Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s)
A recent clip from The Times Radio’s politics show How to Win an Election caught my attention.
It showed how little mainstream commentators actually understand the Green Party. They spoke as if the Greens had “moved on” from the environment, as if climate and social justice aren’t still central to every interview they do, when the questions aren’t derailed into personality gossip or tabloid distractions.
Then, when the panel talked about the Greens “going after Labour votes,” the tone said it all: half dismissive, half warning, as though those votes already belonged to Labour by divine right.
We’ve heard it before. Ed Balls, interviewing Zack Polanski, made the same point: that the Greens would “take votes from Labour” It’s always framed like that, never that Labour must win over Green voters, or that people might actually want something different. Just that the left vote is a thing Labour owns, and anyone else daring to borrow it is a threat to stability.
But are they genuinely that naïve, or is this part of the act? In Ed Balls’ case, it’s hardly a neutral position, given his political household. Because when you look closely, this possessive mindset serves a purpose: it keeps voters trapped in a story where wanting something different is seen as reckless and doing the “right thing” means doing what you’re told.
How Labour Inherited the Left by Fear
Every election, the same ritual plays out. Headlines and party leaflets recycle the same message: vote Labour to get/keep the Tories out. I went back and looked at every general election since before I was old enough to vote and I was surprised to find I’d never gone into a general election where I wasn’t being coerced to vote for someone on the basis of not letting someone else in:
“Vote tactically, you can vote with your hearts next time” – A history, 1997-2024
- 1997 – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/election-97-how-to-get-rid-of-them-1269444.html
- 2001 – https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/10/election2001.liberaldemocrats
- 2005 – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/may/05/election2005.comment6
- 2010- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8658694.stm
- 2015 – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/05/election-2015-where-should-you-vote-tactically
- 2017 – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2017/jun/02/tactical-voting-guide-how-to-make-your-vote-count-in-the-2017-election
- 2019 – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/08/tactical-voting-guide-2019-keep-tories-out-remain-voter-general-election
- 2024 – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/27/labour-lib-dem-tactical-voting-plans-impact-tory-seats
This shows UK politics isn’t about policy or principle anymore. At best it’s inherited anxiety passed down through generations of progressives terrified of “splitting the vote.” At worst, it’s deliberate strategy. The result? Real change never gets tested, because everyone’s too busy second-guessing each other’s courage.
What we’re seeing is that tactical voting isn’t a valid strategy unless the goal is to keep the status quo.
What I Heard on the Doorstep
Between 2014 and 2019, I spent enough time canvassing and standing for the Greens to hear the same refrain over and over:
“I want to vote Green, but we need to get the Tories out.”
“In my heart I’m Green, but they can’t win here.”
Different doorsteps, different roads, different elections. Same story.
These weren’t apathetic voters. They were thoughtful people who were unhappy and wanted change, but had already given up on being represented. They’d internalised the narrative that doing what they believe in might somehow make things worse than what we currently had.
What they didn’t realise was that everyone else was saying the same thing. That’s the tragedy of pluralistic ignorance: everyone quietly agrees, but acts like they don’t, because they assume they’re the odd one out.
If those same voters actually voted how they felt, the map might look very different. But under first-past-the-post, that experiment never happens. The illusion of inevitability becomes self-fulfilling.
We’ve seen the same dynamic elsewhere. A 2024 poll showed that while the cost of living was the biggest personal concern for most people, when asked what they thought others were most worried about, they said immigration. The repetition of that topic created the illusion that everyone cared about it.
Maybe that’s why the Green Party under Zack Polanski has leaned into a more open media strategy: being loud about growth to show that hope isn’t isolated. With enough time before the next election, that visibility could finally break the illusion.
Why Labour Needs the Illusion
Many voters look at previous election results to decide if their preferred candidate can actually win. Parties exploit this by using old numbers as proof that others “can’t win here,” ignoring the massive swings that happen when people finally vote with conviction.
So when Labour reviews those results, do they see evidence of loyal supporters giving them a mandate, or as borrowed votes from people who just wanted to stop the Tories?
Things are changing, though. You’d think privately there must be concern among Labour leadership that this disillusionment has now seeped into the very core of their support – their membership.
Last year, when Faiza Shaheen was deselected by Labour, fifty members of her local party in Chingford and Woodford Green resigned.
This year, another twenty-one have quit the neighbouring Leyton and Wanstead CLP over Labour’s shift to the right.
There are no doubt many less-public resignations, too.
And yet, instead of reflecting on why their members are leaving, it would not surprise me if Labour’s leadership, devoid of any real principles and policies, keep running the same playbook. Except instead of the tories, it’s now “vote Labour to stop Reform winning”. It’s almost impressive how little curiosity they have about why their “core vote” keeps eroding.
Labour doesn’t act like a confident party; it acts like one terrified of competition. And maybe, finally, that fear is starting to lose its grip.
There’s a Better Way
Under proportional representation, we’d finally see what Britain actually believes. The “protest vote” myth would collapse overnight. And maybe that’s the reason both Labour and the media resist political reform. Not because they think it would hand power to the right, but because it would expose how many people on the left stopped believing in Labour long ago and how many want real change.
For decades, we’ve been told that voting with our hearts risks the greater good. That strategy matters more than conviction. But nothing’s improved. Maybe it’s time to admit the only real strategy left is to vote for what we actually believe in.