‘Labour’s problem isn’t the Green Party – it’s complacency’

Last week’s Gorton and Denton by-election result should necessitate a radical rethink within Labour on our approach to the Greens. The question should not be why did we lose this seat, but what does the result reveal. The Green vote surged. In one of Labour’s safest seats, many voters decided that when it comes to values, vision and sufficient political courage, they preferred the alternative.

This isn’t a fluke or a manipulated outcome. It’s a pattern which is now accelerating. In 2024, the Greens secured nearly two million votes nationwide – their highest ever total – and increased their parliamentary presence to four MPs.

This followed a record number of Green gains in the 2023 and 2024 local elections, including in the seat I contested for Labour. In many areas, the Greens are now firmly in second place to Labour. The Labour Party can no longer treat them as an eccentric afterthought. They are a credible, organised political force.

And yet the instinctive response of many Labour figures has been to attack. We dismiss the Greens as unserious and politically illiterate. Even worse, we call their voters extreme. Our current strategy seems to be: squeeze them, ridicule them, present them as a wasted vote. This was the approach in Gorton and Denton. But this misunderstands both the Green party and the voters drifting towards it.

‘Labour risks alienating progressive voters, who feel taken for granted’

I’ve seen this from the inside. I’ve run for Parliament for both the Greens and Labour. In local government, I’ve defeated Green candidates and have been beaten by the Greens. In 2024, when I ran for Labour for local government against a Green candidate, our approach was to put out leaflets with bar charts saying the Greens can’t win here. I said it was off-putting to Green voters. It didn’t work. They did win. In Gorton and Denton, the approach was to say that only Labour can defeat Reform. It didn’t work. Now Labour’s approach is to call out Greens’ easy answers. This also won’t work.

In the thousands of door-step conversations I’ve had the last 25 years, what has struck me most is not the difference between Labour and Green voters, but the overlap. Without understanding this, we are making it harder to win back these voters. 

The reality is if you tell people that a party that represents the issues that they care about deeply is not a serious force when they can see that it increasingly is, they will turn away from you and vote for what they believe.

The voters Labour risks alienating are not Tory switchers. They are progressive, socially liberal, pro-public services and deeply concerned about social injustice and climate breakdown. They are teachers, NHS staff, students, charity workers, small business owners. Many voted Labour all their lives. Some still want to. But they feel taken for granted.

READ MORE: ‘Labour needs to rediscover its own authentic populism’

‘The uncomfortable truth’

Here is the uncomfortable truth: you cannot be against a political party instinctively seen as a force for good, particularly on the climate emergency. Every time Labour mocks Green policies as unrealistic, it sounds technocratic and defensive. While Labour may think it common sense to challenge Green policies on drugs and defence, what people hear is an attack on the potential for change.

It reinforces the suspicion that Labour itself lacks ambition or solutions. Worse, when Labour rows back on green investment pledges or frames tackling injustice as risky or unaffordable, it confirms voters’ suspicions. It feeds a politics of despair, even if unintentionally – the idea that we simply cannot afford to transform our economy. That we don’t understand the scale of the crisis.

What Green voters – and those Labour voters who have switched to the Greens – want is hope. A positive vibe. A story about renewal. About warmer homes, cheaper public transport, secure green jobs, cleaner air, thriving high streets, reducing wealth inequality. About investing now to save later. And the need for reform to our outdated voting system.

‘Gorton and Denton is a warning’

The public mood is shifting. People know the status quo is failing. A large majority of the UK public – around 75 to 80 percent – are concerned about rising wealth and income inequality and geographical disparities. Polling consistently shows that most Britons, particularly the under-40s, are worried about climate change. By spending too much time trying to replicate Reform policies, and dismissing the concerns of Green votes, Labour has created a vacuum. And the Greens are increasingly well placed to fill it.

I’ve heard commentators say, well the Greens can’t form the next government. But that misses the point. The Greens don’t need to be in government to shape politics. We’ve seen how Reform has shaped the political weather from the outside. They just need to become the repository of disappointed progressive energy. 

None of this means Labour should copy and paste the Green manifesto. Government requires trade-offs. We don’t have to agree with everything the Greens stand for. We should be brandishing our environmental credentials – our industrial strategy centred on green investment, and our refusal to expand fossil fuel extraction. A confident defence of climate action as economic common sense, acknowledging that the top one percent hold too much power, and meaningful electoral reform, would not alienate voters. It would energise them.

The Gorton and Denton result is not a crisis. It is a warning. Labour can still win the next general election. Progressive voters cannot be taken for granted. The Greens are not the enemy. Complacency is.

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