\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span> surge in membership levels is causing the Green party some novel problems. \u201cOur local association went from 400 to over 1,000,\u201d one activist said. \u201cWe had meetings booked in rooms with a capacity of 50, and loads of people were being turned away. We\u2019ve had to start booking bigger rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n The Greens have long been a party on the rise. But it is fair to say that in the near-seven weeks since Zack Polanski took over the leadership in England and Wales, things have gone to another level.<\/p>\n The most obvious metric is membership. Since Polanski won the leadership race, routing the more established MP duo of Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, numbers have doubled from 70,000 to more than 140,000, overtaking first the Liberal Democrats and then the Conservatives.<\/p>\n Polling figures have been less dramatic. But even here there are signs of progress, with one survey putting the Greens as high as 15%.<\/p>\n Although Polanski was an overwhelming winner of the vote among members, getting nearly 85% support, there had been doubts among some senior Greens. Yes, they agreed, he was articulate and an able media performer. But would his brand of openly radical \u201ceco populism\u201d risk fracturing the party\u2019s often broad coalition of supporters?<\/p>\n To an extent, that remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: even those who were Polanski sceptics are impressed.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s doing really well so far,\u201d said a senior party figure who had backed Ramsay and Chowns. \u201cHe might go a bit off piste at times with opinions \u2013 no one needs to know what he thinks about Nato membership \u2013 but he is very energetic and engaging.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a worry about how well it will land in rural constituencies but you can\u2019t argue with the membership or polling numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n Polanski\u2019s pitch to the membership was that he would revitalise the party and get it noticed, promising to shake up the arguably staid and slightly cautious approach under the previous leadership duo of Ramsay and Carla Denyer, another of the party\u2019s four MPs.<\/p>\n He has delivered on both fronts. Two days after he became leader, Polanski said he had carried out 61 media interviews and the pace has barely slackened. \u201cIt\u2019s like he has never been off the TV since he was elected,\u201d a senior party figure said. \u201cHe has gone out and absolutely hammered our message across.\u201d<\/p>\n With this has come a Polanski-fronted podcast, regularly in the UK top 10 for political podcasts, and a sequence of low-budget but much-viewed social media videos. One, with the self-explanatory title, Let\u2019s Make Hope Normal Again, has been viewed 11m times on X.<\/p>\n <\/span>Zack Polanski (centre) is congratulated on his victory by leadership rival Ellie Chowns, who ran on a ticket with Adrian Ramsay (right). Former co-leader Carla Denyer is on the left.<\/span> Photograph: Justin Tallis\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Green activists say this has been important not just in getting airtime but also pushing the message about what the party stands for beyond environmental issues, including Polanski\u2019s emphasis on a wealth tax.<\/p>\n This has brought with it a strikingly focused and unified party, particularly given the Greens\u2019 often freewheeling ways. Polanski recounts being told by journalists at the party\u2019s conference a few weeks ago that they had a brief to uncover splits and discontent but could not.<\/p>\n There is, of course, an extent to which social media metrics, enthusiasm and even a large activist base might get you only so far, as shown by Labour\u2019s 500,000-strong membership under Jeremy Corbyn.<\/p>\n The first major test will come in elections for councils across England next May, as well as for the Welsh Senedd, where the Greens hope to win their first seat or seats.<\/p>\n At the top of the party there is private acknowledgment that members \u2013 and the media \u2013 expect results. \u201cThere is almost some nervousness about how high expectations are,\u201d said one source. \u201cIf we do as well as we think we can in May, there might be a real task to manage them.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Get the day\u2019s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n What is clear is the potential threat to Labour. London\u2019s 32 boroughs re-elect all their councillors in May and senior Labour figures in the capital talk gloomily about losing outer boroughs to Reform, while the Greens take numerous seats and potentially even an entire council, such as Hackney, nearer the centre.<\/p>\n This could be a rehearsal for the next general election. Last year, Denyer overturned a near-30,000 Labour majority to win Bristol Central and numerous other Labour MPs in urban seats are nervous.<\/p>\n While the Greens collect limited data on the background of new members, some do seem to have come from Labour and one leap in numbers followed the internal ructions of Corbyn\u2019s still-embryonic Your party.<\/p>\n \u201cPolanski has accelerated a trend,\u201d said Robert Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University. \u201cOne of the sleeper stories of electoral politics in the past few years has been the steady advance of the Greens in local government.<\/p>\n \u201cCumulatively, that means they\u2019ve got a lot of councillors and a lot of local election experience. And now they have a telegenic, grab-the-mic type of leader who\u2019s getting himself into the political conversation in a way that none of his predecessors managed to the same extent. Polanski is clearly a savvy native of the kind of media ecosystem we have now, because he\u2019s popping up on my feeds constantly. I don\u2019t think I saw Adrian Ramsay once.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford said a sharply increased membership was also not to be discounted: \u201cBodies on the ground is one of the great constraints for all parties in British politics. Extra members do make an incremental difference, particularly in the kinds of places where the Greens have been thriving, often places with a lot of relatively poor, relatively young voters who don\u2019t engage with politics automatically.\u201d<\/p>\n It is still unclear how this will play out electorally in rural areas, where the Greens have two of their four Commons seats, held by Ramsay and Chowns. During the leadership battle they warned that Polanksi\u2019s approach might undermine the party\u2019s broad appeal.<\/p>\n So far, however, this doesn\u2019t seem to be happening. One activist in North Shropshire said their local party had grown by 50% since Polanski took over.<\/p>\n An organiser in another rural seat said they had been sent only \u201cone or two emails\u201d expressing doubt about Polanski. \u201cEven if some people do object, the numbers speak for themselves,\u201d they said. \u201cYes, there are still a tiny handful of people saying they are still not sure about Zack. But that\u2019s literally it. Far more are excited.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A surge in membership levels is causing the Green party some novel problems. \u201cOur local association went from 400 to over 1,000,\u201d one activist said. \u201cWe had meetings booked in rooms with a capacity of 50, and loads of people were being turned away. We\u2019ve had to start booking bigger rooms.\u201d The Greens have long<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2176,1980,728,12240,2651,2196,11661,2229],"class_list":{"0":"post-30672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-bigger","9":"tag-book","10":"tag-green","11":"tag-membership","12":"tag-party","13":"tag-problems","14":"tag-rooms","15":"tag-surge"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}