The Greens are viewed more favourably than any other party in London and among younger voters, polling produced for the party has shown, with its leader, Zack Polanski, saying this showed they were “on track” to supplant Labour.
The YouGov poll, carried out to coincide with the Greens’ ongoing annual conference in Bournemouth, asked voters in England to rank the five main parties in order of how favourably they felt about them, rather than the usual metric of which they planned to vote for.
By this measure, across England as a whole the Greens were beaten only by Reform UK in terms of the proportion who put them at the top of the list, getting 17% of first preferences. This compared with 27% for Reform, 16% for Labour, 15% for the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives’ total of 14%.
When answers from just London were taken, the Greens came top, with 27% of the first-preference choices, against 20% for Labour, 16% Reform, 15% Conservatives and 14% Lib Dems.
The difference was even more notable among voters aged 18 to 24, with 36% putting the Greens as their most-favoured choice. Next were Labour on 24%, then 14% for the Lib Dems and just 6% each for the Conservatives and Reform.
In a sign of how the Greens under Polanski could take support from former Labour voters, another breakdown of the polling showed nearly a quarter of people who voted for Keir Starmer last year now ranked the Greens as their favourite party.
Speaking to the Guardian at the conference, Polanski, who won the election to lead the Greens in England and Wales a month ago, reiterated the pledge in his speech to the gathering that the party was aiming for Labour.
“I think it’s already happening,” he said. “It’s happening at defection level. Just last month in Barking and Dagenham, we welcome three new councillors to the party. It’s also happening right across England and Wales.
“At local council elections, there was a stunning victory recently in Brighton, where the Labour vote completely collapsed and the Green vote rocketed. Reform are still a worry, yes, and the fact that they’re polling even reasonably in London is a real threat, I think, to anyone who’s a progressive voice.
“But absolutely, the plan has always been to replace Labour at the electoral level, starting at the local level, and I think we’re on track to do that.”
Labour MPs and strategists are deeply worried about how the party will fare next May in elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and for a series of councils across England.
In London, where about 1,800 council seats across 32 boroughs are being contested, there is concern in Labour, which won nearly 44% of the seats when they were last contested in 2022, that there could be heavy losses to Reform UK in more suburban outer boroughs and to the Greens in more central areas.
In his speech on Friday, Polanski warned against what he called the “managed decline” of the Labour government, predicting that unless he changed course, Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform.
Polanski said the Greens would be pushing for “seats right across London”, adding: “What I’m excited about is … that [support is] pretty evenly spread, and that [we] will be campaigning in places that we haven’t traditionally campaigned in before.”
