Massive member gains for the Green Party. What about election success?
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The Green Party in England and Wales has broken the 100,000-member mark for the first time – a surge attributed almost entirely to its new leader, Zack Polanski.
Party officials are reporting a nearly-50 per cent increase in just over a month – to more than 100,000 members – putting them on track to overtake the Conservatives if momentum continues (Tories don’t publish their membership figures but the party is widely believed to have around 120,000).
The numbers are impressive – but history shows that membership growth does not automatically convert to votes; under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour once had more than 500,000 members but still lost two general elections.
For the Greens, whose recent polling sits between 11 and 12 per cent—admittedly alongside one outlier survey showing 15 per cent—the question is whether enthusiasm among members can translate into wider public support.
Polanski has clearly energised the party. His social media campaigns and frequent TV appearances have made the Greens more visible than ever, and his rhetoric about supplanting Labour resonates with a segment of the electorate disillusioned with the status quo; he said he wanted to bring populism to the political left and he seems to be following the Nigel Farage playbook to do it.
In his first month as leader, he has positioned the Greens as the “only real opposition left in British politics,” championing fair taxes, environmental protection, and social compassion.
But visibility comes with challenges.
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Mainstream media outlets, led by figures like Piers Morgan, have repeatedly focused on Polanski’s more controversial views—particularly his stances on gender identity—often framing him as a culture-war figure rather than a policy-driven leader.
And to be honest, Morgan was very good at it. For many people, the way he leaned into the question, “Can a woman have a penis?” and ignored less controversial policies could have seriously undermined Polanski’s credibility – potentially limiting the party’s appeal beyond its base.
Can the Greens convert the current enthusiasm for them into broader electoral support in the face of this targeted media scrutiny?
Polanski himself claims, “We’re not here to be disappointed with Labour but to replace them.”
But 100,000 people is a tiny fraction of the UK’s population. Does the wider electorate share this vision—or see only controversy? That question will determine whether this membership surge has real political consequences.
Well, we have local elections in May next year – seven months’ time, in which Polanski will either consolidate his gains or lose ground to Establishment mouthpieces like Morgan.
If the Greens are able to translate membership growth into votes, they could reshape the political landscape.
They may even bring hope back to a demoralised country that has suffered too long in a political language filled mostly by right-wingers who might as well be clones of each other.
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Who’s trying to stop Tony Blair — and why now?
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Two stories about Tony Blair have hit the headlines in quick succession — both of them dating back years, neither of them containing anything new in substance, and both emerging just as the former prime minister is being tipped for a major new public role.
First, the BBC revealed that Blair met Jeffrey Epstein in Downing Street in 2002, after lobbying from Peter Mandelson.
A civil service memo from that time shows that the meeting was arranged through Mandelson, who described Epstein as a “friend of mine” and “safe” — and that Blair was briefed before the meeting took place.
It lasted less than half an hour, and Blair’s office says it was confined to a discussion about US and UK politics.
The second, from The Guardian, reports that Blair and Nick Clegg hosted a private dinner earlier this year, giving six technology company leaders access to a UK investment minister.
The event, organised under the banner of Blair’s political consultancy, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), is said to demonstrate the institute’s close relationship with big tech firms and government.
Individually, these stories are awkward but not fatal.
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The Epstein meeting happened six years before his first conviction, and there is no suggestion of further contact.
The tech dinner appears to have been a policy discussion, not a cash-for-access scandal.
But taken together, they create a narrative: Tony Blair as the power-broker, the fixer, the man who moves among the rich and connected, now resurfacing at a moment when the world is considering handing him another significant position — overseeing the administration of post-war Gaza.
That’s the real context. The timing of these stories isn’t coincidental. They arrive precisely when Blair is being talked about as the figure who might lead an international effort to rebuild Gaza, with the backing of the United Kingdom, the United States, and several Middle Eastern states. Suddenly, two decades-old documents and a dinner invitation are presented as revelations of “character”.
Why now?
Because this is how political reputations are managed — and destroyed — in the modern information economy.
Somebody, somewhere, has been sitting on this material for years.
The Epstein memo was written in May 2002. It has existed, in government archives, ever since. It was only released under the Freedom of Information Act after the sacking of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States, and after Blair’s possible Gaza appointment began to be discussed publicly.
If these revelations were genuinely about justice, accountability or transparency, why weren’t they published years ago — when the information might have had real relevance to the public interest, or while Blair’s consultancy dealings were shaping British and international policy?
The answer is obvious.
The timing was political.
Someone wanted to damage Blair now, not then.
That’s not transparency.
That’s weaponised disclosure — the selective release of long-held information to serve a political purpose.
The danger here isn’t that a politician is being exposed.
