One week on from the Budget, it's clear the government has raised the tax to GDP ratio enough to give Reform an easy "Labour spent all the money" narrative. But they're not doing much with it. People's lives are not going to improve. The geniuses present: the worst of all worlds. Again.

This weekend, Your Party members are discovering a culture of bureaucratic control freakery. It's the same tendency that shut down Momentum's democracy, blocked Open Selections, witch hunted critics and demanded obedience. Those of us who opposed it then were branded wreckers. So, now you know.

Net migration has plummeted. Contrary to all the lies we've been told, wages aren't about to go up. Instead, we will find that we have no one to build the houses we need, and a worsening NHS staffing crisis. And a lot of young people emigrating from rainy fascism island.

In under 18 months, this government has: - backed long prison sentences for climate activists - prosecuted 2,000 people *as terrorists* for holding signs opposing genocide - announced the end of trial by jury for almost all cases Have we ever had a more authoritarian government?

"Greens aren’t afraid to say what so many people already believe: that clean water shouldn’t be a privilege, and pollution shouldn’t be profitable," writes Councillor Martin Abrams @martinabrams.bsky.social leftfootforward.org/2025/11/when...

Surely Labour MPs realise that voting for the nastiest border regime in Europe will lose them their seats. "They'll vote for this shit holding their nose" doesn't work if we're wading in it. We'll put it on every leaflet, through every door: they want to repeat the Windrush scandal every year.

Number of refugees per 1,000 people: 🇱🇧 Lebanon: 137 🇩🇪 Germany: 31 🇸🇪 Sweden: 23 🇧🇪 Belgium: 14 🇳🇱 Netherlands: 13 🇬🇧 UK: 6.5 We are not a "generous country". There is no crisis, other than a bankrupt political elite scapegoating the most vulnerable people on Earth.

The good news: Jeannette Jara, the candidate of the left, has won the first round of the Chilean Presidential election. The bad news: she will face José Antonio Kast, an open Pinochet fan, in the run off. He will be the favourite, with the right and far right having won a majority of the vote.

The thing about the people who run the Labour Party is that they're not very good at politics, which is a shame because that's their only job. Their next act of genius is to copy Denmark's "tough" (far right) migration policy to stop the far right. In fact, the Danish far right is surging:

A thing I've grown to enjoy recently is people who say Polanski can't be left wing because he was a Lib Dem ten years ago. Usually they combine this view with being a super fan of Tony Benn, the establishment minister who once described himself as being "on the right wing of the middle of the road"

Sortition is sold as the solution to our democratic deficit. Michael Chessum argues that it is a chimaera ripe for undemocratic manoeuvres. prometheusjournal.org/2025/11/04/a...

‘Zack Polanski is a former Liberal Democrat who talks about expropriating the rich; the Greens are a small environmentalist party transforming into a mass party of the left.’ @michaelchessum.bsky.social on the Green Party’s renaissance, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

If the Greens really were to replace Labour, this is what the early build-up might look. Some thoughts for the @lrb.co.uk on the new left gathering around @zackpolanski.bsky.social, the contingent nature of green parties, and why this surge confounds commentators on left and right.

‘Anti-capitalism and environmentalism are common bedfellows. But both the Green Party’s activists and its sceptics would do well to avoid reading its fortunes off a script written abroad or in the past.’ @michaelchessum.bsky.social on the Green New Left. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

ID cards are an almost perfect piece of stupidity, designed to win over Reform voters because they like authoritarianism and state action. Except Reform voters deeply mistrust the state (look at covid). And they want it to be authoritarian to people who *aren't them*.

Fun fact: my daughter was born the same day Zack became leader. Since then, like the party, she has roughly doubled in size. By 2029, the Greens will have about a trillion members. And Ella will be the largest organism on Earth, weighing the equivalent of 400 blue whales. Crazy times we live in.

This autumn business was absolutely fine until it started raining properly, wasn't it.

It's properly happening - a whoosh of momentum not seen since the summer of 2015. The Greens are no longer a minor party. We're third on members and, in many cities, second on votes. The prize is not a few more councillors, it is kicking the doors down on the political system.

On the left: the people who have an inalienable right to attend any football match. On the right: the people who must be sent to prison as terrorists.

Listening to the radio thinking "why are they talking about the suspect's nationality? This news bulletin is basically a Reform broadcast." And realising that the government literally told them to. It turns out it is possible to die of stupidity, and the Labour Right is doing it.

The rate of the Green membership surge is accelerating, not dropping off. We're now on 110,000 members - 5,000 in a single day. If you think the Greens overtaking Labour is impossible, consider suspending your disbelief.

4.5 million children live in poverty in the UK. Child poverty is growing - on Labour's watch. This government's answer? Cut more, attack benefit claimants, and don't even think about bringing back Sure Start. But sure, here's Gordon, have some nostalgia.

A month ago, I was certain Your Party was going to outnumber the Greens. Now the Greens are the home of the left surge. If you think Corbyn and Sultana sound awkward justifying Your Party's separate existence to activists, just imagine having to do it with actual voters.

