Tomorrow, Green Party leader Zack Polanski will reveal the party’s candidate for Manchester’s mayoral by-election – Geraldine Coggins. This comes after the party lost its seat in Makerfield, garnering just 0.7 percent of the vote. Coggins is the Green Party group leader on Trafford Council. Earlier today, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority announced that the mayoral vote will take place on July 30, leaving Westminster to watch and wait for the outcome of another by-election.
“Makerfield felt weird,” Polanski told me when we spoke last weekend. The Greens had a false start. The party’s first-chosen candidate – Chris Kennedy – was forced to withdraw from the race after 24 hours due to comments previously reposted on X which suggested the attacks on Jewish ambulances in north London were a “false flag attack”. Just over three weeks into the campaign, Sarah Wakefield was elected. She ranked fifth, with 308 votes.
Party insiders suggest that the Makerfield performance was the result of a lackluster campaign. One told me, “We’ve basically spent this entire period preparing for the mayoral race.” They explained that even if you “suspect that Burnham might let people down, you’re blocking everyone’s idealized version of Burnham who never has a chance to let anyone down.”
The Greens have not acted in secret either. In a post on Bluesky For 15 days, the Green Councilor has informed her followers that she will run to be selected as the party’s candidate in the race for mayor of Manchester. She was elected earlier this week, beating two other Manchester-based candidates.
The party is now reporting that the Manchester mayoral race is a straight fight between them and Reform. In May’s local elections, Reforma won 31 percent of the vote compared to 23 percent for Labor and 19 percent for the Greens. Reforma is likely to throw the kitchen sink to win the mayoral race as well. As I have reported beforethe party plans to send its chief organizer to London, Elfrede Brambley-Crashaw, to run the campaign. The party has already bought campaign adverts which it will run in Greater Manchester today (June 19).
Last Saturday, Polanski described the race as “27 Gortons and Dentons”. But winning all of Manchester is a very different beast to winning Gorton and Denton; it will include places like Makerfield. Labour, newly galvanized by the return of Andy Burnham, will be ready to draw up their new plan to defeat Reform across Greater Manchester. And with Burnham back in the fold, will disgruntled Labor voters who voted for Polanski return to their old party?
(Further reading: Who would win the early election for mayor of Manchester?)
