising with Labour seems less palatable than letting the far right win.
A Leadership Election That Could Reshape the Greens
The Green Party is in the midst of a leadership contest that could determine whether it leans into its left-wing populist base or drifts further into affluent, eco-snob conservatism.
There are three candidates:
- Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns are running jointly from the party’s centre-right.
- Zack Polanski is the lone left-wing populist challenger.
It’s a fork-in-the-road moment for the Greens—comparable to the SNP’s crisis of identity after Nicola Sturgeon stepped down.
The SNP Analogy: Tartan Tories and Playground Lockdowns
When Sturgeon left, the SNP’s leadership race boiled down to Kate Forbes, a hardline social conservative, versus Humza Yousaf, a centrist. Yousaf won, but it was close—proof that many SNP voters are, at heart, Tartan Tories who still think swings are the devil’s work on the Sabbath.
The Greens face a similarly awkward reckoning.
Nimbyism in Chief: The Case Against Ramsay and Chowns
Ramsay and Chowns represent affluent, formerly Conservative constituencies where disillusionment with Brexit and Boris drove voters Greenward. But both candidates often take positions to the right of the current Labour government.
Ramsay has earned the title “Nimby-in-Chief” for opposing energy grid infrastructure vital to Net Zero goals. He prefers protecting countryside views over solving the climate crisis. He’s even claimed he preferred Boris Johnson to Keir Starmer, on the grounds that Boris “understood the need to regenerate the natural world”—code, presumably, for “didn’t build anything near nice villages.”
Chowns, while marginally more left-leaning, vocally opposes plans to equalise inheritance tax on farms. Both candidates seem to prioritise environmental aesthetics over climate action.
Zack Polanski: The Radical Wild Card (With Baggage)
Zack Polanski, the so-called radical candidate, is… complicated. And not in the “intellectually nuanced” sense.
He started in politics as a pro-austerity Lib Dem during the Cameron/Clegg coalition, heckled Jeremy Corbyn, and now claims to be open to an electoral pact with Corbyn’s new party—despite its anti-LGBT MPs. He also changed his name (originally David Paulden) and was once a self-proclaimed hypnotherapist who claimed to enlarge breasts via suggestion. No, really.
He featured in a crass, misogynistic piece in The Sun, and his political evolution feels more like shapeshifting than growth. There are echoes of Dominic Cummings here—ideologically erratic, media-savvy, and prone to rewriting his own origin story.
Some on the Corbynite left, like Grace Blakeley, have backed him. Others are holding out for Corbyn’s new party to finally assemble enough Scrabble letters to settle on a name.
How Did We Get Here? A Brief and Bizarre History of the Greens
To understand the modern Green Party, you need to understand its strange lineage—a blend of leftist idealism, right-wing land fetishism, and conspiracy-addled crankery.
The first explicitly environmental political movement in Britain? The British Union of Fascists. Seriously.
Their 1930s manifesto The Land and The People was written by BUF deputy Jorian Jenks. After the war, Jenks became president of the Soil Association, influencing generations of paleo-conservative environmentalists including King Charles III and the Goldsmith family. He also edited Mother Earth, Britain’s first green journal—unsurprisingly packed with racism and antisemitism.
From Fascists to Footsoldiers in 2CVs
Up until the late ’60s, UK environmentalism was largely the domain of the far right. Their belief? That aristocrats made the best conservationists because they wanted to preserve land for their heirs. This ideology still underpins Green opposition to inheritance tax reform today.
Left-wing environmentalism only emerged with the publication of Silent Spring and the hippy counterculture’s anti-capitalist embrace of nature.
The modern Green Party began in the 1970s as the People’s Party, founded by Conservatives with similar views to David Cameron in his hug a husky phase. Over time, they absorbed Jenks’ old followers. One of their key policies was opposition to nuclear power.
The late ’70s and early ’80s saw disaffected Labour unilateralists shift to environmentalism after Labour refused to embrace full nuclear disarmament. Many were idealists; others were, frankly, 2CV-driving cranks with “Atomkraft? Nein Danke” bumper stickers.
Apologies if that’s your parents.
David Icke and the Lost Years
By the mid-1980s, the People’s Party had become the Green Party, an awkward mix of middle-class lefties, old-school Conservatives, and fringe conspiracy theorists.
Then came David Icke.
Yes, that David Icke. He became the party’s official spokesperson and effective leader for much of the late ’80s and ’90s. The party has scrubbed him from its history, but his influence lingered. Icke’s blend of antisemitism and alien obsession took the movement’s conspiratorial streak to bizarre and dangerous new heights—replacing “blood and soil” nationalism with “blood-drinking space lizards.”
A Rebrand, and the Influx of Corbynites
After Icke, the Greens rebranded as a respectable, progressive, middle-class party—Labour without the trade unions and with better graphic design.
When Jeremy Corbyn was expelled from Labour, another wave of leftists joined the Greens. Some were disillusioned idealists; others were angry that their views on Israel were labelled antisemitic. The EHRC report confirmed many of those allegations—but the Green Party welcomed them anyway.
On social media, prominent Greens now echo the same conspiracies and bigotries that plagued Corbynism. There’s hope that Corbyn’s new party might siphon off these members—racism included.
Urban-Rural Tensions, and a Divided Base
The modern Greens are a coalition of contradictions. Half their seats are in Labour-leaning urban areas, the other half in affluent countryside. Their strongest results tend to come in places with high house prices—suggesting anti-development Nimbyism unites them more than climate policy.
Asked which other party they’d vote for, Green voters are more likely to choose the Lib Dems than Labour or Corbyn. This suggests Polanski’s insurgency may fizzle out, with the party drifting toward affluent centrism rather than hard-left populism.
But stranger things have happened.
Including someone claiming to enlarge boobs with hypnosis.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrlx7z64n4o
https://members.parliament.uk/member/5320/writtenquestions
Would you say because the Green Party of England and Wales has never been in government, it has remained stuck in small-is-beautiful New Left dogma unlike (for example) the German Greens?
This kind of belief system actually makes it more difficult to fight climate change, as it diverts attention from the kind of large-scale solutions required (nuclear power or utility-scale renewables, heat pumps, high-speed rail, concentrating housing and especially jobs in dense cities to minimize car dependency) in favour of solutions that are either inefficient (rooftop solar) or outright counter-productive (NIMBYism).
I am not sure that fighting climate change is top of the list of priorities for lots of Green voters. Stopping house building, protecting green belt, and preserving the countryside are more pressing concerns.
They have never really moved beyond middle class nimbyism
It would be ironic if anti-nuclear-energy activists drove Citroën 2CVs: cars made in a country that embraced nuclear energy more than any other!
(And incidentally, why do you not use the comment threading ability as I do? Note the “Reply” links to the right of the date and time on each comment…)
It is a cliche, but only because it is true. Bossy middle class cranks in 2CVs.
OK, I see you discovered the threading functionality 😉
(Although I can also now see that it only runs to three levels.)
Yes, finally worked it out!