Social Factor round-up

Reform versus the Greens and a few other bits

1. Two populisms: Reform versus the Greens

In the webinar on populism on RI I ran last year as well as looking at Reform and other right-wing populists I also tentatively put the Greens in the ‘left populist’ camp. Developments since then suggest this is indeed where the Greens are positioning themselves under leader Zack Polanski.

That makes the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election really interesting. This was a very safe Labour seat last election, but it is increasingly unlikely Labour will hold it, particularly after it blocked Andy Burnham from standing.

My initial guess was that this seat might end up Reform 1st, Labour 2nd, Green 3rd. That looks wildly off-target. It may end up Green 1st, Reform 2nd, Labour 3rd. As it stands the bookies generally give the Greens the best odds with Reform very close. If you’re interested you can see the range of odds here. (I wouldn’t pay any attention to polling claims yet - there does not seem have been any credible polling.)

But a Green win does depend on the Left voting bloc cohering around them rather than splitting between Green and Labour. Similarly are Conservative voters, whose favoured party doesn’t have a look in, going to vote tactically and, if so, which way?

If tactical voting does tip this seat to the Greens it gives us a bit more insight into how politics might shake out in the years ahead. The really big risk for Labour is that the kind of network effect it has enjoyed as the default anti-Right party disappears (this applies for voters, but also for activists and potential candidates). I feel this is currently under-appreciated.

It is not a given that the Greens benefit significantly from Labour’s decline. In local elections there are currently a lot of results where votes get split between three or four parties doing OK rather than one or two doing well and being the obvious challengers. At a local level it looks to me like the Left vote is often being split rather than shaking out tactically.

If you look at council seats won in by-elections since the last set of local elections in 2025, Reform are up 60 seats. In contrast the Greens are only up 2. This could easily be skewed by the type of seats but it’s notable nonetheless. Also I think people are far less likely to vote tactically in locals than parliamentary by-elections.

That said, I expect the Greens to do well in the local elections in May, albeit possibly in a geographically clustered way. We’ll end up with more Greens on LGPS committees for example, which will increase pressure for fossil fuel divestment, but it feels unlikely they will match Reform’s influence.

So where we are at is that Reform has established itself for now as the major player on the Right, but Labour, despite being greatly weakened, remains the big player on the Left. You can’t imagine Labour MPs seeing any self-interest in defecting to the Greens yet, for instance.¹ The Right voter bloc appears to be cohering as the Left bloc fractures.

Under First Past The Post this matters and it explains why MRP polls based on national polling have to date shown the Greens unlikely to gain many seats in a general election even on a decent vote share. (Exactly what happened to Reform in 2024.) This could change, but it is an important structural barrier to left populism becoming significant in the UK as a separate force.

More likely is that, again mirroring developments on the Right, the rise of the Greens exerts a gravitational pull on Labour’s policy positioning. We may be approaching a post Keir Starmer party. Given who votes in Labour leadership elections, it is likely that a soft Left candidate would win next time. That might in turn lead an explicit break with key elements of the current strategy.

From an investor perspective there are obvious risks to where we are heading. Populist politics pulling from both sides means that the technocratic centrism that had informed UK politics has a much weaker base. One can envisage more interventionist politics, greater distributional conflict and generally more volatile policy. There is not (yet) any real political centre of gravity emerging.

A couple of final observations. First, for the Greens, I do wonder if they need to think about a branding or even name change and leaning more into economically left positions as their primary policies alongside environmentalism. It might be a way to expand their own base. In other bits of Europe, modern left challengers to traditional socialist / social democratic parties seem to have done better this way, even where it has been a bit of a flash in the pan (such as Syriza and Podemos).

Second, my own view is that this all points to the need for PR. We seem to be in an era where no party in the UK can reasonably claim the support of even a third of the electorate. It is not good to have elections that deliver landslides on those terms. That only seems likely to feed populist grievance if they don’t win their ‘fair share’ of seats.

2. Institute for Government on audit reform and corporate governance bill

There’s a good comment piece here from Matthew Gill on the Government’s decision to scrap the bill without notice. In common with other commentary I have seen, this is critical of the government’s reasoning for the decision in the short term and the implications over the longer term.

aside from wasting the work of many serious people, the government now faces a real risk that a hard-won consensus for change could fade before the job is done

It is unlikely that this decision emerged from the government’s own thinking, given that it doesn’t seem to be doing much thinking in this area. So an interesting question is whether there were interests lobbying for this outcome - no doubt in the name of ‘growth’. It might be interesting to look at groups that would seem to have an interest in this outcome that have not commented publicly on the decision.

3. Worker voice and ownership in Spain

A super quick plug for the report of International High-level Expert Committee on Democracy at Work which just published its final report. Summary of top-line recommendations below, I’ll be reading with interest.

The Expert Committee on Democracy at Work recommends that the Spanish Government and its social partners implement the following strategic approach, designed to transform Spanish firms into Europe's most participatory and innovative organizations. This strategy promotes labor investors’ participation structured around the two complementary pillars identified in Article 129.2: voice and ownership and provides tools and recommendations for use at the national and European levels.

VOICE:

1. Reinforcement and new legal requirements for worker participation in company operational decisions, including reinforcing the prerogatives of Works Councils and Employee Delegates in particular with a new Co-decision Right to Shape and Consent to the deployment of AI at work

2. Inclusion of workers in strategic decisions via Boards, with minimum statutory thresholds designed in alignment with, and seek to advance upon, European best practices in codetermination (1/3 of workers on board seats for firms with employees between 50 and 1000 employees, beyond 1000 employees: 1/2 of workers on board seats)

OWNERSHIP:

1. Minimum statutory thresholds starting with opening access to 2% of share ownership to workers.

2. New Citizens’ Funds designed to acquire shares and accelerate the transfer in order to make Spanish firms more resilient, and less dependent on extractive financial actors, and a transition plan supported by new ESOP-type financing mechanism for workers to acquire their company’ shares in anticipation of a founder or owner’s retirement

1. There’s an argument I’ve seen that Reform picking up Conservative MP defectors might be bad for them because it will make them look like they take anyone / they’re just the same as the Conservatives. I don’t think voters think like this, and polling suggests otherwise too: https://www.cityam.com/voters-think-defections-help-reform-uk-and-harm-the-tories/