The Green Party’s inability to find a serious strategy of cooperation with Your Party, the Workers Party, independent candidates and the smaller socialist organisations is becoming impossible to ignore. For all their talk of building a new political alternative, the party has repeatedly prioritised its own electoral expansion over the much harder task of building cooperation with the other forces on the left. The problem is not that the Greens stand candidates that is their democratic right. The problem is that they have too often approached elections as an opportunity to maximise the Green vote rather than asking the more important strategic question: how can the forces of the left work together to maximise their collective representation? That failure is becoming increasingly visible, and the Holborn and St Pancras by-election is now providing a particularly vivid example of what happens when competing organisations attempt to mobilise overlapping electorates without a coherent agreement about cooperation.
The contradiction is particularly obvious given the Green Party’s “Stand Everywhere” ideology. The party makes it clear that it supports candidates for office all over the country, arguing that having Green candidates on the ballot is necessary to show that Green support is widespread. That may make sense if the objective is simply to build the Green Party as an independent electoral organisation. But it becomes much harder to defend when the same party presents itself as part of a wider progressive movement seeking fundamental political change. Put another candidate on the ballot in every constituency and hope that every other party, from Your Party and the Workers Party to smaller socialist groups and independents, will see the Greens as the best vehicle for change to start a movement. There must be a willingness to cooperate, negotiate, and, when necessary, stand aside at some point.
Furthermore, this is not some abstract argument. The 2024 general election exposed the consequences of fragmentation with extraordinary clarity. Gaza became a decisive issue for many voters, particularly in constituencies with substantial Muslim populations, and independent and Workers Party candidates succeeded in taking seats from Labour or coming remarkably close to doing so. Jeremy Corbyn won Islington North as an independent; Shockat Adam defeated Jonathan Ashworth in Leicester South; Adnan Hussain defeated Labour in Blackburn; and Iqbal Mohamed won in Dewsbury and Batley. In Ilford North, Leanne Mohamad came within 528 votes of defeating Wes Streeting.
The Green candidate received 1,794, while she received 15,119 votes. If the Green candidate had withdrawn, no one should pretend that every Green voter in those constituencies would have voted for a pro-Palestinian independent. Elections do not work that mechanically. But that caveat should not become an excuse for avoiding the underlying political question. When an electorate moves away from Labour because of Gaza, austerity, foreign policy, or other issues, and that electorate then splits between Greens, independents, the Workers Party, Your Party, and other progressive candidates, the organisations involved have a responsibility to determine whether or not their electoral strategies are assisting in the development of a more comprehensive political alternative.
The issue became even more striking in Holborn and St Pancras itself. In 2024, Andrew Feinstein stood as an independent and received 7,312 votes, while the Green candidate received 4,030. With 18,884, Keir Starmer prevailed. Again, the combined votes cannot simply be treated as though they belonged to a single candidate, but the numbers demonstrate that a sizeable section of the electorate was looking beyond Labour while being represented by more than one challenger. The fact that the same constituency is now witnessing another contest between different forces on the left should surely prompt some serious soul-searching. Instead of developing a mechanism for deciding which organisation has the strongest local claim, the competing parties have once again entered the same electoral arena.
The May 2026 local elections have made this debate even more difficult for the Greens to avoid. There were examples of cooperation, including arrangements involving the Greens and local progressive groups, and those examples should be acknowledged. But they don’t change the bigger picture: on a national scale, the Green Party continued its expansive electoral strategy instead of withdrawing candidates in constituencies where another left-wing or progressive force was in a better position. Indeed, the internal argument surrounding the Makerfield by-election demonstrated that even within the Green movement there is now a serious dispute over whether the party should sometimes stand aside when doing so could prevent fragmentation. Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley were among those who argued for scaling back the Green campaign there, while other Green voices defended the party’s decision to contest the seat.
That dispute is significant because it demonstrates that this is not simply an argument invented by the Workers Party, Your Party or Labour supporters. The Greens themselves understand the danger of fragmentation. They understand that first-past-the-post can produce outcomes in which several parties collectively command substantial support but none of them wins because their votes are divided. What remains unresolved is whether that lesson should be applied consistently.
There is a particularly serious question here for the Green Party. If it believes that Reform must sometimes be stopped through electoral cooperation, why should cooperation suddenly become unacceptable when the other potential partner is Your Party, the Workers Party, an independent candidate or a smaller socialist organisation? If the principle is that progressive forces should coordinate to prevent a divided vote handing victory to an opposing political force, then that principle should not depend on whether the candidate being asked to stand aside happens to be Green.
The Greens cannot have it both ways. They cannot demand strategic cooperation from others when Reform threatens them while simultaneously insisting that they must contest every constituency in which they believe they can increase their vote. That is not a strategy for building a united left. It is a strategy for building a stronger Green Party. Those are not necessarily the same thing.
This is where the wider left needs to be honest about the political landscape. Along with the Greens, independent candidates, and the smaller socialist organisations, your party and the Workers Party are now important components of the emerging left electoral landscape. Each has its own interests, programme and political identity. None of these organisations is automatically entitled to dictate to the others. But if they all continue competing independently in every constituency, the result will inevitably be fragmentation. The choice is not between one organisation dominating the left and everyone else disappearing. The alternative is some form of negotiated cooperation in which organisations agree where they have the strongest local base and where a common candidate might have the greatest chance of winning.
This conversation ought to have become necessary at the time of the 2024 Gaza vote. Instead, the different strands of the left largely continued along separate organisational paths. This is especially disheartening because the election showed that there was a lot of interest in candidates who would challenge Labour’s stance on Gaza. In several constituencies, that challenge broke through dramatically. Candidates came close in other cases. Yet instead of transforming that political energy into a coordinated movement, the left remained divided between the Greens, Workers Party, Your Party, independent campaigns and smaller socialist organisations.
