Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Today, the green surge in London. It's a chilly morning in early April, and inside a former spice warehouse in South East London, excitement is building. We're in The Friendly Place for the launch of the Green Party's local election campaign. It is a very Green Party kind of venue. Not just the cutesy name, but the artful no-frills vibes. Bare brick walls, peeling plaster, exposed beams.
Good morning, thank you very much. It's amazing to be here in Deptford.
Chapter 2: What factors contribute to the Green Party's surge in Hackney?
Zach Polanski bounds onto the stage with a big toothy grin.
It's been a remarkable moment for the Green Party. We have tripled our membership. We've tripled our poll ratings.
He says he is confident that his party is heading for its best ever set of results.
And we are heading for a new record-breaking result for the Green Party.
And it's in Labour London where the Greens particularly fancy their chances. We're going to have a bright green, hopeful London. According to one poll, half of all Londoners attempted to vote for the Green Party next Thursday, with four Labour councils looking within Polanski's reach.
I think Labour are going to be wiped, actually. That's the honest answer. I think they're going to be virtually wiped out. And I think there's going to be quite a few Green-controlled councils.
Buoyed by Hannah Spencer's win in the Gorton and Denton by-election, London's army of Green activists are feeling optimistic. What's making the difference is that amazing by-election win at national level. So people think this is not a wasted vote. People see voting for the Greens can make a difference.
But can the Green Party really triumph in a city where they currently control no councils and have just 49 councillors? And can they actually deliver what they're promising? From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pidd. Today in Focus. On the ground, in the capital, as the Greens go on the attack.
Four weeks later, as spring has finally sprung, we've crossed the River Thames to Hackney, one of four boroughs in the capital where the pollsters think that the Green Party have a decent chance of ousting Labour. We've been told to meet a group of Green canvassers at the bus stop outside Lidl on Wells Street, in the south of the borough. They are in very high spirits.
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Chapter 3: How has the Green Party's campaign strategy evolved?
In 2022, he was a paper candidate, a no-hoper who agreed to have his name on the ballot just to make up the numbers. Things are very different this time. He's been pounding the streets so hard that he's had to buy new trainers, which are fresh out of the box today. So where are you from originally, Rolf?
I'm originally from the Netherlands.
Right.
But I've been living here for seven years now.
What brought you here? Work or love?
Love. My wife, she's British. Is she? So, yeah. I've been with the Greens for quite a long time, basically since I moved in, because I was with the Dutch Green Party before. So it made complete sense for me to join the Greens here, which was back then, like, there wasn't even a councillor in Hackney.
Now we patiently wait, see if there's something happening, do a polite second knock, and just leave. A small note that we are here, if I can still find my pen.
While Rolf waits in vain for someone to answer the door, I chat to a young woman in a headscarf and a tracksuit who's just arrived home next door. She's a REACH, she's 21, and she's studying chemical engineering. So here's a potential green voter for you, Rolf.
Hi, I'm Rolf. I'm with the Hackney Greens. I'm standing as your councillor here. What can I do for you?
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Chapter 4: What challenges do the Greens face in a Labour stronghold?
So you said that you do think Hackney Council has done quite a few good things. That's a Labour council. Why wouldn't you vote Labour this time, or are you thinking that you might vote Labour?
I'm not going to vote Labour because they're starting to divert away from what they wanted to do originally. And when it comes to Palestine as well, they've not done anything in terms of standing up for Palestine at all.
And Green is actually doing stuff for Palestine and they're saying that they're going to ask the council to stop funding them. The pension fund? Sort of investing in arms funds?
Yeah, so currently the Hackney Council has the pension fund and they are heavily investing in arms. And we want to divest from that and actually invest them in council housing and things that are actually useful.
But is that your primary motivating factor, the Gaza issue? That is one of the primary factors, but also that, I mean, we can't just keep on voting for the same people when we see nothing changing as a whole.
