The Green Party plans to accuse Shabana Mahmood of “fiscal constraint and economic orthodoxy” as well as highlighting her controversial immigration reforms should she be appointed as Andy Burnham’s chancellor, the New Statesman can reveal. A source told the NS that the party has begun to scale up its general election preparation in light of news of Mahmood’s potential appointment.
According to an internal memo seen by the New Statesman, the Greens intend to make the case to left-wing voters that Mahmood’s economic ideas are the “polar opposite of what’s needed to balance wealth and power in this country”. The party also plans to highlight previous comments by the Home Secretary including citing Margaret Thatcher as her political heroine, and will accuse her of using the phrase “tough choices” as a code for spending cuts while she was a shadow treasury minister between October 2013 and May 2015.
Burnham was elected leader of the Labour Party on Friday (17 July) and will formally take over from Keir Starmer as prime minister on Monday (20 July). Over the past week, multiple reports have suggested that Mahmood is the new Labour leader’s choice to take over No 11. However, in his acceptance speech, Burnham said he had yet to decide who would be appointed to roles around the cabinet table.
A Green source told the NS: “Mahmood as chancellor would be an absolute gift to us”. They added: “Burnham promised a new direction, but it looks like he’s already capitulating to the same establishment forces that have hollowed out the Labour Party for years.” The source said that should Burnham appoint Mahmood as his chancellor it suggests he “has no idea why Labour has been haemorrhaging votes to the Greens”.
Speculation over Mahmood’s appointment has already raised eyebrows on the left of the Labour Party. On Friday (17 July) members of the soft-left pressure group of Labour MPs – Mainstream – called on Burnham to appoint Ed Miliband as a “progressive” choice chancellor.
The Green Party is clearly hoping to still continue to take votes from Labour’s left flank, despite a Burnham premiership. Another internal document, seen by the New Statesman, mentions holding the new Labour leader to account over a series of policy areas such as rent controls, Gaza, wealth taxes and climate action. The party plans to portray Burnham as “semi-skimmed Andy”. The document reads: “Unlike semi-skimmed Andy, Greens are committed to full-fat implementation of the policies that matter to Labour-Green swing voters – and we’ll highlight his empty promises for what they are.”
Burnham’s return to Westminster has been seen by some as diminishing the Greens potential to take left-wing voters from the Labour Party. Keir Starmer’s unpopularity and hostility to parts of the Labour left made attacking the government far easier for Zack Polanski’s insurgent Greens.
Party insiders push back on this assumption and point out that, according to their own internal analysis, Labour voters who have gone Green are likely to remain. “We know that once people vote Green once, they tend to stick with us,” a source said, “people don’t see it as ‘lending’ us their vote.” But the party’s latest attack lines are clearly intended to try and pull left-wing voters back. Even so, Burnham’s cabinet appointments are still all to play for.
[Further reading: Burnham’s Labour left allies call for a “progressive chancellor”]
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Subscribe here to commentThe Greens need to be patient. They will know who on Monday and what when the first budget is outlined. Eventually, I hope they will recognise that they, like Labour and the LibDems, are part of the progressive side of British politics and should not be fighting each other. If the Greens and LibDems had agreed to a single candidate in the Norfolk Police Commissioner contest they would have won. Instead they came third behind Reform, who won, and the Tories, who came second and usually won. There is an urgent need to recognise the Enemy and compromise to defeat the Enemy.