Licensing laws in this country are ridiculous, restrictive and based in a mixture of postwar paternalism and victorian moralism. We should deregulate them as a reclamation of public space and collective joy, not "for growth", but deregulation is absolutely what needs to happen.

This is dystopian and will consolidate Britain's status as an increasingly authoritarian state when it comes to protest. It is also stupid, because if your problem is thousands of people showing up to be arrested, threatening them with arrest is unlikely to deter.

Attending my first Green conference as a member, it's remarkable how friendly and curious everyone is. I think it's a mistake to regard that as unserious. Contrary to what Labour hack school teaches you, being a self-important control freak is not likeable or electable. #gpconf

83% of Green Party members back an electoral pact with Your Party. I've put forward a motion to #gpconf25 that would make it party policy to pursue an alliance. It's amendment 1 to motion D14. If you're at conference and (big if) if we get to debate it, please support it.

You've fled torture and death. You've made it across thousands of miles. You've won your asylum claim in a rigged system. You're traumatised. And the Starmer government says "you can stay, but you'll be alone and your family are staying where the danger is". Unfathomably evil.

ID cards are a genius idea because they combine: - being really expensive - being really unpopular - focussing on illegal immigration, I.e. Reform's main talking point It's a level of strategic genius we haven't seen since the disability benefit cuts.

It is politics by ego. This is what you get when you place the hopes of the left in the hands of celebrities and their bag-carriers, without nourishing the capacity to self-organise. The farce of recent days is the logical end point of that political method. For @novaramedia.com.

Our political class has a special kind of collective psychosis. Two years into a genocide, after arming the perpetrators, they draw themselves up to their fullest height, clear their throats, and say: "we recognise the existence of the victims". And we are supposed to stand and applaud.

One of the few positive things about the events of the past few days is that it blows apart the culture of loyalism that has blighted the British left since 2015. Blindly defend whatever the leader is doing? Which one? Oh no, guess we'd better organise and think for ourselves.

It's time to stop messing about: join.greenparty.org.uk

God it's ridiculous how the left always have these squabbles isn't it. Blair and Brown would never have done that kind of thing.

The reason why a lot of prominent people didn't just join the Greens in the first place is that they wouldn't automatically get to be in charge of the Green Party. Well, it turns out they don't automatically get to be in charge of Your Party either. So what's the point? Join:

Really really delighted to see the wonderful former MP join the Green Party! Huge welcome, Thelma. And you can follow too: Join.greenparty.org.uk

If you have to share the join link for your new party alongside a reassurance that "this is not a scam", something has probably gone wrong. This project really, really matters. All of the history and baggage aside, can you lot please not make this a total farce.

This is a potentially huge moment and is being woefully under reported by the mainstream media. Picketers were rammed by a car today. An attempt to murder or seriously hurt striking workers. Was it the far right? Was it just some nutters? Either way, hugely sinister.

After years of helping to organise it, it feels surreal not to be at the @ukstoptrump.bsky.social protest today Good luck to everyone marching. Let's use this moment to build something. We can't defeat the far right by calling it names. We need an alternative.

We are being asked to believe that the leading figures of Your Party have decided to trust the future of their project to a literally random process run by sortitioned delegates. That doesn't imply a leap of democratic innovation. It implies they have other ways to keep control.

If I was Morgan McSweeney or Wes Steeeting, I would be trying to shove Keir Starmer out of the door right now so that Burnham doesn't have time to get into the succession process. At the moment, Starmer is guaranteed to go at some point, and Burnham is guaranteed to replace him.

Solidarity with everyone opposing the far right today. That Tommy Robinson can mobilise crowds like this isn't just the fault of the right, but of a "sensible" elite that wrecked living standards and blamed immigration for the results. We will defeat them, all of them. We have to.

So what's the bet here? Lucy Powell absolutely smashes the deputy leadeship contest, Starmer limps on until the locals in May 2026, and then we get another roughly similar leader who pursues a marginally softer policy of racism and austerity? An inspiring prospect, isn't it.

Peter Mandelson is and always has been an utter liability. One of the most disliked New Labour era politicians, a strategist with a strategy stuck in 1994, mercenary, and at best a bad judge of character. Don't look at him, look at all the people who've called him a genius.

The Labour Deputy leadeship contest is such a classic display of superficial identity politics. "We need a woman, a northerner, someone working class." Are we going to address the structural or political issues? No. And what about a black working class woman who would? Absolutely not.

Some personal news. Ella arrived with us on Tuesday. She's healthy, and beautiful, and home. Mum doing well.

This should be headline news - the implications are horrifying …

Capitalism has given us a world advanced enough to rely on technology, but not advanced enough for it to work. Bus windows don't open because they have air con that breaks down. Electronic plumbing and taps that never works. Trains that can't open their doors. We had a system for this. It was free

This is terrifying and it's baffling why it isn't on every news bulletin. AMOC collapse means global famine, ecosystem collapse, and, in the UK, temperatures of minus 20. It is now likely to become inevitable in the next decade or so. HELLO? Is this thing on? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The job is racism.