On the Road to Somewhere

It didn't attract much coverage, but last week The Spectator reported that the co-called 'Gaza Independents' will be registering as a political party in the new year. This follows months of off-again, on-again talks between Jeremy Corbyn supporters, a handful of left notables grouped as Collective, and sundry others. After 30 years of false dawns for new left alternatives, could this be a contender?

A couple of things in the gravy should get picked out before we reach the meat. First, that the political space to Labour's left is so obvious that even the bourgeois press are picking up on it. Patrick Maguire wrote about it for The Times last Thursday, and it got coverage from UnHerd, albeit through the prism of a whinge about religious sectarianism. Because the website's founder would never endorse divisive, extremist politics.

The second point, overlooked by professional politics watchers, is what's happening in the Commons. On 9th December, the Commons Procedure Committee announced an inquiry into the status of independent MPs. This is being explicitly convened to address the formation of the Independent Alliance, the grouping of Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan, and Iqbal Mohamed. This is to establish whether ad hoc groupings can be afforded the same rights as those sitting for registered political parties. It will also examine the "status" of independents, whether they're elected as such or end up losing a party whip. That the IA announced they were formalising themselves as a proper party the day after is sensible lest the committee finds ways of limiting their access to resources.

Considering the party itself, as noted on other occasions Corbyn isn't overly keen at the prospect of a new organisation, favouring a slow and steady community building approach. The issue with this is its strategic indifference to the political opportunities opening now to build something new. Such as the suspension of seven Labour MPs because they stood up for our people. The problems facing a new left party are well understood and have been covered here almost to death. There's the fractious character of the left and the legacies of bureaucratic manoeuvring and little Lenin syndrome, the Greens' left turn, and the outsized privilege any parliamentarian would enjoy in a new organisation. And this is an issue when you look at some of them criticising Labour's tax on landed wealth from the right, and opposition to banning on first cousin marriage. No party discipline works for the Greens because, among their four MPs, there's a great deal of policy agreement. Among an IA left party it's a recipe for internal dissension, chaos, and paralysis.

If these can be overcome, there is a big prize waiting. Of the Westminster parties, none speak to the reality of workers' lives in the 21st century. Labour doesn't, but its commitment to Blue Labourism seems like an excuse to do right wing things rather than a genuine and serious strategic orientation to the working class. The so-called Workers' Party of Britain seeks to fill the sweet spot identified by political scientists - economically radical but socially conservative. George Galloway has said that the "Arab world is dead to me" following the collapse of the Syrian regime, so that gives you an idea about the direction that project is heading. And then the Greens, economically radical and socially liberal - so the party enjoys congruence with most people's outlooks. But the absence of an explicit class orientation in words and deeds does and will continue cutting them off from the most disenfranchised voters - the people the left need to win and activate as a political force. The new alliance, if it gets the class orientation right, could supply Labour with more than a few migraines over this parliament. But, as ever, it depends on the politics and as they stand at the moment it would be wise to temper one's expectations.

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Time for a Left Alternative?

No time for a proper post today as I'll be in London speaking at the first of the Party Time? series of discussions this evening. If you can't make it or fancy a preview, my contribution will draw heavily on the below. This was first published by Labour Hub earlier in the week.

A Conference for a Party that has won its second highest seat tally ever should be an occasion for celebration. But the partying mood appeared absent from Labour’s annual gathering. The week-long feeding frenzy on ‘freebiegate’ would have come as a shock to Keir Starmer supporters who bought into the ‘Mr Rules/grown-up-in-the-room’ image that has been crafted for him. It would have sent a shiver down the dozens of backs of newly minted MPs in marginal constituencies, whose success lies partly in painting their defeated Tory opponents as corrupt and incompetent.

But there are other worries too. The thinness of Labour’s vote demonstrates the shallow relationship ‘Starmerism’ has with the country at large, a level of indifference that saw Labour’s support dip beneath 10 million votes for the first time since 2015. What should be a moment of supreme confidence is shot through with unease.

This is not helped by the results mustered by challenges to Labour’s left. The returning of four MPs – one at Labour’s expense – and almost two million votes suggest the Greens are poised to be a serious problem for Labour during this Parliament. It’s doubtful the Turning the Green tide event at Conference last Sunday would have calmed many jitters coming from this direction.

But what could amount to a bigger and possibly existential problem is the possibility of a viable left alternative. The victory of Jeremy Corbyn and the unexpected wins by four more anti-war Independents, plus very strong results in some places for other left-wing indies and George Galloway’s Workers’ Party could be a foretaste of difficulties to come. The suspension of seven Labour MPs for going against the whip on lifting the Child Benefit cap also creates an (on paper) parliamentary nucleus around which a new united left party could be built. Are the stars aligning for a viable left alternative?

The space is there, so it behoves the extra-Labour left to make the move. Which is what will be debated at the upcoming series of Party Time? public discussions about left strategy under Keir Starmer’s Labour. But it’s not as simple as simply declaring a party, as the last 25 years of left electoral experiments have taught us. The central question for any new party project has to be ‘What is it for?’

