Cambridge Greens Say the Surge is Nationwide

Today’s win for the Greens is monumental. Described as ‘The Battle for Gorton and Denton’s Soul’, Hannah Spencer’s success has shaken Britain's political orthodoxy to its very foundations.

Photo / Ian Pattinson

The pressure led contestants to dirty tactics; Labour fabricated a fictitious tactical voting organisation to promote its candidate, while Reform disseminated a forged letter of support from non-existent local pensioner, ‘Patricia Clegg.’ Meanwhile, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats polled so poorly they lost their £500 deposits. The message was unmistakable: something in the political landscape is shifting.

For Chloe Mosonyi, secretary of Cambridge Young Greens, the result signals more than a single seat:

“It shows that people are recognising the Green Party as a strong, progressive alternative to both Keir Starmer’s Labour, who are continuously failing to deliver the change voters are looking for, and also to the hateful, divisive rhetoric of Reform. It’s our first-ever parliamentary by-election win and hopefully a taste of what we will achieve in the local elections in May!”

“people are recognising the Green Party as a strong, progressive alternative”

Amy Bower, membership officer for the Manchester Greens, described the mood on polling day:

“The energy on the ground in Manchester has been absolutely incredible - people beeping and cheering from cars. I’m so proud of the campaign we’ve run, and so emotional that we’ve managed to pull this off”

Manchester is not an isolated case. Just this week, Cambridge councillor Edd Stonham defected to the Greens, arguing for a politics that puts ‘the needs of ordinary people above those of profit and greed.’

Locally, Mosonyi says, ‘the party now sits second to Labour, seeing our highest ever vote share ever last year. Five councillors have been elected to the city council and three to the county. Membership has more than doubled in the last six months.’

Electoral Calculus now places the Greens as most likely to win Cambridge at the next general election.

Results of the 2024 Cambridge City Council election

Mosonyi attributes this growth to visibility — and to a broader generational appetite for alternatives:

‘We had so many people walking up to us at the Freshers Fair, saying, ‘I voted for you guys in the general election, but I didn't consider membership until I saw Zach speaking on TV’. 

The transformation has been swift. ‘We had 18 Young Green members last May and now we’re at over 500.’

Despite this electoral presence, the Greens remain peripheral in the architecture of Cambridge student politics.  In January’s Per Capita Media Question Time, Conservative CUCA, Labour’s CULC, the Liberal CULA and the Left Society UCLS debated across party lines. The Greens — now the city’s main challengers to Labour — were absent.

Mosonyi says traditional student politics societies have not paid the Greens much attention: 

‘If anyone from the Labour Club, Liberal Association, wants to arrange an event together, we’re happy to engage. But as we've seen recently, we don't necessarily need that to be able to hold our own platform.’

She describes the current moment as a ‘paradigm shift away from the mainstream parties we’re used to dominating the political landscape,’ questioning how much can be ‘achieved with just a debate format — sort of an hour of the largest voices in the room saying what they believe in.’

While Cambridge Young Greens is a university society, it is also one facet of the wider youth wing of the local party. That connection, Mosonyi argues, matters:

‘I think that it's important to keep a foot in the real world. Cambridge is a bubble for a reason. Students don't always have a reason to venture beyond their college or faculty, so I think engaging with local politics is a really good way to see what the wider community actually cares about.’

The society hosts socials and discussions, but its emphasis is outward-facing: canvassing, campaigning, supporting local candidates, ‘and getting Greens elected onto the local council’.

The party’s progressive voice can be heard across the university society, the local party, and into council halls. Pushing for divestment from Israeli weapons manufacturing, City Councillor Hugh Clough argues “Residents need to know whether our council tax is funding genocide.” Proposing the automatic enrollment of all eligible pupils for free school meals, County Councillor Elliot Tong says “No child in Cambridgeshire should be going hungry.”

Cambridge Young Greens campaigning for Elliot Tong, 2024

For Mosonyi, the appeal lies in putting belief into collective action:

‘It's not actually that scary to go door knocking. It's not that scary to go to your first event. You can bring a friend if you want to and if you're feeling really down about the state of the world, it's possibly the best thing you can do for yourself. It is so lovely to know there are people around you who are trying to make the world into a better place… and that the average person is not a horrible Twitter fascist.’

If Manchester suggests anything, it is that the margins are narrowing — and that political momentum is no longer confined to the parties that have long assumed ownership of it.