Zack Polanski speaking at the We Demand Change summit last spring before he became Green Party leader (Picture: Guy Smallman)

By Socialist Worker

Trade unionists, campaigners and socialists will have to lead fight backs under Green councils. And they should appeal to Green councillors to join them on picket lines and protests to fight for more funding.

The success of the Green Party in local council elections in England on Thursday underlines the fracturing of mainstream politics. In an election where the far right Reform UK surged, it offers a spark of hope.

The Greens celebrated the election of their first mayor with Zoe Garbett’s win in the east London borough of Hackney. She gave a radical speech that placed the blame for austerity at the feet of the Labour Party.

“Today we start the fightback”, she said. “In this election people kept telling me over and over that they felt let down.

“So many people have been failed by the government and the system, whether it’s parents, migrants, trans+ people, disabled people and young people—the list goes on and on. People have made it clear that they are desperate for an alternative to this failing Labour government.

“Hackney voters are sick of politicians putting profit before our planet, for supporting genocide and letting down so many people who are struggling.”

Liam Shrivastava, the Greens mayoral candidate in the borough of Lewisham in east London, was also elected.

In Bolton, the Greens won three seats from Labour in areas with a large Muslim population, the wards of Halliwell, Rumworth and Queens Park and Central.

Journalist Taj Ali commented that young Muslims were breaking with the politics of the older generation that had tied them to Labour.

Local government worker Sufyaan Jasat became the first Green councillor in Fallowfield, Greater Manchester. All three seats in the ward had been held by Labour for 20 years.

Jasat ran a campaign based on climate action to “reduce bills and improve lives, through warm homes, cleaner air, better transport and stronger communities locally.”

In Burnage, also in Greater Manchester, Asma Alam, who co-founded Greens for Palestine, was elected with 2,257 votes. The Greens are now the second biggest party on Manchester council, with 21 councillors.

The Green Party won in areas with a multicultural and working class population. They  gained from people’s anger at the cost of living crisis and at Labour’s support for genocide and its racism towards migrants—as well as their hopes for a more environmentally just society.

But in leafy Richmond, the Liberal Democrats won all 54 seats, taking five from the Green Party and one from the Tories.

The Green Party had a formal pact with the Lib Dems in the last election in the west London borough that it seems to have abandoned this time.

In some councils such as Manchester, only a third of seats were up for election in 2026. If the whole council had been up for grabs, Labour’s collapse could have been even greater.

In other wards, the Green Party came second to Labour, meaning Labour won out due to the first past the post electoral system.

The Green Party will be tested in local government in a way that it hasn’t been before. While running in the election, some candidates said they oppose “the worst of Labour’s cuts”.

It leaves Green councillors the wriggle room to push through some austerity, however reluctantly.

The Green Party has seen its radical policies come under the media spotlight more than ever as its membership has grown under Zack Polanski’s leadership.

Three anonymous party officials recently told the Politico website the party is considering reviewing some of its more radical policies, as it seeks to reassure that it is a “responsible” potential party of government.

Trade unionists, campaigners and socialists will have to lead fight backs under Green councils. And they should appeal to Green councillors to join them on picket lines and protests to fight for more funding.

The party is also coming under huge pressure to soften its stance on Palestine.

The Green Party should unapologetically defend the Palestine movement and the right to protest as it comes under attack from the state and the far right.

We celebrate when the Greens take on Labour. But we still need a socialist alternative outside of electoral politics.