Optimism is the overwhelming sentiment at the Green Party’s Petersfield action day on January 18th. A growing sense of momentum at national level is certainly translating into high hopes for local success. Upon arrival at their campaign base, my interviewees were briefing those distributing Green Party platforms for the area around Parker’s Piece. Of the “14 Reasons to Support the Greens,” scrapping university tuition fees and offering safe and legal routes for migrants stood out as the most topical. I spoke to Kathryn Fisher, the soon-to-be-announced Green candidate for the Petersfield ward council seat, and leading campaigner Isaac about the party’s changing profile and burgeoning support.

Isaac informs me Petersfield is the Greens’s best chance of winning a new ward seat on Cambridge City Council in the upcoming 2026 local elections, which will be held on May 7th. When door-knocking, a recurring phrase he hears from potential voters is that they “don’t feel they’re leaving the Labour Party, they feel the Labour Party has left them”. The council currently consists of 23 Labour, 12 Liberal Democrat, 5 Green, 1 Conservative, and 1 Independent/Your Party councillors. Instead of electing every single councillor in one election cycle, one councillor is elected for each ward every year with a break in the 4th. Petersfield ward hosts three councillors, and the sole contested seat in the 2026 election cycle is currently held by Labour. Amid the distaste for the council’s majority party at the national level, Isaac is extremely candid about Green Party prospects: “In a word, are we feeling confident? I’d say very.”

“In a word, are we feeling confident? I’d say very”

Fisher reveals that she too is “incredibly confident”. The Greens came “second in the last local elections, and that was just a year ago”. Since then, Fisher argues, Labour have been “nose diving in the polls – one poll had us 2 points behind Labour”. The Petersfield candidate associates these figures with Green Party leadership change: “Since Zack Polanski has become our leader, we have seen our national image just grow and grow”. She goes on to add: “It was [once] just about community organising and we couldn’t rely on any national messaging; now we’ve got […] organisation at a local level but [are] also being elevated by Zack Polanski’s messaging. We’ve spoken to over 300 residents living in Petersfield and of those, overwhelmingly positive, over 30% saying they are likely to vote Green, and we’ve still got 3 months to go”. Formerly a membership officer for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire, Fisher recounts how a year ago Greens “had around 600 members” locally. Now, she claims, they have over 1500.

Polanski’s former support for the Lib Dem’s tuition fee hikes is a potential weak spot among student voters, particularly with recent media coverage of student loan interest rates. I put this to Fisher and she retorts: “Our leader has no say on policy. Every single member can vote on policies – one member, one vote. We are not beholden to a leader”. The idea of grassroots democratisation within the Greens is manifest in a plan being devised to provide Anglia Ruskin University with funds to start their own Green Party society, which can be run independently from the centralised body.

“One member, one vote. We are not beholden to a leader”

A difficult moment for the Greens came on January 14th, when Councillor David Halwey defected to Reform UK in St. Helen’s Borough Council. Yes, Green to Reform. In his statement, reported by the Liverpool Echo, he declared his “views no longer align” with the Greens “on a national and local level” and that he “voted for Brexit to take back control of Britain’s borders and lower immigration, yet the government failed to do so”. With defections being a common theme in politics this year, I ask Fisher about the extent of Green candidate vetting. She informs me: “Green Party vetting is as strong as the membership in that area. Membership gets to interrogate and question those candidates” via hustings. As for party loyalty: “As soon as you start seeing a political party as a cult you’re in a bit of a mess,” adding that the party “has to align as much as possible with your views and your moral standpoint. […] If the Green party started swinging to the right I’d leave the Green Party and join whichever party became the left wing force”.

Fisher is unapologetic in her worldview. “I’m a Marxist,” she tells me, campaigning for bringing “wealth back to working people”. In response to criticism of the Green Party for moving away from environmentalism, she concludes: “You can’t have social justice without environmental justice and vice versa”. Fisher appears to be a council candidate who strongly embodies the Green Party transformation under Polanski, from a middle-class conservationist, quiet party, into a left wing, insurgent, socialistic presence. Polanski described this new approach as “eco-populism” when campaigning for leadership last Summer. Despite seeing a lot of Polanski in Fisher, her embodiment of the Greens’ transition feels authentic, denouncing the mega rich all while continuing the drive against “the climate collapse”. “We’ve got to look at who the polluters are […] the top 1%, the super wealthy, the Elon Musks, the Jeff Bezoses of this world”.