If you were once left of centre in the UK, you thought of Labour as your natural political home.
You do not any longer. That is not because you have changed. It is that Labour deserted you three or so decades ago and has lurched ever further to the right ever since. A party founded on the backs of working people, the trade union movement and Methodism has become a party of the wealthy, big business and corruption.
What was is no more. Labour is over. You owe it nothing, and least of all an apology for bidding it farewell. No one should shed a tear about its demise. The handiwork of Blair, Mandelson (and let us not forget), the unreformed Alastair Campbell, is over. All that remains is for the few left in its fold to attend to the funeral rites.
What now, then?
As Aditya Chakrabortty notes in The Guardian this morning:
This winter is a hinge moment in British politics, the point at which the default choice of leftwing voters is no longer Labour. In Wales, it will be Plaid Cymru; in Scotland, the SNP. And in this corner of inner London, as in many English cities, it will be the Greens.
As he adds, and a report on the massive growth in support for the Greens in Lewisham in South East London:
Look up “one-party state” in a political dictionary, and alongside Pyongyang, there will feature Lewisham. At the last council elections in 2022, Labour scooped every single seat, plus the mayoralty. The local Green party, on the other hand, shrank so drastically it came close to shutting down.
Then: lift-off. Lewisham began 2025 with about 500 Green party members; by autumn, almost as many were signing up in just one week. At the start of 2026, the local party stands at about 2,500, putting it just behind the Green “fortress” of Hackney. At the school's entrance I meet Ed, whose job it is to call up local newbies and welcome them to the party. Last January, the task was his alone. Today, he heads a team of nearly 25.
My information tells me that this is also happening elsewhere.
Now, let's be clear. Something like this has happened before. I am old enough to remember the rise of the Social Democratic Party (the SDP). But that was a bunch of Labour cast-offs, some of them rather too close to the Tories for comfort as it turned out. Its rump is now a part of the far-right. The rest long ago merged with the Liberals to form the LibDems. They did not arrive on the political scene to shake up politics. They existed to maintain it as it was.
And that is the difference between the wave of support they got in 1981/2 and what is happening now. The Greens, especially under Zack Polanski, are not in existence to maintain the status quo. They want to break the mould, which the SDP also claimed (for those who recall their campaigns long ago), except they were clearly not committed to delivering on it. In contrast, the Greens are, and that is exactly what those now arriving in the party want.
They are what might be appropriately described as watermelons: red on the inside, green on the outside, and intent on making an irresistible political offering, at least as far as England is concerned. Scotland and Wales have different offerings, and in Scotland, the Greens are, in any case, a separate party, not always aligned with the policies of the Greens in England and Wales.
Why does this matter? There are three reasons.
First, for some time there has been no major political party on the left in the UK. The fiasco surrounding Your Party, which will not recover from the disasters and infighting surrounding its launch, means that the Greens do not need to create a space for themselves now: there is a vacuum for them to fill.
Second, that vacuum is sucking in the watermelons. They want politics with at least a green tinge. Most of those arriving are young enough to have never lived without a background of climate concern underpinning all their political awareness. Without that issue being on the agenda, they cannot imagine politics at all. But, equally, they are not the environmental hard core of old. They want politics for people. They want a political economy of care. They wish for a focus on meeting needs. They are all too aware of the power-grabbing of big business and the wealthy, and want it consigned to history. The logic of Beveridge and the social safety net supplied by the state is something they embrace. They agree with Keynes that we can afford whatever we are capable of doing. This is left-of-centre politics, but not as we have seen it in this country for a long time, or maybe ever before. That is what makes this sustainable. This is not a revival. This is answering a real need.
Third, those coming in are competent. They are precisely the people who have been missing from politics for far too long. They are not think tankers. They are not ideological diehards. They are not committed to climbing the greasy pole. They bring real-world skills to get things done. I am not denying that some will have ambition. So what? If you don't want to win, you cannot change the world through politics. People of that sort are required by any movement, but there are more than that. They are also committed to making real change in communities, which is where the bedrock of real politics is located, which Labour is showing it no longer comprehends by abolishing councils, alienating communities in the process.
Do I see this as a real change in that case? I think the answer is clear: I do. There is something very radical happening as people seize the chance to resist neoliberalism and forge something better. The day of the watermelons has arrived.
NB: I am aware that the watermelon is also used to indicate support for the people of Gaza. I see no problem with that.
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Thank you. That was uplifting!
Politics of Light 1: Politics of Might nil!
