Zack Polanski calls two-party politics dead after mayoral and council wins

Greens leader celebrates his party’s first ever elected mayor, and winning four councils outright

Zack Polanski has declared Britain’s two-party politics “dead and buried” as his Green party won its first two mayoral elections and gained councillors across England, winning four councils outright.

As Labour losses piled up across the country and the Conservatives endured another disappointing set of results, Polanski sought to present his party as emerging from the results as the most viable option for opponents of Reform.

“It is very clear that the new politics is the Green party versus Reform,” he said.

Speaking at the Hackney count centre in east London, the scene of the first mayoral success, he added: “I said that the Green party were going to replace Labour. That’s exactly what we did in Gorton and Denton, it’s what we’ve done in Hackney, and we’re seeing that right across the country.

“In fact, in almost all of our seats, right across the country, whether they’re target or non-target, the Green party vote share is rising.”

Late last night, the Greens also took a majority on Hackney council, ousting Labour for the first time since 2002, when the council had no overall control.

With 127 of 136 councils having declared results by 11pm, the party was celebrating 297 new council seats, along with seats in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments for the first time.

Prof Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, said that the Greens’ failure to make more of an imprint in London reflected the capital’s unique status in England, with results appearing to favour the more traditional parties. “The Greens haven’t done perhaps as well as they were expecting, with the sense of that momentum that was gathering around the party in the capital seeming to be fizzling out slightly.”

In a blow to Keir Starmer, though, the Greens took control of Hackney council, where Labour had been in power for all but eight years since the borough was created in 1964, as well as unseating Labour from mayoral power in the east London borough after 24 years. The new mayor, Zoë Garbett, told reporters she was “elated” and promised it was just the beginning, after the party won with 35,720 votes to Labour’s 26,865.

Her party colleague Liam Shrivastava was elected the new mayor of Lewisham hours later.

“Across London and the country, people have made it clear that they are desperate for an alternative to this failing Labour government,” Garbett said. “It’s not old politics … versus new parties. This is about a system of fear versus a movement of hope.”

The Greens also won overall majorities in Norwich and Hastings from no overall control, and took Waltham Forest from Labour.

In Hastings, the party gained 10 additional seats, while Labour lost seven of its nine councillors. The council leader, Glenn Haffenden, said the results were “beyond our wildest dreams”.

“We took over Hastings council two years ago when it was in severe financial problems,” he said. “This latest budget we’ve passed, we’ve managed to have a surplus of money to actually spend back into Hastings. That has been a huge reason as to why people are voting Green.”

Haffenden added: “I think Zack has been one of our biggest reasons as to why we’ve done so well in Hastings. I don’t want to put down our hard work we’ve done in Hastings, either. But I think Zack speaking nationally to people that are generally struggling with the cost of living, the broken Britain we’re seeing at the moment – it’s pushed us forward.”

In a sign of disenchantment in many London boroughs, which have long been a stronghold for the party, the Labour leader of Camden council, the borough that takes in Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency, lost his seat to the Green party.

But the pollster and former YouGov chair Peter Kellner said the Green party was facing a similar challenge to that which confronted Reform in the 2024 general election – that while the party was picking up a larger share of votes, it was failing to turn them into seats and political power.

“They are feeling the impact of the first-past-the-post system, and because its vote is more evenly spread they are not winning seats,” he said. “They would be much better off doing really well in a handful of places and nothing anywhere else, because they would end up with more political sway than if they come second in many places.”

In Hackney, Garbett, who succeeds Labour’s Caroline Woodley as mayor, said in her speech: “All the work I’ve ever done has been to change the system and services that let people down, harm people and widen inequality. Our borough has over a quarter of a million people.

“So many people have been failed by the government and the systems – whether it’s parents, migrants, trans people, disabled people and younger people, the list goes on and on,” she said.

Polanski said he was less interested in attacking Labour, but wanted to show it the winning formula combining vision and hope.

“I’m not interested in just criticising the government,” he said. “When you combine hope and a plan, that’s when you win elections like Hackney.”

Polanski sees Hackney, which has one of the capital’s most diverse populations, as a bellwether for the Greens, with reports that he may use it to launch his own Westminster career.