Why the Greens should have contested the Clacton by-election

The video above outlines the three scenarios that I think Farage faces in light of him calling the Clacton by-election and the other major parties refusing to stand in said contest. Please watch, if this is of interest to you. Also, check out my forthcoming book, “The Rise of Reform”, which details this political rollercoaster we’re all following and that you can pre-order here.

It is not often that I agree with Owen Jones, but last night was a big exception. Yesterday evening, OJ put out a post on X saying that he felt the Greens should stand in the Clacton by-election. He said: “The Greens should stand against Nigel Farage in Clacton. They’re the only major party willing to take on the substance of Farage. The other parties built up Farage by copying his toxic agenda. The Greens should use the by-election as a national platform to make that case.”

He’s right on the point of substance. And the Greens have defied him and announced that they will not be standing a candidate in the by-election. This is a mistake by the Greens, one that I think demonstrates their lack of intent as a party. Clacton was a huge opportunity spurned for the Green Party.

I know why some of you will say, “Of course the Greens aren’t standing, it would have been stupid of them to have done so.” You are saying this most likely because you aren’t yourself a real Green supporter. You might vote for them if they were the best placed “progressive” candidate in your area, but you aren’t fussed, so long as Reform doesn’t win. You probably think on some level that the Greens owed it to the “progressive alliance” not to stand in Clacton.

Let me tell you something: the progressive alliance is a fantasy. It does not exist, except in the minds of a certain set of mostly middle-class people of the left. The Labour Party certainly doesn’t buy into the idea in any meaningful sense. They want the other parties of the left to dance to their tune and stay in line - which is exactly what the Greens have done in Clacton. “Standing in Clacton will just legitimise Farage. The Greens need to do what’s right for the progressive rainbow coalition,” I can hear some of you say.

By not standing in the Clacton by-election, the Greens have spurned the chance to do two big things. One is that they could have got themselves acres of media time and space over this summer, space that will no longer be available to them. The second is that getting to have a Reform versus Greens by-election was perfect for the narrative the Greens supposedly want to establish, that the old two party system is dead. They could have said that the Greens are the only ones truly standing in the way of a Reform government. That, as you can see in Clacton, the Greens are the only party willing to stand up to Farage.

They also could have, if they’d run a great campaign, got over 40% of the vote in Clacton and really put the chills up Farage and Reform. But no, they couldn’t upset their progressive alliance friends who were all begging them to stand aside. It shows how unserious they are in their mission to overtake the Labour Party as the main centre-left party in Britain. This was a one in a thousand shot at establishing that narrative and they totally blew it.

Yes, the Greens not standing in Clacton makes life more difficult for Nigel Farage. But not much more difficult. Imagine for a second if the Greens had a really great by-election campaign and managed to galvanise the anti-Farage vote to a degree that they actually won the contest. That would have been massive for the Greens and catapulted them into the stratosphere. And this result was not beyond imaging, not at all.

The Greens have shown that when push comes to shove, they won’t risk pissing off the Labour Party. That is why they almost certainly will not replace Labour as the main centre-left party in Britain any time soon. At some point, they had to fly in the face of what Labour wanted. Clacton was the perfect opportunity and now it’s gone.