UK Greens Triple Membership; European Parties Should Learn
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- Green parties secured their best-ever result of 74 seats in the 2019 European Parliament elections and governed in coalitions across Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Austria, but have since been expelled from nearly all European governments amid a so-called "greenlash."
- The Green party of England and Wales tripled its membership to more than 230,000 in nine months, won a historic byelection in February, and achieved record results in May's local and devolved elections, according to the author.
- Zack Polanski, elected leader last September, shifted the party's emphasis away from climate toward economic inequality, housing, trans rights, and condemnation of the Gaza genocide, contrasting sharply with Labour's positioning.
- Research across 11 European countries and German campaign-ad testing found Green parties do not lose climate credibility by broadening to redistributive messaging, and gain more support from emphasizing inequality than from "green growth" rhetoric.
- A Persuasion UK report found 47% of financially insecure voters with liberal social attitudes voted Green in May, compared with 25% for Labour — a coalition distinct from the typical high-income, highly educated European Green voter base.
- The author's three lessons for European Greens: emphasize economic inequality, hold strong positions on issues like trans rights to create space for other messaging, and embrace progressive identity politics — a strategy the article compares to Zohran Mamdani's New York campaign.
Why it matters: With social democratic parties weakened across Europe, Green parties have a rare opening to become the dominant left-of-centre force — but only if they resist moderating in response to the greenlash. The UK data suggests financially insecure progressive voters are already moving from Labour to the Greens, a transfer that could reshape European left politics if emulated.
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