Green Party’s Gaza stance won over Muslim voters – now they hope their progressive policies will keep them

The Green Party had a very good general election and they know it.

Alongside their hemp tote bags and multi-use water bottles this weekend, there was a palpable sense of renewed enthusiasm at their annual conference.

They were not shy about where some of their two million votes came from. Soaring numbers of British Muslims voted Green this election and helped the party secure four new MPs. And this weekend felt as if they wanted to build on that support.

It was no secret, even before the election, that some British Muslims had begun to lose trust in Labour over its early stance on the Israel-Gaza war.

This anti-Labour sentiment was galvanised through efficient organising by campaign groups like “The Muslim Vote” which had begun a campaign to try to funnel votes away from the major parties and towards the candidates they believed better served the Muslim community.

While there is a wide diversity of Muslim voters, and huge complexities in how different communities vote, the biggest uniting factor that focused minds around voting was undoubtedly the community’s dismay at Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

Looking on from afar were the Greens. The Greens were all too happy to fill Labour’s space.

Sky polling just ahead of the election discovered a slight “Gaza effect”, which showed leader satisfaction levels for the Conservatives and Labour significantly dropping after 7 October amongst ethnic minority voters, with IPSOS suggesting they were moving towards smaller parties.

If anywhere showed that most visibly on election night, it was Bristol Central where the Greens won its biggest scalp of the night.

Thangam Debbonaire, a big beast in the Labour Party and the shadow culture secretary, lost her seat of Bristol Central – where there is a significant Somali community – to the Greens co-leader Carla Denyer.

Sir Keir Starmer even visited the constituency throughout the election, in perhaps a sign that the party knew her campaign needed heavyweight support.

Where the Greens came a strong second and third place in constituencies around places like Sheffield Central and in east London, data showed they were in areas with large Muslim populations.

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This weekend, the Greens chose their one media visit outside the conference to visit a mosque in the Tory town of Altrincham to highlight community engagement. The focus? Gaza.

In his speech, Zach Polanski, the Greens deputy leader, called the situation in Gaza a “genocide” – something Israel has repeatedly denied – and pushed Labour to stop arms sales completely to Israel, instead of just the 30 out of 350 arms export licences they suspended earlier this week.

I asked the Green’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay whether this was part of a strategic play for more votes.

“I particularly wanted to make sure I was visiting the mosque, engaging with the Muslim community because we have to remember how much our Muslim communities around the country have felt targeted, felt vulnerable by the horrific events and disorder from political violence during the summer,” he said.

“We do need to stand together, and we also need to stand together with our Jewish and Muslim communities who feel vulnerable because of what’s happening in the Middle East”

Fesl Reza-Khan, a new party member who signed up in November because of the party’s stance on Gaza, co-created a Muslim Greens group to organise activists across the UK.

“A lot of us are from ethnic minority backgrounds. My parents are from South Asia, when we see something, it’s instinctive,” he said.

“And what I see in Gaza, I think: ‘Hang on, that’s happened to me, that’s happened to my forefathers, that whole occupation, exploitation, colonisation’.

“That’s what was instinctive and none of the parties were acknowledging it, they were actually gaslighting me, telling me, ‘that’s not happening, that’s not what I’m seeing’.

“And I don’t need to be told what I’m seeing and witnessing.”

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For lots of ethnic minorities, the Green Party is not a natural home.

Out of the hundreds of councillors the Greens secured in the latest local elections, fewer than a dozen are ethnic minorities. They know their image is one of the “crusty old Green member”, as one insider told me.

They’re keen to modernise, to capitalise on what they see as the hegemony of the major political parties, and they think this is a good way to start.

“We just needed an attentive audience, just one door to open, Gaza has been that defining moment,” Mr Reza-Khan said.

“So now that people are listening, they’re realising actually, the Greens are about far more than just Gaza, they’re actually very, very good on so many issues, from families, to cost of living to transport.”

The party hope with thousands more members in the party, some will stay for their stance on other progressive issues, most recently trying to set themselves against Labour on the two-child benefit cap and its changes to the winter fuel payments.

In the 2017 election, the Green party saw its support drop by more than half as some of their voters turned to more radical politics under Labour’s then-leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

And if the 2024 general election taught us anything, it was that voters can be flaky.

Co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay are hoping their strong election performance is a good foundation to build into longer-lasting support and they are starting with communities they think are most disaffected with mainstream politics.