Photo by Dave Penman/Alamy

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the former Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, is defecting to the Green Party. Now he hopes his former colleagues will join him. Speaking exclusively to the New Statesman, Moyle said the Labour Party had been “aggressive and bullying” towards him and he will seek selection as the Green candidate in his former seat.

Russell-Moyle’s defection will be announced at an event in Brighton on Friday, alongside Green Party leader Zack Polanski. As a former shadow minister, Russell-Moyle is the most high-profile defection to the Green Party from Labour to date.

The former Labour MP was suspended from the party in May 2024, after a complaint about his behaviour eight years previously, which he denied. This meant he was unable to run again as a Labour MP in the 2024 general election and was succeeded by Chris Ward, a close ally of Keir Starmer. “They are an intolerant set of people, and they’re intolerant of any differences,” he said of his old party leadership. He has now left the party and will officially announce his defection to the Green Party at an event in Brighton tomorrow.

Russell-Moyle’s defection came about through work with the local Green Party in Brighton Kemptown, which endorsed him at the 2019 general election. After his suspension from Labour and subsequent inability to run once again as the MP for Brighton Kemptown, some local Green members “touched base” with him again and said, “Lloyd, do you want to reconsider?”

“I had a great conversation with some of the local Green members,” Russell-Moyle said, “and through those conversations, I said, ‘I think I would like to come and join you.’” He plans to run for selection to become the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate in the constituency in any upcoming selection.

“The Greens are a democratic party, where local members decide who their candidate is… I will put myself up for voluntary selection, for Green Party members to see if they want me to run again in Kemptown as the MP. I was supported by them in 2017,” he said. “It does not feel like I will be asking them to endorse me for the first time, but I will be asking them to re-endorse me, and put me as their candidate,” Russell-Moyle added.  

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Of his former Labour colleagues, Russell-Moyle hopes some will “have the courage to come over to the Green Party”. He said: “I think it will be a natural home for them.” But he added: “I will continue to be friends and continue to work with people who chose to remain in the Labour Party for whatever reason.”

Russell-Moyle’s defection is the latest in a series of positive developments for the Green Party since Polanski’s election. They are now the third largest party in the UK, having overtaken the Conservative Party with 150,000 members. They are consistently polling around 15-17 per cent – neck-and-neck with Labour.

[Further reading: Exclusive: Ex Labour MP to defect to the Green Party]

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