The answer for some of the left is straightforward: a combat party capable of taking on the capitalist class and building working class capacities to the point where a revolutionary crisis breaks out, which the party can then prosecute to victory. For others, it’s the creation of a broader party that is simply about challenging Labour from the left. But here, there are issues around whether it should exist to ultimately displace Labour, or act as a pressure group to keep it honest. These are the three strategic positions likely to dominate debate in a new formation and could easily cause it to fall apart in short order, or bring about an unsatisfying fudge that could enshrine permanent factionalism.

Then there are questions about how it should be built. Jeremy Corbyn has argued for a community-focused orientation. He says the sinking of deep roots across Britain is the prerequisite for building something lasting. The truth of this, he suggests, was shown in his own victory against the Labour machine.

The problem is that while this would be ideal, it overlooks how Corbyn’s example is based on his being the MP for Islington North for 41 years, and hamstrings any effort to make the most of the opportunity now in front of the left. The alternative is some central direction, by someone or a collective with a national profile to take the lead. The seven suspended Labour MPs are best placed to do this. Their views are more in tune with public opinion than the Labour leadership’s, and it’s unlikely most will get the whip back soon.

But this too comes with problems. How many, if any, want to take this lead? Do they think their political priorities are better served by remaining left Labour MPs, and therefore seeking readmission to the PLP? And if any do want to take this role on, does this not replicate the priority Labourism accords MPs over the rest of the party, no matter how formally democratic this left alternative sets out to be? And if this is the case, what role in an electoralist party for those who are involved but are committed to a revolutionary project of some sort?

There are no easy answers to these questions, but they have to be grasped, debated, and decided upon, if the extra-Labour left want to build a new party. The gap in Britain’s political ecology is open, and the left have an opportunity to fill it. But the moment is time-sensitive and if it doesn’t, the Greens almost certainly will. What’s it going to be?

Another Strange Death of Liberal England?

Labour's bum note of a triumph in July found its echo in the Liberal Democrats' performance. 72 seats was their best ever performance under modern branding, and you'd have to go back to December 1923 when Herbert Asquith re-entered the Commons with 158 MPs to find them doing better. But the blight in the Lib Dems' garden was the strength of support. 3.5m votes was down on the widely-panned 2019 result. Therefore, while there was much gaiety and partying at conference last week the more thoughtful have been asking why they didn't do better. Especially when taking the circumstances into account.

To be fair to the Lib Dems, within a week of the general election the naysayers were getting published on Lib Dem Voice with refreshing outbreaks of honesty. For example, Chris Whiting wrote that the haul of formerly Tory-held constituencies creates a pressure for the Lib Dems to move right to keep hold of them next time round. He argues this would be a mistake as the Lib Dems are seen as a centre left progressive force by the public and, by implication, the Tories were turfed out in fall cognisance of this fact. Instead, if the party wants to improve on 72 seats between now and the next election it has to stay where it is and swoop in as Labour lurches rightward. A point made here enough times.

Going from his leader's speech, Ed Davey partly disagrees. He also means to carry on as the Lib Dems have been. I.e. No peddling back on the positions the party has taken, and the emphasis on adult social care stays. Nor is there going to be a lurch to the left to intersect with those appalled by Labour's cutting and grasping. Davey has set out his doctrine of "constructive opposition". I.e. Using his two weekly questions at PMQs to cast the Lib Dems as a grown up, critically supportive opposition that isn't out to score points. A lofty ambition in the yah boo sucks pantomime of the Commons, so we'll see how long that lasts. But what Davey is banking on is that when the new Tory leader takes office, they're going to carry on in the same stupid and arrogant way that cost them the election and, by default, the Lib Dems will look better and be poised to take even more seats off the Tories next time. Worth nothing the party is still second placed in more Conservative held than Labour-held seats. And because the mood of British politics has apparently turned toward sensible sensiblism what with Keir Starmer's election, the Lib Dems can profit.

It's a coherent strategy, and one that might navigate the pitfalls of turning too left or too right. It could work. The dream of the Lib Dems coming second and forming the official opposition is far from dead. But it's not without difficulties. Not moving left leaves the field open to the Greens and possibly other left wing forces (if they get their act together), giving both of them a leg up. In the case of the Greens, this is especially dangerous to Lib Dem fortunes because not only is it winning over the more radicalised sections of the new working class, the last two years' worth of council results and winning Waveney Valley and North Hertfordshire from the Tories demonstrates a capacity to eat into the vote that, elsewhere, was predisposed to support the Lib Dems. And this despite the Greens standing on a radical left manifesto.

The opportunities that lie ahead for the Liberal Democrats are pregnant with dangers. It might be that Davey's strategy pays off. His constructive opposition shtick does take more seats from the Tories next time, and sitting Lib Dem MPs largely retain their seats thanks to a parliamentary term of hyper local campaigning. But eschewing the politics might let their Green rivals chip away at the foundations of the decent seat tally the party has built. A reminder that moments of opportunities are also moments of crisis, and this is one that could lead to another strange death of Liberal England.

