Has the Green civil war finally begun?

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0:37Noa Hoffman: hello and welcome to coffeehouse shots i'm noah hoffman and today i'm so delighted to be joined by andrew gilligan andrew gilligan was a special advisor to both boris johnson and rishi sunak but more recently he has been writing very frequently for the spectator exploring a range of topics around Islamism and also the Green Party. And he's had a series of really interesting exclusives that shine a light on the internal machinations of the Green Party and this ongoing battle, but also in some places collaboration between what some people would term the woke left and also Islamist entrious. Now, there have been quite a few stories in the media over the past few days revolving the Greens.

1:22Noa Hoffman: In particular, we had one in The Times about a private group chat called Greens Against Imperialism, where members and activists discussed the topic of killing Zionists. And the Green Parish councillor, Sophus McGill, who runs the group, said that they want Israel wiped off the map and the Green Party just won't comment on this story. Andrew, for those who haven't been paying close attention to what's going on in the Green Party, can you give us a peek behind the curtain and behind the sort of glossy TikTok, Instagram facade, some may say, of Zach Polanski? So the Greens are obsessed with Palestine.

2:00In elections in May, which should have been about potholes, they talked endlessly about Palestine. And obviously, even the British government can't do a great deal about what's going on in the Middle East. You know, Lambeth Council can do still less. That didn't stop them talking about it. And, you know, some people say that is pandering to the Muslim vote. They do have a significant vote among Muslim voters. I don't think that's the case. I think that's not the main reason. Actually, if you look at what Muslim voters care about, their concerns are pretty much the same as everybody else's. They do rate Palestine as a higher order issue than the non-Muslim voters.

2:36But I think I saw a poll before the general election in 2024 that said only 40-something percent of it put it in their top five issues. And then Policy Exchange, a think tank I work for, did a poll about two, three months ago, which said only 21 % put it in their top three. So it's a big issue for them, but it's not the biggest issue. The reason it's such an obsession for the Greens is, I think, a little bit like the reason it forms a kind of similar function that the EU formed for some people on the right, for populists on the right. It became a way of explaining what's wrong with the world and a way to galvanise activists.

3:13It wasn't a particular priority for voters, but it was those things. And so for an awful lot of people on the left, on the hard left, the movement that's now taken over the Greens under Zak Polanski, Palestine stands for the rapacity of capitalism, the continuing colonisation of subject peoples, the moral bankruptcy of the West, all of which must be overcome. So that's the importance of the issue of Palestine for a lot of people on the hard left.

3:41Noa Hoffman: And then where does the sort of Islamism fit into that topic? So the reliance is between the two. So what we've seen, again, since Siddha and Semten broadly, is a movement that I've called Islamopopulism, did a report on it for policy exchange about three months ago. And that takes various forms. Sometimes it's like Muslim independents, so-called independents, who in fact cooperate loosely between each other. So people like the four Islamopopulist MPs, independent MPs elected in 2024 in Leicester, in Birmingham, in Blackburn and in Dewsbury. Sometimes, however, it does involve the Greens and there's a lot of crossover.

4:24So we had a very deep dive on the Islamopopulist movement. We had a very close look at an organisation called The Muslim Vote, which was set up just before the 2024 election to organise the Muslim Vote to vote against Labour and the other mainstream parties in punishment for their support of the quote-unquote genocide in Israel and in Palestine. And what we found is that some of the Muslim vote's efforts were directed at the independence. Some were directed at trying to build links with the Greens. And Ababaqa Nanabawa, who is the coordinator of the Muslim vote, did a joint event with Polanski not long after he became leader and has tried very hard to build bridges with the Greens.

5:07And Mohamed Jalal, who's another key activist, former leader of Hizb ut Tahrir, now extremist party band as a terror group in Britain, he is a key activist in the Muslim vote. He has talked about building a coalition with the Greens where Muslim independents don't stand in some constituencies and Greens don't stand in other constituencies. They help each other out and they soak up each other's votes. Now, I have to say the Greens have so far been reluctant to make any of those kind of deals. they refused the Islamopopulists didn't put up candidates in the Gordon by-election for instance, give the Greens a clear run which worked for the Greens in return they asked the Greens not to stand against them in certain wards in the council elections in Manchester the Greens refused, did stand against them the Greens did stand against Islamopopulists independence in Birmingham a lot of bad blood there so the Greens aren't reciprocating as much as the Islamopopulists want but there's still a very very clear wish to make alliances between the two groups.

6:07Noa Hoffman: Polling from YouGov out today actually puts the Greens on 13%. It's a one percentage point bounce on the poll before. Generally, the party is losing support with the advent of Andy Burnham and the so-called Burnham bounce. Zach Polanski's favourability isn't particularly high, but they are steady around that 10 % mark, which means that they could be a sort of key player in British politics. And arguably a lot of Andy Burnham's move to the left has been in some way influenced by the rise of the Green and the bleeding of Labour votes towards the Greens, which is why they are a party always worth looking at.

