The Leader of the Green Party paid a visit to Huddersfield this weekend, speaking to a packed out meeting of supporters.
Zack Polanski spoke at the meeting of over 200 Green Party Members at the Newsome Centre on Sunday (18 January). Mr Polanski highlighted that Huddersfield was the party’s “closest near miss” to winning an MP in the General Election and said that the party can and must get the seat over the line at the next elections.
In 2024, Labour’s Harpreet Uppal became the town’s MP, taking 37.6 per cent of the vote. Green candidate, Andrew Cooper, came in second, securing 26.3 per cent of the vote.
If the polls are anything to go by, the Greens could well be looking at a Huddersfield win by the time the next General Election rolls around. Back in October, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported that YouGov projections, which considered a sample of 13,000 voters, showed that the Huddersfield seat would go to the Green Party if an election was held at the time.
This month, a poll from another of the leading election prediction sites, Election Maps UK, also predicted a Green gain in Huddersfield if a General Election were held now, with the Green Party on 35.6 per cent, Reform UK on 26.8 per cent, Labour on 18.2 per cent, Conservatives on 11.9 per cent, Lib Dems on 6.1 per cent and Independents on 1.4 per cent, of the overall vote.
Councillor Andrew Cooper, Leader of the Green Group on Kirklees Council said: “It was really inspiring to hear Zack speak about the Green Party’s role in providing hope for people, the need for a more equal society and for the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxation. Austerity isn’t over and we see that every day with the very diminished services that people are receiving from the council.
“As the Green Party rises in the polls this improves our chances of winning council seats across Kirklees. In Huddersfield, polls are showing that the Green Party are the party most likely to win at the General Election with Labour falling behind Reform in the latest polls. This is matching the feedback we are getting from people we speak to on the doorstep.”
