Next month’s Makerfield by-election will be perhaps the oddest contest British politics has ever faced. Never before has a contest been triggered, and a candidate stepped up, with an implicit pitch to unseat the prime minister of their own party. This creates an odd dilemma for the other parties competing for the seat. Should Labour lose, it will cause a crisis in the party, but without a favourite in Parliament to take the top job. If Andy Burnham wins, that result could offer Labour a lifeline to recover its popularity.

The Green Party faces a particularly acute choice, which is playing out in public. On Thursday, Zack Polanski’s party announced Chris Kennedy as its candidate in Makerfield. Hours later, he withdrew, citing “personal and family reasons”. The real reason, it turned out, was that reporters had unearthed social media posts in which he called arson attacks on ambulances in north London a “false flag” operation. Earlier in the week, it was reported that senior Green figures are proposing holding back resources in the seat to pave the way for a Labour victory by not splitting the Left-wing vote. Former party leader Caroline Lucas has been vocal in her support for this approach in recent days. In doing so, the Greens could signal to Labour an effective truce on the progressive Left. This would prioritise defeating Reform UK, but goes against long-term Green interests.

However, if Burnham wins and improves Labour’s standing, it is likely to be at the expense of the Greens. Since Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, one of the biggest moves of votes away from his party has been to the Greens, undermining Labour in urban areas, swinging council seats, and deciding the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year. One of the missions of a new leader would be stemming that tide.

Others in the Greens will sense this. The party could push hard and demonstrate that it is a threat to Labour across Britain. Challenging for Makerfield, or at least playing spoiler to let Reform in, could further weaken the Government, at the same time creating more opportunity for the Greens to prosper. Another option would have been to at least extract policy concessions from Burnham, leveraging the party’s chance to stand in his way.

A key problem here is that these political pacts and deals fail to reckon with where the real power lies: the voters. The reality is that Makerfield is a weak constituency for a Green challenge. It doesn’t have the urban electorate of Gorton and Denton. It is suburban, and its residents are older and less progressive. What’s more, the tactical stage is already set. Reform cleaned up in this month’s council elections in the area, but with Labour second and the Greens a distant third. Anyone in the constituency can understand the dynamics and know that voting Green will hinder Labour; fighting the seat hard is unlikely to change that.

The fragmentation of British politics offers new opportunities for parties, and means more of an internal fight within both the Left and the Right of the spectrum. But the dynamics of political pacts concern more than ideology. Britons have proven adept at voting tactically when it counts, and can see that Labour is the only real option for Makerfield against Reform.

Polanski’s party can’t pretend that a hard fight there would be anything other than a waste of limited resources. Dressing up capitulation in warm words about progressives standing together is likely the best the party can do. A debate around dedicating campaign resources will make little difference in Makerfield. It could, however, be a critical point in the Greens figuring out what sort of party they want to be.

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John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.

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