Given its extreme left wing policy stance, it might have been expected that the Green Party would struggle in the Corbyn era. There would surely be logic to a scenario where, whatever other electoral misfortunes Labour might face, they could expect to gain votes from the Greens.
Yet the electorate, forever showing a capacity for capriciousness, may be refusing to fall into line. At the last General Election the Greens got four per cent of the vote. It is by no means clear that they will do worse with Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader than they did with Ed Miliband. Most of the opinion polls suggest they will do about the same.
Furthermore, the Green Party is fielding a record number of candidates in the local elections on May 4th – with 1,561 standing across England, Scotland and Wales. In England they are contesting 53.9 per cent of the available seats, compared with 37.7 per cent last time. So that is a significant increase.
At present they have 20 county councillors. This includes four in Norfolk and two each in Essex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. They don’t have any Welsh councillors but in Scotland they have six in Edinburgh and four in Glasgow.
Just because they are running more candidates does not mean they will win more seats. But surely it is likely that they will secure more votes – including ones that would otherwise have gone to Labour.