Holborn and St Pancras is now exposing that unresolved contradiction in real time. Zack Polanski is seeking to turn the Green Party’s growing national support into a parliamentary breakthrough, while George Galloway is contesting the same seat for the Workers Party. The dispute has already generated serious disagreement within the Workers Party itself, with Chris Williamson resigning as deputy leader after opposing Galloway’s decision to contest the constituency and arguing that the Workers Party should support Polanski.
It is not appropriate to dismiss that disagreement as an internal disagreement between personalities. It exposes the fundamental problem confronting the entire left. What does unity actually mean? Does it mean that everyone must unite behind the Greens because they have built a strong national organisation? Does it mean that everyone should unite behind the Workers Party because it has demonstrated an ability to mobilise voters around Gaza? Does it mean supporting Your Party where it has established a stronger local base? Does it mean supporting independents where they have built the strongest campaigns? Or does it mean developing a completely new mechanism through which these organisations can negotiate constituency by constituency?
Those are legitimate questions. What is no longer convincing is pretending that the problem does not exist.
This is why the argument made by activists such as Habeeb that a Green defeat could force the party to rethink its approach to cooperation deserves to be part of the discussion, even if one does not accept the idea that voters should deliberately engineer such an outcome. The important point is not whether Polanski wins or loses. The important point is what the political organisations learn from the result. The Greens would have to face the possibility that their strategy of unilateral expansion has consequences for the movement as a whole if they were to lose a constituency where another left-wing candidate had a strong competitor. Equally, if Galloway’s candidacy failed, the Workers Party would have to confront its own responsibility for fragmentation.
That ought to be the standard that applies to everyone. But there is an even bigger reason why this debate cannot be postponed. A divided left could be extremely vulnerable in the upcoming general election. If Labour’s vote continues to decline in parts of the country while the Greens, Workers Party, Your Party, independents and smaller socialist parties all compete for portions of that electorate, there could be constituencies where a potentially substantial anti-establishment vote is divided between several candidates. Under first-past-the-post, that creates the possibility of parties such as Reform benefiting from a divided opposition.
Despite the simplicity of the mechanism, nobody can accurately predict how many seats this could affect. A party does not need majority support to win a constituency; it needs more votes than each individual rival. If three or four parties divide an electorate, a candidate can win with a relatively small plurality. That is precisely why electoral strategy matters.
And this is why the Green Party needs to think beyond the immediate ambition of winning more seats. Winning Green MPs is obviously important to the Green Party. But if the broader objective is to construct a powerful political alternative to the established parties, then the Greens have to ask themselves whether simply expanding their own electoral footprint is sufficient. It could not be. Both Your Party and the Workers Party are subject to the same criticism. Neither can demand unity from the Greens while simultaneously contesting constituencies where another left candidate has a stronger organisation. Unity cannot mean “everyone unite behind us.” That is not unity; it is organisational competition disguised as unity.
Compromise would be a much more difficult requirement for genuine cooperation. The Greens would have to accept that they shouldn’t automatically run for office in every constituency. It would require the Workers Party and Your Party to accept the same principle. Independent candidates would need to understand that a strong personal campaign is not always better than a larger political strategy. It would require smaller socialist parties to consider whether standing everywhere advances their objectives or merely divides the electorate. Additionally, rather than discovering after the votes have been counted that they have collectively permitted an opposing candidate to win, it would require everyone to gather before elections. The Green Party’s supporters may understandably reject the suggestion that their candidates should routinely stand aside. But nobody is asking them to abandon their politics. The argument is that political independence and electoral cooperation are not mutually exclusive. A party can maintain its identity while entering agreements with other organisations where doing so serves a common objective.
The Greens have already shown that local cooperation is possible. The experience of Camden and other local arrangements demonstrates that the party is capable of working with groups outside its own organisational structure. The problem is that such cooperation has not yet become a sufficiently systematic national strategy.
That needs to change.
Holborn and St Pancras should be a wake-up call. The controversy surrounding the by-election is not merely about Zack Polanski, George Galloway or one parliamentary seat. It is about whether the British left has the political maturity to recognise that its greatest electoral weakness may be its inability to cooperate.
If Polanski loses, it would be too simplistic to say that Galloway “caused” his defeat. If Galloway loses, it would be equally simplistic to claim that the Workers Party has therefore proved the case for its own strategy. The meaningful question will be whether either organisation learns anything from the experience.
The British left cannot afford another 2024-style fragmentation at the next general election. It cannot afford to watch Labour voters move towards Greens, independents, the Workers Party and Your Party while those forces compete against one another and potentially open the door to Reform. Furthermore, it cannot claim that no one anticipated the danger. The Green Party needs to decide what it really wants to build. It needs to make it abundantly clear that its goal is to establish the Green Party and support it. If it wants to help build a broader left-wing political movement, then it must start acting like one of the components of that movement rather than behaving as though electoral expansion and political unity are automatically the same thing.
The Greens may ultimately learn from Holborn and St. Pancras that a movement cannot be built through unilateralism, something they have been reluctant to accept up until this point. If the left is serious about changing British politics, then the time for every organisation simply fighting for its own patch is running out. The next general election demands something more ambitious than another collection of competing candidates. It demands a strategy for cooperation.
The choice is ultimately not between the Green Party and the Workers Party, nor between Polanski and Galloway. The real strategic question facing the left is whether these organisations and the smaller socialist and independent forces can finally learn how to work together rather than continually dividing the same electorate.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect (East London Times) editorial policy.
