Progressives are being urged to consider the Green Party ahead of the next general election, with Baroness Jenny Jones telling The London Economic that tactical voting is the “coward’s way out”.
In a political era characterised by division, few things have united voters more in recent years than the unanimous desire for a change in leadership.
Polling suggests the Tories could be left with just 45 seats at the next election – plummeting from the 365 seats won in 2019. Similar polls have suggested the number could be more like 90.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has urged Brits to consider voting tactically to “lock the Tories out of power for a generation”, but Baroness Jones has advised progressives and those on the left to think again.
With Sir Keir Starmer refusing to speak out against some of the Tory’s more heinous policies, many people find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to deciding where to put their vote.
On the one hand, a fierce dislike of the Conservative’s handling of key issues is driving them to do whatever it takes to oust them from power. But on the other, a lack of real opposition has created a generation of politically homeless people.
Labour has yet to denounce the Rwanda policy and has tiptoed around issues such as Brexit and the climate emergency. It means the growing number of people who are concerned by weather events over the summer and confused about how we can send asylum seekers to a country with a questionable human rights record have nowhere to go.
Rather than vote tactically to keep the Conservatives out of government, Baroness Jones is urging progressives to consider the Green Party in order to send a message to a likely Labour administration, much in the same way as how UKIP influenced David Cameron’s Conservatives in 2015.
The far-right party picked up 12.6 per cent of the overall vote and effectively secured a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union as a result. Similar results for the Greens could send a message to Starmer that he can’t take traditional Labour voters for granted and that, for a lot of people, climate change is much bigger than a narrow loss in a Tory stronghold.
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