Are the Greens the Party to Watch in 2026?
Jonathan Edwards
Just as you thought matters couldn’t possibly get any better for Plaid Cymru, up pops the first poll of the year which puts the party within touching distance of getting an overall majority, with an increase in support of seven percentage points..
Not only that, but the support for their nearest rivals, Reform UK Ltd, has fallen by six percentage points.
Equally pleasing for Plaid will be to see the traditional big two, Labour and the Tories, vying for fourth and fifth place on only a combined share of a paltry 20%.
In politics momentum is everything. When it is with you or against you, things move fast.
Political gravity is a very difficult thing to resist, and it looks for the moment as if Plaid is fuelled by helium, and their rivals have been fitted with respective pairs of concrete boots.
To put icing on the cake for Plaid at the moment the Greens find themselves in third place and projected to win 11 seats in the new Senedd. This would enable Rhun ap Iorwerth to become First Minister without needing the support of Labour to sustain him in office – an eventuality which poses a world of problems for Plaid Cymru.
Gwern Gwynfil deserves a hat tip as he predicted the Green surge in Nation before Christmas. Their rise under Zack Polanski is quite staggering. The former Aberystwyth University student is a breath of fresh air compared to other UK party leaders in his approach to Wales, far less London-centric and positioning himself cleverly on the constitutional question.
If the recent social media post by the Greens of a packed meeting in Cardiff is anything to go by, then they are certainly developing an activist base capable of running a half decent ground war come the election.
On that note, it would be interesting to know if the Plaid Cymru membership and activist base has swollen in unison with its impressive poll positions over recent months. If it is to sustain its new lofty position it will need to attract thousands of new active members to work for the party to establish it as Wales’ dominant political force.
Overtaking Labour is a major achievement for the party and opens a world of possibilities as we approach the Senedd election and critically beyond.
Danger
Labour should be in a state of panic, but also Plaid strategists should be sensing potential danger.
Having overtaken Labour, the Greens are now a credible option for progressive voters who previously supported Labour and are currently coalescing around Plaid Cymru. The herd in politics when in stampede mode can change direction at speed, and the Greens could take a chunk of support away from Plaid before May. Only a 7% turnover, would leave Plaid on 30% and the Greens on 20%.
The aftermath of the election could be bountiful for the Greens if they finish third with a decent contingent of Senedd Members and build a strategy based upon hoovering up the support of those disillusioned with the new administration.
Plaid Cymru will be desperate to tie the Greens in as much as possible, hoping to deflect all unpopular decisions. The Greens therefore will need to be very mindful of what exactly they sign up to in those giddy days in early May. They should be thinking of their demands well in advance of polling day so as not to enter those negotiations fresh faced. The Greens will need to identify red line issues which will cost them nothing politically but will split the Plaid voter coalition. Energy policy is one obvious area where they could make life very difficult for the new Welsh Government.
Are the Greens the real party to watch in 2026 therefore? It is not inconceivable they could be challenging for the top of the polls before the end of the year and performing the role of the tail that wags the Welsh Government’s dog.
Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24
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Was pleased to see a poll giving the greens so many seats in the Senedd….a minority plaid govt could look to them for support on many issues im sure. After years of Labour’s dead hand some sort of governing arrangement between plaid and the greens would be a breath of fresh air for Wales im sure. But the arrival of green members in Wales’ parliament would surely mean its time for the greens in Wales to follow their sister party in Scotland and seperate from the party in England? Cos that ‘England & Wales’ party name does rankle a bit.
I currently couldn’t disagree more. Zack Polanski positively turns me away from them – having voted green in the past .He’s is a populist of the left and offers easy solutions to complex problems. He is actively creating a divide with Labour/plaid when actually we should all be working together to stop Farage. But the two things which greatly annoy me; I can’;t believe we’ve got to a point where labour talk more labour renewables/environmental leadership than our green party. And secondly – another party rising in the polls (like reform) with no policies. Just perosnaolity/social media soundbites. It’s almost… Read more »
I think that you may epitomize the key challenge which the Greens in Wales and England will now have to face. Your post suggests that you might be fairly typical of the voters from whom the Greens have secured support under their previous leaderships: very environmentally concerned and entirely resistant to the allure of the ‘harder’ right, but in some other respects politically rather ‘centrist’. Which is how they succeeded in winning previously reliably Tory-voting Westminster constituencies like North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley. But now the Green membership has opted to elect a leader whose programme is to ‘marry’ the… Read more »
Fully agree. In my view, if you support ‘green issues’ and saw this as an important issue the country should make changes to, plaid or labour are better aligned, now – ironically.
I didn’t want to say it but the party now feels like corbyn mk 2. But fundamentally I’m against populists offering easy solutions, it feels like a intellectual dumbing down of politics.
I’m more optimistic that this is a transition not a finished project.
If you agree that there can be no fixing the environment without better a social structure, then aligning green and left-wing politics is essential.
And if you agree that Corbyn was a barrier to change with his proudly “uncompromising” stance that meant nothing could ever change, then Zack’s pragmatism is a breath of fresh air.
The real policies will follow when the party starts negotiating coalition deals.
Anyone can say that they’re trying to fix the social structure to fix the environment. Christ, even farage could use that argument.
Many greens are centrists. The reason success was achieved in Germany was when we ditched the left wing Corbyn type populists and focused on pragmatism and realism.
I have been around to know you really don’t see Polanski types as those who come up with detailed well thought policies
The difference in Germany is they don’t have the FPTP barrier to get over.
You can’t be surprised when a childish voting system results in childish politics.
So if the Greens win some seats in May under PR, as the last poll suggests they will, and enter coalition negotiations they’ll need a list of policy demands otherwise they’ll have nothing to negotiate with.
I have serious doubts that the Greens will be able to translate their polling figures into votes, outside Cardiff. They are much more popular with younger voters who are less likely to vote and be even registered and past good polling for the party has ended in disappointment.
My sense is that the Greens could do relatively well in areas in which a youngish educated professional middle class are the dominant segment of the local population.
Their challenge is that Wales has few such communities. Off the top of my head I can only think of one place which might unambiguously meet that description, and that’s west Cardiff and Penarth.
As long as they maintain their ‘Green party of England and Wales’ label they will fail to gain any significant support in Wales
I’m sure he means we’ll but I don’t see how any woman could vote for him. His views on women’s rights are little better than Reform’s.
The Green Party hates women . They are of the “trans women are women etc” brigade. Another court case lost by the trans brigade yesterday – the Darlington nurses won. Greens, Plaid and Labour are all happy to break equality law. Leaves a socialist like me politically homeless and I’m by far not the only one.
A man with several identities…