It’s that the system of accountability itself is being abused.
Transparency is supposed to serve democracy, not to be used as a tactical bomb to detonate under a public figure when it suits the powerful.
If the people who sat on these documents for 23 years truly believed they revealed something dangerous or improper, they had every opportunity to raise it earlier.
By keeping it secret until the political moment demanded it, they became part of the story themselves.
Who made the decision to release the memo now? Who decided to green-light a Freedom of Information request that had previously been blocked “for reasons of UK-US relations”? Who passed the details to journalists, knowing how they would be used?
Those are the questions the public deserves to have answered — because what’s at stake here isn’t just Tony Blair’s reputation, but the integrity of the processes by which our government handles information.
Blair’s critics will, of course, say that the timing doesn’t matter — that the facts speak for themselves.
But facts released at a moment chosen for maximum political damage don’t speak freely; they’re made to perform.
It is perfectly fair to debate whether Blair is fit to take on another powerful role in international affairs. This Writer is no fan of the man; I tend to agree with Margaret Thatcher’s claim that he – and his New Labour project – were her greatest achievement. He made Labour a mockery of the intentions that founded it.
It is also fair to ask why a man whose political career ended nearly two decades ago still commands so much influence through his institute and personal networks.
But it is not fair — and certainly not democratic — to pretend that sudden, conveniently timed “discoveries” are acts of justice.
If anything, those who have hoarded these documents and chosen to deploy them now have some explaining to do.
If knowledge is power, then the people choosing when to release it are exercising power too — without accountability, and without scrutiny.
That’s the real scandal.
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Is Labour floundering because Starmer has made it ‘fake’?
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By purging the Left, hollowing out party democracy and chasing approval from the Establishment, Keir Starmer may have stripped Labour of the authenticity voters crave.
If Labour looks strong on paper, it is weak in spirit.
That is the apparent verdict from voters who are deserting the party – not just for Reform UK, which is surging on the polls on the basis of bluster and zeal, but for other parties that seem more authentic, like the Greens and even the Liberal Democrats.
Under Keir Starmer, the party that once drew power from conviction now runs on control – a polished product that feels fake to the people it once represented – and voters can sense it. That’s why, Labour’s support is slipping away.
The trigger
Take a look at the following comment, responding to This Site’s article on why Labour can’t beat Reform UK:
Predicted that this would happen when Starmer became leader. Labour was once a broad church and his first action was to purge the Left not realising that one day he was going to need their support. He then got rid of anyone who voted against [him] on his policies, destroying democracy in the party. He has changed the Labour Party to something unrecognisable [in comparison with] what it was created for. Like many others, at the age of 83 who voted Labour since I was franchised, [I] found myself homeless and [have] now joined many others in my allegiance to the Green Party.
The question is: has Starmer sabotaged Labour? And did he do it thinking he was fortifying his own position?
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Labour is no longer a ‘broad church’
Starmer’s “modernisation” — which he presents as professionalisation and electability — has provoked hundreds of thousands of long-term party members to quit, and around three million voters to abandon it at the ballot box.
They would say the changes have, in practice, been a controlled demolition of the party’s internal democracy and ideological roots.
The purge of the Left, the marginalisation of activists, the disempowerment of local party structures, the control-freakery over candidate selections — all of it looks, from the outside, like the work of a man intent on creating a hollowed-out, leader-centric apparatus that no longer belongs to its members.
The irony, of course, is that this was probably meant to secure Labour’s hold on power: to prevent internal rebellions, to reassure donors, to make the party “safe” – for the Establishment.
That’s the problem, right there. He wanted Labour to be acceptable to a primarily right-wing cohort with priorities that are traditionally at odds with the ideological centre of the party he joined.
By altering Labour’s direction to fit in with those priorities, he is likely to have sawn off the branch he’s sitting on — alienating precisely the grassroots energy that sustains a party in difficult times.
The shift in voting patterns — from Labour to the Greens, Lib Dems, or even non-voting — is not a neutral redistribution of discontent; it is a symptom of Labour’s self-imposed narrowing.
Starmer’s leadership has defined itself by exclusion — of the Left, of dissent, of anything that challenges a tightly policed “professional” image.
The result is a party that has traded diversity of thought for the illusion of unity.
When lifelong supporters move to the Greens, it’s not because they suddenly became radicals; it’s because Labour stopped being recognisable as Labour.
That’s why polling analyses show an exodus of soft-left and socially liberal voters — the ones who once saw Labour as a moral rather than merely managerial force.
The ‘purge of the Left’
Starmer’s first action was to purge the Left from positions of influence in the party, according to my commentator – and we can see plenty of evidence:
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has repeatedly accused Starmer’s leadership of purging the left wing of Labour, or allowing a “right-wing faction” to get dominant and suppress dissenting voices.