So why not vote green? Especially because everyone else that I know is going to vote green as well. So I feel like we can all get together and make a change, you know?
Do you feel optimistic? Yeah, definitely.
OK. Uno, dos, tres.
His gang green, what a team! His gang green, what a team! His gang green, what a team! We leave the green to their door knocking and walk back along Wells Street. A young man standing outside the number one cafe spots our microphone and asks if we're making content. I guess that's what a podcast counts for these days, so I say yes and we get chatting.
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Chapter 5: What local issues are influencing voters in Hackney?
A change is good. A change for the better.
The cafe is old school with wood-panelled walls and four-micro tables. It's a proper greasy spoon with prices to match. I must say, your prices are absolutely bargain. Egg, chips and beans for Ā£6 per order. to come back from. I approach a woman who's drinking black coffee and reading a copy of The Sun. Sorry to interrupt. We're journalists from The Guardian.
Making a podcast about... She's in my paper, so you've got the right person.
I reckon you're reading The Sun, though. Because I have it here. I did not buy it.
No judgement here. I support anybody who is reading a newspaper in this day and age. This is Geraldine, who's 72. We're making a podcast about the local elections and looking at the Greens. They really fancy taking Hackney from Labour... What do you think?
I'm not sure they'll take it, but I'm a kind of Green Labour, Green Labour kind of person, so I'll vote for one or the other, depending on my mood, I think.
What do you like about the Green Party?
Well, obviously the environmental issues come first. It's Zach Polanski, isn't it, his name? Yeah. I'm getting a bit old, I can't remember all the names. I think he's quite credible. He strikes me as a credible leader of a party.
What do you like and what don't you like about Labour?
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Chapter 6: How do residents perceive the Green Party's policies?
I worry that the whole area has become... It's priced at all the local people that you see walking along the street here. They won't be buying houses. They might be living in social housing still, and I don't know how long that's going to go on for.
So we've left the number one cafe and we have crossed Mare Street into a very different Hackney. So we're just walking into London Fields, which I would say is the epicentre of gentrified Hackney. It's where the heated Lido is. It's where Broadway Market, the lady in the cafe referred to. It's a place that you can come, spend all your wages on gastronomic goodies and lie on patchy grass.
We have to try not to get run over in the cycle lane.
so i think there's loads of people it's it's lunchtime it's one o'clock lots of people sunbathing a lot of working from home going on probably working from the park should we go and talk to some people my name is claudio and i'm 25 years old sorry just took a bite um i'm voting green why green out of the options given it's the best i mean laborers are basically tories at this point and then what's other option reform so it's green what has labor done that's put you off them
I mean, they have no platform. They continue to actively pass legislation that's extremely anti-protest and just like anti-human. Their whole stance on immigration, I just feel like Keir Starmer is obviously a puppet. Like he stands for nothing himself. And the party as a whole just cannot get together and actually present something that the people actually want.
They're just trying to be a watered down version of the Tories. And even they're losing to reform. So it's just kind of like they stand for nothing.
Claudio is Italian, but moved to London from Canada. EU and Commonwealth citizens living in the UK are allowed to vote in the local elections. I asked what he likes about the Greens.
I think they're running a great campaign. I think they actually are presenting a platform to the people. I think they show that they're listening to the people. I just think the left, like globally and also within the UK, has been in a bit of a state right now. Like there is a whole your party with Jeremy Corbyn and Sultana that fell apart.
So I think the Greens were able to kind of like welcome people that were looking towards Jeremy Corbyn. And also, I mean, their stance on Palestine, their stance on immigration is definitely in line with my own morals and values. But I do think that like the political system is just clearly aging and it clearly is not really meant for nowadays.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the upcoming local elections for the Greens?
The whole journey I keep thinking, Ā£1,400 for a house share with no living room. We're meeting Zoe Garbet, one of the four current Green councillors in Hackney, who wants to be Hackney's mayor. Hello! Hiya! What was your name? Helen. She has short, dark hair with a bright pink fringe and is fizzing with energy.
