The Green Party was forecast to win seats in the next election (Image: Getty)

Zack Polanski’s party would win 21 seats, up from four in the 2024 election, a new poll shows (Image: Getty)

This included Labour’s Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, and Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who were all set to lose their seats to Mr Polanski’s party.

Reform would get 324 seats, which falls short of a majority and signalled a slight dip in support from the previous major poll in January, gaining 57 fewer seats.

The poll signals a tense time for Labour as it prepares for the upcoming local elections on May 7, when millions of people in England, Scotland, and Wales will elect over 5,000 politicians.

Green Party Poised to Unseat Three Labour Cabinet Ministers – Who Is at Risk?

A major polling projection in 2026 suggested that the Green Party could pose a much greater threat to Labour in a future general election than many Westminster observers had previously expected.

The analysis, carried out by More in Common and reported by The Times and LBC in April, projected that the Greens could increase their representation in the House of Commons from five MPs to 22 if a general election were held under the voting patterns measured by the poll. Most strikingly, the model projected that three Labour cabinet ministers could lose their seats to Green candidates.

Those three politicians were Darren Jones, Peter Kyle and Hilary Benn.

It is important to stress that these were MRP projections rather than actual election results. MRP, or multilevel regression and post-stratification, uses polling data combined with constituency-level information to estimate how votes might translate into individual constituency results. Such projections can illustrate potential electoral vulnerabilities, but they do not determine what would happen at a future election.

Nevertheless, the figures were significant because they suggested that Labour’s challenge was not coming from a single direction.

Reform UK was competing strongly for voters on Labour’s right and in many former Labour strongholds. The Greens were increasingly challenging Labour among progressive and urban voters. That left Labour facing the possibility of losing support at both ends of an increasingly fragmented electoral landscape.

Darren Jones

One of the most notable names identified by the projection was Darren Jones.

Jones had become one of the most senior figures in the Labour government, serving as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister and previously holding the position of Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

His Bristol North West constituency was projected to become vulnerable to a Green challenge.

The significance went beyond the potential loss of one parliamentary seat. Jones was closely associated with the government’s economic and political strategy, meaning that a Green victory in his constituency would carry symbolic significance.

The projection did not mean that Green voters had already overtaken Labour there. Instead, it indicated that the estimated distribution of support at the time of the survey could have produced such a result if translated into a general election.

That distinction is particularly important because constituency-level projections can change considerably when national support changes by only a few percentage points.

Peter Kyle

Business Secretary Peter Kyle was another cabinet minister identified as potentially vulnerable.

Kyle represented Hove, an urban and politically competitive constituency in Brighton and Hove.

The area has long had a complicated political history, with Labour, Conservative and Green support all playing important roles at different times. The presence of a strong Green organisation in the wider Brighton area made the constituency particularly relevant to discussions about the Greens’ expansion.

The Greens’ challenge to Labour has become increasingly significant because the party is no longer confined to a small number of traditionally Green areas.

Its breakthrough in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February 2026 was especially important. Hannah Spencer won the Manchester constituency with 40.7 per cent of the vote, while Reform finished second and Labour third. The result gave the Greens their first parliamentary seat in the north of England and demonstrated that the party could win in a constituency that had previously been considered a strong Labour area.

That result changed the political conversation.

For years, Labour could argue that voters who wanted a progressive alternative should nevertheless support Labour because it was the larger party capable of competing with Conservatives or Reform.

The Gorton and Denton result challenged that assumption.

The Greens had demonstrated that they could win a Westminster seat from Labour, rather than simply accumulate protest votes.

Hilary Benn

The third cabinet minister highlighted by the More in Common projection was Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary.

Benn has represented Leeds Central and later Leeds Central and Headingley for many years and is one of Labour’s most experienced parliamentary figures.

The possibility of a Green challenge in his constituency reflected another important development: the increasing strength of Green support in urban areas.

The Greens’ rise has not been uniform across Britain. Their strongest support remains concentrated in particular cities and constituencies, while Reform has been stronger in many other parts of the country.

That geographical distinction matters.

Labour’s electoral coalition contains voters with very different political priorities. Some are primarily concerned with immigration, taxation and public spending. Others place greater emphasis on climate change, public services, inequality and international issues.

When those voters remain within one party, Labour can combine them into a large electoral coalition.

When they move in different directions, however, Labour can lose seats even without a dramatic collapse in its overall national support.

The Greens’ breakthrough

The Greens’ victory in Gorton and Denton was arguably the most important evidence behind the idea that Labour’s left flank was becoming electorally dangerous.

