Greens grassroots push back: Burnham is ‘not what we stand for’
A Green Party membership coalition has hit back at senior party figures, urging the Greens to stand aside in the Makerfield by-election. Their letter‘s message is unambiguous: the grassroots will not be managed into irrelevance.
Green grassroots hitting back at Burnham
The Canary can reveal a letter signed by Green Party members, circulating in response to a joint statement from high-profile party figures including former co-leader Jonathan Bartley and ex-councillor Rupert Read.
It calls on Zack Polanski to rule out stepping aside for Labour’s Andy Burnham in Makerfield. Over 120 members and counting have so far signed the open letter, launched on 25 May.
They oppose a Green stand-down, even if the Greater Manchester mayor commits to backing proportional representation (PR) — which he’s already disavowed — for the next general election manifesto.
The grassroots response — signed by members from Stockton, Stockport, Alnwick, Northumberland, and Hartlepool Green Party branches, among others — is pointed. In parts, it is scathing.
🟢 EXCL: Senior Green Party figures have urged Zack Polanski to consider stepping aside for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election if the Greater Manchester mayor commits to introducing proportional representation
Green councillors, activists and former party leaders have…
— Daisy Eastlake (@daisyeastlake) May 24, 2026
PR’s already off the table
The response comes to an original letter signed by a campaign group within the senior party ranks calling themselves ‘Greens for Proportional Representation in Makerfield’.
Central to the senior figures’ case for standing aside is the prospect of Burnham backing PR. This reform is long championed by the Greens as essential to breaking Britain’s broken two-party duopoly. But the letter-writers are having none of it.
As they bluntly note: Burnham has already ruled out PR. The letter states that its signatories are
confused as to why this point keeps being argued as if it is still on the table.
It’s a significant problem for the pro-stand-aside camp. Their entire strategic rationale rests on a concession which Burnham has explicitly declined to make.
Urging Greens to sacrifice their presence in a historic by-election, for a promise that simply doesn’t exist, isn’t strategic pragmatism. It’s wishful (and, arguably, politically suicidal) thinking dressed up as ‘realpolitik’ or centre-ground coalition-ism.
Burnham WON’T back proportional representation this parliament
Greens want more than PR
Even if Burnham were to change his position overnight, many Green members would remain unconvinced. The letter is entirely frank about why: it’s Labour’s horrific record.
The signatories cite the Labour Party’s complicity in genocide in Gaza; its attacks on trans rights, which Burnham recently doubled down on; and its continued embrace of austerity. These are reasons why PR alone cannot and should not function as a get-out-of-scrutiny-free card.
Not for Burnham, nor anyone still imbricated in Labour’s machinery. This is a crucial point.
The argument from Bartley, Read, and their co-signatories implicitly frames Labour — specifically Burnham’s Labour — as a vehicle somehow worth protecting. Ultimately, that’s their core premise.
The grassroots letter refuses this frame entirely. You do not stand aside for a party that, in their words, you are fundamentally at odds with — especially on the defining moral and political questions of our moment.
Steering away from party members
Perhaps the most stinging section of the letter concerns internal party democracy. The signatories describe the senior figures’ letter as “symbolic of wider tension” inside the Greens, with officers attempting to:
steer decision-making around election campaigning away from grass roots membership [sic].
This cuts to the heart of what the Green Party is supposed to be.
Unlike Labour — whose membership has repeatedly seen its preferences overridden, managed, and suppressed by the parliamentary leadership and NEC — the Greens built their recent surge in membership on an explicit promise: this would be a member-led organisation. People joined, as the letter puts it:
because we were promised a member-led organisation where we can fight against both the far-right and neoliberal establishment.
Nobody, the signatories remind us with quiet fury:
has signed up in the last year to further enable the two-party system.
Greens’ Makerfield candidate withdraws after Israel lobby pile-on
Stakes of getting this wrong
The letter doesn’t mince words about what capitulation would cost.
The Greens’ meteoric membership growth is driven by activists who see the party as a genuine vehicle for socialist and progressive politics, particularly outside of Labour’s grip. As such, it’s fragile in the ways that all political momentum is fragile. It depends on trust.
If members repeatedly see their enthusiasm “stifled” by self-appointed senior figures making unilateral strategic calculations, that momentum will collapse. Perhaps irreparably.
The letter warns that the stakes are too high — for working class people, for the left, for the prospect of any serious challenge to the two-party stranglehold — to absorb yet again:
another 7-year setback in bringing socialism to Britain.
Speaking exclusively to the Canary, the principal author of the Greens’ letter, Georgina Hollifield of Stockton Green Party, said:
The grassroots demand: let locals decide
The Greens’ letter’s conclusion is constitutionally modest but politically significant.
