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Greens surge in membership since Polanski election
Green Party leader Zack Polanski with the Green Party Gorton and Denton by-election candidate Hannah Spencer (not pictured) speaking to Green Party volunteers at Granada Park in Denton, February 7, 2026
THE GREENS have seen an 186 per cent increase in membership since the election of their left-wing leader Zack Polanski last September.
The party now has 200,000 members, an all-time high, it announced today, following the Greens’ win in the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday.
Green Party membership has nearly tripled since Mr Polanski stood for the leadership on a platform decisively to the left of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, when it only had 69,000.
Last month, a YouGov poll put the Greens only 1 percentage point behind the ruling party, with 17 per cent support.
Labour is still estimated to have the largest membership, about 333,000, and Nigel Farage’s Reform claims to have 270,000 members.
Mr Polanksi called the membership milestone a “political turning point,” saying that it represents “hope over fear” and a refusal to “accept managed decline, climate delay or timid politics.”
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Sixty Red-Green seats in a hung parliament could force Labour to choose between the death of centrism or accommodation with the left — but only if enough of us join the Greens by July 31 and support Zack Polanski’s leadership, writes JAMES MEADWAY