In United Kingdom The Labour Party Faces a Leftist Challenge.

London; December 2025: With all eyes on Reform UK’s lead in the polls, it can be easy to miss the fact that Labour Party’s Government is also facing a threat to its left. Since Zack Polanski took over the Green Party has also surged in the polls. And while Your Party might be struggling to acquire a coherent identity and leadership, it also potentially poses an electoral threat to Labour, peeling off left-leaning voters unhappy with Labour.

Labour’s left problem is particularly acute in London, where The Greens are polling at 23%, just behind Labour who are at 25% (having been polled at 32% just over a year ago). A similar picture emerges when we look at the youth vote. The Greens are leading among 18 to 24 year-olds with 34% compared to Labour’s 23%, again a reversal of the picture from just a year ago. the implications of this move are substantive. Besides fragmenting the vote left of centre vote “If younger cohorts continue shifting toward the Greens, Labour risks losing not only an age group but an entire future electorate. This is a fate that seems to be currently befalling the Conservative party”.

The Greens, Your Party and Labour’s Left Challenge –

Public debate about shifting voting intentions in the UK has centered heavily on the rise of Reform, with many headlines framing it as the dominant story of electoral change. But focusing solely on this trend risks overlooking “quieter”, yet significant, movements elsewhere in the demographic and geographical landscape.

The rise of progressive left parties in the shape of the Green Party and Your Party, alongside the social conservative Reform Party, suggests that the political landscape is becoming more fractured. But these developments are not happening equally across the country.

Benchmarking London:

At the last general election, Labour won 411 seats across the country. But they also performed extremely well in London, winning around 4/₅ th. of seats, with neither Reform UK nor the Greens securing a single victory. However, both parties were competitive: Reform came second in four seats in outer East London, while the Greens were runners-up in several parts of inner London. All of these contests were against Labour, rather than the Conservatives, reflecting the near-total dominance of Labour in London.

The prospect of a more fractured political landscape is particularly interesting in London, a city that has been majority Labour for decades. That is because, despite its voting history, London is not a monolith. Voters in different parts of the city will hold very different values and, consequently, the competition against Labour does not look the same in every seat.

Politically, it resembles a doughnut: inner boroughs lean left, socially and economically, while outer boroughs tend to be more right-leaning. This is reflected in who came second at the 2024 General Election. The Greens, with more left-wing social and economic messaging, are strongest in inner London.

Reform, with its socially conservative message and mixed economic position, is strongest in outer boroughs. They rarely compete directly, though Barking is an exception, where both tied for second place behind Labour. This state of affairs is complicated, specifically on the Left, by the arrival of the yet unnamed “Your Party”.

Geography is not the only test for Labour. Across the UK more broadly, recent YouGov polling also shows a striking generational realignment: among 18 years to 24 years age group, the Greens have now overtaken Labour to become the largest party.

Recent polling shows Green support climbing to 34%, while Labour has dropped to just 23%, a reversal few would have predicted even a year ago. This surge is not confined to the youngest voters. Among the 25–49 age group, the Greens have caught up with both Labour and Reform, narrowing what was once a daunting gap.

Overall, the geographic and demographic momentum reflects a broader dissatisfaction with the two main parties, particularly Labour. Since taking up office, the party has begun to disconnect from substantial parts of its traditional voter base.

A possible explanation for voter movement is down to the sheer breadth of Labour’s voting coalition at the last election. Satisfying the wider electorate has proven challenging. Recent decisions on social policy have upset those who reject Labour’s attempts to reform the welfare system. At the same time, Labour’s increasingly strict stance on immigration has alienated more progressive, younger voters, many of whom live in London. These voters are now seeing the Greens as a clearer vehicle for left-of-centre priorities.

The implications are substantial. If younger cohorts continue shifting toward the Greens, Labour risks losing not only an age group but an entire future electorate. This is a fate that seems to be currently befalling the Conservative party. Meanwhile, the Greens which is long treated as peripheral are developing a wide system of support. These trends hint at a party system far more fluid, competitive, and generationally divided than ever.

Labour is under pressure from all sides, but despite the headline focus on Reform, it is the left where there is the greatest plurality of challengers. Even in London, Labour is becoming increasingly vulnerable. Demographics go some way to explaining this, as younger voters are drawn to parties offering an alternative, more obviously progressive approach to politics.

Whether this left-realignment solidifies will depend on how effectively these emerging challengers convert polling strength into electoral power. The next phase may see intensified tactical voting, new alliances, or further fragmentation on the left. Either way, the shift away from two-party dominance now looks less like a blip and more like the beginning of a longer-term transformation.

