The Green Party of England and Wales opens its autumn conference in Brighton today. It runs at the Brighton Centre from Friday 2 to Sunday 4 October, and around 3,000 people are expected to attend. The party says it will be its biggest conference ever, after a year of rapid membership growth under leader Zack Polanski.
It nearly didn’t happen. Polanski is standing in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on 8 October, the seat vacated when Keir Starmer stood down from the Commons. He asked the party’s ruling executive to postpone the conference so members could focus on the campaign, and the executive turned him down. Members were later told they could cancel their tickets and campaign in north London instead. A party spokesperson said the conference would still be the best attended the Greens have ever held.
What Polanski Is Expected to Say
Polanski addresses members on Friday. According to the party, he will celebrate what he sees as the Greens’ success in pushing the Labour government in a new direction, and challenge the gaps between new Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s rhetoric and his actions.
Housing will be the centrepiece. Polanski is expected to unveil an emergency brake on rents and a “Fair Rents Guarantee”, building on Green MP Carla Denyer’s push for rent controls. He has made rents a defining issue for months, arguing that controls are standard in many European countries and that Britain needs to catch up.
A Harder Year
The mood is less straightforward than the party’s messaging suggests. A year ago the Greens were surging in the polls. Since then, Burnham has moved Labour to the left and onto Green territory, which makes the Green brand harder to sell. Holborn and St Pancras is now the test of whether Polanski’s populist approach still works when Labour is no longer the easy target.
Expect the conference floor to reflect that tension, with motions on housing, climate and the cost of living alongside questions about strategy. On Saturday, a fringe event on rent controls brings together housing charity Shelter, former Brighton Green councillor David Gibson and Hackney Mayor Zoe Garbett.
Brighton Local Angle
Brighton is the Greens’ spiritual home. The city elected Britain’s first Green MP, Caroline Lucas, in Brighton Pavilion in 2010, and the party has run the city council in the past. Thousands of delegates will be in town this weekend alongside a free food festival and a busy run of gigs, so expect a crowded city centre around the Brighton Centre and the seafront.
