My first contact with a Green party was when I used to go to Germany fairly often. My girlfriend at the time had a friend whose parents were in Die Grünen. They were pretty good on anti-nuclear things but I never real saw them as likely to become a mass working party. Their members had quirks . These included not having a door on the toilet because it was a symbol of repression.  Maybe dour, Ulster Presbyterianism had a bit of an influence on me, but my view was that some things are best done in private.

Fast forward to 2026 and I turn out to be on the right side of history in the toilet door argument. Not just that, we are now looking at a real possibility of a Green Party doing what would have seemed unthinkable even five years ago and replacing Labour as the party of working class, class conscious, anti-imperialist voters. To be slightly more precise, Labour has always been a pro-imperialist party but has won voters in its left due to the lack of a viable electoral alternative.

One of the silliest things in the Spiked piece is the assertion that “On social and cultural issues at least, there is always going to be an unbridgeable gulf between the Greens and practising Muslims.” That was not true of Muslims who historically voted Labour in full knowledge of the party’s views on gay marriage, going to the pub after meetings and all sorts of other things.

This is annoying all the right people. Spiked, which began as a bizarre cult, before becoming  one of the weirdest outfits in British politics, is beyond indignant that Muslims are going to be turning their backs on Labour and voting Green. They judge it to be “a strange alliance between Islamic sectarians and the left”. The Muslim Vote (TMV), an organisation with a self-explanatory name, has announced that it will be backing the Green candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election. This is good news for Hannah Spencer who has a serious chance of beating Reform and Labour. Labour’s candidate heads “Stakeholder Engagement” at Arup Group. Arup specialises in helping states privatise public utilities, including railways and water

It is though something of a disappointment for Spiked who disapproved of Mothin Ali because he wants an “end of white settler colonialism” in Palestine and once shouted Allahu akbar in public. They just about stopped themselves from saying that his real offence is to look Muslim in public.

A new electoral alliance is taking shape, and it is going to be the subject of all sorts of absurd accusations. Yesterday while I was out canvassing, I was told in no uncertain terms by a young Somali woman that she is voting Green in May. For her, the big issue is how expensive everything is. A few minutes later a gay couple were just as enthusiastic about voting Green. Anyone who has spent more than half an hour knocking doors in working class areas knows that Labour’s vote is collapsing.

There is a beautiful irony in the fact that the right of British politics are getting upset that a party led by a gay, Jewish man is set to overtake Labour by winning the votes of working class Muslims with a message of internationalism and anti-capitalism.