What Do the Polls Indicate for Green Politics?
The recent election of new Greens leader Zack Polanski has steamrollered them into a position unthinkable a few years back. The party membership has grown from just under 60,000 to almost 90,000 within a year, and it’s gone from 2% polling around 10% of the electoral, and having 4 MPs (just one less than Reform UK in October 2025).
Interestingly, leader Zack Polanski says he understands why people vote Reform, and aims to sweep up disillusioned voters at the next election.
Two days after winning the leadership election, he visited Nigel Farage’s constituency in Clacton-on-Sea, and said he was surprised to learn that most local Reform UK supporters not only backed a wealth tax, but also ‘safe legal routes for people on boats’, which is official Green Party policy.
On telling one Reform supporter about its policies for ‘zero hour contracts that means dismissed staff can be taken back with worse pay and conditions’, the voter was aghast. Saying he had thought that the party was supposed to be ‘standing up for British people’.
This is what happens when the mass media never challenges policies of political parties.
Current party membership levels in October 2025 are:
- Labour 309,000
- Reform UK 250,000
- Conservative 123,000
- Greens 88,000
- Lib Dems 60,000
With support surging for Greens and Lib Dems, we could be looking at a left-leaning hung parliament, especially if the new Your Party takes off. YouGov polling in July 2025 found that 18% of the UK electorate would be open to voting for this new party co-led by Jeremy Corbyn, and 31% would be open to voting for a united ticket between it and the Greens.
The party was formed by members of the Independent Alliance, a small group of MPs that sit in the House of Commons but do not support any particular political party.
YouGov found 25% of under-30s said they would never vote Labour. In the year since the election, Labour has gone from dominating the youth vote, to being a three-way race with Greens and Lib Dems. Reform (despite the headlines) isn’t even close. University of Exeter
In September 2025, voting intentions of the UK electorate look like this:
- Reform 34%
- Labour 22%
- Conservative 14%
- Greens 12%
- Lib Dems 12%
- Other 6%
So if you do the maths, you can see that it’s perfectly possible that a combination of the smaller parties could (with a few more votes) overtake Reform UK. There is real change happening here, so it pays to stay positive!
George Thinks Zack Can Win!
Political environmental journalist George Monbiot knows his polls and politics, and thinks that Zack’s election as leader may be the beginning when our ‘political drought’ begins to break. Although a fan of the other leadership candidates, he says that the only way to counter the momentum of Reform UK is with a leader who is as equally brash and loud.
He says the way that Zack can get through is that he is a genuine person with a genuine history (son of a hardware shop owner, with a partner who works in a hospice). He’s a gay Jewish vegan, who tends to see the good in everyone.
George says paradoxically that rather than changing the system, Reform UK (that has taken over £2 million in donations from polluting companies) ‘is the system’ that needs change.
Rather than feeling defeated, the truth is that despite their poll popularity, most people don’t actually support them (they just head the polls of people who support political parties). So there is a huge vacuum for people completely fed up of all politics to vote Green, or even have them merge with Lib Dems, Plaid Cmyru and possibly Your Party, in a hung parliament.
A man was on his first day out of prison, to work in a bakery. He arrived, terrified of his new life. He was a little late, because it had been years since he’d used public transport, and there was a cup of tea waiting for him. A simple act of kindness, from one stranger to another.
That’s what this country is, when it’s at its best. It’s thoughtful, it’s considerate and it’s kind. Hateful, divisive politics is on the ballot paper. We can and must reject that. Let’s instead look after each other. Let’s go! Zack Polanski, Green Party leader