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After the Child Benefit Rebellion

The occasion was Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Tuesday night, and the ex-MP for Leicester South Jonathan Ashworth said Keir Starmer "won't be losing sleep over the Labour lefties voting against him". Maybe not, but the prospect of a backbench rebellion over retaining the two-child cap was enough for him to threaten Labour MPs with the removal of the whip. Seven brushed off the warnings - Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain, Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, and Zarah Sultana - and the same they now find themselves suspended. At a stroke, a clutch of MPs the Labour right and Starmer wanted rid of, but escaped the axe thanks to the timing of the election and the partial defeat of the efforts to rig selections, are indeed gone. And unless things get tight, it's unlikely any will be allowed to stand as Labour candidates ever again.

We know authoritarianism is a flex for Starmer's politics, and Labour's choice to unnecessarily keep children in poverty has nothing to do with not being able to "afford" lifting the two-child cap. Politically, Starmer supporters can comfort themselves that this "hard choice" is actually the easy choice where public opinion is concerned. The Labour leadership are aware that despite the opposition coming from the left and the labour movement on this, there is no wider political pressure and certainly none from the media that will cost them in the immediate term. Haters are going to hate is the loyalist view, which helps focus minds away from what MPs were voting for: the maintenance of a cruelty millions of children and working class women are forced to bear.

It's true the suspensions break from Labour's traditional way of dealing with dissent. Neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown were as heavy-handed with backbench rebels. A younger Tom Watson might have growled traitor at Labour MPs walking through the opposition lobby, but in a position of strength with an effective majority of 180 Starmer's seems quite the overreaction. Then again, unlike Blair who, in his first term, had a large number of votes to back his claims for a popular mandate Starmer has no such luxury. Getting fewer votes than what was supposed to be Labour's worst performance since 1935, they'll never admit it but as everyone from Reform, the Tories, the Greens, the pol profs, and even those who note political realities without obsessing over the details knows, Labour's huge majority is made of sand. Starmer might be an authoritarian, but choosing to game First Past the Post in cahoots with the Liberal Democrats makes his authoritarianism very brittle indeed. And, in practice, such a politics has the historic tendency of covering for weakness by affecting strength.

Except conditions have now changed. Were this 20 years ago, unless one was George Galloway with his unerring ability to find his way back into the Commons, this would have meant the end for excluded Labour MPs. But this is now. Because of the results the Greens, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Gaza Independents were achieved, exile from the PLP does not mean the end. There is a constituency for an anti-imperialist, anti-austerity, green, pro-working class politics that is capable of returning MPs. But now with a cadre of eight former Labour MPs sat on the backbenches, it's decision time. In his reflections on his victory, Corbyn argued that his community rootedness enabled him to bat away the kitchen sinks bowled at his seat by Labour. A party cannot simply be declared, it has to be built from the ground up. But now, with seven MPs getting thrown out, tens of thousands of activists ready to go, and a Labour Party whose policy orientation is obvious has left a huge space to its left. That base for a new party Corbyn speaks of in hypotheticals already exists, and is likely to get larger as Starmer dismantles his party's coalition. If the parliamentary leadership ot the socialist/independent left/reborn ILP in embryo doesn't seize the moment, the insurgent Greens and the much, much worse Workers' Party are in with a stab of hegemonising it. What's it to be?

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Vote as Left as You Can

Everyone's doing their voting recommendations. The Sunday Times begrudgingly came out for Labour. The FT were more enthusiastic with their endorsement. And always wanting to associate themselves with success, The Sun are endorsing Keir Starmer too. But ... what about this place? Having spent the last six weeks prattling on about scandals and stupidities, no recommendation has been forthcoming from these here parts.

Before leaving Labour, I was minded to make an argument not dissimilar to that (disingenuously) pushed by the Jewish Labour Movement and The New Statesman in 2019 I.e. No recommendation of a blanket Labour vote. Their positioning was driven by an overall desire to see the left defeated so the right could salvage Labour from the post-election wreckage. This time, there is zero chance of electoral calamity. As always, the left's position should be in mirror image of what they did then. That is mobilising from a desire to strengthen the position of left wing politics.

As we know, Labour are going to win and win big. But the projected low turnout, the Green Party's positioning, the strong challenges from independent lefts in a handful of seats and George Galloway in Rochdale, plus the traction these are getting on social media has led to a few furrowed brows. The higher ups read the same polls as everyone else. Regardless of the coming vainglorious outpourings post-election, harder heads know there's no love for Starmer or "changed Labour". They understand that many of the seats delivered on Friday morning are partly because of a split on the right and the generalised anti-Tory mood. And that the right will possibly be neutered as an oppositional force for a while has led to the finger wagging "if you want change, you've got to vote for it" slogan.