6:52Noa Hoffman: Andrew, there's an interesting story out today from the Manchester Mill that shines a light on this tension between the woke left and the Islamists within the Greens. Can you tell us about that story and what you think it speaks to on perhaps a wider level? So what's happened is a major split in the Greens in Bolton. You have a kind of Muslim element. The councillors are Muslim and it's been a massive row between them and what you might call the traditional Old Greens, including the mother of the by-election winner in Gorton, Hannah Spencer. This is Liz Spencer, Hannah's mother. She first joined the Greens when they were still called the Ecology Party, although where she's now expecting to be expelled, I think she told the Manchester Mill.

7:38She says, this is not what the Green Party used to be. It's not nice people who wore hemp shoes anymore. We've opened the door for lots of less than nice people to enter and no one was primed for it. That is, the row is basically a row about the Muslim members of the Green Group rigging an election to become the party chair, shuts down challenge, misogynistic bullying, that kind of thing. Those are the charges against him. And they brought in fellow councillors who underline the Green Party values. And again, the mill's done interviews with other green activists, non-Muslim green activists in Bolton saying, you know, one of them, Helena Carman is quoted as saying, I will stand on rooftops and shout, that man is not green.

8:20He walks around us for years, but he truly isn't. And this is a sign, an early sign of the inevitable tensions of going to be involved when you yoke, if you like, the rainbow and the crescent together. When you yoke highly socially progressive people who believe in, like, you know, gay rights and all sorts of liberal ideas that an awful lot of socially conservative Muslims don't believe.

8:42Noa Hoffman: And I think what's really telling about this sort of microcosm that we see in Bolton of the wider national issue is that when the complaints from the likes of Liz Spencer, Hannah Spencer's mum, and this other old guard Green member, Helena Carmen, was put to the new Muslim members of the Green Group, they were described as racists, which is a really, really key detail because coming back with the rebuttal that someone who criticises you is a racist is a very go-to tactic to shut down criticism. One of these Muslim councillors also describing the women said they are a core white group who have now become a dab hand at orchestrated abuse and press leaks.

9:29Noa Hoffman: Again, I'll remind people that's Hannah Spencer's mother, who is among those being criticised as a racist. So really interesting. I think so far, what we have seen, though, is that the alliance has held, right? It's held for a good few months, over a year. Do you think that there's a particular point where it just won't be able to hold any longer? Are we now just heading down the highway to a combustion? And who comes out on top if there is one? I look quite closely at this when I was looking at the Muslim vote, and you've got differences of opinion there. So Jalal, Mohamed Jalal, the Muslim vote leader I mentioned before, He says he's prepared to put up with the green social liberalism for the chance of power.

10:11And, you know, if voices like that prevail, people who are basically willing to live with parties that are in contradiction of a lot of their core beliefs for the sake of power, then this will hold. I think you might start to see more rejection of it from the other side, from the kind of Liz Spencer type people. You might see that they're realising these are people with whom they really should not be associated.

10:36Noa Hoffman: And we've had now the election for Manchester mayor, where Labour was successful in continuing on from Andy Burnham's reign. What is the next big test coming up for the Greens that spectator readers and podcast listeners can keep an eye on as a sort of test of how this alliance is holding, but also how Polanski is doing as leader? You've got another local election cycle in nine months, in May 2027. And then, of course, you might, before that, have a general election. I think if Burnham's got any sense, he'll have a general election pretty soon to capitalise on the honeymoon he had. I don't think he's got quite enough bounce yet to risk it.

11:16But if it gets any better, I would seriously risk it if I was him, because I can't see it getting much better for Burnham than it does now.

11:24Noa Hoffman: And Andrew, given your previous expertise and experience as a special advisor, obviously it was for a Tory government, but how would you advise the likes of Andy Burnham or other left adjacent, maybe the Lib Dems, for instance, to respond to the likes of Polanski and the Green Party today? I'd be clear that trying to satisfy activists never works. The business model of activists depends on being permanently dissatisfied. You can never give them what they want. You have, I think, to govern more from the middle than that. But I can see, you're right, Andy Burnham trying to keep everyone happy. That's just in his nature as much as anything that's the kind of person he is.

12:07He's not going to be able to carry on that balancing act for much longer. He's going to have to make a decision on North Sea oil and gas, for instance, which, if the indications are right, will probably annoy the Greens. It might annoy everyone. He might, you know, he might approve Rosebank and not approve Jackdaw, which will significantly annoy absolutely everyone. but he's going to have to come down he's going to have to do something which isn't going to make him very popular with the Greens.

12:30Noa Hoffman: Well Andrew it's been a fascinating conversation thank you so much for joining and thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots

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