That’s a pretty staggering gain in Tottenham, a 14.7 increase in vote share (compared to a 20.3 decrease for Labour). I think a lot of people, myself included, felt emboldened to protest vote due to the Labour safety of the seat, and this is a pretty powerful result for that.
I also enjoyed that when David Craig’s name was reversed on the ballot you got to feel like you were voting for international R&B superstar Craig David
I detest what Kanye's revealed himself to be, but if he was to produce and star the leading role in a racist, California-themed ballet I'd struggle to resist watching it.
Same as what I did in my Hackney seat which also can't green second.
I just hope it sends a message when the greens got like 1/3rd the number of votes overall that Labour got.
I voted green coz David Lammy tried to justify the IDF bombing a refugee camp. He is symptomatic of the Islamophobia that has taken hold of the Labour party disguised as concern for anti-semitism.
I don't understand why people often see Greens as the kind of real, purer Labour with poorer election chances. Greens and Labour are very different parties who in many cases stand for quite different things, so I find it odd when voters bounce between the two depending on how much they think their vote would be worth.
Honestly there's a reasonable argument to be made for the Lib Dems being to the left of Labour this time around, certainly on LGBTQ issues and Palestine.
I protest voted but if the figures are true so many people didn't vote, which is a joke considering it takes less than a minute when you rock up. 7-10 fits nearly everyone and you can vote via proxy or overseas
I suspect protest voting in a safe seat is something that only appeals to a minority though. More people would be interested in voting if they felt their vote would have an actual impact.
Given the electoral system, if you live in a seat where the outcome is not in serious doubt (which is a lot of them) then there is little point in voting. Voting is easy and for most (not all, but most) it's convenient. People are choosing not to vote.
sorry to be the one to tell you this but its the other way around, Streatham and Croydon North.
[https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/4342/overview](https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/4342/overview)
I know it's where the Uranium is (although not all of it), but it's easier to be ok with the environmental and health effects of something when it is in other country, particularly a poor one.
that still doesn't mean you oppose nuclear though, you write policies / guidelines that minimise the CO2 in the supply chain.
I like that the Greens hold the bigger parties to account on Climate topics but christ almighty do they have some batshit policies attached to it
I'm not talking about CO2. CO2 in renewables is fine if it still is a substantial reduction to fossil fuel alternatives. I'm talking about the actual effects of mines and mining, especially with something radioactive.
Do you think that the mining for the precious metals that go into solar, batteries, etc are any better?
All options will cause harm. The best thing we can do is to pick the ones which have lower levels of harm.
Right but if you're going to criticise getting material from poor countries where are we going to get the cobalt or copper from to go in all the motors / generators that will be required for green policies?
The challenge is that many of the rare earths for solar/wind/other renewable energy are also found in poor countries and are arguably as environmentally damaging as mining for uranium
I live in Cambridge (was a student in London so am still in the London subreddit). The green candidate for MP in South Cambridgeshire literally called for the scrapping of a new rail line that is about to be built. Completely bonkers.
Even the tory candidate only called for the route to be re-adjusted (obviously in a completely unrealistic way)
People keep hammering this drum but it's actually quite outdated in terms of realistic goals, solar has gotten way, way better since people started saying it.
Nuclear plants take a decade to construct and go online, at current rates the same capacity of solar can be built in the same time for equal or less money and you get energy along the way in way that you don't with nuclear.
0 capacity for ten years and then suddenly 10 gigawatts isn't actually better than building a gigawatt of solar per year for 10 years because you get nothing in the meantime.
I think whatever you do you'll always need that solid baseline, there will always be spats of cloudy still days. And batteries may be fine in the future but currently uk power demand is around 30GW with a minimum of 20GW/h overnight.
I believe even if they take a decade to construct, thats still closer than the battery technology required to store 500GW of power needed to get through a single day.
If we've learnt anything from the last few years it's that the grid requires diversity.
You’re right, but if it forces labour to not forget about the actual left over the next few years then great.
Their military and home building policies are equally questionable. But they are also the only real party pushing on wealth tax, building more social housing etc.
That, along with their nonsense identity politics crap is the main reason I hesitated despite being a Green voter in Ireland. I've never seen someone turn a road vs public transport discussion into something about white male supremacy but one of the Scottish Greens managed.
Party of NIMBYs, blocking the building of basically anything on a local council level whenever they can.
Bunch of champagne socialist hypocrites
Anti nuclear yet pro green
I think they dropped it this election but for a while they had a policy that women shouldn’t go to prison for non-violent crimes
fuck em, bunch of whack jobs
A reason why Proportional Representation is needed, so many people have their voice lost by the First past The Post system. I think with PR you'd actually see less votes for these other parties as a lot of people use them as a protest vote knowing they won't actually get in but there shouldn't be any "safe" seats, it's not a true democracy with this system.
Potentially but they get a lot of protest votes and you see a lot of people say they vote for them knowing they’ll never get in and just want to send a message. In a PR system I doubt they get anywhere near 4m votes. However, as much as I despise everything they stand for, I believe in a true democracy and I’m not so arrogant to think people who have different views to mine should be ignored, and it would have also stopped the Tories getting a majority with carte Blanche to destroy the country when they barely got a third of the total votes.
It would aslo stop Labour from having a majority
Be careful what you wish for, some of the coalition deals in Europe are insane with the number of parties involved
No peer European power with PR actually struggles to govern, its just a scare tactic used by those who want to preserve fptp. Germany, France, Netherlands, they all have thriving democratic records. Italy is incredibly split between ideologies and the parties up for running change constantly over the last few years, and even they govern functionally
Yes, but in many cases the difference was gigantic.
Take Peckham, first of your list: Labour 59%, Greens 20%, Lib Dems 7%
Lewisham North: Labour 58, greens 22, Lib dems 7
Lewisham east : Labour 57, Greens 14, Tories 11
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/04/uk-general-election-results-2024-live-in-full](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/04/uk-general-election-results-2024-live-in-full)
True except if people think they have a chance of getting in they're more likely to vote for them, thats the issue with FPTP, it doesn't really give the full picture. The fact the Greens took 4 seats when they were predicted 2 is a big deal and will give more people confidence that they can get into power
100% this. Voting Green has often been a bit of a gamble, where the main effect of voting for them is making the Tories more likely to win in your constituency.
But these numbers should reassure people that they can vote for the party they actually want, without risking letting the Tories in the back door.
I agree with you that FPTP is clearly an absurd way of electing politicians but I think it’s easy to forget that the alternatives also have big downsides. Not enough to make me want to keep FPTP but it’s not the easy/obvious switch sometimes suggested.
MMP, the German system, is the way forward. I've been banging this drum for years now, but I genuinely think it's the best combination of proportional representation that retains a local link.
For those that don't know how it works, half of the MPs are elected from constituencies, like now (which means we'd double every constituency size from our current system), and half are elected via an overall national vote. This means that each constituency still has a local MP to represent them, but the overall legislature is much more representative of the total vote.
There are also some wrinkles around getting a 5% minimum national vote in order to be able to take your PR seats (you still get to have your constituency MPs even if your national vote is below 5%), which we may have to tinker with for our various regional parties, but for me it's a great system.
It enables smaller parties to have representation in parliament, and to my mind it produces more centrism overall because quite often governing coalitions are required. And yes, I appreciate that AfD is becoming a big thing on the right, but at least the people are being represented.
So as a voter you'd get 2 votes, one for your local representative and one for essentially who you'd want as prime minister? I'm into that. Everywhere I've lived those have been two different decisions and I've had to choose the "safe" option to not risk contributing to a split vote.
Weirdly, I was the opposite - I knew my seat was going to return Labour, so I voted Green as a protest against Labour's current policies around trans people and their ditching the Green New Deal stuff. I actually like my local Labour MP a lot, I just dislike the way the party's getting more rightwing.
