Should the Greens stand aside in the Burnham by-election?

Various figures, including former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, have been talking about the idea of the Greens not contesting the Makerfield by-election

Josh Simons is standing down as the MP for Makerfield, after serving just two years as an MP, in order to allow Andy Burnham the chance to return to parliament, and enter the race to succeed Keir Starmer (more details on the Simons resignation here).

It’s an absolute "must win" by election for Burnham, and for Labour, because Burnham is Labour’s most popular politician nationwide, and he’s standing in his own home territory.

Furthermore the people of Makerfield will know that they’ll have the prestige of being the home constituency of the probable future Prime Minister if they back Burnham.

If Labour can’t win a by-election under these circumstances, it’s hard to see how they could win a significant election anywhere, ever again.

Reform came second in Makerfield at the 2024 general election with 31% of the vote, so they’re the obvious main rivals, especially since the Greens came in 5th with so few votes they lost their deposit.

The Greens are in a much stronger position now though, especially after winning the Gorton and Denton by-election that the Starmer factionalists blocked Burnham from standing in.

If the Greens do put up a fight in Makerfield, there is the risk of splitting the anti-Reform vote, and letting the faragist lunatics in by default.

The former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has publicly stated that she hopes the Greens don’t put up a strong fight in the by-election, in the hope that Burnham delivers the fairer and more representative voting system he’s long claimed to support.

It is possible for the Greens to seek assurances from Burnham, should they stand down in the by-election.

Aside from an agreement to modernise the voting system (perhaps with a referendum to pick which particular form of modern proportional representation the public wants), abandonment of the deeply unpopular digital ID agenda, and ending Keir Starmer’s sinister efforts to revoke the historic British right to trial by jury would also prove popular.

Would Burnham agree to such a trade-off though?

And after all of Starmer’s lies and betrayals since 2020, could the Labour Party - who backed all of his dishonesty - really be trusted to deliver on what they’ve agreed to?

If Burnham does agree to deliver much needed electoral modernisation - to avoid absurdities like Labour winning 63% of parliamentary seats on just 34% of the vote from ever happening again - it would make sense for the Greens to stand aside, or soft-pedal the Makerfield by-election, and direct all of their efforts at winning the Mayor of Manchester position that Burnham would have to vacate in order to become an MP and stand to become Prime Minister.

Opinion within the Green Party is certain to be divided, with some arguing that it would be a fair trade-off, and others saying it would amount to abandonment of the stated aim of "replacing Labour" as the party of choice for democratic socialists and social progressives.

The Green Party is a much more democratic organisation than Labour, the Tories, Lib-Dems, or Reform. In light of this, it seems likely that the local Green Party group in Makerfield would have at least some say in whether they stand, and if so, how much effort they put into their campaign, rather than the whole issue being decided in top-down manner by the party leadership.

If standing aside did result in the introduction of a fair and modern voting system, the rewards would be enormous for the Green Party. They wouldn’t just be looking at a handful of extra MPs in return for the recent surge in support they’ve experienced, they’d be looking at somewhere around 100 MPs if polling numbers just stay where they are.

If a modern voting system allows people to vote for the party they actually want, rather than holding their nose and doing the "lesser of two evils" tactical voting thing we’ve all become so accustomed to, it’s fair to imagine that support for the Greens could increase dramatically too.

As with all major decisions, it’s a risks vs rewards situation.

The potential rewards are massive, if a fair and modern voting system does come out of it.

It’s highly debatable that fatal damage would be done to the Green Party’s position as a long-term alternative to Labour, just because they co-operated with Labour in one particular by-election, in order to secure fair votes.

I’d argue that the much bigger risk to consider is whether Labour can be trusted.

Even if Burnham was to win, and become Prime Minister, and put forward proposals to modernise the voting system, the Parliamentary Labour Party is still crammed full of right-wing factionalists, and you wouldn’t put it past them to deliberately sabotage the process, especially given their atrocious history of sabotaging leaders and policies they don’t like.