Green Party Canvasses in Hackney Ahead of May Local Elections

Campaigners clustered beneath umbrellas on a high street in Hackney as rain poured relentlessly, holding Green Party leaflets while preparing to knock on doors across the neighborhood. The local elections are scheduled for next month, specifically on May 7. Hackney, a primarily east London borough home to Greens leader Zack Polanski, stands as the Green Party’s top target in the capital.

Zoë Garbett, the Green Party’s mayoral candidate for Hackney, joined the canvassers. She has been door-knocking in Dalston, where she has served as a ward counsellor for six or seven years. Garbett stated she is “fairly” confident about her chances in her third attempt at becoming Hackney’s mayor.

She was defeated in the 2023 mayoral by-election by Labour’s Caroline Woodley. A new poll shows Sir Keir Starmer’s party is on course for its worst result in the capital in more than four decades. London’s Labour mayor Sir Sadiq Khan warned his party faces being “stonked” next month.

The Green Party achieved a landmark by-election win in Gorton and Denton earlier this year. Zack Polanski was elected as Green Party leader in September. Data shows a more than 300 per cent increase in local Green Party members from January 2025 to 2026.

Garbett noted that voters are taking the Greens “more seriously” on positions they hadn’t associated with them previously, with issues such as Gaza, housing, disability support and immigration coming up repeatedly. “There was a long period of time where you knock on doors and people would think you just want to talk about bins and buses, which obviously, we really care about those things, but we worry about so much more as well,” Garbett told The Independent.

Labour has proposed doubling the time for migrants to be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK from five to 10 years.

The party has also proposed making it easier to remove those who have no right to remain in the UK. Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner dubbed the Labour immigration reforms as an “un-British” move that would amount to a “breach of trust” to those settled in the country.

“I think people have just been suffering for quite a long time and want an alternative and want to try something different and that’s people who are really feeling the pressures of the cost of living and growing inequality,” Garbett said.

Pollster Chris Annous of the think tank More in Common said growing frustration and exasperation about the government’s record is driving many voters away from Labour. “I can’t stress how disappointed and disillusioned people are with the Labour government,” he said.

” On the doorstep, Green-leaning voters echoed disappointment with the current government, raising concerns about housing, the cost of living and Labour’s approach to immigration.

“The ‘island of strangers’ speech was a real turning point on the doorstep I found,” Garbett said after speaking to a resident who said he was “disgusted” by Labour’s immigration policies. The Greens have leapfrogged Labour in national polls, with Polanski declaring his party “could win anywhere” following the Gorton and Denton win.

” Annous indicated the Green Party was more likely to claim victory in inner areas of London such as Lambeth, Camden, Islington, Hackney, Newham, Lewisham and potentially parts of Greenwich.

He added that Labour is likely to lose majorities or entirely in several councils. While London is currently dominated by red borough councils, Labour faces threats from both the Greens on the left and Nigel Farage’s Reform on the right. The Independent reported that the home secretary Shabana Mahmood laid out hardline proposals to make the country’s asylum rules among the toughest in Europe.