Millions do want change thank you very much, and have absolutely no faith a Starmer government will deliver it. Therefore, as per the arguments made by Owen Jones and many others, under these circumstances Labour needs to feel electoral heat from the left. This begins with rejecting outright calls for a comprehensive anti-Labour vote. It remains likely that the only socialists who will stand up to Starmer on the backsliding from the few decent commitments in the policy-lite manifesto, on his failures over Gaza, on racism, and on climate change are those elected on a Labour ticket. But electing Labour left wingers is not enough, seeing as recent experience has shown they can be cowed by whip removal/deselection threats. So the returning of Green MPs and independent lefts, such as the disgracefully discarded Jeremy Corbyn and Faiza Shaheen, would serve as a reminder that the left has more heft than street mobilisations. In this context and in nearly all cases, votes for socialist/communist/far left groups are wastes of time. Not because I'm an incorrigible sectarian, but because they generally mean nothing to their recipients and don't lead anywhere. Regarding the petit bourgeois and populist character of the Workers' Party of Britain, my recommendation for those contemplating supporting them depends on the political character of the candidate.

What about tactical voting? As left wing votes should be guided by strategic thinking, and that building left pressure in parliament is guiding most of the extra-Labour left's campaigning efforts, that logically entails minimising pressure from the right. To be sure, having the Tories come third won't be a magical cure-all for the baleful influence the right has, but it would constitute a historic defeat of the most class conscious and reactionary sections of British capital. As a rump Tory party gets on with its civil war with Farage's Reform, the greater the opening for left and Green positions to steer oppositional politics to Starmerism. That doesn't just mean putting on the nose peg and voting Labour in the raft of marginals the Tory collapse is opening up, but also doing the same in straightforward Liberal Democrat/Tory and SNP/Tory fights.

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The Green Party's Leftism

It's the day when fake political party Reform UK finally launched its "manifesto". But they get enough unwarranted coverage, so let's look at the Green Party's manifesto. Having enjoyed a bit of publicity following former Labour general secretary Jennie Formby's endorsement, it's not difficult to see why. For left wing people, there is a lot to like in the document.

Contrary to Labour's manifesto, which demands a dollop of self-delusion to be described as a radical document, no such mental gyrations have to be performed while leafing through the Greens'. On page 15, we find a promise to explore mutualisation as an alternative form of ownership, including taking existing firms into cooperative ownership in some circumstances. Unlike Labour and its crash diet offer to workers, at least compared with a a couple of years ago, the Greens stand for repealing all the anti-trade union laws since 1979, a £15/hr minimum wage, strict pay ratios across the economy, the adoption of single status for workers (dumped by Labour after business lobbying), and working toward the four-day week (p.17). On social security, the two child limit for child benefit would be scrapped, as would the cruelty of waiting times. Elected Greens would press for the abolition of the bedroom tax, and an uprating of benefits by £40/week. State pensions would be linked to inflation, and experiments with the basic income would take place (p.19). And where the rich are concerned, those with over £10m would see their tax bill rise by one per cent, and billionaire wealth would be taxed by an annual 2%. Tax dodge free ports/enterprise zones would be scrapped, Labour's self-imposed fiscal rules binned, and VAT applied to private school fees and finance (p.20).

This wouldn't go far enough as far as some are concerned, but it does match the ambition and scope of Labour's Corbynist manifestos. But is this, as some centrist critics suggest, merely a shopping list likely to put off more than it attracts (because, in British politics, the grown ups have decided we're not allowed nice things), an effort at offering left policies to soak up support from the not insubstantial numbers who've grown disgusted with Labour and its leadership?

Actually, yes. On the left the Greens have long been regarded as a petit bourgeois party, albeit a radical one versus the populist right and those fishing in similar waters. As such, the Greens have traditionally appealed to a constituency not dissimilar to the Liberal Democrats - small business people, sections of the state/public sector, the professions. The party continues to appeal to this layer, and has made significant advances into Tory support in the countryside. They do so because they intersect with conservationist values, which has always been a concern for rural conservatives, and in this vein are the only party that takes environmentalism and climate change seriously. That and the Greens present themselves as an unsullied political force, one that would not raise the heckles that Labour might in certain corners of the country. Despite the Greens' radical left positions.

To be fair to the Greens, its positioning has been well to the left of the other parties for over 20 years. But this time, it's intersecting with the decomposition of the Labour base Jeremy Corbyn bequeathed Keir Starmer. Without going into the specifics, Starmer's purge of the left - which is now freely admitted - was always going to drive away some of the membership and a wider layer of diffuse support by turning against the interests and socially liberal values of the rising layer of, to use Starmer's favourite term, working people. Compounding this was the alienation of traditionally Labour-loyal communities, namely British Muslims and black Britons, and the abandonment of the most vulnerable. As the Greens have grown off the back of a new wave of activists flowing into the party from these quarters, it's beginning to acquire a new core support. As Starmer wants politics to tread lightly on people's lives, in reality it will continue stamping heavily on their interests and aspirations. The Greens are well positioned to make good the opportunities the Labour leader throws their way.

