{"id":472153,"date":"2026-03-12T21:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472153\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:04:08","slug":"several-labour-mps-in-talks-with-greens-about-defecting-to-the-party-sources-say-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/472153\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Labour MPs in talks with Greens about defecting to the party, sources say | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several Labour<\/a> MPs are in talks about defecting to the Greens, but are seeking guarantees they would be backed electorally by their new party, the Guardian has been told.<\/p>\n

Zack Polanski, the leader of the Greens in England and Wales, has said publicly that he has chatted to Labour MPs about the idea of switching sides, with the leftwing party enjoying a surge in membership<\/a> and having overtaken Labour in some<\/a> recent opinion polls.<\/p>\n

A series of other senior Green figures have confirmed that talks with several MPs are happening, but that none are yet at the stage of wanting to commit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already have a lot of experience of Labour councillors defecting to us, so this is not a surprise,\u201d one said. \u201cBut it takes time. You get to know people, and realise they would be much happier with us, but you never know when, or even if, it will happen. It\u2019s a very personal thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another senior Green figure said one hold-up had been Labour MPs wanting guarantees in advance that they would be re-selected for their seat at the next general election, and given support from the party to win again. \u201cThis is part of a lot of the conversations \u2013 they want the guarantees,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re such a decentralised party, it\u2019s not as easy for us to do as it is for other parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The names of Labour MPs involved in the talks have not been made public, but several Green and Labour figures pointed to the same small number of backbenchers, all of whom are on the left of Labour and who face a likely electoral threat from the Green party<\/a> in their constituency.<\/p>\n

However, none are understood to be seen by Labour whips as an imminent defection risk.<\/p>\n

A series of left-leaning Labour MPs are increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of the party under Keir Starmer<\/a>, and are attracted by what they see as the greater radicalism and dynamism of Polanski.<\/p>\n

Such is the scale of dissent with Starmer within Labour that one obstacle to defections is the fact that some MPs think it is possible he could be replaced soon by a leader they might find more appealing.<\/p>\n

Other Green figures argue that defections are also not a priority for the party given how well it is doing anyway. After quadrupling its number of MPs to four at the 2024 general election, the party won last month\u2019s<\/a> Gorton and Denton byelection, with Hannah Spencer beating Reform UK and pushing Labour into third.<\/p>\n

\u201cZack has always and is still having lots of conversations with Labour MPs, and they are happening quite regularly,\u201d one Green official said. \u201cBut we\u2019re much more interested in where the next byelection is going to be than what would be the very large step of a Labour MP crossing the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the House<\/a> magazine earlier this week, Polanski said he was talking to a \u201chandful\u201d of Labour MPs, adding: \u201cIf you speak to some Labour MPs, some days it seems like it\u2019s going to be their last day in the party, and other days they\u2019ve seen a glimmer of light and think everything\u2019s going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another senior Green said they expected someone to move eventually: \u201cThe Labour benches always look so miserable. Given they can look over and see that we\u2019re such a happy team, why wouldn\u2019t they want to come?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several Labour MPs are in talks about defecting to the Greens, but are seeking guarantees they would be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-472153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}