Can Zack Polanski's Green Surge really win Bristol?

‘I think people are really excited’

They came in their hundreds, having eagerly snapped up the tickets within three hours of them going on sale. No, this wasn’t the latest pop star at the O2 in Bristol, or the latest musical premiere at the Hippodrome, but the newest leader of a political party – Zack Polanski – who took over the Green Party at the start of September and has seen its membership almost triple in the two months since.

At St George’s Hall at the start of this week, local Green MP Carla Denyer – the previous co-leader Polanski took over from – was on the stage, along with climate justice activist Dominique Palmer, but Polanski was the star attraction – tickets for the rally sold out within three hours.

His appearance was greeted with whoops and cheers, every pause in his speech sparked a round of applause. His final address brought a standing ovation. For the long-standing Green Party members of Bristol, and for the newbies, this appears to be the Green surge they’ve been waiting for, following the 2024 surge that saw them win effective control of City Hall, elect Bristol’s first Green MP and finish second in all the other Westminster seats in the city.

Since September, the Green Party say its membership has gone through the roof. Nationally, it’s gone from around 68,000 on the day Polanski was elected leader to well over 150,000 before the end of October.

In Bristol, the party had around 1,500 members on the eve of Polanski becoming leader, and that has now reached 4,700 in just two months.

So the membership is surging – there are now more people signed up to be members of the Green Party than there are members of the Conservative Party. The party is, sort of, surging in the national opinion polls – with polls occasionally putting the Greens above Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories at various points, although all are bumping along with less than one in five voters saying they support them.

Green Party Leader Zack Polanski pictured speaking at a rally at St George’s Hall in Bristol on Monday, November 3(Image: Bristol Post)

On social media, there’s a surge – a party political broadcast which launched the ‘let’s make hope possible again’ slogan, and showed Polanski at dusk in a regular street, talking to camera about billionaires making money in their sleep, has been viewed 12 million times on X/ Twitter, and millions more on all the other myriad social media platforms.

But in real life? In Bristol? Earlier this week Polanski’s message was obviously well received among the 500+ people in St George’s Hall. At one point he asked for a show of hands for those who were new members and hands went up on every row.

“I think people are really excited,” he said, before the event. “I think it’s as simple as that, that actually people are feeling hope for the first time, or maybe for a long time. They’re seeing the Labour government that promised change, but actually just implementing austerity once again.

“And then we have the Reform Party who are rejecting the old two-party system, but offering hate and division. And actually I think what people recognise is if reform can surge through the polls with hate and division, there’s no reason why the Green Party can’t and are surging through the polls with a politics of hope and community and tangible politics to make a difference.

“This isn’t about slogans or just kind of mouthing off. This is about going, we have practical solutions in your community that you’re already seeing through the election of Carla Denyer for Bristol Central, but it is time to get Carla some company at the next election and make sure we have a group of Green Bristol MPs,” he added.

With Conservative voters abandoning the party at the General Election in 2024, and Reform not connecting enough to make any kind of breakthrough in Bristol, it was the Greens who had the eyebrow-raising results last year.

Green Party Leader Zack Polanski pictured speaking at a rally at St George’s Hall in Bristol on Monday, November 3(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)

Labour held all their seats with reduced majorities, and lost Bristol Central to the Green’s Carla Denyer. In every single other constituency in the city, the Greens went from fourth or fifth last time around to second.

Polanski wouldn’t be explicitly drawn on where the Greens would be targeting or hoping to win, but Bristol East – which covers places like Barton Hill St George and the eastern side of South Bristol including Brislington, Stockwood and much of Knowle – is going to be near the top of the list.

“At the moment we’re looking at all of them because that just makes sense if you come second place somewhere,” he said. “Bristol East obviously was particularly close, so that’s somewhere very, very obvious to be looking at. But actually, frankly, I want to see a Green MP in any seat in this country.

“What it comes down to is a question of resourcing, members, volunteers and who can you get on the ground. What I would say is it’s early days before a General Election, but doubling membership, the resources that come from that, the membership money, the kind of events we’re doing tonight, it’s all looking very promising. So this will be our biggest and most ambitious election ever in Bristol.

“What number of MPs that looks like yet, I can’t put a number on it yet because it’s too early. But I would say we’re prepared to be more ambitious than we’ve ever been before,” he added.

At the end of September, with the ‘Polanski surge’ only just getting started, a YouGov poll broken down constituency by constituency had Carla Denyer holding her seat with a landslide, the Greens also winning Bristol East and Bristol South looking like it would be too close to call, in an unprecedented three-way marginal between Labour – which has held the seat for almost 100 years – Reform UK and the Greens.

Can Zack Polanski’s Green Surge really win Bristol?

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