She's waiting for us in Gillett Square where there are a bunch of guys sitting around smoking weed and listening to reggae.
Hello!
We walked together down Kingsland Road, Hackney's busiest street. I love it. This is like, honestly, like this strip is like one of my favourite parts of Hackney. Like I lived in Clissold for a bit during the pandemic and would visit friends in Dalston. But I'd come round the corner here and it'd be like vibing.
You can see the city in the distance and there's loads of buses and there's a market and families and people out and about. It's just so full of life. And until recently, people would describe Hackney as a labour fortress. It's had Labour MPs, I think, since 1945. Labour's controlled the council for all but six or so years since its foundation in the 1960s.
And yet you really think that you guys in the Greens have got a chance this time? Yeah, so I think it's part of just Hackney's story. I think when you speak to residents, they're really ready for... a change. The Green Party have been really growing here in Hackney. In the 2022 election, we got 25% of the vote, so a quarter of the vote.
But because we don't have proportional representation, that's not shown in the number of councillors we've got. So we've actually got quite strong support here in Hackney. And we just know that from our door knocking, we're just at a scale this time that we've never been before.
you know i've been knocking on doors in hackney for 12 13 years and at the beginning of that people used to just be like oh you want to talk to me about the environment and obviously that is something we deeply care about but Now we just get people at the door saying, oh, of course I'm voting Green.
I think that has been a gradual shift in some ways, but it definitely has increased in the last year with people feeling like the Labour Party has left them, them seeing what Zach Polanski has been saying on a national level.
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Chapter 8: How do voters feel about Labour's performance in Hackney?
So I think it's about designing the rent control that would work for the city and for the country. With days to go until the elections, The Guardian learns that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is looking at bringing in her own form of rent controls, a one-year rent freeze on private sector rents. It could be a coincidence, or it could be Labour trying to give voters one less reason to vote Greens.
I asked Zoe about one of the Greens' more controversial policies. And let's talk a bit about the Green Party's drugs policy to legalise drugs. I think you're one of the co-authors of that. Why do you laugh? I'm always happy to talk about drug policy. I love it. I'm like, yes, some questions about drug policy.
And obviously you can't control drugs policy as the mayor of Hackney, but what do you want to see happen? Yeah, so the UK has the highest drug death in Europe. I think the current approach to drugs is utterly failing. We've got children and young people put at risk. We've got an illusion of safety.
People like to make you think that our current approach is the safest approach, and it absolutely isn't. We need to put the whole market and trade in the hands of health professionals who'd be able to properly support people. Locally, there has been progress in terms of drug testing services and the rollout of naloxone, which will reverse an opioid overdose.
But there's much more I'd want to do in terms of protecting and expanding drug and alcohol services, but also being, again, a loud voice around what's failing. I'd completely commit to Hackney being a site of a drug consumption room, which we've seen in Glasgow. So it's where you can inject safely?
Yes, it's a space where people can use drugs in a supervised way because we know that the drug supply has become even more toxic. And is it something that comes up on the doorstep? I think it did a bit when it was in the news around Gorton and Denton by-election. I just wanted to read out something to you.
It's become a bit notorious, this van that the Labour Party drove around, Gorton and Denton. I'm just going to read it out. This was, I think, the day before or the day of the by-election. And it's this van that's got a picture of Zach Polanski and Hannah Spencer, who ultimately won that by-election, on the back.
And it says, to all voters, do not listen to these people, do not vote for the Greens. They want to legalise all drugs and teach our children to use drugs, including crack and heroin, and let our daughters be used for legal prostitution.
just horrendous i think there's so many stereotypes and just horrendous um scapegoating in that in that paragraph i find it really upsetting i also think you know our drug policy is about taking a public health approach to drugs like some children grow up in households where people use drugs
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