{"id":473465,"date":"2025-10-04T11:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T11:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/473465\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T11:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T11:46:15","slug":"greens-on-track-to-supplant-labour-as-favourite-party-in-london-says-zack-polanski-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/473465\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens \u2018on track\u2019 to supplant Labour as favourite party in London, says Zack Polanski | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Greens are viewed more favourably than any other party in London and among younger voters, polling produced for the party has shown, with its leader, Zack Polanski<\/a>, saying this showed they were \u201con track\u201d to supplant Labour.<\/p>\n

The YouGov poll, carried out to coincide with the Greens\u2019 ongoing annual conference<\/a> in Bournemouth, asked voters in England to rank the five main parties in order of how favourably they felt about them, rather than the usual metric of which they planned to vote for.<\/p>\n

By this measure, across England as a whole the Greens were beaten only by Reform UK<\/a> in terms of the proportion who put them at the top of the list, getting 17% of first preferences. This compared with 27% for Reform, 16% for Labour, 15% for the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives\u2019 total of 14%.<\/p>\n

When answers from just London were taken, the Greens came top, with 27% of the first-preference choices, against 20% for Labour<\/a>, 16% Reform, 15% Conservatives and 14% Lib Dems.<\/p>\n

The difference was even more notable among voters aged 18 to 24, with 36% putting the Greens as their most-favoured choice. Next were Labour on 24%, then 14% for the Lib Dems and just 6% each for the Conservatives and Reform.<\/p>\n

In a sign of how the Greens under Polanski could take support from former Labour voters, another breakdown of the polling showed nearly a quarter of people who voted for Keir Starmer last year now ranked the Greens as their favourite party.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Guardian at the conference, Polanski, who won the election<\/a> to lead the Greens in England and Wales a month ago, reiterated the pledge in his speech to the gathering that the party was aiming for Labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s already happening,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s happening at defection level. Just last month in Barking and Dagenham, we welcome three new councillors to the party. It\u2019s also happening right across England and Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt local council elections, there was a stunning victory recently in Brighton, where the Labour vote completely collapsed and the Green vote rocketed. Reform are still a worry, yes, and the fact that they\u2019re polling even reasonably in London is a real threat, I think, to anyone who\u2019s a progressive voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut absolutely, the plan has always been to replace Labour at the electoral level, starting at the local level, and I think we\u2019re on track to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour MPs and strategists are deeply worried about how the party will fare next May in elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and for a series of councils across England.<\/p>\n

In London, where about 1,800 council seats across 32 boroughs are being contested, there is concern in Labour, which won nearly 44% of the seats when they were last contested in 2022, that there could be heavy losses to Reform UK in more suburban outer boroughs and to the Greens in more central areas.<\/p>\n

In his speech on Friday, Polanski warned against what he called the \u201cmanaged decline\u201d of the Labour government, predicting that unless he changed course, Starmer would \u201chand this country on a plate\u201d to Reform.<\/p>\n

Polanski said the Greens would be pushing for \u201cseats right across London\u201d, adding: \u201cWhat I\u2019m excited about is \u2026 that [support is] pretty evenly spread, and that [we] will be campaigning in places that we haven\u2019t traditionally campaigned in before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Greens are viewed more favourably than any other party in London and among younger voters, polling produced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-473465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115315735578369622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}