After a historic election for us in the Green Party, Jonathan Barley has stressed that his door is open for talks with Keir Starmer to form a progressive Alliance. Here’s what he said to The Guardian:
‘Bartley told the Guardian: “I’m saying to Keir Starmer: my door is open. You have my number – give me a call.”
The Greens entered a pact with the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru at the last general election in 2019, covering 60 seats, to avoid splitting the anti-Brexit vote. The Green party increased its share of the vote in that election, to more than 850,000 votes, though without winning any more seats in parliament. There is currently only one Green MP, Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion.
Bartley believes some form of wider alliance with Labour at the next general election could prove beneficial for a “progressive alliance”, an idea some experts think may be the best or perhaps only way to counter a surging Tory party.
“We have been governing with Labour and the Lib Dems in councils; we have reached out to Labour. The ball is in the court of the Labour party – we are always ready to talk,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “Will Labour ever be able to form a government on its own? That’s a legitimate question to ask.”
Any formal coordination would require the approval of Green party members. Bartley said: “The first step is to talk. We have not even reached that stage yet.”
Sources in the Labour party have suggested that the party has not definitively ruled out the idea of some form of cooperation in future, but nor is it under active consideration at present.
The Green party made a net gain of 91 council seats in the local elections, taking its national total to a record 444. It has a role in running 18 councils, including Brighton and Hove which it controls and Bristol where it is equal with Labour, with the possibility of more as hung councils work out compromises in the coming weeks.
The party took seats almost equally from the Conservatives and Labour: 45 of its seats were won from Tory incumbents and 49 from Labour, with a further four coming from the Liberal Democrats.Advertisementhttps://119db8245ab4647b3ce479890bd3b37d.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
That shows, according to Bartley, that the Greens can win seats that Labour could not. “A vote for the Green party is a vote for the Green party,” he said’.
Read the full story at The Guardian.