The decision on whether to stand and whether to campaign — which, the signatories correctly note, are separate decisions — should rest with local party members in Makerfield. Not with Bartley. Not with Read. Not with anyone firing off letters from outside the constituency.
This is, at its core, a demand that the Green Party actually be what it says it is.
The Makerfield by-election may not be winnable for the Greens. But the battle over what kind of party the Greens will become? That fight’s very much still on.
Paid-up Green Party members *only* can sign the open letter here.
Featured image via the Canary / X
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Germany has PR, and also the oldest and electorally most successful Green party in the world. Said party long ago moved sharply to the Right, espousing pro-Israel, openly racist, militarist and imperialist policies. Canary’s support for the Greens and for PR is not really credible from a working class socialist perspective.
Yup. All electoral systems can be gamed by the ‘elites’, all political movements infiltrated and taken over. Fortunately, with the collapse in mass [corporate] media, it is becoming harder for the ‘elites’ to convince the general population to vote against their best interests using a single argument, to create astroturfed bottom-up fascism… but the atomisation there works both ways as well.
The key, as you implied, is to avoid falling behind labels (Such as ‘GPEW is always good’), or tactical battles (Such as PR will save us), and, as Frank Herbert so insightfully wote: “Find good leaders that you can trust, everything else will fall into place” [Heavily paraphrased].
Unfortunately Politics, for the masses, is ever a Sisyphean task. And, as Schnews said, activism burns people out, so activists MUST support each other.
The GPEW, largely due to the idiocy of YPs launch, are the CURRENT best hope though.
Strangely, despite PR matching votes to seats more accurately, the FPTP system allows for greater swings on smaller leads, which can give greater weight to popular radical movements… for good and ill.
Inclined to agree with both these comments, but especially Gnu’s. The Greens are currently our best (if not only) electoral hope, but you will notice we cover far more than electoral politics. And, in response to the first comment, we will be the first media organisation — as we already are, and as this very piece intends to do — hold any signs of elite capture or capitulation in the Green Party to account. I hope you’ve seen how we challenge the Greens to remain pro-Palestine, and one day anti-Zionist, and keep them anti-war, anti-corporate, etc.
Seconded. Party politics is dead in the UK and if you can’t see that by now, then read some recent history.
PR wont make any difference, as Germany proves. Its not the electoral system, its who owns the politicians.
EVERY politician in the UK either is already owned by, or will be owned by, the billionaire/mic/zio/corpo class if or when they get anywhere near power. Corbyn was a fluke. ALL UK policies are for the psychocapitalists. From corpo welfare to austerity genocide. The plan is a nation of good little slave/consumer doggies.
Democracy is an illusion – exactly the same as the US uniparty. Except we get five coloured flags to wave. Wakey wakey morons.
Green politics was the diversion set -up to divert young people away from the real issues of the Nazis never going away in Germany and the UK USA and the rest turning away when the unreconstructed corporatist of National Socialism moved into the CDU. Fearful that there would be a move to the left by the young Petra and her crypto-fascist husband formed the greens and were given the press and coverage to divert the young from real left alternatives. German greens sprung from a very shadowy section that connived to con the Hippies into believing that their nonsense was a real alternative when they sought to nullify the radical left with propaganda and false flag the struggle by the usual hijack of movements like RAF. The US bankrolled them so they could control the anti-nuclear movement, some thing for the shallow to believe in, puddle deep politics.
Ulrike was murdered because she was going to blow the scandal at the trial and they had no answers for those exposed as agent provocateurs. Some of us recall the dash of green converts that surfaced in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. Middle class liberals, what did Mao say about change.
Leaving decisions like this to local members is fraught with potential danger. What if the annual conference has an overwhelming majority that believes the party should not step aside for Labour under any circumstances but then still approves of the final decision being a local one? Then a number of local branches still decide to stand aside for Labour, what kind of confusing signal is that?
Either local members abide by nationally agreed strategic decisions or it’s a recipe for chaos.
Having spent years in grassroots movements, I found the discussion about Burnham’s alignment with Green values particularly compelling. While many express valid concerns regarding his leadership style diverging from foundational Green principles, it’s also worth considering how diverse strategies can catalyze broader public engagement with environmental issues. Sometimes a pragmatic approach might appeal to voters who otherwise feel disconnected from these ideals. Balancing idealism with practical governance is no easy feat!
It would be interesting to explore how various factions within the party can collaborate instead of polarizing further—after all, we want everyone on board for this critical mission (you can read more thoughts on that here: Snow Rider 3D).