Well, as long as they are of the much tastier cantaloupe variety, I can live with that
I suppose.
Pleased to join and support the Watermelons, as long as the aim is to genuinely shake things up. The days of the Exford-style, privately educated career politician should be over, fast. Starmer and the whole lot might be gone soon… but followed by what? Another three and a half years, maybe more, of the same inaction and stagnation?
All of this at a time when some of the biggest structural issues in society should have been dealt with decades ago. It honestly makes my blood boil.
The only thing that takes the edge off is putting my energy into helping to build something better whenever I can.
As a long term Green I love the way you have put this. I also remember a terrible election leaflet by a Tory councillor when we were trying to get our first Green councillor elected in Reading using the watermelon analogy, saying vote Green and get red, i.e. Labour/left wing. He thought he was insulting the Greens, we loved it and I think took our first seat days afterwards.
Although there have been and still are many decent people in the Labour party the central organisation has been rotten for a very long time. It is sad, but now is the time to focus on the positive and I’m loving seeing young people (and in Manchester older people) getting out and feeling they have something worth campaigning on. Last year Reform did really well and shocked everyone, but that was largely rural areas and not the big urban centres. It was going to be bad for Labour before the Epstein/Mandleson revelations, but now it’s going to be shocking with large urban councils going Green and a total decimation of the Labour and Tory vote. I expect the LDs will hold in the areas they are strong.
Will Starmer survive until May? Will it make any difference?
I think he will make May.
He will not make June.
Will his departure change anything? I doubt it, vey much.
I would argue that while there was a point (particularly when Corbyn led Labour) where the Lib Dems were right lf Labour, they have been left of Labour at various points including now, and are also a left-leaning party.
In particular, in some areas like the Southwest of England they are currently the default leftist option.
They HAVE been pushing for shaking things up with electoral reform in particular.
That’s not to say Polanski isn’t doing a great job bringing the Green party more to people’s minds, but next election there may be a strong need for tactical voting to have enough representation of the left, so all the left leaning parties should be included in that, including moderate centre-left. Whether Labour still counts is a valid question, but a higher minimum wage and earlier access to employment protection plans mean their stance is mixed, and may still shift before the next election, particularly if there is a leadership change (or chancellor change).
It’s hard to call the LibDems a party of the left. Their liberalism is socially left, but no economically, at least right now. That is why it works in rural areas.
For most of my life I have been left of centre but over the past 10 years I have become unapologetically “watermelon-minded”. The environmental crisis and the inequality crisis are inseparable and any politics that takes one seriously must also take the other seriously.
I don’t believe meaningful change will come from Labour or the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems and Reform offer no real challenge to the underlying economic model. If there is a political route to systemic change in the UK, the Greens seem to me a necessary, even if not sufficient, step.
That’s why your Politics for People and the Political Economy of Care resonates so strongly with me and I am sure many others that read this blog. It provides the coherent framework that has been missing: linking environment, inequality, public services and economic resilience through a single organising principle, “Care”, not as sentiment, but as maintenance, stewardship and long-term reliability of people, systems and ecosystems.
What I find particularly powerful is that this approach offers a clear, credible answer to the question the Greens are most often challenged on: how do we pay for it? Framing care as real investment, constrained by resources rather than money, shifts the debate onto much firmer ground. If the Greens are to succeed, though, they also need to confront directly the other policy areas where they are vulnerable to voter rejection.
Whether this can scale globally is yet another question. But without a working example somewhere, the chances of meaningful change feel slim. A UK move toward a political economy of care may not be sufficient on its own, but it increasingly feels necessary.
Thanks
I can assureyou, I will not be dropping care. It is fundamental to my thinking.
Writing as a Labour Party member (just),
The best result for Labour in the Gorton and Denton by election would be a Green win. It would show Labour the direction it needs to take.
The second best result for Labour would be a Reform win. It would at least make clear the party was on the wrong course
The worst possible result would be a Labour win, encouraging them to drive straight on over the cliff.
Harold Macmillan would be regarded as ultra left by the faction now running Labour – building council houses, tolerating publicly owned utilities, etc etc
Will there then be a tipping point, where ambitious/ruthless Labour MPs start pulling on Green coats? Is there then a risk of the Greens absorbing some of that corruption?
In Scotland, the biggest difference is that the Greens are pro-independence, so this could well prove to be a tipping point on the Independence question. In my view, the SNP should be working more closely with the Greens on election strategy (i.e. voting SNP 1, Green 2) to maximise their combined representation in parliament.
The Greens in England and Wales are clearly open to independence.