For many who have followed the chaotic launch process of Your Party, the Greens seem like an attractive alternative. But how should socialists approach the Greens?
By Connor Rosoman
Under the leadership of left-winger Zack Polanski, the party’s membership has risen to upwards of 150,000 members – more than double the figure at the start of the year. Among these new joiners are many young people enthused by Polanski’s “eco-populist” policies, social media presence and direct political messaging. Green Party conference this autumn adopted left-wing policies, calling to tax the rich and to “abolish landlords”.
It is no surprise that many looking for a left alternative to the Labour government are excited by them right now. They have consciously put forward an air of credibility, which stands in contrast to the floundering first months of Your Party. Given this context, calls have come for an alliance between YP and the Greens ahead of the May elections, as put forward by Owen Jones for instance.
This instinct and call is broadly correct and YP should seek principled collaboration with the Greens. But crucially, while we need maximum unity in our struggle against Labour and the right, Your Party has its own key role to play in building that struggle.
“Why build a new party when the Greens already offer a left alternative?”
Socialist Alternative would support many of the policies being put forward by Polanski. At the same time, Your Party goes further, calling for “public and community ownership of key economic sectors and services”. This is an important difference. Socialist Alternative fights for this to be concretised further by calling for the nationalisation of the top 100 corporations and banks under democratic workers’ control. But to win even the mild reformist demands being put forward by the Greens, we need to go beyond the electoralist approach they base themselves on.
While stories circulated about the Greens passing a resolution to “abolish landlords” at their conference this year, the reality of the proposal is much less radical. It includes demands for rent controls, a tax on landlords, ending Buy To Let mortgages, giving tenants the right to buy back their homes if sold by the landlord, and greater powers for local councils to buy back and build new homes. Most of this, in fact, was already Green Party policy. As Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, put it: despite the “eye-catching” title, “it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords”.
Of course, these are positive proposals, which Your Party should also be campaigning for. Similarly, Zack Polanski’s call to tax the rich is another demand that socialists support – although we would go much further than the Greens’ call for an annual tax of 1% on assets above £10 million and 2% on assets above £1 billion. But even fighting for these modest policies would require a mass mobilisation of working-class and young people.
Labour under Corbyn came under vicious attack for daring to suggest taxing the rich. The super-rich launched an all-out campaign using the press and the pro-capitalist Labour Party machine to bring Corbyn down. The only force that could have pushed back against the resistance of the bosses was a mass movement to defend the pro-worker policies Corbyn stood for.
That would have also required transforming Labour into a party rooted in struggle, and capable of waging a sharp fight against the ruling class. It would have meant fighting for a fundamental, root-and-branch transformation of the party, democratising its structures and removing the Blairites. Today, needless to say, the road to such a transformation within Labour has been completely closed off.
The Green Party, in order to play such a role, would need to be transformed along similar lines. But despite Polanski’s more radical messaging, he has not pointed toward turning the Greens into a mass party of struggle. Building a new political force along these lines is essential if we want to win real improvements for the vast majority.
“Would a socialist council really be much different to the Greens in practice?”
The socialist movement in Britain has a proud history of struggle in local government which we can still look to today. This includes Poplar council in 1921, which won equal pay for women, public housing, distribution of free milk, and a minimum wage for council workers above the national average. It also waged a historic struggle against extortionate, anti-poor ‘rates’ taxes.
This tradition also includes the struggle of Liverpool City Council in the 1980s, led by supporters of Militant (a predecessor of Socialist Alternative), which led a mass movement against Margaret Thatcher, building thousands of homes as well as schools, parks and so on. These councils defended the principle that “it’s better to break the law than to break the poor”, and were prepared to use class-struggle methods to fight for this principle.
Such an approach today would stand in striking contrast to the rest of the establishment parties, who all pass cuts while they desperately try to “balance the books” under the strain of years of consecutive budget cuts from central government. Unfortunately, this is the same strategy the Greens have applied in cities like Brighton, and currently in Bristol where they run the council.
