Britain has been been warned it faces a “nightmare scenario” after a left-wing campaign hatched a plan to hand the Green Party power at the next General Election.
Author and historian David Shipley sat down with GB News’s Steven Edginton to discuss the polarisation of British politics with both the Greens and Reform UK surging in the polls.
YouGov’s latest polling has put Reform UK at the lead on 23 per cent, with the Green Party and the Conservatives tied neck-and-neck on 19 per cent.
Meanwhile, Labour’s share has dropped to some 17 per cent – around half of its vote share in the 2024 election.
Mr Shipley admitted he thought the move away from mainstream parties was reflective of the wider nation, marking a shift away from the ruling two-party race between Labour and the Conservatives.
He told GB News: “I think the mainstream political parties had demonstrated they haven’t got what it takes. We had 14 years under the Tories when in the end they catastrophically failed on matters.
“Labour, I think, has failed much more quickly and become loathed much more quickly. And it’s clear the British people are sick of the current system.
“They’re looking for something which will work, and in those circumstances it’s very natural people look to anyone who says they have a solution.”
David Shipley sat down with Steven Edginton
|
GB NEWS
However, the Green Party has received criticism over its current policies, from operating an “open borders” policy to legalising all drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine.
But Mr Shipley suspected the Green Party’s seemingly “radical left” agenda would be “disastrously unpopular” with swathes of the British public.
He said: “In reality, once you start to go into detail… Actually, when you put that to the average Brit who is struggling to be able to afford their housing, finding their wages suppressed and has in many cases maybe seen the harmful effects of drugs in their communities.
“They all recoiled from that. So I don’t think it’s ever going to be a majority winning policy prospectus.”
The Greens have enjoyed a surge in support in the polls
|
GETTY
Although the threat of leader Zack Polanski winning an outright majority appeared minimal, Mr Shipley identified an underlying threat – a “nightmare scenario” – could pose a threat to the right-wing politicians of Westminster.
He told the People’s Channel: “The nightmare scenario, of course, is that, at the General Election, we end up with some kind of Green-Labour-SNP-Lib Dem coalition to keep the rights out.
“In which case, you could see those Green policies and the Greens themselves having an outsized influence on politics.”
Asked why parties like Reform UK and the Greens have enjoyed a boost in the polls, the author deemed Britons were “fundamentally quite wise and astute” in acknowledging the two mainstream parties “haven’t got what it takes”.
He added: “They don’t know what to do. They both run out of the road. And there’s a strangeness to this current Government. It’s only been in power for 18 months, what is maybe coming up for two years.
“But it feels like the Government’s been in power for decades. They’ve just run out. There’s no ideas, there’s no freshness, there’s no sense of energy about it.”
“And the Tories are like that at the end as well. So I think the British people have correctly identified the the normal parts of government don’t have anything left.
“The constitution itself isn’t working anymore. We need radical change and therefore they are looking for radical change. That is right and natural.”