Mick Lynch (leader of the RMT union) has similarly criticised Labour’s candidate selection processes as a “purge” of left-wing candidates.
The Guardian has reported that under Starmer the approved candidate shortlists from the party’s ruling National Executive Committee have increasingly excluded candidates supported by trade unions (including the soft Left) and those with more independent views.
Manipulation of party rules
Starmer didn’t just change the culture of the party; he changed its machinery.
Labour under Starmer has tightened control over candidate selection. People with even modest divergence from leadership-approved views have been blocked from shortlists. Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said of this: “The selection of candidates … is so tightly controlled that anyone with a hint of independence of thought stands virtually no chance of being allowed on candidate lists.”
Starmer changed internal party rules: in 2021 he proposed alterations to how Labour elects its leader, moving away from “one-member-one-vote” to give or restore more power to MPs. Critics said the change was designed to prevent the return of a Corbyn-type leadership.
The shift in leadership nomination thresholds (from ten per cent of MPs to twenty per cent) effectively locks the Left out of future leadership contests, meaning a Corbyn-like candidate is no longer mathematically viable unless the PLP’s composition changes dramatically — which, under Starmer’s candidate control, it won’t.
Combine that with NEC rule changes and the control of conference agendas, and Labour democracy is more choreographed than organic.
This gives the lie to the notion of “strong leadership”: it is strength through suffocation.
The more Starmer controls, the less alive the party becomes.
The illusion of mandate
Starmer’s government did not win power through enthusiasm.
Turnout collapse among former Tory voters handed Labour a parliamentary majority in the general election of 2024 – but not moral authority. Support for Labour didn’t surge; voters simply chose not to come out and the party got into government on the lowest vote (as a percentage of the electorate) in history.
The proportion of the electorate actively voting for Labour was historically low — and this has a knock-on effect upon its delivery of manifesto promises.
I saw a social media post claiming that the Tory government of 2019-24 managed to deliver on only two of its manifesto promises, while Labour has either enacted or is in the process of enacting dozens.
That’s all very well, but if a majority of the public doesn’t want those changes, this “record of delivery” is meaningless.
So the apparent paradox of rapid legislative activity alongside cratering approval ratings is explained: Labour is busy – doing what most of us believe to be the wrong things.
Fragmented dissent, shared cause
The result of the purges, rule changes and policy dissatisfaction is clear – and was predictable. People are abandoning Labour in multitudes.
Polling data shows Reform UK ahead of Labour in many voter intention polls. For example: Ipsos poll (Sep 2025) had Reform UK at 34 per cent, Labour at 22 per cent, with Labour satisfaction and Starmer’s approval sharply low.
An earlier Ipsos poll (June 2025) also showed Reform UK leading Labour by nine points.
In local elections and by-elections, Labour has lost many council seats since the 2024 general election. Some of those losses have gone to Reform UK.
Labour’s drop in polling since entering government is very large: The Guardian notes this is the worst drop for any governing party since polling data began in the late 1970s/early 1980s (PollBase), losing ~12 points in eight months.
Admittedly, not all Labour voters are going to Reform UK. Why would they? Reform is a right-wing, Establishment party that exists to promote the interests of the rich. Reform has taken most of its support from the Tories. But only a few people coming from Labour is still a victory for the populist party.
The majority of the Labour vote losses are going to other places: Greens, Liberal Democrats, becoming undecided or abstaining.
This exodus shows that Labour has stopped being a ‘broad church’ and re-focused itself on being a narrow-interest, right-wing party that has pandered to the Establishment and the right-wing media at the cost of everything else including credibility.
It’s crucial to stress that voters drifting in different directions may still be driven by the same feeling — the sense that Labour is fake, managerial, and alien.
Reform UK, the Greens, the Lib Dems: all project authenticity to some group of disillusioned people. Each of them represents, in their own idiom, a reaction against what Labour has become — not necessarily agreement with one another, but rejection of technocratic, hollow politics.
That means the “broad church” has not disappeared in the electorate; it has merely been dispersed.
Starmer’s Labour has made no effort to contain it.
The ‘zeal’ gap
And here’s the final twist: Farage’s populism thrives precisely because Labour’s managerialism leaves an emotional vacuum.
Labour’s language — focus-grouped, flattened, fearful of controversy — reads as simulation. Reform’s is chaotic, reckless, but alive. Zealous, one might say.
In modern politics, that counts for more than accuracy or detail. Voters don’t rally to spreadsheets; they rally to conviction. Labour’s tragedy is that it mistook professionalisation for persuasion.
So, yes – Labour is floundering because Starmer has made it fake.
