Michael Chessum

Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, says he wants to replace Labour. That still seems unlikely, but if it were to happen, this is what the early build-up might look like. The party’s membership has more than doubled since Polanski’s election in early September, overtaking the Conservatives, and some polls show them level-pegging with both Labour and the Tories (all far behind Reform). Next May, local elections in London and other big cities could see a realignment in Britain’s political map – a mirror image of Reform’s sweeping gains this year.

‘Can’t you ping elsewhere?’ The question, daubed on the twelve-foot green fences encircling much of Brockwell Park in South London, has long been on the minds of local residents. For months, the park has been the subject of a battle over urban public space and culture. Austerity is driving it. Facing a large budget deficit, Lambeth Council is expected to cut local services by £99 million over the next two years. To boost its income, the council has been renting out Brockwell Park to Summer Events Ltd (which operates under the brand name Brockwell Live) since 2018. Between 23 May and 8 June this year, the park hosted five festivals – Wide Awake, Field Day, Cross The Tracks, City Splash and Mighty Hoopla, followed by the non-commercial Lambeth Country Show. As well as the direct revenue, the events boost trade for local pubs and music venues.

Starmer’s strategy of modest progress and alliance-building could be scuppered by the fiscal hawks in his government. Since 2008, British workers have suffered the worst wage deflation in modern history. Without significant progress on pay, even trade union leaders inclined to support Starmer will find it difficult to avoid industrial action. As Callaghan learned to his cost in the period that culminated in the Winter of Discontent, a model of negotiated industrial peace only works if government policy keeps pace with working-class demands.

Labour members have long used the party conference to push for a more humanitarian approach to immigration and asylum. In Liverpool this week, however, at the redeveloped docks from which more than five million Europeans travelled to America at the end of the 19th century, the only progressive motion on immigration was arbitrarily ruled out of order. On Tuesday afternoon, delegates were instead invited to debate a motion that would have committed the party to ‘establish a new Border Security Command’, ‘negotiate additional returns arrangements to speed up returns’, ‘increase the number of safe countries to which failed asylum seekers can swiftly be returned’ and ‘deliver new counter-terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime’. It pledged to ‘act upstream’ to stop ‘the humanitarian crises’ that fuelled immigration.

An idea as radical as the nationalisation of the healthcare system, in the teeth of opposition from the medical profession, would never be entertained by the current crop of pundits and political managers. It is only by making Nye Bevan and the NHS into national treasures that our political establishment can leave this contradiction unexamined.