It could just be, come Friday, that the Green Party will be celebrating one of the most extraordinary byelection shocks of all time. If not THE most extraordinary.
I can hardly believe I’m writing this, but with 24 hours to go, according to the latest independent poll in the New Statesman, the Green Party and Reform are neck and neck in the Gorton and Denton byelection. Labour is trailing in 3rd place. Both the Tories and Lib Dems are nowhere – I’ve been here since Saturday, and I haven’t seen a single poster, board or leaflet – let alone a real person out canvassing for either party.
Pundits have been writing about “the death of two-party politics” since the General Election in 2024. The Gorton and Denton byelection – whatever the result – points to it being dead and unceremoniously buried. Personally, I suspect the Labour vote will hold up better than most polls have indicated – there would appear to be a lot of ‘shy’ and even ‘ashamed’ Labour voters out there!
The Green Party did of course do really well in that 2024 Election, holding its seat in Brighton and Hove and gaining three new MPs. But this is something else!
And the principal reason for that is the Party’s still relatively new leader, Zack Polanski, who’s inspired at least 150,000 people to join in the last six months, the majority refugees from Starmer’s genocidal Labour Party. And mostly young.
He’s played a blinder since then, giving the Party unprecedented coverage and credibility, taking on both Farage (who’s refused to do a head-to-head debate with him) and Starmer, who seems personally affronted by such an ‘outsider’ holding Labour to account far more effectively than either Kemi Badenoch or Ed Davey.
In Hannah Spencer, the Party is also blessed to have a brilliant candidate in Gorton and Denton. A Mancunian through and through, a local councillor, and a plumber to boot, she speaks from the heart, doesn’t sound like a ‘posh plonker’ from the Home Counties – that’s Matt Goodwin, by the way, Reform’s far right candidate who seemed only too happy to be endorsed by the even further right Tommy Robinson.
The response from Green Party members has been extraordinary – mobilised by a highly experienced campaign team, many of whom honed their skills in the 2024 General Election. The turn out for both leafleting and door-knocking, particularly at weekends, has exceeded all expectations – I was astonished to find myself sitting there at 10:00 pm on Monday night addressing envelopes (for Hannah’s final appeal) with more than 250 people!
All a bit mind-blowing, to be honest, more than 45 years on from my first time standing as an Ecology Party candidate in the 1979 General Election!
Win or lose tomorrow, this is a momentous moment for the Green Party. But a win would be… well… something else!