He has silenced the voices that gave it strength, rewritten the rules to keep power in his own hands, and turned a movement for change into a brand for management.
Now the voters who once filled Labour’s sails are walking away – some to the right, many to the Left, all to something that at least feels real.
By chasing approval from those who will never truly support it, Labour has alienated those who once did.
The zeal now lies elsewhere.
Unless Starmer rediscovers what Labour is for, and exchanges that for what he thinks it should look like, the party he leads will continue to suffer a long, slow death.
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How can anybody seriously believe LABOUR can stop Reform UK?
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I read this week’s Mainly Macro column with an attitude of stark incredulity.
Professor Simon Wren-Lewis seems to believe that the only UK political parties capable of stopping the goose-step into power of Reform UK is that party itself – via an implosion similar to those that have happened to other Faragist parties – and Labour.
And Labour?
I would say that suggestion is optimistic to the point of naïvete, for several reasons.
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Labour is structurally incapable of confronting populism
Starmer’s Labour has spent the last three years trying to placate populist narratives — particularly on immigration, policing and “British values” — rather than challenge them.
This doesn’t neutralise Reform; it validates its framing.
Every time Labour agrees that immigration is a “problem”, or that “legitimate concerns” need to be addressed, it entrenches the idea that Farage’s agenda sets the terms of the debate.
Once you accept your opponent’s premises, you’ve already lost the argument — and eventually, you start losing votes too.
That’s exactly how the Tories destroyed themselves – chasing Reform’s base, hoping to co-opt its energy, and instead making Reform look like the authentic version of the same politics.
The liberal vote is Labour’s real foundation – and it is being eroded
Wren-Lewis identifies this late in his piece, but it deserves to be central.
The Labour vote now relies heavily on the urban, university-educated, socially liberal electorate.
That bloc is deeply uneasy with Labour’s triangulation on migration, its authoritarian noises on protest and policing, and its refusal to confront media bias.
Many of these voters will stay home, or shift tactically to the Greens or LibDems, especially if they think Labour has already secured power or become indistinguishable from the Tories.
That would hollow Labour out from the centre-left – the space it needs to hold if it is to resist Reform effectively.
The media terrain is hostile – and Labour’s strategy is non-existent
Prof Wren-Lewis is absolutely right that the mainstream broadcast and print media have been captured by right-wing narratives.
But Labour seems to have accepted this rather than try to contest it.
The party’s comms team rarely challenges distortions, relies on X (which amplifies the far right), and avoids aggressive framing.
Compare that to Farage, who has decades of experience playing the press like a fiddle.
Populists win not because they have better ideas, but because they have better stories. Reform’s is simple: “They’ve all betrayed you; we’re the only honest ones left.”
Labour’s counter-story is muddled, managerial, and apologetic.
You can’t beat a myth with a spreadsheet.
Reform’s ‘implosion factor’ cuts both ways
Yes, Farage-led projects have always blown up before — UKIP, the Brexit Party – but the political environment is more fertile for authoritarian populism than ever.
The Tories are dying.
The press is on board.
The BBC is cowed.
The public is economically miserable and institutionally distrustful.
Reform doesn’t need to win in the sense of forming a majority government.
It just needs to discredit the centre further and normalise its agenda until Labour either caves or fractures — which is exactly what happened to the US Democrats under Trumpism.
The ‘French scenario’ is implausible – for now
Wren-Lewis invokes France as a comparison: a squeezed centre and a polarised electorate between far right and left.
But the British left is too fragmented, under-resourced, and electorally hamstrung by first-past-the-post to reproduce that pattern soon.
A strong left challenge would require the Greens, SNP, Plaid, and some kind of new left formation to co-ordinate tactically.
That’s not impossible, but it’s well beyond Starmer’s imagination and would take a crisis — perhaps after Reform enters power — to catalyse.
The real danger is Labour paving the way for Reform
Rather than “stopping” Reform, Starmerism risks preparing the ground for it. By:
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legitimising right-wing rhetoric on immigration and law and order,
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refusing to defend human rights and protest freedoms robustly,
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failing to rebuild trust in politics from below,
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and ignoring structural media reform,
Labour normalises the very authoritarianism Reform will then radicalise.
If Labour governs like a slightly more polite version of the Tories, voters will inevitably turn to the louder, more charismatic one promising to “blow it all up”.
So, can Labour defeat Reform?
Not under its current strategy.
At best, it can temporarily delay Reform by hoping for economic calm.
But its ideological drift and communicative cowardice mean it’s building the next populist wave, not stopping it.
The irony is that the only force that might destroy Reform is Reform itself — via corruption, infighting, or Farage’s hubris.
If that doesn’t happen, the United Kingdom’s political future will look more like Trump’s America than Macron’s France.
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