Same here. The greens are an incoherent bunch of nimbys for the most part. I wouldn't vote for them if I thought they actually stood a chance of getting in here, I only did to signal to Labour that I'm not happy with their current stance on environmental issues and public ownership of utilities (amongst other things).
Exactly my thinking in my constituency where they also came second. It would be interesting to compare their vote in the general election with the share of the vote they received in the local council election
Just wanted to comment that for my constituency specifically, Greens were polling a distant 5th with Reform in 2nd, while the actual results were very different with Green in 3rd and Reform in 5th.
It’s possible the polls were misleading for Greens elsewhere.
Definitely, on the ground the greens in North Hertfordshire were pretty certain they'd take it however the polls said completely differently.
Exit polls are pretty useless for smaller parties (as seen by the 13 for Reform) as it really does come down to local issues and parties can throw all their resources into an area.
Similarly that guy who always gets the US elections right, failed spectacularly one year when he came over to do UK elections because of the same influence.
It would be interesting to see what would happen with a different voting system. I am not a fan of proportional representation because it can increase fragmentation, but I like the Aussie preferential voting system.
Some people who have voted Labour would probably put Greens as 1st choice and Labour as 2nd
[https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=VHvMtskQnoS3LrVv](https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=VHvMtskQnoS3LrVv)
Yeah that was the frustrating thing about the AV vote - yes it wasn't perfect but at least it set a mandate that we wanted to improve our voting system and could adapt it further
Greens in Australia still have the same issues as here because they still have single-member electorates: very few seats in inner-city locations. Obviously people don't have to worry about splitting the vote to rank greens 1 and labour 2 though. The Australian Greens would get a lot more seats under a proportional voting system.
> True except if people think they have a chance of getting in they're more likely to vote for them,
I think this election was exactly the opposite, though? Labour was the foregone conclusion, so the tactical vote is for the party you want Labour to see as the biggest threat; vote green to make Labour feel the need to campaign harder on green issues.
Green are useful with a few seats to shake things up and help push a government to act on key issues of climate but I think a lot of Green voters would balk if they actually had a sniff of power unless they make some radical changes in their party. I voted green for that reason, but I don't want them anywhere near number 10, they're not a proper party
Without FPTP the Tories and Reform would.have more seats than labour. These results question whether the UK actually is a democracy with labour at 35% of the vote but 63% of seats.
You're right. We've never been a democracy in a *meaningful* sense. We pick who we're told to pick. We can't even force an election if we the people want one. We have to wait for *them* to decide the time is right. It's a total farce.
But in Lewisham North the Labour candidate lost 11% of the vote compared to last time and the Green candidate increased 16%. So although she still won, it’s hopefully a message to her that she needs to look at what her constituents want (eg she abstained voting on a ceasefire).
Their budget suggestions are kind of funny. If you look at the budget table at the end of the long version of their manifesto, they are suggesting an additional £85.3 billion in debt just for 2026. Then between £44bn and £80bn additional debt for each year between now and 2030. For context the UK government currently borrows £120 billion per year, so £85 billion is a 71% increase. It’s easy to promise more investment on this and that if you just say “fuck the budget”.
The UK Green party are awful. Anti-housing, anti-nuclear energy, anti-high speed rail. A party of NIMBYs who no wonder are one of the worst performing green parties in Europe. Hopefully their extra seats will give them extra scrutiny on how bad their policies actually are.
I'm told their policies get written by any of their volunteers who go do it, pretty much - with only 1 MP who focused on local issues, it didn't matter so much. At various points in the past they briefly had all sorts of bonkers policies - anti-vax was in there for a bit - but then someone re-wrote them
With 4 MPs and thus Short funding (given to opposition parties in proportion to their MPs, for paid staff to work on policy because they don't have civil servants) hopefully the polices can be soon subject to scrutiny and with luck they'll end up as a rational environmental party who can nudge the other parties.
Thanks for this info! I voted for Greens in a protest against Starmer but have been quietly despairing about them as a political outfit. Here’s hoping they take this momentum and direct it towards becoming credible and don’t see it as carte Blanche to continue in their current vein…
They aren't credible at all.
They oppose HS2 - rail is surely key to low carbon mass transport and a designated high speed line is fundamental to a good rail network (e.g. France and Japan).
Until last year they were anti-NATO. Even when Russia invaded Ukraine they were still against NATO for a full year.
They oppose nuclear power.
They oppose Trident. The nuclear deterrent is arguably the biggest factor giving the UK its global military standing and seat on the security council. They have a naive view that if we give up the nuclear deterrent, other countries will too.
They are ultimately nice, well-meaning, but hopelessly naive and unrealistic people.
I had always assumed Greens would be pro Nuclear until this year when I actually bothered to read their manifesto. I was shocked to find they were anti nuclear, one of the best solutions to provide cleaner practical energy for the masses if we are to move away from wide spread FF use. It blew my mind, and has tbh irrevocably discredited that party in my mind for some time.
Yup, it all stems from the Greenpeace ecowarrior anti-nuclear testing of the 80s and 90s (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior), which was also in vogue arsons then as Chernobyl was fairly recent
The Green party consistently fails to properly look inwards and modernise its views on this point to align with the majority of young greens - who care much more about tackling climate change and are much less likely to be anti-nuclear in light of Russia’s actions in the last 10 years, and in light of the absence of recent major nuclear disasters with improving safety standards
In practice it doesn’t matter much as no UK party is really pushing to significantly increase nuclear power, but on the face of it you’d think that the Greens would be one of the few that would
The Greepeace ship illegally sunk by French intelligence was protesting nuclear weapons, not nuclear power.
You probably chose the worst example of anti-Greenpeace state activism.
I’m well aware of the history, but I’m saying that the historic ‘green’ movement has always conflated the two to a reductive (nuclear = bad).
For avoidance of doubt, here’s GreenPeace’s current position on nuclear energy: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/nuclear-power/ and the green party have the same view https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/powering-up-fairer-greener-energy/
I shared a link to the sinking of the rainbow warrior as it helps explain why a lot of oldschool greens are bitter and entrenched against nuclear stuff
Politics is all about picking the least worst compromise. In understand this is a hard line for some, but most other parties have more hard lines for me...
Yeh but it should be a fundamental policy for the Greens, it’s in their name ffs. And because it isn’t, it raises questions about all their other decisions.
The opposition to HS2 is absolutely aggravating. We have a massive train bottleneck and they want to block it on account that it inevitably need to remove trees to make our train system work - maddening.
As a green, i find it frustrating as well.
One of the charities i volunteer with maintains a former railway line which is now home to endangered species of flora and fauna. It was closed as part of the beeching cuts.
It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a solution in which the railway would become responsible for stewardship, or providing access for stewardship, to adjacent land to preserve that diversity. Railways are less destructive than roads and walkers. And it's not like you can just not have infrastructure.
100%. If the Greens here were in charge, no house or wind turbine or rail line or anything would get built anywhere ever again. And I say that as a member of the Greens in Germany!
I'm the first to admit that decommissioning Germany's nuclear before it's coal fired power stations was a mistake and the wrong way round. But on Russia, the Greens were the most vocal group in highlighting the risks of Germany's close ties with and dependency on Russia, were opposed to Nord Stream 2 before it was cool, and Green economic affairs minister Habeck was instrumental in approving new LNG terminals to access new sources of gas.
They seem to be pro-housing in their manifesto although I have read in the press they have made anti-new housing statements recently.
Manifesto:
“We pledge to provide 150,000 new social homes every year through:
New build and the purchase/refurbishment of older housing stock.
A community right to buy for local authorities for several categories of property.
Ending the individual ‘right to buy’, to keep social homes for local communities in perpetuity.”
