Is it over for Your Party? Between the WhatsApp leaks, the passive-aggressive screenshots and the staffer briefings against Zarah Sultana, I think it’s over for any Your Party not led by or aligned with Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn has undeniable appeal. I mused some time ago that the likely result for a Corbyn-headed party would be upwards of 5 per cent. Corbyn does have appeal. And, now, more Labour voters feel favourable towards Corbyn than towards Keir Starmer.
But Labour would not be the biggest losers if a Corbyn-led party managed to emerge. The Green Party would bleed more votes than Labour.
As far as we can judge from the priors available, a Corbyn Party would win somewhere between 1.5m and 3m votes. It would win some council seats and perhaps a parliamentary contest or two, depending on vote concentration.
That’s not exactly taking the country by storm, but it’s also not nothing. A total implosion of the Your Party project would certainly be a relief to the Greens. For voters determined to rally anywhere to the left of Starmer’s Labour, they would be the only remaining show in town.
Recent headlines of Your Party infighting are only the latest happy turn in a long hot streak for the Greens. Zack Polanski’s victory in the party leadership election this month was not just a clear win, but a blowout.
There is still a long way to go for the Greens. Voter awareness of Polanski is still poor. He is nowhere close to a household name. But is important to remember relativity. Polanski is more widely known than his predecessors Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer: more widely known than Green parliamentarians who enjoyed notable airtime during the 2024 campaign. Polanski is one up on what went before. Literally. And for the Greens, that’s no bad thing.
You might notice that while more voters feel favourably towards Polanski than towards Ramsay or Denyer, more also feel unfavourably towards him. But I would argue that that is no bad thing. Ten per cent favourability is by no means a terrible start, and at this stage I would still focus on raw fame before net favourability. Relevance. Consideration. Polanski, in one sense, is starting to achieve just that.
The Commodore tells Jack Sparrow, “You are by far the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of.”
Sparrow answers, “But you have heard of me.”
If Corbyn voters ever find themselves suddenly without a home, Zack Polanski should make sure that they all know exactly where to find him.
[See also: If not Starmer, then who?]
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