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October 15, 2024 - 2:30pm
Labour won 411 constituencies in the July 2024 election, enjoying its biggest national swing from the Conservatives since 1945. Nearly every Labour MP who stood for re-election was returned to Parliament, but four were not. Three represented constituencies with significant Muslim populations and lost their seats to independents critical of Israel. The remaining candidate, Thangam Debbonaire, lost to the Green Party in Bristol Central.
Debbonaire’s loss was not unexpected. The Greens have been building strength in Bristol for years, now controlling the council. Bristol Central was their most prominent target at the general election, with Green co-leader Carla Denyer standing in the seat.
Was Bristol Central a fluke? Or does it suggest a growing threat to Labour? One indicator can be found in new polling from YouGov which demonstrates that 2024 Labour voters have a higher net approval for the Greens than for their own party, a consequence of Keir Starmer’s government already taking decisions which have disillusioned Left-liberal supporters.
In some respects, Bristol Central is an outlier: it’s the most pro-immigration constituency in England, one of just a handful which are estimated to prefer more rather than less immigration. On the other hand, the election showed that the Greens’ appeal extends beyond such constituencies. On the same day, the party gained two constituencies from the Conservatives in rural Herefordshire and in Suffolk. They also held their Brighton Pavilion constituency, until then their lone seat since gaining it from Labour in 2010. In both Brighton and Bristol Central, the Green candidates won more than 55% of the vote.
Additionally, the Greens placed second in 40 constituencies across England and Wales, nearly half of which were in London. In all but one of these seats, Labour was the winning party. The Greens are now positioned to make themselves the main local opposition to Labour in dozens of English constituencies.
In the London seats, Labour MPs enjoy comfortable majorities over their Green rivals. The Greens’ best seats in London — Hackney South, Lewisham, and Hackney North — were in constituencies where Labour won majorities of at least 14,000 votes. In an age of electoral volatility, this might provide less comfort than it did previously. The North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley victories were particularly indicative of the potential for massive swings. In both constituencies, the Greens won just 9% of the vote in 2019, before catapulting to 43% and 42% respectively in 2024. The notional Tory majority in Waveney Valley had been over 21,000.
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SubscribeThe Greens are a bigger threat to the Tories and took 2 of what they would consider safecseats from them in July. A compounding factor is that the Greens are more likely to go into coalition with Labour than the Tories.
Surely irrelevant now that Labour are in government with a huge majority. The Greens will be looking to take votes off Labour now – it’s going to be far easier and there are way more opportunities.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives can look forward to a split Labour/Lib Dem/Green vote against them (rather than the more unified one in 2024). Who’s going to tactically vote against the Tories when a) your real issue is with Labour and b) the Tories have no chance of winning ?
There is persistent residual hatred of the Tories which will fuel tactical voting for a few more years. Enough to see Labour in for a decade. Wishful thinking but if you are a Tory yourself then you will not understand the deeply felt dislike.
“Hatred of the Tories”
This stems from the comical belief that everyone on the left is virtuous and therefore everything they do is so too.
It is both delusional and wrong in equal measure.
Also, when you quote such a view it makes you sound like Angela Rayner, which is hardly a good look.
Unlikely.
The tories were a mess the last few years, and as long as Labour are more unified and less of a mess, and as long as the economy cooperates they will likely keep winning.
As of now things aren’t looking great for them.
I expect Starmer will be replaced by Corbyn in less than 2 years, and then he will be replaced by a Tory eventually— but hard to forecast just when that might happen.
Yeah just the anti-housing and development squad.
Indeed but I can’t see those people voting Tory
What happened to you comment mentioning yoga and mediation, Douglas? I tried to post a comment and failed. Did you pull it, or was it the work of UH censors?
They’re really not. Once the ex-Tory voters get a handle on the appalling Green’s policies (Jew hate, Trans woo, Glue yourself to the nearest artwork, lie on the middle of the road because I’m kind and everyone is terrible, etc etc) they will 100% kick them out.
Greens are getting crushed in Europe, where their policies have actually been implemented. What would they campaign on anyway – net zero by 2028?
I’m guessing that soon enough the Green’s main raison d’etre will be opposing nuclear power. By about 2030 small, modular nuclear reactors will be in production, making nuclear much easier to manage and make £ out of. I imagine that at that point the mainstream will suddenly realise that wind and solar are fraught with problems after all (who could have guessed it?) and from there on the battle lines will be about supporting or opposing nuclear power.
They will campaign on Jew hate. Possibly a bit of trans woo thrown in.
They really couldn’t care less about the environment anymore. They barely pay it lip service. Their thing now is to be rabidly left wing lunatics.
Destroying the works of Van Gogh and ensuring that the dying can’t get to hospital. Always popular policies, those.
Greens are only popular where there are a large number of students, academics and people wealthy enough to indulge in virtue signalling policies.
The rest of us live in the real world.
The students, academics, and other green voters would likely say this is an indication you’re voting wrong.
It’s a matter of perspective. Everyone thinks their path is the righteous one.
Bigger picture is that Green made strides due to Starmers support of rather centrist economic policies and his refusal to engage in Israel-bashing so common on the left.
