A few years ago I joined the Green Party, what I believed to be the only welcoming political home for democratic socialists in Britain. This political trajectory – from the Labour Party to the Greens, as a democratic socialist – has since become a more well-trodden path. And it is no surprise to me given the political landscape we find ourselves in.
I had been a Labour member, activist, staffer and spokesperson at various times over the preceding 13 years, and was probably one of the only people to join the Labour Party in 2009. As a 19-year-old studying politics at university, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, I observed Gordon Brown’s application of Keynesian economics that prevented another Great Depression. He was of course rewarded for marshalling an international response to a credit crisis by his defeat in the general election the next year. In spite of his decision to invest during a recession beginning to yield economic growth, the Conservatives won the most seats on a pledge to cut spending.
The years of austerity that defined the coalition government were needless given the backdrop of borrowing costs being at record lows. Investment in infrastructure and public services was possible and could have rebuilt the country’s economic model. Instead, spending was cut, growth stalled and the national debt increased – political choices that were not opposed but accommodated by an Ed Miliband-led Labour Party’s economic policies. And how were his Labour Party rewarded for their acquiescence to the myth of so-called “expansionist fiscal contraction”? Well, the electorate handed the Tories more seats and an overall majority.
Then along came Jeremy Corbyn, whose media spokesperson I later became. In the 2015 leadership contest, he was the only person to take a clear position against austerity, in the same manner Gordon Brown had done in the 2010 general election campaign. In effect, this amounted to Corbyn being the only candidate willing to stand up in defence of the achievements of New Labour. To protect those levels of public spending, the welfare state and the NHS. Of course, his vision went much further than simply reversing the Tory cuts, but after five years of austerity and a broken economic model since the financial crisis, the country needed solutions that were outside the scope of the Overton window.
Corbyn’s project was characterised by its propositional agenda, one that dictated the terms of political discourse. In order to achieve this, the leader had to be bold, take risks, and not be afraid of making enemies of powerful people. If people who stand to lose out from your agenda are in a panic, then this actually tells the public you are serious and credible. And, in a climate where trust in politics is low, this reassures people that you are actually going to do what you pledge. Instead of attacks from the rich and powerful being a sign that Corbyn’s policies were bad for the country, those attacks were reframed as being inevitable, because those policies will be bad for vested interests but good for everyone else.
This is the essence of left populism. A mode of political operation that probably had its heyday in the 2017 general election when Corbyn was the first Labour leader to gain seats and vote share since 1997, removing the Tory majority David Cameron secured just two years prior. Errors of political judgement were made between 2017 and 2019, which led to another election defined not around a propositional, popular set of policies but around Brexit. Labour lost, Keir Starmer won the subsequent leadership on a platform that pledged to retain the most popular elements of Corbynism, but this was very quickly reneged on.
In politics, learning the right lessons from victory can be as important as learning the right lessons from defeat. The dominant faction around Starmer – let’s call them “the Labour right” – believed Tony Blair’s popularity depended on him abandoning even a pretence of socialist principles. And this abandonment accelerated as his leadership progressed. The more Blair kicked the left and its ideas, they believed, the more likely he was to retain power. This philosophy was cryogenically frozen until Starmer became Labour leader, when it was finally brought back to life, when the Labour Right sought not just to kick the left and its ideas but to expunge them from the party entirely.
In this context, it would have been entirely self-defeating for many who once identified as being on the “Labour left” to have remained in the party. Our influence over its direction from within had been outweighed by the potential to influence it from the outside. Were it not for the collapse of the Tories, initiated by “Partygate” before being guaranteed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, Starmer would not be prime minister today. But the Labour right learned the wrong lessons from a (admittedly victorious) electoral strategy predicated on Labour getting fewer votes than in 2019, never mind in 2017.
Starmer did not become prime minister because he had buried the popular agenda he stood on in the 2020 Labour leadership contest; he became prime minister in spite of doing so. The result has been disastrous for Starmer and for the country, characterised by ridiculous “fiscal rules” that go even further than George Osborne in their constraint of government spending. His response has been to shift even further to the right in an attempt to appeal to prospective Reform voters, rather than embrace solutions that might be described as “left-wing” by the vested interests that have propped him up.
This has created a space in British politics that I believe can be filled by a truly left-populist Green Party. That is why I joined the Greens. I am backing Zack Polanski for the leadership and I am a founding member of Greens Organise, which I hope will be a vector for collaboration with not only Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party but also the campaigning power of We Deserve Better, which got so many independent MPs elected in 2024. Recent polling by Ipsos found that an alliance between the Greens and the Corbyn-Sultana Party would be a potent force, with 31 per cent saying they’d consider voting for a united ticket, rising to 52 per cent of 16- to 34-year-olds and 46 per cent of 2024 Labour voters, an illustration of Starmer learning the wrong lessons from victory.
Both the NHS and the cost of living remain high on the public’s list of priorities, alongside inequality and housing. The conditions for an election fought over these issues can only be brought about through a left-populist approach – acquiescing to Reform’s agenda will only allow the right to dictate the terms of political discourse. And the threat of Reform can only be addressed by a left that is united, on the same page, and prepared to work constructively. There is a cause for great optimism if we can get this right, starting with Polanski becoming leader of the Green Party.
Those that have unfairly branded the establishment of Greens Organise a “hostile takeover” cannot see the political opportunity available to the Green Party. While I am new to the party, a large proportion of the Steering Group and other founding members have been members of the Greens for more than a decade. Focal Data focus groups recently found that across all age groups, party allegiances and regions, voters preferred Polanski to Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay. It is time for the Greens to seize the political opportunity before us, and work with the broader left to replace Labour and stop Reform. The failure to do so will have grave consequences.
[See also: What Roger Hallam learned in prison]
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