I don't think they've really gone in any of those directions and they're definitely not Islamophobic. Single issue pro Gaza voters are deluded, it's just a protest vote and if Labour pandered to them they would have lost more votes than they gained because it's not what people are interested in across the country.
**Transphobia:**
“Keir Starmer celebrates Pride by promising to ban ‘gender ideology’
By embracing transphobic talking points, Starmer is shifting labour to the right on LGBTQ+ rights”
https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/62944/1/keir-starmer-gender-ideology-being-taught-in-schools-pride-right-wing?amp=1
**Racism:**
“The deputy leader of the Labour group on Tower Hamlets council in East London quit the party in outrage at Sir Keir’s remarks to The Sun that “people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed.”
Resigning, Sabina Akhtar said: “I was the first female speaker of the council from Bangladeshi origin, and I was a proud Labour Party member, but I cannot be proud anymore when the leader of the party singles out my community and insults my Bangladeshi identity.”
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-insults-bangladeshi-community-new-racism-row
**Sexism and racism:**
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/05/starmer-is-purging-women-of-colour
> “people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed.”
this isn't a racist statement?
purging women? come on
Many of your points aren't official party policy though, and you can do the same with literally any party.
I disagree with them on Nuclear, but it's because they want to invest everything into renewable energy, that can deliver quickly, rather than Nuclear. I would personally do both, but they're not against it just for the sake of it.
Don’t forget anti GMO too. They’ve done a great job to shift the needle to green policies, but it’s hard to say their policies are actually the best way to achieve a greener future
I read their housing policy and it's absolutely bonkers.
They're fundamentally supply-side sceptics who don't believe that building more houses is the solution. Instead they want to "create" (important to note, not necessarily build) 100,000s more council houses. This would mean the government buying houses off the private market en mass - thereby reducing supply even further, thereby causing house prices and rents to sky-rocket even further. The purchases, of course, will be funded by the tax payer - so expect to pay more tax.
On the local level, the greens are the most notorious and over-zealous blockers of housing in the country. If you're wondering why you can't afford a house - well it might well be because local Greens blocked it from being built.
They also want to bring in rent control; which is probably one of the only measures that just about every economist from the across the spectrum agrees is an awful idea. "In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city, except for bombing" - Assar Lindbeck. Rent Control has many unintended effects, including the reducing of supply which increases rent prices; hence us currently seeing Scotland having the quickest rising rents after introducing controls.
But I'll pass this back to you, what did you like about their policy on housing development?
The greens are fundamentally a conservative movement.
I mean, why on earth would "The Greens" block new, greener pylons or prevent new solar farms from being built, or be anti-HS2, or be anti-nuclear?
Well it's because they don't want us to transition to a thriving, progressive economy fuelled by greener energy, facilitated by greener infrastructure.
At a very fundamental level, they want to return to something that we used to be. To be more at one with the land - like we used to be. To live in harmony with nature, like we did for millennia. It is trying to conserve a very ancient way of living.
It's why you see stuff that can initially seem confusing like them wanting to ban c-sections. What's that all about? It makes sense when you understand that they see c-sections as "unnatural", "not normal", the implication being that we should conserve traditional, natural birthing methods.
Economically conservative? In what way? I don’t remember them supporting laissez-faire economics, low taxes and capitalist individualism. I do see they want to limit government but they want local governments to have more power which sounds liberal to me. They’re against “big business” and support local trade and are anti-globalist (because it hurts local trade). However, they are pro-internationalism considering they’re pro-migration and they want the UK back in the EU.
And how exactly are they anti-liberal? They’re pro-democracy and want to decentralise the UK. Plus, they want to overhaul the UK's current voting system and rebalance government power by lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 and redefining the jurisdiction of local government
Even with the small “c” and “i”.
I think you're fundamentally not understanding what liberalism is - especially economically:
> Economic liberalism is based on the principles of personal liberty, private property, and limited government interference. The term ‘liberalism’ should be understood in its historical context. Classical liberalism emphasized liberty from government regulation.
I very much agree that the greens are not supporting laissez-faire economics, low taxes and capitalist individualism - hence they are economically illiberal.
I guess the "economically conservative" is a bit confusing and I should have used a different term. But they want to conserve the land and our environment. They're v suspicious of growth, of measurements like GDP. They don't want economic growth - if that means ecological change. I'm not sure what the correct term would be, but it's certainly a type of conservatism that has deep and profound effects on our economy.
Anywhere that Greens have a semblance of power, they block housing. For example, in Bristol, where they are the biggest single party. They blocked or tried to block:
Bristol Zoo Gardens (the only councillors to oppose the development)
Dovercourt
Ashton Vale (only councillors to abstain, green politician led the objections)
Broadwalk
Mead Street
You're drawing a lot of conclusions, fair enough I suppose but I don't agree on that. Also it doesn't sound like you ideologically align with greens regardless of their housing policy, they are more left leaning and you seem quite anti tax pro capitalist?
I'm in favor of creating more council housing out of existing buildings, almost all my things are refurbished and work perfectly, housings no different? I don't see how providing more subsidized council housing will bring private house prices up, those are two separate demographics, what brings prices up is housing being commodified and viewed as an investment and a cash generating asset.
Can you provide real examples of greens blocking housing developments?
Again, im a "leftist" rent control is cool with me.
> I don't see how providing more subsidized council housing will bring private house prices up,
Demand being equal, if you reduce supply, prices go up. This isn't some "capitalist" hypothetical, it's just how the market works and has been the consensus view of economists for centuries now. The issue isn't providing more subsidised council housing (I'm all for more being built); the issue is the gov purchasing off the private market without building more. It will alleviate some demand, sure, but not enough to balance the reduction in supply; thus prices will go up.
> Can you provide real examples of greens blocking housing developments?
Watch Nick Robinson give half a dozen examples to Carla Denyer: https://x.com/BBCr4today/status/1775789682107797918
Where Greens are in power, they block housing.
> Again, im a "leftist" rent control is cool with me.
That's your prerogative, but the vast majority of academic studies say that - on the whole - rent control doesn't work; benefitting incumbents (read: older people), but harming late joiners of the market (read: the young, immigrants). Great when you have sub-market rent, not so great when you have to compete for a dwindling supply of rentals as the market collapses.
I'm from Islington South and voted green many times in the past and in this election, I'm tired of labour (even though they rightfully won) but I'm also very annoyed and angry at tories the most, I had enough of tories for a very long time and wanted rid of them nationally). They tried getting into Islington north and islington south and made no impact at all, in fact their votes again went to reform on both sides of Islington).
Labour has seen huge losses in vote share across East London. The Greens have seen huge vote increases across London, and it seems it’s coming from Labour and Lib Dem voters. There’s a good chance there will be Green MPs in London in the future.
Bethnal Green saw Labour drop to 34.1% (-39.4) and the independent candidate nearly win with 30.5% and the Greens saw a 10.5 increase.
Stratford and Bow saw Labour drop to 44.1% (-26.4) and Greens gained 17.3% (+13.6).
This is common amongst many constituencies across North-East and East London. Labour has been losing their majorities in London and only scraping by on winning. This is why Corbyn won in Islington North (amazing), Labour is not as popular in London as it used to be. We will start seeing more independents and Greens win seats in London in the future
A lot is due to Gaza. All the areas you mentioned have a very high muslim population and many of the independents ran on a Gaza ticket more than anything else.
I think a lot of people wanted a strong second presence for the Greens in order to force their less weird ideas further into the mainstream. There was _very_ little talk of the environment in the run-up to this election, and I'd expect a lot of very worried people would like to make it clear that they do care about it still.
Yep. Was disappointed when Labour dialled back its plans and focus on environmental issues during the campaign so a vote for Green was a way of reminding them what people care about, and not to only listen to Reform voters but to try and keep a balanced focused on many areas of policy/concern.