Labour lost at least one constituency due to the that a single-issue ex-Labour (but delisted) anti-Israel “carpetbagger” ran as an independent in Chingford. The story ended well for Iain Duncan-Smith, but is a big flashing warning sign for Starmer and the Tories, not to mention the Jewish people of the UK, who, if they haven’t yet read the writing on the wall, are clearly in for tough times in the years ahead.
Overton window has shifted so far that many bourgeois Left liberals think Labour is ‘not left wing enough’ and that the Greens ‘represent my values’
I think the rise of Corbyn created the sense for some rather extreme Labour voters (maybe up to half or slightly more in some areas) that full-on socialism and immediate rejection of fossil fuels was a real possibility for the UK.
Both may yet prove true, but not at this point in time.
Transitioning away from fossil fuels is obviously a must, but we do have to be wise about how and when and to what extent we do that.
“Bristol Central is … the most-pro-immigration constituency in England, one of just a handful which are estimated to prefer more rather than less immigration.”
I would imagine it’s no coincidence that Bristol happens to be one of the places that has experienced far less immigration than England’s larger metropolitan areas, something which is immediately apparent when you visit. It’s easy to be “pro” something in theory, when you’re not experiencing the actual day-to-day practicalities of it.
Surely that’s not true ?
Bristol has always had immigration (go to St. Paul’s, or notice the post-WWII Polish church on the Gloucester Road). It’s a port city. Of course it has immigration.
Agreed. I was in a Bristol pub last night, not far from St Pauls, and in the outside area about half the people were black. Liam must have visited a more chi-chi part of Bristol. Clifton perhaps?
Lots of slavery too.
Completely untrue. Bristol has masses of immigration. I live in a supposedly White suburb. Across the road from me is emergency housing inhabited by a family of Iranian Kurds next door to a Somali family in a housing association flat. Four doors down, several Spaniards whom I sometimes meet in the pub share a flat. Four or five doors round the corner, a Pakistani family have the unfortunate habit of leasing their imbecile son Lamborginis and other flash motors which he races through the narrow streets. Walk through St Pauls, which is mixed Caribbean/Somali, and in about 15 minutes you will be in Broadmead, which is absolutely awash with Roma, Somalis, Middle-Easterners and Asians.
Sounds lovely.
My first thought too!
(Not)
It truly is. Full of life.
I feel your pain. Try Hounslow.
Diversity paradise!
The official census numbers do not reflect reality.
The Greens have taken 3 seats on our council and so far have behaved exactly like the Lib Dems and Labour.
They may win votes to the Left but they aren’t likely to hold those they gained from disillusioned Tories for very long.
So you hope
Lol
Correct. They are now the repository for all the farthest left voters in the country, with all the revolting views that entails.
The greens live in a fantasy land where you can immediately stop oil whilst same time blocking alternatives like nuclear and pylons from offshore wind. I’m on board for reducing our co2 footprint and make green consumer decisions all over the place but the “greens” are just fake, fantasists who don’t live in real world.
Eloquently put!
There seems to be an underlying assumption that the Green vote will rise in the future, I would suggest that it’s the opposite case.
Many Green voters in 2024 may have chosen them because of disgust with the Conservatives and Labour but will that be the case going forward if Badenoch revitalises the Conservatives?
Also, as the punishment beatings that are at the core of Net Zero policies become ever more burdensome, will Green support decline as it has in Germany?
Lastly, the most significant aspect of the 2024 election was how the Conservatives managed to lose 7 million voters from the 2019 election, the choices of those 7 million will dwarf anything that happens with the Greens.
Their vote share could rise but only if there is no “Muslim Vote” organised in the area. This is their main theme now; Anti Israel votes
Funny how Israel, with its kibbutzim, is much closer to the sustainable Green ideal than any of the Arab countries.
If there are power cuts this winter the Greens along with Labour may not do so well.
If greens want to reduce the UK carbon footprint maybe they could explain why they are so pro immigration – which does the opposite?
They’re Marxists and don’t intend on explaining anything because their ideology is inexplicable.
And they don’t care about the environment just the farthest left views you can think of. So open borders for one.
Writing about individual seat gains is irrellevant to real threat that the Greens represent for Labour.
The real threat is the withdrawal of current Green support from Labour.
In 2024, 13% of all voters would have voted for the greens if they had not felt it necessary to vote tactically. But fully 5% of those voters ended up voting for Labour. The number of Labour voters returning the favor was negligible.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49886-one-in-five-voters-say-they-are-voting-tactically-at-the-2024-general-election
Now remember, Labour ended up with 34% of the vote. Take the Greens who voted tactically out of Labour’s column and they’d have received just 29%. It was astonishing that Labour was able to build a huge majority on barely a third of the votes. But take 5% off the top of that…
Meanwhile, the Tories got 24% of the vote and and Reform got 14%.
If Reform and the Tories merge or do some sort of deal, they will be back in force next time. And if Labour cannot continue to persuade 40% of all Green voters to vote tactically for a party that revels in disappointing them, then the outcome is easy to predict.
The Greens are also particularly anti-Semitic – even by the standards of the Left. The Times did some very good investigative work on this at the time of the election, which may well have (fortunately) swung a few seats away from them.
Support for the Greens will plummet, just as support for Labour will plummet, as soon as the first blackout happens.
“Never seen so many white faces”
‘independents critical of Israel’ … a euphemism if ever I saw one. ‘How about ‘rabidly antisemitic sectarians’?