The Greens today claimed to have overtaken the Tories to become the UK’s third-largest party following a membership surge under new leader Zack Polanski.
A self-described ‘eco-populist’, Mr Polanski was elected the Greens’ new leader at the beginning of last month following an overtly Left-wing campaign.
The 42-year-old on Sunday said – in the six weeks since he took charge – he had overseen an 80 per cent increase in the party’s membership.
He boasted of the Greens now having 125,000 members, which puts them only behind Labour and Reform UK in terms of party membership size.
At the time of the Conservative leadership election last year, which saw Kemi Badenoch take over from Rishi Sunak, the Tories had 131,000 members.
But, in July this year, they were revealed to have 8,000 fewer members than they did when Mrs Badenoch was elected with the party’s membership having fallen to 123,000.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Polanski hailed a ‘really exciting’ time for his party as he set out his ambition to ‘tackle the inequality at the heart of our society’.
But he also faced criticism as he repeated his view that Britain should pull out of NATO and spend billions of pounds on tackling climate change, rather than nuclear weapons.
The Greens today claimed to have overtaken the Tories to become the UK’s third-largest party following a membership surge under new leader Zack Polanski
In July this year, the Tories were revealed to have 8,000 fewer members than they did when Kemi Badenoch was elected leader with the party’s membership having fallen to 123,000
Latest figures showed Labour’s membership stood at 333,235 at the end of last year, following a fall of around 200,000 members under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The party shed around one in 10 members over the course of 2024, with another 37,215 members leaving during the 12 months.
Labour’s current membership is well down on its recent peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019.
A ticker on Reform’s website shows Nigel Farage’s party currently has around 260,000 members.
The latest membership figure published by the Liberal Democrats stated they had 83,174 people within their grassroots.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday about the Greens’ membership surge since he took over the party, Mr Polanski said: ‘It’s really exciting, we’ve had an 80 per cent increase in the entire membership since I became leader.
‘People are telling me what it’s down to. People are feeling hope, they can hear that I’m talking about the fact people’s wages aren’t high enough, the cost of living is too high.
‘What we really need to do is tackle the inequality at the heart of our society. The four wealthiest people in Britain own more wealth than 20 million people combined.
‘The Green Party are the only party really talking about the fact people are really struggling, they’re tired and exhausted, and it doesn’t have to be this way.’
Later in the interview, Mr Polanski reiterated his call for Britain to quit NATO but said this should not happen ‘immediately’.
‘The world is in political turmoil and we need to make sure our country is defended,’ he said.
But he added: ‘Once we’ve created an alternative alliance with our European neighbours, we should absolutely be looking for a different way that is focused on peace and diplomacy rather than on nuclear weapons.’
Mr Polanski went on to demand the Government scrap a planned £15billion investment to refresh Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
‘We need to be making sure we’re spending money on the actual climate crisis and food insecurity rather than £15billion on nuclear weapons at the same time as our NHS is crumbling,’ he said.
A Labour spokesperson said: ‘Zack Polanski wants to pull the UK out of NATO.
‘At a time of such global instability, raising the prospect of that is a deeply irresponsible position for any party leader to take – and it’s exactly what Vladimir Putin wants to hear.’
