The vast majority of ordinary members of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) are probably unaware of the fact that six months ago, 1400 activists from Momentum who migrated to World Transform and transitioned to Your Party joined the GPEW, just as that last of Corbyn’s ambitious socialist project was imploding.
Prominent amongst this new cohort are former Labour officials and politicians such as Labour Party general secretary Jennie Formby, labour adviser James Meadway, North Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll , former MP Llyod Russel-Moyle and David Prescott. In addition, ex-Labour spin doctors Richard Simcox and James Schneider have joined the Party’s communications team. Who knows how many ex-Labour ‘operators’ ‘have joined since?
Whilst the input of such knowledgeable and experienced national organisers – broadly aligned to Zack Polanski’s brand of eco-populist socialism and identity politics – are no doubt appreciated by green activists from the London/Brighton/Bristol axis, other regional activists may be less impressed.
This is not due to their roles in Corbyn’s Momentum or Your Party’s long history of internal fighting and spectacular fall-outs, but because, in their ignorance, they may seek to transform the GPEW into a revamped version of Momentum or Your Party. Neither of these organisations ever had much in common with the GPEW’s philosophical basis, its traditional liberal green values, and primary ecological /environmental mission.
Early signs of such transforming aim have been reported in Politco where Mish Rahman, former Labour National Executive Committee member under Corby , identified “messy” internal structures as requiring attention. He informed us all that “these people do know how to run a big operation, but somewhat ominously, added: “they are not there to ruin things”.
What operators from the Labour Party and Your Party will find is that the GPEW is unlike any anything they ever came worked for. The GPEW is a loose Association with over 305 Autonomous Local Parties or ‘branches’. It is more akin to a loose federation of the willing. It is not monolithic, nor does it operate on the democratic centralist principle adopted by socialist parties or leftist groups.
As a core principle – if not always in practice – greens also seek to reach decisions via consensus rather than resort to voting by a show of hand. This applies to local parties’ decisions regarding all elections as well as the actual process of selecting candidates.
What is making the GPEW a resilient and such a successful 21st century political party is precisely in its “messy” internal structures where no one group or faction can ever hope to achieve total or overall control.
However determined to sort out the “messy” structures of the GPEW from Islington North and the London Office, all former Corbyn’s operators are realistically likely to achieve is encourage hard-pressed staffers to join Unite so as to make their working life slightly more tolerable.
Any attempt beyond the southern axis to reform the party’s internal structures is likely to hit a brick wall as soon as one or two Regions manifest their reservations or express their outright opposition. Alternatively, such project could simply slowly grind to a halt due to real (or feigned) apathy.
Someone such as Jennie Formby will no doubt have quickly grasped if that the GPEW’s main source of income comes from members’ subscriptions and not from affiliated Trade Unions or rich donors. Associations cannot have ‘affiliated’ bodies, only branches. Whilst subs are collected centrally, the money belongs to Local Parties. The share of this vital income between the Office and Local Parties is determined by Conference. However, as Local Parties are legally autonomous ( not ‘Agents’ of the Party ) there is nothing to stop them from dropping out of the Association and set up their own recruitment.
How the big operators from the Corbyn’s project hope to make progress towards transforming the Green Party into a ‘socialist’ party is therefore very likely to fail. However, what may have already dawned on them is that taking control of the Conference Agenda and Conference as the Party’s ‘Supreme Body’ is entirely feasible.
As described in some details in this blog, all it takes from a motion to get to the top of the Conference Agenda is for any one of the 13 Common Interest groups to circulate their list of preferred motions on their What’s App right up to the prioritisation stage of the agenda process and thus maximise the chances of seeing their motion or motions being debated or voted on. The same applies with regards to internal elections held at the tail end of Conference for key committees such as the Standing Orders Committee or the International Committee.
No Local Party or Region are involved at any stage of the Conference process. As actual entities of the GPEW, they do not have the vote. Conference decisions are made by self-appointed members who turn up on the day. They are accountable to no-one. They do not represent the views of anyone but their own as individuals with no restrictions besides, as to the length of their membership.
This is mana from heaven for any political operators. Should Corbyn’s former staffers therefore chose to exploit this weakest link or loophole, they will inevitably contribute to widen the party’s endemic democratic deficit and the chasm that has existed between the Party’s instruments of governance and the grass roots for decades.
So, will they succeed in “ruining” the GPEW?
Based on past record, the prognostic is not good. If the big operators seek to clean up the Party ‘s mess and turn it into an efficient top down electoral machine, they will split the GPEW down the middle or fragment it into dozens of competing factions.
The GPEW is more of a movement with electoral aspirations than an electoral machine and whilst most Local Parties’ activists have embraced the Target to Win strategy, the vast majority of members are happy to pay their subs and occasionally join in a litter picking day out or a local protest.
As a reminder, Zack Polanski was elected as Leader in August 2025 with 20,411 votes when 64,581 members were registered to take part. The turn out was 37.6%.
It also likely that with the Burnham’s bounce, there could be a surge in reverse with more recent recruits as well as long service members joining or re-joining the Labour Party . We may also see a few Local Parties or Regions to start drifting away, quietly going it alone and at some stage, possibly regroup under a new entity.
The 2026 Autumn Conference in Brighton will be one to watch for signs of a second capture of our party. Or the event could the beginning of a sober and profound re-appraisal of what the GPEW is about and towards a re-discovery of its unique mission.
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