Polanski’s Greens brace for the ‘Burnham bounce’

LONDON — Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, is playing the Greens at their own game. Zack Polanski’s party had been basking in the glow of unprecedented local election wins in May after capitalizing on Labour’s tanking support under the centrist Keir Starmer. But Labour’s charismatic new leader in No. 10 Downing Street is stopping them in their tracks. An opinion poll by More in Common published Monday put Labour on top for the first time since March 2025, with its surge coming at the expense of the Greens, who recorded their lowest share of the vote since October last year when Polanski became leader. A separate YouGov poll also released Monday showed no change from last week, though it noted the party is down eight points from a February peak. Polanski insists he is the “opposite of worried about Andy Burnham,” predicting Labour MPs’ “last roll of the dice” in switching leader won’t improve things. But a senior Green Party local politician, granted anonymity to speak frankly, acknowledged: “It’s going to be difficult, there is going to be a Burnham bounce,” warning the party needs to “sharpen those key lines that give us differentiation.” The party is already attacking Burnham for employing corporate lobbyists like his chief of staff James Purnell, and claiming the new prime minister’s rhetoric on Gaza, public ownership and homelessness is hollow, and does not represent a change from Starmer. It is also on a drive to find more polished spokespeople to hit the airwaves. Drawing the battle lines One area where the Greens see a dividing line with Burnham is over Gaza. Starmer’s response to Israel’s military action in Gaza — not calling for an immediate ceasefire, and saying in an interview Israel had the “right” to cut off the supply of power and water to Gaza — saw desertions to the Greens, especially in Muslim communities which had traditionally voted Labour. Burnham tried to distance himself from that response even before becoming prime minister, apologizing and saying the party “didn’t get it right.” But Polanski argues this does not go far enough. Burnham delivers his inaugural speech as U.K.’s new prime minister, in London on July 20, 2026. | Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images “I just think there’s a pattern over and over again of saying the right thing but then not doing the right thing,” the Green leader said in an interview with POLITICO last week. “What are you materially going to change? And we’ve not heard any talk about ending arms sales with Israel, ending intelligence, or ending trade with illegal settlements,” he added. The Greens also see immigration as another battle line after Burnham backed controversial asylum changes in a parliamentary vote before becoming prime minister. In Gorton and Denton, where the Greens overturned Labour’s 2024 majority of 13,415 at a by-election in February, campaigners said that opposing “cruel” immigration policies was a vote-winner. Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP for Bristol East, a Green target for the next election, said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms — including changes to indefinite leave to remain — are a point of contention in her constituency. The rhetoric coming out of the Home Office “creates a one-way narrative, that we are only about control and are not capable of compassion,” she said. “It goes to voters’ values,” she warned. “And our messaging doesn’t land with Reform voters — they will never believe that we are trying to bring down immigration, even when we’ve actually been remarkably successful at doing so — but it does land with Green voters, who think we’re being really harsh.” All about the likes Polanski also appears to have met his match when it comes to digital communication. The Green Party leader’s political broadcasts that racked up millions of likes and shares across social media were seen as a departure from the stale videos coming out of Lab