Merit In Asylum Policies:

The Government’s policy moves, particularly in the case of asylum and refugee policy, seems to be trying to neutralise the threat from its right. Perhaps it’s time it started thinking about the threat to its left too. Migration policy undoubtedly involves difficult and uncomfortable trade-offs, especially when it comes to asylum claimants and refugees. But as the reaction to the Government’s proposals for change to asylum and refugee policy revealed, the conversation becomes a lot harder when it’s framed in polarising binaries – is immigration good or bad?

First; The number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK is too high. Others disagree arguing that the number of asylum-seekers and refugees in the UK is not high in absolute terms compared to Germany, France, Italy and Spain and lower than in many countries when expressed as a share of population. Asylum-seekers are also sometimes argued to be a small share of total immigration so there is little to worry about here.

Asylum-seekers may have been only 05% of the immigration inflow a few years ago but they are over 10% in the latest figures, higher if one adds in the family flows that follow refugees.  Because refugees are more likely to remain in the UK, they are over 20% of those getting settlement. We should care about numbers because the average employment rates and earnings of those who came to the UK as refugees are low.  This is likely to mean that refugees, on average, receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes: we don’t have good evidence on this for the UK, but Australia found that the lifetime fiscal cost of a humanitarian migrant was about £200k per person.

If current levels of asylum claims continue, and the UK is similar to Australia, the cost of supporting refugees can be substantial. Given this, it is striking how little attention is paid in the public debate to the long-term cost of supporting refugees. Saying that the rights of refugees should not be changed as numbers rise is tantamount, but there can’t be a blank cheque for the support of refugees, something UK don’t do in many other policy areas.

Second; even if there is a problem with numbers, it is sometimes argued that there is little that can be done about flows as migrants are unaware of policies towards them so their decisions cannot be affected by policy. Academic research consistently finds that that asylum seekers direct their claims towards countries where those claims are more likely to be accepted.

While it is true that numbers are greatly influenced by crises in the world and other factors, it is wrong to conclude that policy never has impacts. There are numerous examples (Australia, the EU-Turkey agreement of 2015, Biden-Trump policies at the US southern border) where flows like the small boats have stopped after the introduction of policies to ensure those journeys are unsuccessful.

In 2013 Sweden went from offering temporary protection to Syrians to permanent protection – one study found this raised asylum claims in Sweden. That might suggest flows to the UK would be reduced somewhat by only offering temporary residence. And if you are concerned about the amount of welfare support for refugees and want to limit numbers, you might want to ensure those resources are spent on those currently in need of protection rather than those who were persecuted in the past but for whom it might now be safe to return. After all, when we give aid to victims of natural disasters, we do so temporarily not permanently.

There are instances of large-scale returns: in the early 1990s Germany offered protection to many fleeing conflict in the Balkans. Asylum-seekers were only ever given temporary sanctuary and, when peace returned to the region, the German government did not extend residence permits and required of the refugees to return to their countries of origin.

This was controversial especially when it involved children, some of whom had been born in Germany, and there were exceptions in practice. Expect to see similar debates in the future in the UK, also about what should be done about Ukrainians currently in many other countries when the war in Ukraine ends. But many conflicts are very protracted so no time-scale can be put on when the need for protection ends, so the government might simply create more bureaucracy, renewing permits every few years, costing rather than saving the tax-payer money.

Another concern is that those with only temporary residence have less incentive to integrate and improve their labour market prospects. Denmark which testifies as an acknowledged inspiration for the UK government’s proposals had found that giving temporary residence worsened outcomes, another that it made little difference, another study for Sweden found the opposite. Perhaps the conclusion is that incentives can work but only if the conditions set are realistic; otherwise, people just give up.

Given this, it is probably important not just to increase incentives to find work, but to provide people with the ability to achieve this. Yet the refugee employability programme ended in June 2025 even though the evaluation said it was quite effective. 71% of Britons still say people should be able to take refuge in other countries to escape from war or persecution but this is down from 84% in 2023. 49% say that no more refugees can be accepted now up, up from 30% in 2022.

The government hopes that “by restoring order to the borders, can UK become the open, tolerant and generous country that the Britons know themselves to be”, an echo of the Labour government’s strategy in the 1960s.  Perhaps, but there is also a danger that harsh border controls could have the opposite effect. As it is evident that immigration policy is hard.

Team Maverick.