Is the Green Party a serious contender in the forthcoming election?

As the party launches its general election campaign, Sean O’Grady looks at its chances of achieving a decent vote share this time round – and perhaps even a few more seats

Favourable climate: the Green Party’s prospects are looking brighter than ever (PA)

The Green Party of England and Wales (the Scottish Greens are separate but linked) was unlucky with the timing of its election campaign launch. Though joint leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay are hardly household names even in their own kitchens, and their plans for a more sustainable future were never going to hog the front page of the Daily Mail, the party does increasingly matter. Indeed, it seems set for a record share of the vote at this general election, polling at some 6 per cent, and may win at least one more parliamentary constituency. Its prospects are brighter than ever.

What can the Greens show for their efforts so far?

One MP elected in 2019; two members of the House of Lords; two roles (until recently) in the Scottish government; 848 councillors across Britain; control of Mid Sussex Council; and the largest party on Bristol and Hastings councils. Most significantly, though, their national vote share has risen from 1.6 per cent at the 2017 election to 2.6 per cent in 2019 and now a consistent poll rating of 6 per cent.

Few now recall their brief moment of glory in the 1989 European parliament elections when they scored third place and 14.9 per cent of the vote (at a time when the Liberal Democrats were in disarray). That distant, freakish event does, though, suggest that the Greens have plenty of potential.

What are they campaigning on?

The environment, climate change, the NHS, housing, and the quality of water. They’ve pledged to create 150,000 new council homes, end the right to buy scheme, introduce rent controls, and end no-fault evictions. More broadly, they want to hold a Labour government accountable on behalf of progressives from a leftist, green perspective.

Where do they hope to win?

The party is focusing its limited resources on a number of key targets: holding Brighton Pavilion, which has been held by Caroline Lucas since 2010 and is now being contested by Sian Berry; winning Bristol Central from Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire (Denyer standing); gaining Waveney Valley from the Tories (Ramsay the candidate); and winning North Herefordshire, also currently Tory, where former Green Party MEP Ellie Chowns is standing. All, even Bristol Central, are long shots, but the Greens have been building a local government base in places such as Bristol and Suffolk, so you never know.

Will they continue to make progress?

The ideal Green Party target seat, in England at any rate, is one that is relatively prosperous, is rural or semi-rural, is well educated, has some green spaces, boasts a university and a larger than usual student population, is pro-EU/Rejoin and pro-Green (obviously), is “woke”, has a cohort of disillusioned Labour leftist activists, and is host to a population of Muslim and other voters who are especially appalled by what’s happening in Gaza.

There isn’t a constituency that fits that specification precisely, but there are quite a few in which conditions are increasingly propitious for the Greens. These are where they will be hoping to harvest some solid second places, looking forward to the 2028/29 election and various local contests in the meantime.

Labour’s Middle East policy, its abandonment of the Green new deal and its (alleged) purge of the left will probably provide some new recruits. Disappointments in office will add to the leakage of support to the Greens. Somewhere in this flux may lie a more significant future Red-Green grouping, but all involved have fissiparous tendencies.

On the plus side for the Greens, if/when a Starmer administration runs into the usual midterm unpopularity, the party will be a ready receptacle for protest votes of all kinds. On the negative side, the Greens’ passion for participatory democracy means that they are prone to splits and rows. The German Greens have shown how a less eccentric, more hard-headed and realistic attitude can lead to great things; the decision by the English and Welsh Greens to allow the UK to remain in a reformed Nato should they come to power may be a sign of a maturing movement.

Does it make sense to vote for the Greens tactically?

Not really, in most places, just to “get the Tories out”, because they’re not yet the principal contenders to supplant them. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP are better vehicles.

Could they team up with other pro-European and progressive parties?

Not this time round, but there are possibilities for the future, albeit some of which are problematic. In the “Brexit” general election of 2019, the Greens (England and Wales) concluded an anti-Brexit pact with the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru in 60 constituencies. According to the definitive study of that election, however, the “Unite to Remain” movement didn’t make much difference: “Nowhere does the pact appear to have enabled any of the participants to win a seat because they were attracting the support of too few Remain supporters in the first place.”

Theoretically, the Greens could now cooperate with the likes of George Galloway’s Workers’ Party, and with various independent socialists and others, such as Jeremy Corbyn, but not all of these disparate entities agree on Europe, on LGBT+ issues or, in Scotland, on independence. Arguably, too, the Liberal Democrats are far too close to Keir Starmer’s centrists for a comfortable liaison.