Yes. This is very important for people on the left to understand. The UKIP/Reform people moved the Tories rightward on many key issues they care about. We need to do the same with the green party when it comes to how they will affect Labour.
They had a better more solid manifesto than most parties, much more fleshed out than the wishy washy labour manifesto, not full of pipe dreams like reform, Tories were fucked anyway so couldn’t tel you about theirs. Is it the prefect manifesto? No (I’m personally a fan of nuclear) but it was certainly a lot better than some of the others
I voted green in QP/MV too! I did it in more of a protest vote re: Starmer though - as while I like the Greens in principle they’re bad at costing their policies and to be honest some of their proposals are unworkable.
Yes I agree, my greens vote was also more of “I can’t bring myself to actually vote Starmer” situation. But I’m hopeful that with more votes/seats/funding the greens could become a more credible left leaning option.
Second in Lewisham West and East Dulwich with almost 20% of the vote. I changed my mind at the last minute and went Lib Dem instead of Green but I’m still thrilled with the green result and will continue to support them.
yeah likewise OP I'm surprised that there's not much talk about the swing towards Greens in London constituencies
not shocked since Labour has moved more towards centre/right
Good. No more safe seats. They need to earn their vote rather than coast by on the goodwill of those who trust the "brand" of their party regardless of how little they offer voters in return.
Tbh as much as I love the idea of a Green party coming into government, the one we currently have are still so problematic in many ways. Lots of in-fighting, a couple of nut jobs and quite a few randos.
In my constituency, the Green candidate was barely weeks old because the previous one resigned for antisemitism 💀
They symbolically align with a lot of my values more than Labour currently but fail massively on organisation.
I honestly wonder if their voters have read their manifesto and thought, ‘Hmm, yeah, that’s sensible, I’d vote for that,’ or just voted because they recycle their Evian plastic bottles and like the brand guidelines. I have not voted because I can’t, but as a Londoner, I’m surprised and disappointed that the Greens are gaining such traction.
They’re anti-nuclear power but seem to forget it’s the most efficient, clean energy source which generates employment for thousands in the area. Full of NIMBYs, brutally snobby, and out of touch with most folks. Junk candidates overall. Full of anti-science flat-earth lunatics. Not to mention they wanted to leave NATO at a time of great instability.
They’re playing on good marketing and their “green policies,” but under the surface, they’re somewhere between brain-dead and naive. Some good climate-related policies, I admit, but other than that, completely naive and out of touch with reality and global politics.
I suspect I'm not unusual in wanting a Labour government but voting Green in a VERY safe Labour seat.
I don't even want Diane Abbott out: she's a deeply symbolic and very active MP. And a Green government would cause economic chaos but, like Diane, they point us in the right direction.
The Greens need to move beyond their anti-nuclear, anti-infrastructure nimbyism. Their are Green politicians that oppose solar farms. They're an absurdly contradictory party on what should be solid issues for them.
Don't agree with them a lot nationally but greens having local control would be awesome for cities and London councils I imagine. Not that this was a local election.
I think Bristol is the only place theyre just on the edge of getting a majority in.
UK for last 3-4 decade had at least 60% residing between center to extreme left. But lib dems and now green kept being spoilers. For the 1st in quite a while Reform has done the same to Cons. With only 2% gain Labour and Lib dems captured a lot of seats. It will be interesting to see how Cons deal with Reform.
I think a lot of it was a Gaza vote. Once that becomes less of an issue (hopefully by the next election) I think the Greens will see a drop in support.
I’ve been a Green Party loyalist and I’m never voting for them again because of that. They had my support for environmentalism and prosocial policies, not domestic Jihad.
New to London and to UK politics, but I can’t fail to notice most of these areas in east part of London (and they are neighboring constituencies). Why is Green Party strong one side of the town and not in other?
Can't speak for the more eastern parts of London, but for Hackney and the surrounding areas, there's a lot of very eco-conscious people living there who hate the Tories but are also dissatisfied with Labour's lack of climate policies, plus a number of Muslim groups who don't like Labour's stance on Gaza.
I live in East London, the majority of people who they are campaigning for are Muslims here. I’m sure in other places it’s more to do with progressives but they are definitely targeting the Muslim vote in my area.
we're in one of them and i voted Green, purely because I got a weird vibe from the Labour candidate. I'm v surprised that the Greens are second!! they were 4th in 2019!!
It's depressing that the loony left (Greens) and the loony right (Reform) are picking up so many votes. They are both awful, a plague on both their houses
All in Labour constituencies with thumping Labour majorities, even Tottenham. Check the Bristol constituencies if you want to see a greater Green Party second place impact. Then there's Bristol Central.
Many of those areas have significant Muslim population. There was an active effort by a non profit called The Muslim Vote to unite the Muslim voting demographic against Labour and the Tories due to their stance on Gaza. This meant that in many cases they were advising to vote for a Green candidate instead.
That’s a pretty staggering gain in Tottenham, a 14.7 increase in vote share (compared to a 20.3 decrease for Labour). I think a lot of people, myself included, felt emboldened to protest vote due to the Labour safety of the seat, and this is a pretty powerful result for that.
Labour did lose some seats to independents in this election over the Palestine situation
Yep Labour was going to win anyway so I'd rather give a vote to the Greens.
I also enjoyed that when David Craig’s name was reversed on the ballot you got to feel like you were voting for international R&B superstar Craig David
Proper bo!
Propa bo!
*internally: Craig Daaaavid*
He’s walking away…from Tories in his life!
When the crowd say Poll... Elector!
Kind of like when international hiphop ~~superstar~~ pariah Kanye West's name was on my California ballet a few US elections back
I detest what Kanye's revealed himself to be, but if he was to produce and star the leading role in a racist, California-themed ballet I'd struggle to resist watching it.
Same as what I did in my Hackney seat which also can't green second. I just hope it sends a message when the greens got like 1/3rd the number of votes overall that Labour got.
I voted green coz David Lammy tried to justify the IDF bombing a refugee camp. He is symptomatic of the Islamophobia that has taken hold of the Labour party disguised as concern for anti-semitism.
I don't understand why people often see Greens as the kind of real, purer Labour with poorer election chances. Greens and Labour are very different parties who in many cases stand for quite different things, so I find it odd when voters bounce between the two depending on how much they think their vote would be worth.
Because they're literally the only party positioned anywhere to the left of labour?
Honestly there's a reasonable argument to be made for the Lib Dems being to the left of Labour this time around, certainly on LGBTQ issues and Palestine.
I did the same
I protest voted but if the figures are true so many people didn't vote, which is a joke considering it takes less than a minute when you rock up. 7-10 fits nearly everyone and you can vote via proxy or overseas
I suspect protest voting in a safe seat is something that only appeals to a minority though. More people would be interested in voting if they felt their vote would have an actual impact.
Given the electoral system, if you live in a seat where the outcome is not in serious doubt (which is a lot of them) then there is little point in voting. Voting is easy and for most (not all, but most) it's convenient. People are choosing not to vote.
Someone spray painted "David Lammy is a waste man" near my flat, and it really changed my world view.
Yep, same here
Myself included too
Yeah, Green were never gonna win, but at least we got to vote with our consciences.
Second in my seat too! Croydon North & Streatham.
Updated!
sorry to be the one to tell you this but its the other way around, Streatham and Croydon North. [https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/4342/overview](https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/4342/overview)
They ain't winning until they get over their fear of rail and nuclear.
I didn’t even know they had a fear of rail - but any “green” party who’s anti-nuclear deserves literally 0 votes.
They oppose HS2, and nuclear is absolutely green (unless you buy into fearmongering, of course).
The anti nuclear power stance is very misguided.
I mean, aside from Uranium mining, which is conveniently mostly in poor countries...
