Left Foot Forward speaks exclusively to three current and former Councillors who defected to the Greens

In the last two years, dozens of Councillors have defected to the Green Party of England and Wales. Between April 2020 and August 2022 16 Labour Councillors crossed over from red to Green, with three Liberal Democrats and one Tory also making the same move.

At the Green Party’s autumn conference, taking place in Harrogate this weekend, Left Foot Forward spoke to some of those defectors about what triggered their decisions. The stories they told had many common themes – with many factors ‘pushing’ them from their former home, and others ‘pulling’ them to the Greens.

Jo Bird is a now Green Councillor in the Wirral. She was first elected under the Labour banner in 2018. Describing the Greens, as “the best party for social justice and environmental justice”, as a “credible party”, and a “political vehicle for winning elections”, Bird contrasts this heavily with her assessment of the Labour Party – particularly under the leadership of Keir Starmer. She accused Keir Starmer of lacking honesty, and suggested his recent policy announcements at Labour conference were “greenwashing”, and “leftwashing”.

Bird said, “Keir Starmer can say what he likes, but he’s not got a good track record of sticking to what he says and doing what he says. He’s not very believable or credible or honest. And also when you look at the policies that have actually been announced – it scratched the surface, and it’s kind of greenwashing, or even leftwashing’.”

A very similar picture was painted by Lorna Russell – a former Councillor in Camden who left Labour for the Greens in October 2021. Explaining her reasons for defecting, she said that under Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour doesn’t “have a vision for how society and a country should function.” Russell said she had a “crisis of conscience” while campaigning for the Labour Party, and argued that the public shouldn’t trust the party under Starmer. She said, “I don’t trust the man, and I don’t think the country should, because he will basically sway with the wind”, adding, “Do not trust the man to implement something that he’s announced as a policy.” She also explicitly criticised the party’s attempts to prevent frontbenchers from joining picket lines.

The Councillors who spoke to Left Foot Forward talked not only about their dissatisfaction with their former parties’ policy platforms, but also about their internal processes and the treatment of both activists and Councillors. Bird heavily criticises the lack of freedom to dissent for left wingers in the Labour Party, saying, “The deal to stay a Labour Councillor – or even a Labour member – is that you keep your mouth shut, you don’t speak up about things that are important, you don’t defend your colleagues, you don’t show solidarity, you compromise on so many levels.” She again contrasts this with her assessment of the Greens, arguing, “Lots and lots councillors have moved from Labour to the Greens and we’ve found a warm welcome here. And we’ve found that we are defended and it’s quite a contrast with Labour. And we’ve found, also, that we can promote the policies that we were elected to do, and that we believe in. So I would recommend that people consider that kind of journey. You would find yourselves in a similar position – welcome and defended.”

This is a familiar tale from other defecting Councillors. When Manchester City Councillor Ekua Bayunu defected from Labour to the Greens in July, she made similar comments, reflecting, “I have felt hampered in my ambition to serve you all to the best of my ability. I have felt constantly at odds with the culture of the Labour Party.”

It isn’t solely the Labour Party that faces these allegations. Left Foot Forward spoke to Wendy Flynn – a Green Councillor who defected from the Liberal Democrats in June 2022 after a scandal in the local party surrounding allegations of racism. Flynn spoke about feelings of a party culture she feels hampers dissent. She said, “With the Liberal Democrats – they would say they don’t have a group line. Well, they did! And it’s quite clear in the standing orders for the Council group that you’re expected to vote along the group line, and that takes away a person’s voice to a great extent. And so the fact that the Green Party doesn’t do that, and one person can speak up – sometimes the one person is right when the however many others aren’t – and that voice needs to be heard. And the group I was a part of would silence that.”

All three of the Councillors Left Foot Forward interviewed spoke eloquently and passionately on behalf of their new party, and were at times scathing about their previous homes. But scratching beneath the surface, it is clear that the decision to jump ship is not an easy one – especially for those who were a member of their respective parties for many years.

Flynn was a member of the Liberal Democrats and a Councillor for 20 years. She talks about feeling “disloyal”, and described the point she made the decision as “awful”, saying, “It was awful! I’d been a member of the party – and a Councillor – for 20 years. So, as I developed as a Councillor, so had others A number had been on that whole journey with me. She continued, “I had a lot of contact with members, volunteers and Councillors. And that was really the hardest thing about it, because you do have these bonds with people, and you know when you see that there’s something wrong and in my case I knew I had to take a stand, there’s a sense of guilt and of hurting all those people that you’ve got those bonds with. And loyalty! You feel disloyal! But the bigger picture was those […] actual Liberal Democrat values that others weren’t operating by. And especially when it came to issues of being welcoming to people from every part of our community, I felt I just could not keep quiet – that was much bigger than those loyalties to that group.”

For Russell, the move was even more personal. She said she felt “genuinely really sad” at the point of her defection. With most of her social life enmeshed within the Labour Party, Russell even goes to far as to say that one of the reasons a relationship ended was down to her decision to leave Labour. She said, “My boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – was heavily involved in the Labour Party. Most of my social life was there […] My relationship was at risk and actually one of the reasons we broke up was because I went to the Green Party. But I knew that at the time, I knew I was risking it, and I thought ‘what matters most to me? My principles or my relationship? And I picked my principles.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward.

Correction note: This article initially stated that 16 Labour Councillors had joined the Greens between April and August 2020. This was in error, and the latter date has been corrected to August 2022.

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