Local elections 2026: Why the Green Party's gains offer hope despite Reform's rise

On a day when politics feels especially bleak, those of us from migrant backgrounds should take some relief in the Green Party’s gains across our cities. 

The Greens have shown they are the new party for progressive politics and for a party long kept in the margins, this is not just progress, it is a shift in political possibility.

But this feels even more important, when the rise of Reform UK continues to cast a long shadow over British politics.

Nigel Farage’s party have already won an astounding number of seats at the time of writing and are projected to be the big winners of the local elections.

Reform is creeping into power as the respectable face of the “reasonably concerned” right. 

In a country where hate crime is on the rise, far-right extremists have taken to the streets on national marches and Tommy Robinson’s upcoming march on London is being billed as the biggest gathering of the extreme right ever. The threat to migrant communities and their allies has never been greater. So political and street opposition to the far-right cannot be passive or polite. It must be active, local, and felt in people’s everyday lives.

That’s why the Green surge must become much more than political posturing. The Green Party have, so far, offered something rare: an approach to immigration rooted in humanity rather than hostility. In a political landscape where cruelty is repackaged as common sense, that alone sets them apart, not just from Reform, but from every major party that has drifted towards suspicion, deterrence and dog whistles.

But electoral success changes expectations, it’s easier to speak with compassion from the margins than to govern with it in power. Now the Greens must double down in the fight against political extremists across the far-right.

Newly elected Green councillors embedded within their communities have an opportunity to shift the narrative of people and neighbourhoods across the country. Not in abstract debates, but in the everyday decisions that shape who feels safe, seen and supported.

They can start immediately by declaring their wards places of sanctuary, resisting hostile environment policies in practice, and standing visibly and unapologetically with migrant communities.

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The last two summers have seen racist riots and attacks on hotels housing migrants in Bristol, Liverpool, Rotherham, Essex and other parts of the UK. And as a nationalism-fuelled World Cup summer approaches, Green councillors must protect and provide support to migrants before they come under attack.

Reform has already pledged to open migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas. These attacks will only intensify but the Greens must stand firm and welcome migrants into their areas.

The simple solution to protecting migrant accommodation is to house people in communities where they can adjust to life in our country. Universal solutions that refuse the politics of “us versus them” like building more safe and affordable housing for all can protect migrants, end street homelessness and the private rental housing crisis in one swoop. They can unite communities, shift the dial on the rise of the far-right and propel the Greens into power.

But policy alone will not be enough. What Reform and its allies are building is not just a political project, but a cultural one. It is a story about who belongs, who gets to feel at home, and who must constantly prove their right to exist. And stories, once embedded, are far harder to dislodge than policies.

That is where the Greens face their real test. It is not enough to simply reject the language of hostility; they must actively replace it. They have to do more than just defend migrants – they must reshape the conversation around migration entirely, offering a vision of Britain that is confident, plural, and materially fair.

Because the far-right feeds on scarcity: the idea that there is not enough housing, not enough jobs, not enough care. When mainstream politics accepts that premise, it has already conceded ground. The Greens have a chance to do something different, to link the fight against racism with the fight for economic justice, and to show that solidarity is not just moral, but material.

This also means being present when it matters most. When far-right groups mobilise locally, Green representatives cannot be absent or neutral. They must work alongside trade unions, faith groups and community organisers to build visible resistance, not just statements, but structures; not just condemnation, but coordination.

The Greens have an opening. The question now is whether they will meet it, not just as an electoral force, but as a political one willing to defend the people most often spoken about, and least often listened to.

For black and brown Brits like myself, today’s election results are worrying. For those of us who live in metropolitan areas there is relief, yes. And hope. But also an understanding of the wider reality and the knowledge that political tides can turn quickly, and that rhetoric has consequences long before policy does.

That unease is not abstract. It lives in our group chats, in our family conversations, in the quiet calculations about where it is safe to be and how loudly we can belong. Every gain made by the far-right is felt as a shrinking of space for the rest of us.

Hope, on its own, will not decide what comes next. But action – visible, collective, and unflinching – just might.

Ravishaan Rahel Muthiah is a strategic communications expert, human rights campaigner and writer.

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