What sort of voters are driving the surge in support for the Green Party? The Sunday Times has combed through the data, finding that new Green voters are even more likely to be female than the party’s 2024 backers. They also skew younger, and are less likely to be “financially comfortable”.

The stereotype of Green voters as the spoilt sons and daughters of the upper middle class therefore isn’t quite right. In a future of fractured politics, Green supporters will be an increasingly influential part of the landscape — both for economic reasons and because younger voters inevitably replace their elders.

We’re not just talking about the very youngest voters here. According to YouGov, the Green Party is the most popular option among all age groups under 50. Given these trends, the appropriate question is no longer whether the Greens can establish themselves as a major political party, but whether there’s anything that could possibly stop them.

The lazy answer is that they’re bound to wilt under serious media scrutiny. But the age of broadcast politics is over. Zack Polanski has already racked up some awkward interviews, but it doesn’t matter: he’ll be reaching most of his voters online.

In fact, he’s likely to find his own party harder to manage than the media. The constitution of the Green Party of England and Wales is designed to frustrate strong leadership. There are automatic leadership elections every two years and policymaking is controlled from the bottom up by the membership. That’s fine for an idealistic fringe movement dedicated to radical democracy, but completely impractical for a party whose ambition is real power. The members who overwhelmingly voted in Polanski will have to decide whether they want an actual leader or a mere spokesperson. More truculent activists would be better suited to Your Party, which serves as an example of where too much grassroots control gets you.

Assuming the Greens don’t fall prey to self-sabotage, the biggest risk they face is gaining power prematurely. For instance, a polling projection featured in the Birmingham Mail suggests that a coalition of Greens and Muslim independents would have the numbers to take control of Birmingham City Council. But that could prove a poisoned chalice. England’s second city is in crisis: the Labour-run council has only just emerged from bankruptcy at the cost of massive cuts and bin workers have been on strike for a year. The Greens would therefore be taking on a much tougher challenge than running Brighton or Bristol.

An even more dangerous situation would be gaining a share of national power, which is a distinct possibility at the next general election. On current polling figures, one alternative to a Reform UK-led government is a “traffic light” coalition consisting of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens. Could the latter handle the inevitable compromises and hard decisions of multiparty government? Would they be outmanoeuvred by the more experienced operators? Or would they be the most chaotic element of a new “coalition of chaos”, storming out on some point of principle and thus precipitating fresh elections which Reform UK would be well placed to win by a landslide?

Safer for the Greens, then, if Reform becomes the first of Britain’s populist parties to win power. Polanski would be able to blame the fact of Nigel Farage as prime minister on Labour and position his party as the “resistance” to the Right. Indeed, with the Greens currently in second place in some polls, they could plausibly win enough seats in 2029 to become the Official Opposition.

Earlier this year, the Reform MP Danny Kruger issued a dire warning: “If we don’t win, or if we win and then make a mess of it, I do fear for our country.” It’s the part about messing up in power that his party should take to heart. Because if Reform does screw up, a Green government may be next.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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