Ten Labour MPs are ready to defect to Zack Polanski’s party despite its disappointing performance in the local elections, say senior Green sources.
The plot would plunge Keir Starmer’s leadership into further chaos as he fights to save his job after Labour’s poor showing.
Backbench MPs on Labour’s Left have been holding ‘informal discussions for months’ about ‘working together’ with the Greens, the sources in the party say.
‘Nine or ten Labour MPs are very chatty and in play,’ they added.
The MPs have become increasingly ‘jumpy’ as support haemorrhages to the Left of the party and insiders predict one could ‘go over the top any minute now’.
The plotters, most of whom were elected before 2024, were close to Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour’s leader.
Several senior figures from that era have recently defected to the Greens.
Backbenchers, who were already thinking about jumping ship, have been spooked by Green gains in Labour strongholds such as Hackney, Lewisham and Islington in London.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski speaks to journalists outside the Hackney Service Centre
Polanski is pictured here with Zoe Garbett, the Green Party’s newly elected Hackney mayor. She previously defended a graffiti attack on a statue of Winston Churchill
One Labour backbencher said some MPs were already ‘resigned to the fate’ of losing their seats unless they defected.
Asked by the BBC how he would avoid becoming a ‘new version’ of Mr Corbyn, Mr Polanski refused to criticise him, saying: ‘There was lots that [Mr] Corbyn was putting forward to this country that I think was really positive. We’ve talked about wealth taxes, about public ownership.’
A Green source said: ‘Our door is open to anyone who shares our values but, ideally, not people who have been propping up Starmer’s government.’
But as well as drawing policy inspiration from Mr Corbyn, the Green Party has been dogged by claims of anti-Semitism which plagued Labour under his leadership.
Khalid Mahmood, a candidate in Bradford, took part in a vigil for Iran’s assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Labour MP Luke Akehurst said: ‘The same political forces that dragged Labour into a moral cesspit of anti-Semitism in the Corbyn era have hijacked the Green Party.’
Some Green candidates won despite courting controversy during the campaign.
Mohammed Suleman, elected in Newcastle, was fined £8,507 for illegally burning building waste in 2024, while Zoe Garbett, Hackney’s new mayor, defended a graffiti attack on a statue of Winston Churchill.
A spokesman for the Green Party said: ‘We talk regularly to MPs from other parties and will continue to do so.’
