Stella Tsantekidou column: ‘Vote Green, get Reform is not just Evil Sociopath propaganda’

If you have established which of the newest tribes of the Labour Party you belong to (Pathetic Loser, Evil Sociopath) you may now be measuring out your options. Enemies of the people are briefing the tabloids that some of our Pathetic Losers are considering abandoning ship to join other Pathetic Losers in the Green Party. Others believe with our Evil Sociopaths’ days are numbered, the mob is at the gates demanding Peter Mandelson’s head on a pike, and they won’t want to get caught up as collateral so may just as well cut their loses and get a job with big Tech or, while the entrance bar is low, why not infiltrate the Tories, the OG winners, where mummy always said they belonged. 

If you are in the latter category, don’t let the door hit you on your way out. If you are in the former, tough luck. It is I, the most evil and sociopathic of the Pathetic Loser tribe, who is responsible for the exit interviews, and I have some hard truths to share with you.

The Gorton & Denton by-election is not proof of concept for how the Greens can win power (and the left is not known for being bothered by that). The Green victory was an exception that required: a 28 percent Muslim population, left-of-Labour field-clearing, and an anti-government protest dynamic. The Green electoral model depends on three overlapping demographics, which I would crudely summarise as: young graduates, Muslim voters angry about Gaza, and Remainers in high-density urban areas. These demographics cluster in roughly 30–50 seats in England and Wales. In the other 550+ seats, the math ain’t mathing. The Greens will drag down or even push past Labour but can’t pull enough to win 89 post-industrial Northern England seats where Reform came second to Labour in 2024. Or the formerly Conservative strongholds of suburban and rural England, where Reform is now at the very least second. 

READ MORE: Stella Tsantekidou column: ‘What are we to make of the Labour Together scandal?’

Being a long-suffering one myself, I know Pathetic Losers don’t like facts and logic, so next, I want to speak about our purpose as a party. It is only the Labour Party that is institutionally motivated to serve the interests of the working class. 

Look, the rumours are true. We are a disproportionately middle-class people party. But if the world continues this way, there will soon be no middle class, just a massive underclass of slave labour and a tiny shrivel of super-rich oligarchs at the top. 

If you are reading this, let me assure you, you will end up in the lower class, so don’t feel like a hypocrite if you were raised in comfort. With the current trajectory of technofascists’ ever-expanding encroachment in our democracy and economy,  your grandkids, if not your children, are unlikely to have the same privileges you enjoyed.

Having said that, working-class representation in a left-wing party is not just important; it is essential. I like to define class by income and dependence on wages, not just by background and profession, but for the purposes of a left-wing party, it is essential that there is a blue-collar focus. In a capitalist world, there is no democracy without a strong workers’ movement to counterbalance the power of capital. Only organised labour can tell capital to do one when they are being greedy. This is why only the Labour Party, a party institutionally and historically linked to the trade union movement, can be the vehicle for people power.

In the UK, Reform has emerged as the main working-class LARPer (Live Action Role Play); meanwhile, Green voters are overwhelmingly middle-class graduates.

While many of us Pathetic Losers with Evil Sociopath traits were seething with envy over the Greens sourcing a unicorn female plumber as a Parliamentary candidate, their actual policies do not reflect a mature focus on blue-collar workers and industry. One example of the class gulf between our parties is their outdated stance on nuclear power. Labour is investing £30 billion in an industry that employs working-class people in skilled, unionised jobs in places like Barrow, Derby, and Anglesey- communities with no alternative economic base. The Greens would shut it all down on the basis of arguments about waste and weapons linkage that their own members increasingly reject. Equally, they have neither the trade union relationships nor the institutional capacity to deliver the “just transition” they promise. Labour builds nuclear power stations that employ welders and construction workers and can rebuild our economic base back stronger; the Greens make trolling Yankee-brained TikTok videos. 

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

The Greens’ energy policy is criminally misguided for a party that claims to fight fascism and climate change. Studies have shown that “higher electricity expenditures increase voter support for the radical right” and that “electric grievances are associated with increased support for the radical right”. Voters link soaring electricity prices to ambitious decarbonisation policies, so they begin to see parties that support green policies as the cause of their impoverishment. When you see the Green Party in Germany shutting down its last remaining nuclear power stations at a time of international energy crisis, you realise that voters have a point.

Again, that’s not Evil-Sociopath-hoping-to get-Big-Oil-job-after-government propaganda. The Green Party’s opposition to nuclear power (which provides stable baseload power) and exclusive reliance on renewables (which require expensive storage, backup, and grid upgrades) translates directly into higher bills for working-class households. Working-class voters don’t move left toward more redistribution when their energy bills go up, but right toward parties that oppose climate policy altogether.

Share your thoughts. Contribute on this story or tell your own by writing to our Editor. The best letters every week will be published on the site. Find out how to get your letter published.

No, I don’t believe you should accept a party that doesn’t represent you. I argue that you pull yourself together and fight for the change you want to see. And if you suffer from wishful thinking about the Green Party’s capacity to fight fascism and represent ‘the people’, pick up a history book and an Energy Market report. You may rejoin the class whenever you are ready to face reality.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • DONATE: If you value our work, please chip in a few pounds a week and become one of our supporters, helping sustain and expand our coverage.
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].