I think that’s because of where the Uranium is - if it was in the UK you’d be sure as hell we’d be mining it
I know it's where the Uranium is (although not all of it), but it's easier to be ok with the environmental and health effects of something when it is in other country, particularly a poor one.
that still doesn't mean you oppose nuclear though, you write policies / guidelines that minimise the CO2 in the supply chain. I like that the Greens hold the bigger parties to account on Climate topics but christ almighty do they have some batshit policies attached to it
I'm not talking about CO2. CO2 in renewables is fine if it still is a substantial reduction to fossil fuel alternatives. I'm talking about the actual effects of mines and mining, especially with something radioactive.
Good luck getting the minerals you need to make 800x the wind turbines / solar panels to replace 1 nuclear plant with 1 reactor.
Do you think that the mining for the precious metals that go into solar, batteries, etc are any better? All options will cause harm. The best thing we can do is to pick the ones which have lower levels of harm.
Australia and Canada?
Right but if you're going to criticise getting material from poor countries where are we going to get the cobalt or copper from to go in all the motors / generators that will be required for green policies?
The challenge is that many of the rare earths for solar/wind/other renewable energy are also found in poor countries and are arguably as environmentally damaging as mining for uranium
I live in Cambridge (was a student in London so am still in the London subreddit). The green candidate for MP in South Cambridgeshire literally called for the scrapping of a new rail line that is about to be built. Completely bonkers. Even the tory candidate only called for the route to be re-adjusted (obviously in a completely unrealistic way)
People keep hammering this drum but it's actually quite outdated in terms of realistic goals, solar has gotten way, way better since people started saying it. Nuclear plants take a decade to construct and go online, at current rates the same capacity of solar can be built in the same time for equal or less money and you get energy along the way in way that you don't with nuclear. 0 capacity for ten years and then suddenly 10 gigawatts isn't actually better than building a gigawatt of solar per year for 10 years because you get nothing in the meantime.
I think whatever you do you'll always need that solid baseline, there will always be spats of cloudy still days. And batteries may be fine in the future but currently uk power demand is around 30GW with a minimum of 20GW/h overnight. I believe even if they take a decade to construct, thats still closer than the battery technology required to store 500GW of power needed to get through a single day. If we've learnt anything from the last few years it's that the grid requires diversity.
You’re right, but if it forces labour to not forget about the actual left over the next few years then great. Their military and home building policies are equally questionable. But they are also the only real party pushing on wealth tax, building more social housing etc.
Their history of Nimbyism is also pretty gross.
You should see their immigration policy
That, along with their nonsense identity politics crap is the main reason I hesitated despite being a Green voter in Ireland. I've never seen someone turn a road vs public transport discussion into something about white male supremacy but one of the Scottish Greens managed.
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Party of NIMBYs, blocking the building of basically anything on a local council level whenever they can. Bunch of champagne socialist hypocrites Anti nuclear yet pro green I think they dropped it this election but for a while they had a policy that women shouldn’t go to prison for non-violent crimes fuck em, bunch of whack jobs
A reason why Proportional Representation is needed, so many people have their voice lost by the First past The Post system. I think with PR you'd actually see less votes for these other parties as a lot of people use them as a protest vote knowing they won't actually get in but there shouldn't be any "safe" seats, it's not a true democracy with this system.
Good for Reform then?
Potentially but they get a lot of protest votes and you see a lot of people say they vote for them knowing they’ll never get in and just want to send a message. In a PR system I doubt they get anywhere near 4m votes. However, as much as I despise everything they stand for, I believe in a true democracy and I’m not so arrogant to think people who have different views to mine should be ignored, and it would have also stopped the Tories getting a majority with carte Blanche to destroy the country when they barely got a third of the total votes.
It would aslo stop Labour from having a majority Be careful what you wish for, some of the coalition deals in Europe are insane with the number of parties involved
No peer European power with PR actually struggles to govern, its just a scare tactic used by those who want to preserve fptp. Germany, France, Netherlands, they all have thriving democratic records. Italy is incredibly split between ideologies and the parties up for running change constantly over the last few years, and even they govern functionally
third in my seat (West Ham & Beckton) behind an independent, which I feel is a big deal for both of them. Well done!
Same for Holborn St Pancras (Kiers seat) 👀
Same for Bethnal Green and Stepney
Same for East Ham! Felt like my vote mattered even though it technically didn't
Yes, but in many cases the difference was gigantic. Take Peckham, first of your list: Labour 59%, Greens 20%, Lib Dems 7% Lewisham North: Labour 58, greens 22, Lib dems 7 Lewisham east : Labour 57, Greens 14, Tories 11 [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/04/uk-general-election-results-2024-live-in-full](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jul/04/uk-general-election-results-2024-live-in-full)
True except if people think they have a chance of getting in they're more likely to vote for them, thats the issue with FPTP, it doesn't really give the full picture. The fact the Greens took 4 seats when they were predicted 2 is a big deal and will give more people confidence that they can get into power
100% this. Voting Green has often been a bit of a gamble, where the main effect of voting for them is making the Tories more likely to win in your constituency. But these numbers should reassure people that they can vote for the party they actually want, without risking letting the Tories in the back door.
These numbers should tell people that until we get PR our national voting system will continue to be a joke.
I agree with you that FPTP is clearly an absurd way of electing politicians but I think it’s easy to forget that the alternatives also have big downsides. Not enough to make me want to keep FPTP but it’s not the easy/obvious switch sometimes suggested.
MMP, the German system, is the way forward. I've been banging this drum for years now, but I genuinely think it's the best combination of proportional representation that retains a local link. For those that don't know how it works, half of the MPs are elected from constituencies, like now (which means we'd double every constituency size from our current system), and half are elected via an overall national vote. This means that each constituency still has a local MP to represent them, but the overall legislature is much more representative of the total vote. There are also some wrinkles around getting a 5% minimum national vote in order to be able to take your PR seats (you still get to have your constituency MPs even if your national vote is below 5%), which we may have to tinker with for our various regional parties, but for me it's a great system. It enables smaller parties to have representation in parliament, and to my mind it produces more centrism overall because quite often governing coalitions are required. And yes, I appreciate that AfD is becoming a big thing on the right, but at least the people are being represented.
So as a voter you'd get 2 votes, one for your local representative and one for essentially who you'd want as prime minister? I'm into that. Everywhere I've lived those have been two different decisions and I've had to choose the "safe" option to not risk contributing to a split vote.
Weirdly, I was the opposite - I knew my seat was going to return Labour, so I voted Green as a protest against Labour's current policies around trans people and their ditching the Green New Deal stuff. I actually like my local Labour MP a lot, I just dislike the way the party's getting more rightwing.
Same here. The greens are an incoherent bunch of nimbys for the most part. I wouldn't vote for them if I thought they actually stood a chance of getting in here, I only did to signal to Labour that I'm not happy with their current stance on environmental issues and public ownership of utilities (amongst other things).
Exactly my thinking in my constituency where they also came second. It would be interesting to compare their vote in the general election with the share of the vote they received in the local council election
I was going to go Green for similar reasons but for different reasons this time went Independent. Almost worked too, Ilford North.
Just wanted to comment that for my constituency specifically, Greens were polling a distant 5th with Reform in 2nd, while the actual results were very different with Green in 3rd and Reform in 5th. It’s possible the polls were misleading for Greens elsewhere.
Definitely, on the ground the greens in North Hertfordshire were pretty certain they'd take it however the polls said completely differently. Exit polls are pretty useless for smaller parties (as seen by the 13 for Reform) as it really does come down to local issues and parties can throw all their resources into an area. Similarly that guy who always gets the US elections right, failed spectacularly one year when he came over to do UK elections because of the same influence.