It's best then to think of the Green manifesto as an anchor. It reflects the values and ambitions of the rising class of immaterial workers more closely than Labour's programme for government does, and is cohering a new networks of stable support than the party has previously enjoyed. Manifestos are always more than what a party would do in government. It shows what interests they want to serve, and how they're going about articulating them. The Greens are showing that they're attuned to the class politics of the moment, and can expect to do well from them in the years to come.

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Politics after George Galloway's Victory

Following George Galloway's emphatic win in Rochdale on Thursday, a lot of excuses have got thrown into circulation. There were the unique set of circumstances after Labour disowned its candidate. There was the strong local independent. Reform had toured the town's gutters and dredged up the late career of mobile phone sex pest Simon Danczuk. The Greens disowned their candidate too, and the Galloway circus had rolled into town. We're led to believe that had Azhar Ali not made his ill-judged comments, the Labour campaign machine would have steamrollered the opposition and another by-election victory chalked up by Keir Starmer would have been the assured result.

This is fanciful nonsense. As Galloway noted in his victory speech, this is the first time since the war that neither of the dominant parties made it into the top two positions. Labour's vote fell by a record amount, and the Tories also saw a new record set for the largest vote share fall in a Labour-held constituency. A history maker all-round then. There was some faint hope in Labour circles that their erstwhile candidate would sneak through because his suspension came after the postal votes dropped, and he would still be appearing on the ballot with the party name. Hopes that were shredded like so many unread Labour leaflets. With Galloway now sitting on a cushion of 6,000 votes, or an effective majority of 10,000 if you take Labour's hopes of winning it back at the general election into account, there is a distinct possibility he could be around to annoy Starmer for the next five years.

Starmer has seen the polls and been told in no uncertain terms that there would be political consequences for supporting the massacre in Gaza. Indeed, the alarm went off loudly and clearly early last month when Survation reported a collapse in Muslim support. But Starmer has brushed it off. Toeing the US line on Israel is more important to him than responding to loyal supporters that have put him on the doorstep of Number 10. And given his entire project represents the take over of the state by the state, this shouldn't come as much of a shocker.

But what, if anything, does Galloway's galloping victory mean for politics? In the first instance, there will be some fretful Labour MPs out there. The chances of independent left challenges with a similar pro-Gaza, anti-genocide message can't be discounted. Nor can the window of opportunity for the Greens. It could help them secure the retirement of Thangam Debbonaire, and perhaps scoop up Sheffield Central as well. But while it's squeaky bum time for Labour MPs in "exposed" seats, Starmer is determined to press on as is. The reasoning is as straightforward as it is pigheaded. The polls show Labour is on for a thumping majority, therefore dropping a handful of seats at best to the Greens, Galloway, and the odd independent left is something Starmer can live with. For every Rochdale, there are three, four, many Wellingboroughs and Kingswoods.

The business-as-usual approach was reasserted this evening. In what looked like a panicky press conference, Rishi Sunak got out the Downing Street lectern to denounce division and hate in Britain. No, he wasn't talking about his own party but those evil protesters who refuse to quieten down about Britain's complicity in an ongoing massacre. It's a feeble attempt to try and cohere Tory unity around an enemy all wings of his fractured party hate - the Palestinian solidarity movement. Thus Galloway is invoked as a divisive bogeyman, a symbol of the non-existent no-go areas and the nudge, nudge, wink, wink Islamist wave the Tories cynically pretend is sweeping Britain. The protests have to stop. They are a threat to democracy.

Actually, what these complaints about the protests signal are deep anxieties among some sections of the establishment that they represent an unforeseen and unwelcome outbreak of mass political volatility, of which Galloway's election is a symptom. And Starmer agrees with this. As cabinet member after cabinet member have been talking up the threats of terrorism and the "intimidation" of MPs this last week, he's said Labour would back government measures to crank the handle of authoritarianism some more. As if we hadn't had enough from Boris Johnson. But here we encounter a potential problem for Starmer. His own MPs see this as a feeble overreach by Sunak, and so do some of his supporters among the centrist commentariat. In other words, he's badly misread the politics of the moment and runs the risk of damaging his standing among those who are his natural base. Which isn't good when it was looking a touch shaky even before he gave his blessings to Israel.

Going back to Galloway's victory speech, he talked about his victory being the beginning of a movement that could shake up politics. In this he's wrong. What happened in Rochdale is a moment in the shifting plates political struggle whose latest episode began in October. With both party leaders demonstrating their weakness by recourse to authoritarian laws and tone deafedness with regard to the message the protests and the electorate have sent, this is a process that has a long road to run yet.

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On the Green Party's Four for '24 Strategy

It's been evident for a while that the Greens are on a roll. After its best ever results at 2023's local elections, it has 745 councillors to its name. It governs in coalition in several local authorities and won Mid-Suffolk outright - the first time a Green Party has taken sole control of a council anywhere in Western Europe. The increased emphasis on popular left wing policies, support for workers in struggle, and speaking out against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has seen their membership grow handsomely. And reflecting this increased strength, the Greens are going to stand everywhere in England and Wales when the election comes (the Scottish Greens, who organise separately, are committed to doing the same). Electoral Calculus also suggests they are in with a shout of taking the new Bristol Central seat, depriving Thangam Debbonaire of her place in the Commons.

