Keir Starmer Calls For Labour To Intensify Green Party Criticism

Labour is to ramp up its attacks on the Greens amid growing alarm in Downing Street at the rise in support for Zack Polanski’s party.

HuffPost UK can reveal that the prime minister has told No.10 allies in recent weeks that they need to start training their fire on the Greens’ “extreme” policies as crunch elections loom in May.

It comes as polling shows Labour is losing more votes to parties on the left of British politics than they are to Reform UK.

The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity since Polanski was elected leader last September.

But the PM believes the public remains largely unaware of the party leader’s opposition to the UK’s membership of Nato or his support for giving up the country’s nuclear weapons.

At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Starmer accused the Greens of being “high on heroin, soft on Putin” – a reference to the party’s policy on legalising drugs.

Labour is also expected to target the Greens’ record on anti-semitism after deputy leader Mothin Ali was criticised over comments he made about Zecharia Deutsch, a Leeds-based Rabbi and Israeli Defence Force reservist.

A government source told HuffPost UK: “The honeymoon is over for Zack Polanski’s party.

“Beyond the social media soundbites there are some scary policies that need to be exposed.

“Under his leadership, the Greens have become a hot bed of anti-semitism and economic incompetence that would make Britain defenceless, drug-addled and bankrupt within a week.

“They’re not as nice as they seem and voters need to know what’s hidden under the surface before it’s too late.”

A senior Labour insider added: “Under Polanski they are not the warm fuzzy environmentalists they used to be.

“They want to ban landlords but legalise drugs, so under the Greens you’d be able to take heroin but not rent a flat.

“And what would they do to defend Greenland if they had pulled the UK out of Nato and got rid of Trident? Drift over in a dinghy waving a white flag?”

Starmer has been accused by those on the left of the Labour Party of moving too far to the right in pursuit of voters who have switched to Reform UK since the general election in 2024.

But Louis O’Geran, senior associate at More in Common, said Labour were losing the same amount of support – around 10% – to the Greens as they are to Nigel Farage’s party.

“The biggest shift we’ve seen is the Greens have caught up with the Lib Dems as the main destination for Labour defectors on the left,” he told HuffPost UK.

“In the first year of the Labour government, they were consistently losing more voters to the Lib Dems, but since Zack Polanski became leader, they’re consistently losing at least as many to the Greens.

“It seems like, rather than passively absorbing left-leaning voters, Polanski has now gone on the attack against Labour.”

A Green Party source said: “Starmer is clearly running scared of Zack Polanski.

“Labour’s 2024 vote is drifting rapidly to the Greens and its attempts to woo back Reform voters have been a total flop.”

O’Geran also revealed that the Greens now lead Labour among so-called “progressive activist” left-wing voters by 12 points, a complete shift from during the election campaign.

More in Common’s polling shows that voters who are struggling financially are shifting to both the Greens and Reform, with Labour’s vote share now highest among those who are comfortably off.

He said: “Younger voters in particular are turning to the Greens. They feel that no matter how hard they work, they can’t afford to save money or get on the property ladder.

“They believe the social contract isn’t working and that Labour haven’t really tackled that since they got into power.”

Young female voters are also flocking to the Greens, O’Geran said, with 34% of those in Generation Z backing the party, compared to just 22% who still support Labour.

And while this is unlikely to lead to a significant rise in the number of Green MPs at the next election, the split in the left-of-centre vote could hand Reform a significant number of seats across the country.

This theory could soon be put to the test in the Gorton and Denton by-election, which has been triggered by the retirement on medical grounds of former Labour minister Andrew Gwynne MP.

Polling suggests the seat is now a three-way marginal, with only a few points separating Labour, Reform and the Greens.

While No.10 tries to block Andy Burnham from being the Labour candidate, Zack Polanski is considering running for the Greens.

Were Burnham not to stand, could left-of-centre voters in the constituency – which has been a Labour seat in various guises since the 1930s – rally round Polanski to keep Reform out?

A Green Party spokesperson said: “Starmer is right to be worried. Polling shows the Greens are the leading party for under-50s and we are taking more and more of the Labour vote every day.

“But the Labour government’s strategy of U-turns and trying to mimic Reform has failed spectacularly.

“The choice is simple for Labour: keep siding with big business and ignoring the cost-of-living crisis that is impacting voters, or face up to why people are choosing the Greens – because we speak for issues facing our communities, and not wealthy corporations.”