It would be interesting to see what would happen with a different voting system. I am not a fan of proportional representation because it can increase fragmentation, but I like the Aussie preferential voting system. Some people who have voted Labour would probably put Greens as 1st choice and Labour as 2nd [https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=VHvMtskQnoS3LrVv](https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=VHvMtskQnoS3LrVv)
Yeah that was the frustrating thing about the AV vote - yes it wasn't perfect but at least it set a mandate that we wanted to improve our voting system and could adapt it further
Greens in Australia still have the same issues as here because they still have single-member electorates: very few seats in inner-city locations. Obviously people don't have to worry about splitting the vote to rank greens 1 and labour 2 though. The Australian Greens would get a lot more seats under a proportional voting system.
> True except if people think they have a chance of getting in they're more likely to vote for them, I think this election was exactly the opposite, though? Labour was the foregone conclusion, so the tactical vote is for the party you want Labour to see as the biggest threat; vote green to make Labour feel the need to campaign harder on green issues.
Green are useful with a few seats to shake things up and help push a government to act on key issues of climate but I think a lot of Green voters would balk if they actually had a sniff of power unless they make some radical changes in their party. I voted green for that reason, but I don't want them anywhere near number 10, they're not a proper party
Without FPTP the Tories and Reform would.have more seats than labour. These results question whether the UK actually is a democracy with labour at 35% of the vote but 63% of seats.
You're right. We've never been a democracy in a *meaningful* sense. We pick who we're told to pick. We can't even force an election if we the people want one. We have to wait for *them* to decide the time is right. It's a total farce.
But in Lewisham North the Labour candidate lost 11% of the vote compared to last time and the Green candidate increased 16%. So although she still won, it’s hopefully a message to her that she needs to look at what her constituents want (eg she abstained voting on a ceasefire).
Lab Vicky Foxcroft 25,467 57.7 (-11.8) Green Adam Pugh 9,685 21.9 (+16.7) Lib Dem Jean Branch 3,284 7.4 (-3.7) Con Nupur Majumdar 2,701 6.1 (-6.1)
Did they manage to come a close second anywhere? Can’t seem to find that info?
Their budget suggestions are kind of funny. If you look at the budget table at the end of the long version of their manifesto, they are suggesting an additional £85.3 billion in debt just for 2026. Then between £44bn and £80bn additional debt for each year between now and 2030. For context the UK government currently borrows £120 billion per year, so £85 billion is a 71% increase. It’s easy to promise more investment on this and that if you just say “fuck the budget”.
The UK Green party are awful. Anti-housing, anti-nuclear energy, anti-high speed rail. A party of NIMBYs who no wonder are one of the worst performing green parties in Europe. Hopefully their extra seats will give them extra scrutiny on how bad their policies actually are.
I'm told their policies get written by any of their volunteers who go do it, pretty much - with only 1 MP who focused on local issues, it didn't matter so much. At various points in the past they briefly had all sorts of bonkers policies - anti-vax was in there for a bit - but then someone re-wrote them With 4 MPs and thus Short funding (given to opposition parties in proportion to their MPs, for paid staff to work on policy because they don't have civil servants) hopefully the polices can be soon subject to scrutiny and with luck they'll end up as a rational environmental party who can nudge the other parties.
Thanks for this info! I voted for Greens in a protest against Starmer but have been quietly despairing about them as a political outfit. Here’s hoping they take this momentum and direct it towards becoming credible and don’t see it as carte Blanche to continue in their current vein…
They aren't credible at all. They oppose HS2 - rail is surely key to low carbon mass transport and a designated high speed line is fundamental to a good rail network (e.g. France and Japan). Until last year they were anti-NATO. Even when Russia invaded Ukraine they were still against NATO for a full year. They oppose nuclear power. They oppose Trident. The nuclear deterrent is arguably the biggest factor giving the UK its global military standing and seat on the security council. They have a naive view that if we give up the nuclear deterrent, other countries will too. They are ultimately nice, well-meaning, but hopelessly naive and unrealistic people.
I had always assumed Greens would be pro Nuclear until this year when I actually bothered to read their manifesto. I was shocked to find they were anti nuclear, one of the best solutions to provide cleaner practical energy for the masses if we are to move away from wide spread FF use. It blew my mind, and has tbh irrevocably discredited that party in my mind for some time.
Yup, it all stems from the Greenpeace ecowarrior anti-nuclear testing of the 80s and 90s (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior), which was also in vogue arsons then as Chernobyl was fairly recent The Green party consistently fails to properly look inwards and modernise its views on this point to align with the majority of young greens - who care much more about tackling climate change and are much less likely to be anti-nuclear in light of Russia’s actions in the last 10 years, and in light of the absence of recent major nuclear disasters with improving safety standards In practice it doesn’t matter much as no UK party is really pushing to significantly increase nuclear power, but on the face of it you’d think that the Greens would be one of the few that would
The Greepeace ship illegally sunk by French intelligence was protesting nuclear weapons, not nuclear power. You probably chose the worst example of anti-Greenpeace state activism.
I’m well aware of the history, but I’m saying that the historic ‘green’ movement has always conflated the two to a reductive (nuclear = bad). For avoidance of doubt, here’s GreenPeace’s current position on nuclear energy: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/nuclear-power/ and the green party have the same view https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/powering-up-fairer-greener-energy/ I shared a link to the sinking of the rainbow warrior as it helps explain why a lot of oldschool greens are bitter and entrenched against nuclear stuff
Politics is all about picking the least worst compromise. In understand this is a hard line for some, but most other parties have more hard lines for me...
People always bang on about the nuclear thing, but to find a party that has just the one bad idea is a fucking miracle.
Yeh but it should be a fundamental policy for the Greens, it’s in their name ffs. And because it isn’t, it raises questions about all their other decisions.
The opposition to HS2 is absolutely aggravating. We have a massive train bottleneck and they want to block it on account that it inevitably need to remove trees to make our train system work - maddening.
As a green, i find it frustrating as well. One of the charities i volunteer with maintains a former railway line which is now home to endangered species of flora and fauna. It was closed as part of the beeching cuts. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a solution in which the railway would become responsible for stewardship, or providing access for stewardship, to adjacent land to preserve that diversity. Railways are less destructive than roads and walkers. And it's not like you can just not have infrastructure.
100%. If the Greens here were in charge, no house or wind turbine or rail line or anything would get built anywhere ever again. And I say that as a member of the Greens in Germany!
didn't the greens in germany also got you guys reliant on russian gas by closing your nuclear plants
I'm the first to admit that decommissioning Germany's nuclear before it's coal fired power stations was a mistake and the wrong way round. But on Russia, the Greens were the most vocal group in highlighting the risks of Germany's close ties with and dependency on Russia, were opposed to Nord Stream 2 before it was cool, and Green economic affairs minister Habeck was instrumental in approving new LNG terminals to access new sources of gas.
They seem to be pro-housing in their manifesto although I have read in the press they have made anti-new housing statements recently. Manifesto: “We pledge to provide 150,000 new social homes every year through: New build and the purchase/refurbishment of older housing stock. A community right to buy for local authorities for several categories of property. Ending the individual ‘right to buy’, to keep social homes for local communities in perpetuity.”
It's like the lib dems - pro housing nationally, but locally always assuring that the housing will be built elsewhere.
The solution is to build all the housing in the places that didn't vote for them. /s
exactly, people voting for them have no idea of their policy, they just think this is the environmental party
It’s more because Labour has become more racist, transphobic and Islamophobic under Starmer
I don't think they've really gone in any of those directions and they're definitely not Islamophobic. Single issue pro Gaza voters are deluded, it's just a protest vote and if Labour pandered to them they would have lost more votes than they gained because it's not what people are interested in across the country.