There have been false dawns for the Greens before. In 1989 they polled 14.5% in the European Parliamentary elections. Because these were then ran on first-past-the-post this meant no MEPs, but they came out with triple the support of the then Social and Liberal Democrats, and it did spook the mainstream parties and their press friends. I recall a Dominic Sandbrook-style look forward in the News of the World that predicted a future fit for trees, but less so for people. Consumer choice was winnowed down and the ration books had made a comeback. All more than possible precisely because of the environmental problems the party highlighted. The Greens had hit the zeitgeist and their popularity spiked as the general public became aware of climate change (then dubbed the greenhouse effect), the threats to the ozone layer and what that meant, problems with acid rain, and how McDonald's and other fast food joints were driving deforestation in the Amazon basin. From that point on, all parties affected to take environmental issues seriously and the Greens were unable to capitalise on this temporary surge in support.

A much smaller wave crested in 2015. Following a relatively good showing in the 2014 EU elections (the Greens polled seven per cent and netted three MEPs), and then establishment politics' near-death experience with the Scottish independence referendum, the party put on membership weight as Labour were committed to Ed Miliband's Milquetoast agenda and there was no outlet for the small radical surge in England and Wales. Except for the Greens. This brought in more resources and more activists, and they subsequently stood in a record 538 constituencies and polled 1.1 million votes. Circumstances prevented the Greens from building on this growth in support when Labour went to the left and its activist and voter base decamped in large numbers to the bright lights and big cities of Corbynism.

And then there was 2019. In the course of the Brexit wars the Greens adopted a hard second referendum position, which attracted support from the more Europhile wings of Labour leftism disappointed in the untenable (but understandable) efforts of the Labour leadership to abide by the Brexit result. In the UK's last EU elections, they came within shouting distance of the 1989 peak with just under 12% of the vote and a return of seven MEPs. But that was far from replicated in the general election, though they improved on their 2017 figures. And then Covid intervened preventing an early capitalisation on Labour's return to managerial politics and Keir Starmer's found enthusiasm for Brexit.

The Greens' successes in 2023 differs from previous upticks in support because it's built on firmer foundations. Without any kind of media backing, unlike the incessant hype lavished on no-hopers Reform UK, the Greens have taken on the lessons of the Lib Dems in the 90s and built up their organisation at local level. And the investments are beginning to pay dividends. Which brings us to the so-called 'Four for '24' strategy.

Announced at conference in October, despite standing everywhere campaign resources are being concentrated in four seats: Brighton Pavilion, where Caroline Lucas is standing down and Sian Berry is taking her place. The aforementioned Bristol Central with co-leader Carla Denyer in the hot seat. Her counterpart Adrian Ramsey is taking up the cudgels in Waveney Valley, which should be safe Tory territory but where the Greens won several of their councillors last May. And North Herefordshire where the Greens also have a solid local government base, and in 2019 Ellie Chowns won over nine per cent of the vote. This makes perfect sense. But how does this sit with standing everywhere? Isn't four-for-24 undermined by this ambition? Not necessarily, and not in the way the Greens are implementing it.

Apart from the cost of deposits for all the English and Welsh constituencies, standing everywhere has a number of important effects. It's a morale boost for the membership and shows how much the party has come along this century. It means the Greens will benefit from more localised coverage. It should theoretically entitle them to more national coverage. Under Ofcom rules, the more seats the party stands in the more credible the case is for more election broadcasts than previously. And this wide notice can trickle down to the targeted seats, showing prospective voters the party is small but a nationwide force that has been recognised as such. And there are some important consequences the focused strategy has that go beyond the chances of retaining one seat and gaining up to three more.

One reason Corbynism was dispersed fairly quickly was the prospect of its failure was not prepared for. Demoralisation was an entirely predictable consequence, as so it proved. On a much smaller scale, the election campaigns of the far left, which have neither strategic rhyme nor reason stand in seemingly random constituencies, expend scarce resources for zero return, and end up burning through activists who were hopeful of at least saving the deposit. Instead the Greens are combining ambition and modesty. While flexing their newly gained muscle, they are also accepting political realities: that the party stands a chance in a tiny handful of places. This manages their membership's expectations, so few are going to get carried away thinking Starmer's abandonment of his Corbyn-lite platform will see a Green sweep of the board. By grounding aspiration, it's pointing to what the party has to do next. I.e. Carry on the hard yards of building up community organisation and local support. This is the best way, the only way the Greens can be well placed to benefit from disaffection with Labour. It continues during the next round of local elections (122 council seats need defending on top of hopes for an advance) and by the end of the next Parliament ensuring the party becomes a beneficiary of parliamentary by-election discontent. And the political positioning appropriate to this is not posturing as a government-in-waiting, but as the only party capable of offering effective opposition. After all, the Tories are already in the process of surrendering this responsibility while they're still in office.

