Green leaders warn party it must listen to Reform voters’ concerns to tackle inequality

The current and former leaders of the Green party have warned that the party should listen to the concerns of Reform UK voters in order to tackle inequality. Zack Polanski and Caroline Lucas said on Saturday that the Greens needed to understand why voters affected by the cost of living crisis were attracted to Nigel Farage’s party. Polanski, who has previously said he would welcome Reform voters to his party, was speaking at a conference organised by the leftwing campaign group, Compass, in east London . Latest polling shows 27% of the electorate would vote Reform if a general election was held, potentially paving the way for Farage to become the next prime minister. “ I could stand here, and spend the rest of the evening talking about why Reform are bad, and I’d feel great,” said Polanski, who was elected to lead the party last year. “But there’s a really important distinction that needs to be made. “Nigel Farage, the Reform MPs, the people who speak for them, are very different to people who might be thinking about voting for Reform. “They are the exact people we need to be caring about. Because when we say people feel left behind, they don’t feel left behind – they have been left behind, by decades of austerity and by successive governments, by politicians who far too often speak to them like they’re stupid – that’s if they’re even speaking to them at all. …