The 1 May local elections were a kick in the teeth for the establishment parties. Starmer’s Labour and the Tories lost control of all held councils, losing 674 and 187 councillors, respectively.
This was a clear signal from voters to Westminster: we’re fed up with you, and we want you gone.
The Tories presided over 15 years of austerity and sleaze. And when Keir Starmer entered Number 10, he continued these traditions: massacring the welfare state; aiding a genocidal regime in Israel; and perpetuating the culture war.
Seeing both of these gangs of liars and criminals rejected by the masses is a welcome sight.
In turn, Nigel Farage has asserted that Reform is now the main opposition party to Labour, and that his party’s rise will mean the death of the Tories.
Perspectives and programme
Reform UK – with their meteoric jump from 0 to 677 councillors – was not the only party to gain council seats off of the Conservative-Labour duopoly. The Green Party too was able to increase their councillor share from 44 to 79.
Recent polling, meanwhile, indicates that the Greens have picked up support amongst young people, particularly those who are more economically insecure, thanks to the party’s professed opposition to climate change, war, and austerity.
🚀 Following Thursday’s election we’ve reached a new record high 859 councillors on 181 councils!
💚 The Green Party is the only party offering a real alternative to the tired old parties.
Join the Green Party today to help us keep delivering real hope and real change ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/s43Fc3lqvo
— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) May 3, 2025
And other surveys suggest that 43 percent of 2024 Labour voters could defect to the Green Party at the next general election, motivated by concerns around cuts to welfare and rising living costs.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the Greens have not been able to capitalise on the rejection of the main two traditional parties to the same degree as Reform.
This has raised questions about the perspectives and programme of the Green Party.
‘Working with anyone’
Part of the allure of Farage and his party has been their ability to present themselves as the main anti-establishment force in British politics. This is in spite of the wealthy, elite backgrounds of many leading Reform figures.
Such is the hatred towards the Tories and Labour parties, that demagogues like Farage can mop up support by posing as an alternative to both.
The Greens, by contrast, have shown many times they are willing to collaborate with the establishment.
In the last general election, for example, Green co-leader Carla Denyer was more than happy to declare that her party would be willing to sit in government with Starmer, in the event of a hung parliament.
Similarly, recently-elected Green councillors have also expressed their openness to “working with anyone”.
And in the final analysis, this means working for the capitalists – carrying out attacks on the working class for the problems that the bosses, bankers, and their system create.
Handmaiden for cuts
The Green Party’s readiness to act as handmaidens for the ruling class is not speculation. This has happened before.
In 2022, rather than stand up against the Tory government, the Green council in Brighton oversaw millions in cuts to jobs and services. And earlier this year, the party’s local representatives enforced cuts to refuse collection in Bristol.
In Europe, meanwhile, the German Green Party are some of the loudest supporters of rearmament, which the German working class is being made to pay for.
Such austerity and militarism are not ‘political choices’. This will be the outcome for any party that tries to act within the confines of the crisis-ridden capitalist system, no matter how good its intentions.
This is particularly the case for those presiding over British capitalism. Decades of underinvestment, neglect, and decline have left the UK economy stagnant, public services starved and overstretched, and budgets (national and local) squeezed.
And at the end of the day, despite their progressive veneer and occasionally radical rhetoric, the Greens have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not willing to break with capitalism, but are determined to patch-up this broken system.
Internal frictions
Current Green leadership hopeful Zack Polanski has suggested that, by parroting Farage’s style, he can build a “mass membership”, “eco-populist” party.
We need bold leadership. Now.
That’s why I’m running to be the next leader of the Green Party.
Join our campaign: https://t.co/rdqyPooMmv#BackZack pic.twitter.com/0OQk6irb7s
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) May 5, 2025
But a party is more than its leaders. And amidst the Green Party’s ranks are a contradictory mix of left-leaning youth alongside more conservative middle-class elements.
This includes business-owners and landlords, who do not want a ‘populist’ party, but one that will keep things ‘sensible’. It is these layers that will likely set the tone, exercising their interests over that of the more radical sections of the party.
Rather than putting forward a bold programme of clear class-based, socialist policies, for example, the Greens have been greenwashing the establishment’s patriotism and economic nationalism, in an effort to win over voters in traditional Tory shires.
Join the communists!
Such confused demands cannot offer workers and youth the genuine anti-establishment political alternative that is needed.
Climate change presents an existential threat to humanity. And the capitalists and their representatives have made it clear that they are unwilling and unable to solve this issue.
Until the main levers of the economy are placed in the hands of the working class – with production planned rationally and democratically, on the basis of need and not the anarchic pursuit of profit – we will only continue to see rising temperatures and falling living standards.
At the same time, increasing evidence shows that more and more young people are drawing revolutionary – and even communist – conclusions.
This is what the RCP is tapping into, providing a revolutionary solution to the problems posed by capitalism.
So to those wanting to put an end to the horrors and barbarism of capitalism, once and for all, we say: join the communists!