The Green approach to the next election is a rare example of strategic nous informed by modest realism and basic honesty. There are no guarantees in politics, hence why it's more an art than a science. But the Greens have made an assessment of where they are, where they want to be and are acting accordingly. And if they remain this hard headed and Starmer continues ploughing his present course, there's a chance that over the next five years the party goes from a localised annoyance to a threat that Labour has to take seriously.

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Does Greatness Await the Greens?

In the last decade there have been two Green surges. The first, in early 2015, saw party membership swell by tens of thousands in response to a grassroots social media campaign. With UKIP then hogging all the "minor party" interest as far as headline writers were concerned and Labour in Milquetoast mode, the huge bump in support was a diffuse and inchoate protest against poisonous politics. In 2019, after having been diminished by Corbynism the Greens surged again. In the EU elections the UK was forced to participate in, the Greens increased its MEP count to seven with 1.8m votes, beating the Tories into fourth place with 1.8m votes (12%) - the party's best result since it came third in the same elections in 1989. And now, arguably, the Greens are experiencing a third surge and one that might establish them as a force to be reckoned with.

Traditionally the Greens have been characterised as a petit bourgeois party by the left, even if their programme in the 2020s is more radical and pro-worker than what Keir Starmer will put in the next Labour manifesto. But while there are understandable reasons to reject Labour - and I don't blame anyone on the left who does - what appears to be fuelling Green growth in elections is collapsing support for the Conservatives. Over the last year, it's mostly Tory seats that have tumbled to the Greens. Only a smattering of Labour and Liberal Democrat seats were among the scalps the party wracked up in this year's local elections.

The argument long made on here is about a fundamental shift toward immaterial labour in working class and middle class occupations. That is the central concern for increasing numbers of working age people is the production of social production: the interrelated production of social relationships, education, information, subjectivities, and care in the context of an economy dominated by the buying and selling of services. This has had profound consequences on the practical consciousness of class tending toward socially liberal values. Sociality, the ability to be comfortable with diversity, of interacting, relating, and empathising with people as they are found is an everyday virtue - despite the best efforts of the government at trying to reverse this increasingly powerful consensus. This helps explain the stark age splits revealed in surveys of voting behaviour and values. The younger one is, the more likely their education and career has socialised them into the spontaneously tolerant outlook of immaterial labour. Of course, socialised workers are not an unvariegated mass. Profession and occupation, inherited class position and property ownership, the experiences of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, disability, age, location, the privatisation of leisure combine and recombine in multiples of shifting identities. For all that, instead of being all over the place they - the totality of working age people - tend toward an anti-Tory politics. Even in the 2019 general election, the nadir of Corbyn's leadership, Labour were still the most popular party among working age people.

Therefore, as Keir Starmer moves Labour away from social liberalism and, crucially, the interests of the socialised worker the party will face significant difficulties. This, as argued here plenty times, is unlikely to manifest before the general election but once in office there's no reason why the Greens (and the Liberal Democrats) shouldn't benefit from an alienation of Labour's support from the party. There will be plenty of flashpoints, and the Tories have so thoroughly salted the ground that their being the beneficiary of anti-Labour opposition among this group of voters is not very likely. But this is the future. The Greens as a party with a radical programme with a strong pro-worker, pro-trade union spine are doing well now at the Tories' expense in formerly safe Conservative districts. How might this be explained, and does it mean the Greens can look forward to more gains from this quarter?

Looking at council by-elections so far this year, there has been profit from tactical voting. In parliamentary by-elections Labour and the Lib Dems have reaped the rewards, while at local level the Greens are surging as never before. But why are they benefiting now? A lot has to do with the fracturing of the Tory voter coalition. While pensioner power that put the Tories in office and sustained them there, over the last decade the party has been able to win over just enough working age people to win their majorities. These are, disproportionately, small business owners, older workers, homeowners/mortgage holders and layers of professional-managerial people. In previous decades, before the growing reliance on retirees, these were the bedrock of Tory support and while some are still in the Tory van, these last few years they have kissed goodbye to mortgage holders and their support has eroded significantly among the professional-managerial cadres. It's not difficult to work out why. Unlike their public sector counterparts who more or less stuck with Labour from the Blair-Brown years to the present, constant attacks on professional occupations and a traducing of expertise generally, married to Conservatives behaving badly has sullied the party's reputation. Among the managerial caste - mainly in business - the disastrous consequences of Brexit, the lack of regulatory certainty from government, the state's increasing decrepitude, and complete failure to do anything about the country's deep-seated problems is shying them away.

