u/PuzzledAd4865

I feel like we need to be prepared for this - there’s a very high chance that Burnham will win this by-election, get heaps of positive press then when he becomes Labour leader they will get a healthy polling bounce, in large part due to Green voters switching back to Labour.

This will likely be combined into a lot of punching the bruise of Zack’s recent mistakes. What I think is that in the event this happens, as Greens we shouldn’t panic and fall into a narrative that this is all inevitable. There are a few things to consider

1. The fact that this happening at all is in large part due to our good work. Gorton and Denton and the locals are already pulling British politics left

2. We need to be ready and waiting to hold Burnham to account - if he ends up sliding back to the right, and giving us Starmerism with a northern accent and long eyelashes, those voters will come back to us - he will probably do some big ticket progressive items when he lands, but I’m sceptical the forces of the PLP and media won’t pull him back right

3. If he does stick left enough to hold onto our old voters because - then that may be disappointing and we’ll still work hard to incremental gains, but we’ll have had a huge impact regardless.

More broadly some in Labour will want to cast his honeymoon as the end of history, and cast the Green surge as a flash in the pan that’s over and done with. We need to resist that mindset, see the bigger picture and remember things can change very quickly.