Bristol City Council has presided over £50 million worth of cuts to services – including to children’s social services, mental health, domestic abuse support services, as well as reducing bin collections to once a week. Despite Zack Polanski’s more radical presentation, he has defended this, saying councillors have to be fiscally responsible and run the council in a “balanced” way, even as they criticise central government for squeezing budgets. This has rightly been criticised by Zarah Sultana.
Without doubt, many supporters of the Greens are repulsed by the brutal anti-worker attacks of Labour and the Tories, and would like to avoid taking the same road. But without a programme and a strategy to confront the system they represent, and a movement to back that up, even those with the best intentions can end up overseeing more of the same attacks. If this is true on the local level, it is even more so on the national level where the pressure to accept the bosses’ rulebook will be much greater.
Reform (who want to implement even more cuts) are growing off the back of the idea that the other parties are “all the same”. If we are going to build a real working-class opposition, we need to offer another way forward, based on the inspiring examples from the history of our movement, and present a real alternative to the capitalist parties.
“We need to stand together against the far right – isn’t uniting around the Greens our best option?”
The far right is clearly a serious threat. The growth in support for Reform, and the more violent far-right and fascist forces enabled by their ideas, poses a direct threat to refugees and immigrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, and the working class as a whole. Not only does racist division weaken our ability to organise against the bosses, but Reform themselves advocate for anti-worker measures such as slashing the minimum wage for young people.
We need to urgently build the strongest possible fightback against them. A united struggle of migrant communities, working-class activists and the left is a crucial part of stemming the tide. The ideas of figures like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson are already having an impact. Labour are barrelling toward the right with disgraceful attacks against refugees, with a parallel rise in racist abuse across England, Wales and Scotland. We need to organise against this now; it can’t wait until May’s local elections.
To start, we need to be able to organise against the intimidation of asylum seekers and migrants in local communities, and build a real alternative to racist scapegoating. The massive mobilisation in Walthamstow (East London) in 2024 stopped that summer’s far right riots dead in their tracks.
To organise similar action, we need a movement with strong roots in workplaces, working-class neighbourhoods and organisations, capable of offering a real alternative. Your Party should be a vehicle for building such a broad movement, which could involve members of the Greens as well as others in local areas, to stop the racists wherever they rear their heads, and crucially to cut across their base of support.
“How can we avoid splitting the left vote?”
While struggle in the here and now is the most crucial task for a new party, May’s local elections are a chance to register a powerful vote of opposition to Labour and the right. Britain’s First Past the Post system means there is a pressure to vote “tactically”. Often this means voting for a “lesser evil” party to keep out the further-right one. But more and more people are rejecting this false choice, and polls show that the Greens are likely to see a surge of votes as people register their support for an alternative to the mainstream parties. Your Party can also make big gains in such a situation.
We have explained why it is crucial that a working-class, socialist political voice is put forward in the May elections. Currently, however, it seems like the Greens are unlikely to stand aside for other left candidates. In 2024, they ran candidates against both Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – effectively splitting the left vote in those areas. But we agree that a united electoral challenge is preferable where possible.
Socialists should be prepared to work with other parties where we have common ground. However, the starting point for any such discussions should be political. YP should be willing to support any candidates who would agree to a minimum programme, which could include points such as opposing cuts (and supporting struggles of workers and communities against them), fighting racism, and ending the genocide in Palestine, as an example. If they do not, we need candidates who will stand for these clear “red line” issues.
But we also need to look beyond next year’s elections. Building a mass socialist party is not a task that can be put off until some unspecified later date. It is wrong, as some have, to draw the line between YP and the Greens as one between the “utopian” and “pragmatic” wings of the left. Farage, the genocide in Gaza, the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis are just some of the ugly features of a capitalist system in decline. It is not utopian to say we need fundamental change – it is the only really practical response.
A left party based on working-class organising and struggle, with real roots in local communities and organisations, could totally transform the political dynamics we see today – even with a few elected councillors. A socialist council, building on the legacy of Poplar and Liverpool, could have an electrifying effect, pointing the way forward for millions of people. This is what we should set our sights on as we come out of YP’s founding conference and toward the local elections.