Tailor-made for Keir Starmer's Labour, you might think. And polls looking at the intentions of 2019 Tory voters find about 10% of those who won't be supporting Rishi Sunak this time are going for Labour. Lower numbers are transferring to the Lib Dems ad the Greens, with don't know/won't vote by far the largest group. But the local council elections and by-elections showing occasional eviscerations of the Tories at the Greens' hands, how might a party well to the left of Labour be intersecting with a not-very-left electorate? Tactical voting only goes far, especially where the Greens have not previously been a factor in the places they've won. The more cynical might alight on how local parties campaign. Particularly where NIMBYism takes hold, such as Green opposition to solar farms for example. But neither by themselves can explain the generalised advance we're seeing at local government level.

There seem to be a few other processes going on. The first is the Greens' big selling point: environmentalism. The big scare the Greens gave the main parties in the 1989 European Community elections ensured "the green house effect" and other environmental concerns were forever paid lip service to subsequently. But repeated Tory stupidities over fossil fuels and refusal to take the climate crisis seriously is seeing the party being abandoned in droves in the county shires where the conservationist tendencies of former Tory support is now transferring to the party most serious about the issue. Second, the Greens are 'nice'. By that, I mean they're at a remove from the knockabout of politics. The party hasn't been embroiled in corruption or pushed divisive politics, and are therefore "untainted". When Conservatism is synonymous with amoral politics and immoral behaviour, the Greens are a clean option. And lastly, they're not Labour. Party antipathy is as powerful a push factor as party identification is in pulling the votes in. For former Tory voters shopping around for an alternative, Reform are too crude and too much like what they're revolting against. The Lib Dems are the usual protest outlet, but are embroiled in the Westminster circus which is so off-putting these days. Which leaves the Greens as the default option, and one many are prepared to support because even if they're "lefty" they can't do much damage on the borough or district council. Their environmental credibility, their political cleanliness, and their coming from a low base endears them to a swathe of loyal Tory support fed up with the status quo but for whom Labour is a step too far.

Between now and the next election, there's no reason to believe this dynamic won't continue eating into the Tory local government base. But success here will bring the Greens some difficulties. Can their party sustain a coalition comprising former Tories from the shires and the younger, more proletarianised, urbanised, and radical socialised workers? With Labour in government, while the Tories in opposition would remain repugnant for most working age people might some of the former Tories attracted to the Greens now return to the fold in the unlikely event of the party's next leader not being a right winger determined to head the party into the wilderness? These are all problems for the future. In as much there are certainties in politics, here are a couple: the Greens will continue to build before the election. And after, though there will be tensions between the two sources of the party's support Starmer's authoritarian and managerial politics will open the gate to an historic opportunity.

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Local Council By-Elections July 2023

This month saw 38,673 votes cast in 16 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Seven council seats changed hands. For comparison with June's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Jun	+/- Jun 22	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	15	11,054	28.6%	-3.1	+3.3	737	-1
Labour	13	11,964	30.9%	-0.3	+1.0	920	-1
Lib Dem	13	5,165	13.4%	-8.4	-10.9	397	0
Green	10	5,282	13.7%	+6.4	+6.9	528	+2
SNP*	1	778	2.0%	+0.7	+1.8	778	-1
PC**	1	290	0.7%	+0.7	-0.7	290	0
Ind***	16	3,367	8.7%	+8.1	-2.6	210	+1
Other****	10	773	2.0%	-4.0	+1.2	77	0

* There was one by-election in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There was one set of Independent clashes this month
**** Others contesting seats in July were Heritage Party (55), Reform (278, 23, 58, 61, 174), Scottish Family Party (42), TUSC (52, 12), Yorkshire Party (28)

This is a very significant month for the Greens. Firstly, they "won" coming out of July's by-elections with the largest net gain. Which, if memory serves, is the first time they have done so. Second, I believe the party has scored its highest vote share since I've been tracking council by-elections (over 10 years now, where has the time gone?). And lastly, this is the first set of "proper" by-elections where the Green popular vote has overtaken the Liberal Democrats ever. If you don't like the Greens, that's tough because there are going to be an awful lot more votes like this over the coming years. Especially after Labour takes office.

As for the rest, there was nothing to write home about. No spectacular Liberal Democrat gains. The Tories won two new seats but lost three, and Labour netted a new seat while losing two, one of which was exchanged with the Conservatives. Apart from that, there's no real news except for the historic Green performance.

4 July
Cambridge, King's Hedges, Con gain from Lab

6 July
Kent, Maidstone Central, LDem hold
South Lanarkshire, East Kilbride West, Lab gain from SNP

13 July
City of London, Castle Baynard, Ind hold
Newham, Boleyn, Ind gain from Lab
Newham, Wall End, Lab hold
Norfolk, West Depwade, Grn gain from Con
Rotherham, Dinnington, Con hold

20 July
Ceredigion, Llanfarian, LDem hold
Swindon, St Margaret & South Marston, Con gain from Lab
Worcester, Nunnery, Lab hold

27 July
Buckinghamshire, Denham, Con hold
East Sussex, Heathfield & Mayfield, Grn gain from Con
Plymouth, Plymstock Dunstone, Lab gain from Con
Plymouth, St Peter & The Waterfront, Lab hold
Warrington, Paulton North, Lab hold