The Green Party won its first majority-controlled council, Mid Suffolk district council, in May 2023. In four weeks’ time, if the polls are to be believed, the party could replicate that unprecedented victory on a much wider scale, winning councils across London and beyond.
But Green Party officials are looking towards these potential gains with trepidation. Local government is struggling under the weight of rising demand – for social care, housing and other statutory services – amid a landscape shaped by decades of underfunding. Local authority spending power fell by around a quarter in real terms between 2010-11 and 2019-20, and dozens of councils across England are currently reliant on exceptional financial support from the government – described by one north London council official as akin to a “payday loan”.
Though the Greens have been active in local government for decades (notably since Caroline Lucas was first elected to Oxfordshire county council in 1993), as an anti-austerity party they now face a dilemma. The prospect of winning control of a large number of new authorities – and subsequently having to make significant cuts – is unappealing, particularly amid such an extraordinary surge in support. Presiding over austerity in local government is unlikely to appeal to the party’s left-wing base, and even less so to those who have turned to the Greens during the cost-of-living crisis.
To prepare for this, members of Greens Organise – the campaign group that helped elect Zack Polanski and whose goal is to prevent the Green Party shifting to the centre – are beginning to formulate a plan. While not part of the central Green Party, Greens Organise is an influential grouping within the membership and remains close to Polanski. (For a comparison, think what Momentum was to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.) The New Statesman can exclusively reveal that around 200 Green councillors and candidates have signed a pledge promising to “oppose austerity” in local government. Signatories include London Assembly member Zoë Garbett, the party’s candidate for Hackney mayor, as well as Jamie Driscoll, the former Labour mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority who joined the Greens last year. The pledge includes a commitment to convene an emergency summit on the crisis in local government funding later this year, led by Green councillors and MPs alongside trade unions and representatives of other parties. Opposing austerity in local government is a tricky ask. Councils are legally required to set a balanced budget. But with expenses soaring – from the cost of the UK’s rapidly ageing population, to the increased cost of temporary accommodation – doing so without cutting non statutory services (such as reducing investment in active transport or closing the local library) proves particularly difficult.
This programme, however, is intended to extend beyond a pre-election pledge: its organisers hope it will re-politicise the issue of cuts to council funding. In Haringey, a north London Green target seat, the local party recently held an event for prospective councillors with Keir Milburn, co-director of the Abundance think tank. Milburn, alongside his co-directors Bertie Russell and Kai Heron, also produced a briefing for Haringey Greens on “popular asset commissions“, a proposed administrative body to oversee community-led development which is intended to inform the group’s 2026 manifesto.
According to a source within Greens Organise, exploring innovative ways for councils to improve local areas within constrained finances is only one part of the challenge. The other is changing the political narrative. The pledge – alongside the proposed emergency summit – is intended to launch a national campaign, led by the Greens, to reshape how central government approaches local government funding. The summit is just the beginning: future actions could include coordinating forms of direct action across Green-led councils, such as walkouts or even collective attempts to set illegal budgets.
For now, the campaign has an explicitly electoral aim. As May approaches, prospective Green councillors will inevitably be asked with increasing frequency: “What are you going to do about cuts?” Members of Greens Organise hope this pledge will give them a clear answer on the doorstep. If and when these candidates are elected, then the real work will begin.
[Further reading: Labour’s mixed messages on the Greens continue]
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