The Green Party won a decisive victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election on the 26th of February.
Hannah Spencer beat Reform’s Matt Goodwin by nearly 5000 votes to become the Greens’ fifth MP in Westminster and showed that Zack Polanski’s eco-populist brand of leftist politics can beat both the far-right Reform Party and the established centrists of Labour with the help of people power. Three hundred miles north, a different Green party will be watching closely, and hoping lightning can strike twice.
Polanski, 43, has been a member of the London Assembly since 2021 and the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) since September 2025, winning the leadership race with an emphatic 85% mandate – clearly, he reflects the mood of the Green base. His eco-populist and socialist positions have proved hugely popular, with party membership recently passing 150,000, and now, perhaps for the first time ever, the Greens look like a serious political force in England and Wales. Polanski’s Greens have distanced themselves from the student politics of the past and are focused on reframing climate policy within the context of economic and social justice for working people.
It is important to note that Polanski’s Greens and the Scottish Greens are distinct parties – and since 2022 they had not directly co-operated. But under Polanski’s leadership, bridges have been rebuilt. Adam Ramsay, a Scottish Green Party member and established journalist, has followed both parties closely and is unambiguous about why: “the parties fell out because there was a sense that some of GPEW’s leadership wasn’t fully committed to cracking down on transphobia. That is definitely not the case under Polanski, on whom the Scottish Green leadership – and membership – is very keen”. Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay became co-leaders in August and have been working toward a similar brand of politics as Polanski, distancing themselves from their predecessors’ involvement with the SNP, and their alliance is helped by Greer’s personal friendship with Polanski.
Ross Greer :“it makes sense when the kind of issues that we’re tackling—like the global far-right, the rise of fascism, the climate crisis most obviously—these issues don’t respect national borders. So it’s absolutely essential that we have international solidarity. The easiest place to start building international solidarity is with our nearest neighbours on the other side of the border”.
Greer thinks that the parties are distinct entities for good reason, but the solidarity between them is important in the current political climate: “Greens believe in localism, local democracy, and we believe in Scottish independence. So it wouldn’t make sense to merge. But we are all part of a European Green movement, we’re all part of a global Green movement.
“But it makes sense when the kind of issues that we’re tackling – like the global far-right, the rise of fascism, the climate crisis most obviously – these issues don’t respect national borders. So it’s absolutely essential that we have international solidarity. The easiest place to start building international solidarity is with our nearest neighbours on the other side of the border”.
The question of whether Polanski’s eco-populist formula translates north of the border is a more complicated one than it may seem – and Ramsay’s analysis is revealing. “The Scottish Greens have historically been seen as to the left of GPEW,” he says. “In a way, Polanski has led his party into a space the Scottish Greens have been in for a while”. In other words, Greer and Mackay are not following Polanski’s lead; rather, they are watching him arrive at a place they have already reached. This framing gives the Scottish Greens a more confident footing going into May: they are their own institution and not an imitation or extension of the GPEW.
IPSOS polling shows that 7% of voters intend to vote for the Scottish Greens in their constituency and 16% for their regional list. Despite those modest headline figures, the party is hoping to take its first ever constituency seat in May, with Lorna Slater looking to replace SNP mainstay and current culture secretary Angus Robertson in Edinburgh Central, and they are further aiming to return a Green MSP in every Scottish region.
There are, however, two obvious roadblocks that the Scottish Greens face that their English counterparts do not. The first is history – the Scottish Greens have been in government before, and their stint as part of the Bute House Agreement with the SNP was not a happy one – think the deposit return scheme, the push to replace boilers with heat pumps and the quiet admission that Scottish greenhouse gas targets were simply out of reach. Ramsay acknowledges this association with failure but is not unduly alarmed: “there will clearly be people put off by the sense that the Scottish Greens are part of an establishment at Holyrood, but the polls at the moment suggest the party isn’t being held back too much by this association”. Greer and Mackay, new to the co-leadership, offer at least the optics of a fresh start.
Eco-populism – putting working people at the centre of policy decisions instead of abstract climate targets
The second issue is structural: the SNP already takes up most of the political territory claimed by Polanski as fresh ground in England – left wing, pro-indy, anti-establishment. That voter has a home in Scotland already, but Ramsay sees this as a cause for Green optimism: “As the world falls apart, there is a large cohort of people who are pulled further left than the SNP, and the Greens broadly represent those people”. The independence question, oft-cited as a potential liability, could be less of a drag than previously thought – younger left-wing voters (the demographic most likely to go Green) poll overwhelmingly in support of independence but don’t see it as their number one issue. Sharing that position is likely a net positive for the Greens.
Some of the lessons from England are nevertheless clear. Eco-populism – putting working people at the centre of policy decisions instead of abstract climate targets – is an effective way of engaging with younger voters feeling locked out by the cost of living. Greer and Mackay would do well to model their leadership style after Polanski, too: casual, charismatic, and palpably human in a way that Keir Starmer or John Swinney conspicuously aren’t. On those terms, the prospects for the Greens look reasonable. The challenge now is converting momentum from that favourable political climate into seats under a voting system that rewards accumulation of list votes rather than dramatic upsets like the by-elections in England.
Gorton and Denton’s decision to go Green in February sent shockwaves around British politics – choosing a leftist tradesperson over the establishment Labour candidate and Reform’s hard-right option showed that voters wanted change and used their votes to enact it. Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay will be hoping that this reflects a wider mood that can reach Scotland. Adam Ramsay, who knows both parties as well as anyone, is careful not to overstate it: “I think they will do well”. Coming from someone who is both a seasoned political analyst and also a Green member, that studied understatement may be the most honest and quietly encouraging assessment the Scottish Greens could hope for. Whether it amounts to a genuine breakthrough will become clear this May.
