Can Britain’s Greens Become a Working-Class Party?
In Britain, left-populist Green leader Zack Polanski has emphasized cost-of-living issues. While his party has won over parts of the working class alienated by Labour, broadening this base remains an uphill challenge.
Recent research shows that even Reform UK–voting parts of the working class are receptive to left-wing economic policies. Green leader Zack Polanski’s hopes of changing British politics demand a focus on these voters, too. (James Manning / PA Images via Getty Images)
Britain’s local elections in May offered the Left much reason for anxiety. Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK swept up over 1,400 new council seats and won outright control of fourteen councils, leapfrogging Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which is now in free fall. It’s a wearily familiar story across Europe: neoliberal decline, and establishment parties’ meager proposals to manage it, has produced fertile ground for the continued rise of nationalist-conservative forces.
Yet Britain is perhaps something of a distinct case. These elections were also lauded as a victory for the Green Party, consolidating its growth trend over the past year. The Greens won 441 new seats and outright control of four councils. Set against Reform UK’s gains, these are modest numbers. Yet read alongside the Greens’ recent membership growth and parliamentary breakthroughs, they suggest that something is stirring on the British left. This demands reflection on the changes that have recently taken place in the Green Party and how far they can go.
Filling Labour’s Vacuum
The Greens’ approach has shifted massively since Zack Polanski took over as party leader last September. Once perceived as a niche, middle-class environmentalist outfit, the party under Polanski has begun to look like something closer to a left-populist formation. He has railed against “Rip-Off Britain” and entrenched wealth inequality, called for an end to UK arms exports to Israel, demanded nationwide rent controls, and pushed for a substantial rise in the minimum wage. The party has begun advancing a political platform that the Economist has described, with evident alarm, as “Corbynism on steroids.”
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