Disco balls and rent cap promises as the Green Party launches its election campaign

Anthony Slaughter, Zack Polanski, and a sea of candidates gathered in what is normally an antiques fayre to formally launch the Green Party’s Senedd election campaign. West Wharf Gallery in Cardiff was fitted out with plants and disco balls for the event.

The Greens are going into this election promising to freeze rent, abolish the current tax system and bring bills down. And the Mr Polanski and Mr Slaughter told the optimistic gathering they would be “the kingmakers” of the upcoming election.

The most recent YouGov poll projects the party will take home 12% of the vote, which projections suggest would translate into 10 seats. If the poll projections are repeated on election day on Thursday, May 7, it would represent a staggering breakthrough for the party which have never had a member of the Senedd elected before. For the biggest stories in Wales first sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Although Mr Slaughter was reluctant to quote the exact number of seats the latest poll projects, preferring to say ‘at least six or seven’, the second-placed candidate for his constituency, Tessa Marshall, was more than happy to quote the figures and was met with applause.

One of the party’s best results in Wales was two years ago at the 2024 General Election when Anthony Slaughter came second to Labour’s Stephen Doughty in the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency, collecting 14% of the vote.

The result that has energised the Welsh side of a party which has been buoyed by the popularity of new leader Zack Polanski. Their pitch to voters is that they are only the real left-wing option on the ballot paper.

The boom the party has experienced has also changed Mr Polanski’s ‘number one priority’. The leader of the party in England and Wales said when he was elected his key goal was getting Mr Slaughter elected to the Senedd in Caerdydd Penarth. Now he’s dreaming bigger.

When asked whether this potentially newfound success could lead to a split of the current England and Wales party, both Mr Slaughter and Mr Polanski refused to rule out the possibility of the party forming their own Welsh set-up. Mr Polanski said that if the party were to approach him and say they wanted to do so, his reaction would be, ‘understood, how can I help’.

While the mood was positive, some people had apparently headed to the Cardiff University sparc building where the launch was originally planned to take place. One person also said to the person he was sat next to, ‘I hope I get a copy of the manifesto’, which was wishful thinking given it was a campaign launch not a manifesto launch.

What are the party promising to deliver in the Senedd?

• To replace the broken council tax system.
• An immediate rent freeze moving on to rent controls.
• Build social housing at the scale and pace needed.
• Put Welsh Water back into public ownership.
• Bring in a £1 bus fare.

While their full manifesto is yet to be announced housing and bills appear to be central to their plans, rather than any future talk of independence for Wales.

Mr Slaughter said: “We’ve got to make Wales better for people before we have this conversation about devolution in the future.”

Mr Polanski added: “Before we even talk about independence the much more important conversation right now is making sure we get Green Senedd members into the Welsh Government who can be there to fix the problems that are facing people today that are not problems of independence but of high bills and needing better political representation.”

After Ms Marshall said the party would “bring bills down from day one”, Mr Slaughter said they planned to do so through rent controls, insulating homes, and bringing in an immediate rent freeze.

Explaining how they’d do so, he said: “We need rent controls but we know they can be complicated and they can have unexpected consequences. That’s why we’ll be calling for a rent freeze on day one. Just for a limited period of time a rent freeze would give us some breathing space while we figure out how to deliver fair rent controls.

“We’ll start with a programme of retrofitting and insulating people’s homes to get their bills down. The cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use. Some of these things will take time but people will see a real difference in their material lives at the end of the four days.”

Ms Marshall added: “We need to devolve water to Wales because we need to bring Dwr Cymru into public ownership and make sure they are no longer polluting our rivers and making the people in Wales pay some of the highest water bills across the UK.”

Mr Polanski also refused to agree with Nigel Farage that the Senedd vote was “a referendum on Keir Starmer’s premiership”. Mr Polanski said: “I’m never going to take the opportunity to agree with Nigel Farage. What this election is about is people in Wales – their bills and having a better standard of living.”