UK’s Greens Face Battle Over Populism in Leadership Race

(Bloomberg) -- Three candidates are battling to become the next leader of the UK’s Green Party. They agree Britain’s increasingly fractured political landscape creates an opportunity — but are divided on how to seize it.

Members of Parliament Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay, who are running on a joint ticket, embody the Greens’ traditional ethos of inclusiveness, equality and cooperation. Up against them is Zack Polanski, who wants to win over voters alienated by the “woke language” of the left by playing the populist right at their own game.

The Greens’ leadership election comes at a time when the ruling Labour party, which secured a landslide election win just a year ago, is bleeding support. Some of those voters are turning toward the Greens on the left — but more appear to be defecting to Nigel Farage’s anti-migration Reform UK party, which has out-polled Labour for months. Currently the Greens have four MPs — the same as Reform, after one of its members resigned over an investigation into his business affairs.

Polanski, the 42-year-old deputy leader of the Greens in England and Wales, is keenly aware of Reform’s rising popularity — and while he doesn’t agree with Farage’s policies attacking immigration and climate action, he does see the politician’s appeal.

Echoing the sentiment of Farage, he says he’s “angry about net zero,” and warns that voters are alienated by the “woke language” of the political left. He’s been making those points on media appearances and social media videos, directly challenging the idea that Reform is the only place to turn for disillusioned voters.

The green agenda — which encompasses everything from emissions reductions to protecting species from extinction — has taken on a tone and a vocabulary that’s not relatable for voters overwhelmed by the daily cost of living, according to Polanski. He’s calling for a rewrite of what it means to be green, drawing on ideas such as wealth taxes and a ban on private jets, to challenge the populist wave that’s galvanized the conservative movement.

Polanski’s brand of “new green” has global parallels. In the US, some Democrats are taking the same tack. Arizona Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari said populist messages on climate, including the potential for cleaner energy to lower electricity bills, would be crucial to help her party win back control of Congress in next year’s midterm election. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City, won the ticket on a platform of addressing inequality with higher corporate taxes and public investment in housing, childcare and green infrastructure like solar panels. 

Chowns, 50, frets that the populist approach has risks. “I don’t think you can copy the style of populists — that divisive, polarizing rhetoric — without risking alienating many people,” she says. “Adrian and I want Green politics to be popular, rather than populist - and we’ve shown we know how to do this, by winning MP seats with huge swings.”

Chowns wants to focus on policies she says “people care about,” such as  taxing wealth to invest in public services, and ensuring new housing is properly insulated and includes solar panels. Her party has done that for years, she says, “by reaching out door-by-door directly into communities.” She says that’s “the opposite of the Reform playbook,” which relies on “over-simplification and the ‘big man’ mode of politics.”

Under the current leadership of Ramsay and Carla Denyer, the Greens are failing to command media interest to rival Reform, says Scarlett Maguire, a UK-based pollster and founder of Merlin Strategy. Yet an energetic, headline-grabbing leader could in theory “attack Labour from its left,” especially on economic issues, she said. “They could make a lot of headway because the desire for change in the country is so strong.”

Ballots open Aug. 1 for party members to cast their leadership vote, with results due Sept. 2. The choice won’t bind the party until the next general election, due by mid-2029, because leaders’ terms only last two years.  And because last year’s national vote delayed the usual process, this leadership term will be just one year. But both Polanski and Chowns want to start building momentum, especially as they face a set of Scottish and Welsh local elections next year in which Reform is predicted to do well.

Both candidates are convinced the Greens could win over some voters who lean Reform. Polanski wants to attract those repelled by what he characterizes as a political tone-deafness to the experience of ordinary households. “Most people can’t afford a heat pump right now,” he says, referring to successive governments’ policies to encourage the purchase of the energy-efficient home-heating systems.

Getting working-class people to vote Green would represent a departure from the norm in British politics. Some 40% of people see the Greens as a party that appeals more to the middle class, while only 7% see it as relevant to working class people, according to a YouGov survey this month.

Chowns prefers to look at More in Common findings that binary ideas about the electorate — such as young/old, left/right, urban/rural — are outdated. “We appeal to this much wider range of people in two ways,” she says. “One — by showing we’ve got policy answers to problems they care about. And two — even more importantly —  by winning their trust.” 

The Greens now face the added complication that former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, a popular figurehead on the left, has launched a new yet-to-be-named party to attract disillusioned voters. It’s unclear how much support he would garner, but the peculiarities of Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system meant Labour secured 40% of the votes under his leadership in losing the 2019 general election, compared to the 32% won by his successor, Keir Starmer, when securing a thumping majority last year.

Neither Corbyn nor the Greens could expect to win a majority in the next national vote. But Labour’s strategy in 2019 was based on the calculation it could afford to lose votes to the left, largely to independents or Green candidates, says Maguire. A Green Party that polls higher and cuts through more strongly could force them to rethink. “If I was Labour, I would be worried about it,” she says.

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