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Labor will face another attack from Green party in key marginal seats in this general election, as the group known primarily for its climate stance tries to reach voters who want radical change, not centrism.
In stark contrast to all the main parties, the Greens will make an unabashed case for higher taxes, which they say are needed to fund the NHS, education and other priorities, alongside their call for much stronger action on the climate crisis.
According to a recent YouGov survey, the Green Party is particularly strong among younger voters, coming second among under-30s behind the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. Local elections have shown voters switching to the Greens from the Lib Dems and even the Conservatives.
James Crouch, head of policy and public affairs research at Opinium, said: “The left-of-centre landscape is now more complex – voters who might have looked to the Lib Dems as an alternative to the two main parties now have the Greens too .”
Many of the Green Party’s target voters, however, are likely to come from Labour, disillusioned with Keir Starmer’s position on the war in Gaza and the watering of Labor pledge to invest £28 billion a year to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Labor lost seats to the Greens in local elections in May in Bristol, Stroud, Newcastle, South Tyneside and other areas, including those with large Muslim populations, in what was seen as a reaction to Labour’s position on Gaza.
The leadership of the Green Party is focusing on just four locations think they can win: Brighton Pavilion, held by the outgoing Caroline Lucas since 2010; Bristol Central, a newly created seat to be contested by party co-leader Carla Denier; Waveney Valley, another new seat situated between Norfolk and Suffolk, where co-leader Adrian Ramsay will stand; and North Herefordshire.
The Green Party and its Scottish counterparts are looking to field a full range of candidates across the UK and this could pose a problem for Starmer in some key marginals where Labour’s chances of victory could be thwarted by the size of the Green Party vote.
The Guardian identified 14 constituencies in the last general election or by-election since then that the Conservatives won with a majority over Labor that was less than the number of votes cast for the Greens.
By slightly more, the Greens’ vote was greater than the margin by which the Conservatives won over the Lib Dems or by which the Scottish National Party beat the Lib Dems or Labour. Some of these constituencies will be affected by boundary changes, so they may not map well to current seats.
Places where Green Party votes made a significant difference in the last election include red wall seats such as Bury, Blythe Valley and North West Durham, as well as Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland. In Stroud, the Greens had a particularly strong showing, picking up almost 5,000 votes, which was significantly more than the 3,840 votes the Conservatives won over Labour. In the Vale of Glamorgan, another area where the Greens enjoy significant support, their vote was within 10% of the 3,562 majority the Conservatives took the seat.
Only four of those 14 constituencies will remain intact after the boundary changes that were introduced for this election, so it is difficult to estimate how many constituencies could be affected by the Green vote.
Some local Labor parties have suggested the Greens abstain to avoid splitting the left-wing vote. This angered the Greens. No one votes for the Greens by accident, they point out, and it’s condescending to assume their voters don’t know what they’re doing. The number of seats where the Greens could split the left vote is likely to be small, not enough to prevent a Labor victory if the polls are correct. And tactical voting often happens in a first-time system – the Greens are among the strongest defenders of proportional representation.
The effect on Labor is likely to be slightly less than the impact of the Reform Party on the Conservative vote: the Greens consistently get around 6% or 7% of the vote, while the Reforms are around 10%-11%.
Labour’s share of the vote is also much higher in urban areas, according to Anthony Wells, head of political research at YouGov, who said: “The biggest gain in support [for the Greens] is from people unhappy about Labour’s move to a more centrist environment and unhappy about Gaza. But those people are more concentrated in places that Labor is likely to hold quite comfortably, in areas like London and the big cities.”
Carla Denier, co-leader of the Green Party and parliamentary candidate for Bristol Central, told the Guardian: “With Labor so far ahead in every single poll, the outcome of this election is not in doubt. But voters are disappointed that what Labor is proposing is not ambitious enough to tackle the crises we face. The voters I speak to in Bristol, Brighton and across the country tell me politics is broken and they don’t want more of the same. They want real change.
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