BRIGHTON, England — Zack Polanski won a landslide victory to lead the Green Party last September with a vow to “replace” Labour on the left of British politics. Today, Andy Burnham’s new-look Labour is gobbling up Polanski’s policies — and, rather than supplanting the governing Labour Party, the Greens are sliding down the polls. Burnham used a conference speech last week to frame the next general election as a fight on left-of-center, progressive issues familiar to Polanski’s brand of eco-populism — such as electoral reform, a new adult social care system, and forging closer ties with the EU.
But experts warn that it’s precisely such moves from Burnham, which the Greens chalk up as wins, that ultimately undermine the party’s electoral prospects. The Green Party is “slightly a victim of their own success,” said Luke Tryl, boss of the More in Common think tank and polling agency. Party insiders insist they still have the policies to take the fight to Labour.
But Tryl compared the Greens to the UK Independence Party after 2010. The Euro-skeptic outfit under Nigel Farage had an “outsized impact on the whole of politics” — but never made substantial breakthroughs into parliament. Six months ago, Polanski had dragged the Greens to 18% with voters, a single percentage point ahead of Labour, according to POLITICO’s poll of polls, as Keir Starmer’s ruling party struggled in the doldrums.
Now the Green Party has sunk back to 11%, and Burnham’s Labour has reopened a lead over the Greens of 14 points. The initial surge in Green support is mostly over, More in Common argued in a presentation on the fringes of the party’s annual conference, as Burnham claws back voters on the left. John Curtice, Britain’s leading political scientist, compared the party’s fortunes to another force in British politics.
Burnham proposed a state-funded social care system in the mold of the NHS, as well as promising electoral reform and a new long-term relationship between Britain and the EU. (He later left the door open to another referendum.) “They are all policies that we already have,” Sian Berry, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, answered when POLITICO reeled through Burnham’s priorities. The principle of a care system free at the point of need, for example, “has been in Green Party policy for some years now,” said Adrian Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley. The party also backs “closer ties” with the EU post-Brexit and, eventually, rejoining the bloc.
On electoral reform, the Greens are left agreeing with Labour but urging Burnham to move faster. A commission, tasked with suggesting how to shake up the electoral system before the next election, could “just be the way to kick this into the long grass,” said Natalie Bennett, a Green Party peer. Polanski’s main policy announcement in his speech was a temporary “emergency brake” on private rent, which would stop rents rising above 2%, inflation, or levels of wage growth, whichever was lowest.
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