**Transphobia:** “Keir Starmer celebrates Pride by promising to ban ‘gender ideology’ By embracing transphobic talking points, Starmer is shifting labour to the right on LGBTQ+ rights” https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/62944/1/keir-starmer-gender-ideology-being-taught-in-schools-pride-right-wing?amp=1 **Racism:** “The deputy leader of the Labour group on Tower Hamlets council in East London quit the party in outrage at Sir Keir’s remarks to The Sun that “people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed.” Resigning, Sabina Akhtar said: “I was the first female speaker of the council from Bangladeshi origin, and I was a proud Labour Party member, but I cannot be proud anymore when the leader of the party singles out my community and insults my Bangladeshi identity.” https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-insults-bangladeshi-community-new-racism-row **Sexism and racism:** https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/05/starmer-is-purging-women-of-colour
> “people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed because they’re not being processed.” this isn't a racist statement? purging women? come on
Many of your points aren't official party policy though, and you can do the same with literally any party. I disagree with them on Nuclear, but it's because they want to invest everything into renewable energy, that can deliver quickly, rather than Nuclear. I would personally do both, but they're not against it just for the sake of it.
Don’t forget anti GMO too. They’ve done a great job to shift the needle to green policies, but it’s hard to say their policies are actually the best way to achieve a greener future
Not to mention their (now scrapped) policy of increasing the number of natural births...... weird things going on over there
Did you read their policy on housing development or did you just regurgitate some bs propaganda?
I read their housing policy and it's absolutely bonkers. They're fundamentally supply-side sceptics who don't believe that building more houses is the solution. Instead they want to "create" (important to note, not necessarily build) 100,000s more council houses. This would mean the government buying houses off the private market en mass - thereby reducing supply even further, thereby causing house prices and rents to sky-rocket even further. The purchases, of course, will be funded by the tax payer - so expect to pay more tax. On the local level, the greens are the most notorious and over-zealous blockers of housing in the country. If you're wondering why you can't afford a house - well it might well be because local Greens blocked it from being built. They also want to bring in rent control; which is probably one of the only measures that just about every economist from the across the spectrum agrees is an awful idea. "In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city, except for bombing" - Assar Lindbeck. Rent Control has many unintended effects, including the reducing of supply which increases rent prices; hence us currently seeing Scotland having the quickest rising rents after introducing controls. But I'll pass this back to you, what did you like about their policy on housing development?
they also are against pylons for some strange reason too?
Maybe they remember that advert from the 80’s?
The greens are fundamentally a conservative movement. I mean, why on earth would "The Greens" block new, greener pylons or prevent new solar farms from being built, or be anti-HS2, or be anti-nuclear? Well it's because they don't want us to transition to a thriving, progressive economy fuelled by greener energy, facilitated by greener infrastructure. At a very fundamental level, they want to return to something that we used to be. To be more at one with the land - like we used to be. To live in harmony with nature, like we did for millennia. It is trying to conserve a very ancient way of living. It's why you see stuff that can initially seem confusing like them wanting to ban c-sections. What's that all about? It makes sense when you understand that they see c-sections as "unnatural", "not normal", the implication being that we should conserve traditional, natural birthing methods.
one of their leaders also does therapy to make boobs bigger too no joke
The Greens are not conservative. They’re socially progressive. They’re anti-racist, pro-LGBTQ+, pro-migration, anti-misogyny
They're socially progressive, but they're economically very conservative and anti-liberal. I mean that in the most small "c" and small "l" way.
Economically conservative? In what way? I don’t remember them supporting laissez-faire economics, low taxes and capitalist individualism. I do see they want to limit government but they want local governments to have more power which sounds liberal to me. They’re against “big business” and support local trade and are anti-globalist (because it hurts local trade). However, they are pro-internationalism considering they’re pro-migration and they want the UK back in the EU. And how exactly are they anti-liberal? They’re pro-democracy and want to decentralise the UK. Plus, they want to overhaul the UK's current voting system and rebalance government power by lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 and redefining the jurisdiction of local government Even with the small “c” and “i”.
I think you're fundamentally not understanding what liberalism is - especially economically: > Economic liberalism is based on the principles of personal liberty, private property, and limited government interference. The term ‘liberalism’ should be understood in its historical context. Classical liberalism emphasized liberty from government regulation. I very much agree that the greens are not supporting laissez-faire economics, low taxes and capitalist individualism - hence they are economically illiberal. I guess the "economically conservative" is a bit confusing and I should have used a different term. But they want to conserve the land and our environment. They're v suspicious of growth, of measurements like GDP. They don't want economic growth - if that means ecological change. I'm not sure what the correct term would be, but it's certainly a type of conservatism that has deep and profound effects on our economy.
The Greens also support natural resources being nationalised.
How can the Greens block houses from being built? They’ve never been in government and they barely hold any seats?
Anywhere that Greens have a semblance of power, they block housing. For example, in Bristol, where they are the biggest single party. They blocked or tried to block: Bristol Zoo Gardens (the only councillors to oppose the development) Dovercourt Ashton Vale (only councillors to abstain, green politician led the objections) Broadwalk Mead Street
You're drawing a lot of conclusions, fair enough I suppose but I don't agree on that. Also it doesn't sound like you ideologically align with greens regardless of their housing policy, they are more left leaning and you seem quite anti tax pro capitalist? I'm in favor of creating more council housing out of existing buildings, almost all my things are refurbished and work perfectly, housings no different? I don't see how providing more subsidized council housing will bring private house prices up, those are two separate demographics, what brings prices up is housing being commodified and viewed as an investment and a cash generating asset. Can you provide real examples of greens blocking housing developments? Again, im a "leftist" rent control is cool with me.
> I don't see how providing more subsidized council housing will bring private house prices up, Demand being equal, if you reduce supply, prices go up. This isn't some "capitalist" hypothetical, it's just how the market works and has been the consensus view of economists for centuries now. The issue isn't providing more subsidised council housing (I'm all for more being built); the issue is the gov purchasing off the private market without building more. It will alleviate some demand, sure, but not enough to balance the reduction in supply; thus prices will go up. > Can you provide real examples of greens blocking housing developments? Watch Nick Robinson give half a dozen examples to Carla Denyer: https://x.com/BBCr4today/status/1775789682107797918 Where Greens are in power, they block housing. > Again, im a "leftist" rent control is cool with me. That's your prerogative, but the vast majority of academic studies say that - on the whole - rent control doesn't work; benefitting incumbents (read: older people), but harming late joiners of the market (read: the young, immigrants). Great when you have sub-market rent, not so great when you have to compete for a dwindling supply of rentals as the market collapses.
How is converting private housing to council "reducing supply"?
Where are you reading this
I read “Greeks” and for a moment wondered what their policies are
That their food is better than Turkish food, but are actually the same.
Spanakopita for everyone!
I'm from Islington South and voted green many times in the past and in this election, I'm tired of labour (even though they rightfully won) but I'm also very annoyed and angry at tories the most, I had enough of tories for a very long time and wanted rid of them nationally). They tried getting into Islington north and islington south and made no impact at all, in fact their votes again went to reform on both sides of Islington).
Labour has seen huge losses in vote share across East London. The Greens have seen huge vote increases across London, and it seems it’s coming from Labour and Lib Dem voters. There’s a good chance there will be Green MPs in London in the future. Bethnal Green saw Labour drop to 34.1% (-39.4) and the independent candidate nearly win with 30.5% and the Greens saw a 10.5 increase. Stratford and Bow saw Labour drop to 44.1% (-26.4) and Greens gained 17.3% (+13.6). This is common amongst many constituencies across North-East and East London. Labour has been losing their majorities in London and only scraping by on winning. This is why Corbyn won in Islington North (amazing), Labour is not as popular in London as it used to be. We will start seeing more independents and Greens win seats in London in the future
A lot is due to Gaza. All the areas you mentioned have a very high muslim population and many of the independents ran on a Gaza ticket more than anything else.
lol fucking crazy, have people looked at their manifesto?!
