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.
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.
Greens are getting crushed in Europe, where their policies have actually been implemented. What would they campaign on anyway – net zero by 2028?
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’
“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.