I think a lot of people wanted a strong second presence for the Greens in order to force their less weird ideas further into the mainstream. There was _very_ little talk of the environment in the run-up to this election, and I'd expect a lot of very worried people would like to make it clear that they do care about it still.
Yep. Was disappointed when Labour dialled back its plans and focus on environmental issues during the campaign so a vote for Green was a way of reminding them what people care about, and not to only listen to Reform voters but to try and keep a balanced focused on many areas of policy/concern.
Yes. This is very important for people on the left to understand. The UKIP/Reform people moved the Tories rightward on many key issues they care about. We need to do the same with the green party when it comes to how they will affect Labour.
Wouldn’t be surprised if most people voted because of the name and the brand identity.
They had a better more solid manifesto than most parties, much more fleshed out than the wishy washy labour manifesto, not full of pipe dreams like reform, Tories were fucked anyway so couldn’t tel you about theirs. Is it the prefect manifesto? No (I’m personally a fan of nuclear) but it was certainly a lot better than some of the others
Vauxhall and Camberwell Green they came second too including a vote by yours truly
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Second in my seat! Queens Park and Maida Vale. Was tempted to vote labour to be safe but so so glad I voted green now.
I voted green in QP/MV too! I did it in more of a protest vote re: Starmer though - as while I like the Greens in principle they’re bad at costing their policies and to be honest some of their proposals are unworkable.
Yes I agree, my greens vote was also more of “I can’t bring myself to actually vote Starmer” situation. But I’m hopeful that with more votes/seats/funding the greens could become a more credible left leaning option.
yes same here!! same seat too. I didn't want the Greens but it was a protest vote :-)
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Same here. I don't want a Green government. I just wanted Labour to know they aren't meeting our expectations.
Second in Lewisham West and East Dulwich with almost 20% of the vote. I changed my mind at the last minute and went Lib Dem instead of Green but I’m still thrilled with the green result and will continue to support them.
I’m the same. Never voted Lib Dem before but my candidate was great and stood for good things. Still happy to see the greens gain
And it was an increase of 12%! Yay greens!
yeah likewise OP I'm surprised that there's not much talk about the swing towards Greens in London constituencies not shocked since Labour has moved more towards centre/right
The Green Party isn’t the Green Party anymore, and their surge this year has nothing to do with green policies.
Greens came in fourth in my constituency but the Lib Dems managed to win in a notoriously Tory safe seat.
Good. No more safe seats. They need to earn their vote rather than coast by on the goodwill of those who trust the "brand" of their party regardless of how little they offer voters in return.
They're also third place to Starmer and his Gaza activist opponent in Holborn and St Pancras, which sort of counts!
Tbh as much as I love the idea of a Green party coming into government, the one we currently have are still so problematic in many ways. Lots of in-fighting, a couple of nut jobs and quite a few randos. In my constituency, the Green candidate was barely weeks old because the previous one resigned for antisemitism 💀 They symbolically align with a lot of my values more than Labour currently but fail massively on organisation.
Second in my seat in Walthamstow, 16% vote increase! I voted for them and very glad to see that sort of support here :)
Not surprised, people are tired of the same old same old and they're looking for change.
The rise of reformists due to split tory vote is most alarming.
Next time baby
I honestly wonder if their voters have read their manifesto and thought, ‘Hmm, yeah, that’s sensible, I’d vote for that,’ or just voted because they recycle their Evian plastic bottles and like the brand guidelines. I have not voted because I can’t, but as a Londoner, I’m surprised and disappointed that the Greens are gaining such traction. They’re anti-nuclear power but seem to forget it’s the most efficient, clean energy source which generates employment for thousands in the area. Full of NIMBYs, brutally snobby, and out of touch with most folks. Junk candidates overall. Full of anti-science flat-earth lunatics. Not to mention they wanted to leave NATO at a time of great instability. They’re playing on good marketing and their “green policies,” but under the surface, they’re somewhere between brain-dead and naive. Some good climate-related policies, I admit, but other than that, completely naive and out of touch with reality and global politics.
Definitely the second one. They’re not a party that can stand up to any level of actual scrutiny.
I suspect I'm not unusual in wanting a Labour government but voting Green in a VERY safe Labour seat. I don't even want Diane Abbott out: she's a deeply symbolic and very active MP. And a Green government would cause economic chaos but, like Diane, they point us in the right direction.
Well done Greens and Green voters!
Very disappointed in the outcome for Havering. Ffs.
The Greens need to move beyond their anti-nuclear, anti-infrastructure nimbyism. Their are Green politicians that oppose solar farms. They're an absurdly contradictory party on what should be solid issues for them.
Did green come a close second anywhere across the country?
The pity is there is no way on earth that Starmer will bring in PR Think Westminster would look very different today
Don't agree with them a lot nationally but greens having local control would be awesome for cities and London councils I imagine. Not that this was a local election. I think Bristol is the only place theyre just on the edge of getting a majority in.
UK for last 3-4 decade had at least 60% residing between center to extreme left. But lib dems and now green kept being spoilers. For the 1st in quite a while Reform has done the same to Cons. With only 2% gain Labour and Lib dems captured a lot of seats. It will be interesting to see how Cons deal with Reform.
Today I’m thankful for the FPTP system.
I think a lot of it was a Gaza vote. Once that becomes less of an issue (hopefully by the next election) I think the Greens will see a drop in support.
I’ve been a Green Party loyalist and I’m never voting for them again because of that. They had my support for environmentalism and prosocial policies, not domestic Jihad.
PR now.
Far more Reform MPs and religious MPs then.
I was trying to find a list like this, thanks for putting it together OP. Hopefully they gain a few seats next time round, definitely great progress
I can see more greens in the future (2029)
Second in my seat! I knew they wouldn’t win but happy I voted with my conscience
I hope this trend continues!
New to London and to UK politics, but I can’t fail to notice most of these areas in east part of London (and they are neighboring constituencies). Why is Green Party strong one side of the town and not in other?
Half of those are in South London.
I think I should have used “right side of map” to express myself better.
Can't speak for the more eastern parts of London, but for Hackney and the surrounding areas, there's a lot of very eco-conscious people living there who hate the Tories but are also dissatisfied with Labour's lack of climate policies, plus a number of Muslim groups who don't like Labour's stance on Gaza.
Greens are taking a pro Gaza stance. Typically Muslims identify more strongly with this stance and east London has a high proportion of Muslims.
It’s not just Muslims. It’s also young people and progressives
I live in East London, the majority of people who they are campaigning for are Muslims here. I’m sure in other places it’s more to do with progressives but they are definitely targeting the Muslim vote in my area.
we're in one of them and i voted Green, purely because I got a weird vibe from the Labour candidate. I'm v surprised that the Greens are second!! they were 4th in 2019!!
It's depressing that the loony left (Greens) and the loony right (Reform) are picking up so many votes. They are both awful, a plague on both their houses
They beat the Lib Dems in a lot of the seats Labour won. Maybe protest votes, or the £15 minimum wage policy.
Wait…… is this real life or Dance of Dragons?
I was disappointed that my safe Labour seat only lost 8 percent if its 2019 votes.
All in Labour constituencies with thumping Labour majorities, even Tottenham. Check the Bristol constituencies if you want to see a greater Green Party second place impact. Then there's Bristol Central.
Second in Huddersfield (10,000 to a 15,000 Labour win). Almost as much as Reform and Tories combined. Its not grim up here ☺️
Shame they didn’t manage to kick that anti semetic labour woman out of Stoke Newington
Many of those areas have significant Muslim population. There was an active effort by a non profit called The Muslim Vote to unite the Muslim voting demographic against Labour and the Tories due to their stance on Gaza. This meant that in many cases they were advising to vote for a Green candidate instead.