The Guardian described the result as particularly significant because it gave progressive voters an example of defeating Reform without returning to Labour. The paper reported that this challenged one of Labour’s traditional arguments: that voters unhappy with the government should nevertheless support Labour to prevent Reform from gaining ground.

The result also triggered internal Labour debate.

Some Labour figures argued that the party needed to reconnect with voters who had moved towards the Greens. Others were concerned that moving too far towards the Greens could make Labour less attractive to centrist and swing voters.

That strategic disagreement remains important.

A political party cannot necessarily recover voters from one direction without risking losses elsewhere.

Why Labour faces pressure from both sides

Labour’s problem is therefore more complicated than simply losing votes to Reform.

Reform has attracted support from voters who previously backed Labour, particularly in parts of northern England and the Midlands. Meanwhile, the Greens have made gains among voters who consider Labour insufficiently progressive.

The result is a political squeeze.

Labour needs to retain economically and socially diverse groups of voters while competing against parties with clearer identities on particular issues.

The February by-election showed the Greens could benefit from dissatisfaction with Labour. The May 2026 local elections then demonstrated the broader fragmentation of Labour’s electoral base.

Reform made major gains across England, while the Greens also increased their representation.

This created a political environment in which Labour could not assume that losing voters to one opposition party would automatically benefit another.

The three ministers are not the whole story

The More in Common projection was even more dramatic when applied to Labour’s wider front bench.

According to the analysis reported by The Times, 16 Labour cabinet or frontbench figures were projected to be vulnerable. Twelve were projected to lose to Reform, three to the Greens and one to an independent candidate. Labour itself was projected to fall to just 101 seats, compared with the 411 seats it won at the 2024 general election. Reform was projected to become the largest party with 324 seats.

Again, these figures should not be confused with an election forecast that establishes what will happen.

They represented a snapshot of what the electoral map might look like under the assumptions of the particular poll.

Subsequent political developments can change those calculations dramatically.

Indeed, by September, polling was already showing a changing national picture.

A YouGov poll conducted on September 20 and 21 put Labour on 23 per cent, with Reform and the Conservatives both on 21 per cent and the Greens on 14 per cent. That illustrates how quickly national support can move and why an April constituency projection should not be treated as a current election result.

The Greens’ urban challenge

More recent research has nevertheless suggested that the underlying Green challenge has not disappeared.

A September analysis by the Labour-linked ThinkLabour thinktank found that the Greens were only four points behind Labour in urban constituencies. The research estimated that, if its findings were replicated at a general election, the Greens could potentially win as many as 40 seats.

The study found that Green support had risen substantially in major cities since the 2024 general election, while Labour’s share had fallen.

It also highlighted Holborn and St Pancras as a constituency where the Greens could mount a significant challenge.

This is particularly notable because the constituency had been represented by Starmer himself before his resignation from Parliament.

The findings suggest that the Green challenge is not simply a temporary protest phenomenon.

However, the exact scale of any future Green breakthrough remains uncertain.

What does this mean for Labour?

The immediate lesson for Labour is that its traditional electoral coalition cannot be taken for granted.

The party faces competition from Reform among voters who want a tougher approach to immigration and a different economic direction. At the same time, it faces pressure from the Greens among voters seeking stronger environmental policies, greater public spending and a more progressive political approach.

These competing pressures make Labour’s strategic choices difficult.

If Labour moves towards the Greens on environmental and social policy, it could potentially recover some progressive voters while creating problems elsewhere.

If it moves towards Reform voters on immigration and other issues, it could alienate voters who are already considering the Greens.

And if it tries to occupy the centre, it risks being challenged from both sides.

The three cabinet ministers identified by the More in Common projection therefore represent something larger than three individual constituency contests.

Darren Jones, Peter Kyle and Hilary Benn became examples of how senior Labour politicians could potentially be exposed to Green challenges in areas where Labour had previously expected to be competitive.

But electoral politics does not stop with polling.

Candidates campaign. Parties change their policies. Local issues become important. National events alter public opinion. Tactical voting can reshape constituency contests. And voters can change their minds between a poll and polling day.

The Gorton and Denton by-election demonstrated that a Green victory is possible in a former Labour stronghold. The subsequent polling demonstrated that the party’s national position remains fluid.

For Labour, the central issue is therefore not simply whether three cabinet ministers could lose their seats.

It is whether the party can rebuild a broad enough coalition to prevent its support from fragmenting between Reform, the Greens, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and other alternatives.

The April projection provided a warning about what could happen under one particular set of electoral circumstances.

The later evidence suggests that the political landscape remains unsettled.

The Green Party’s rise has transformed the competition on Labour’s left, just as Reform’s growth has transformed competition on its right. For Labour, that means future elections could be fought not merely between two major parties, but across several competing political blocs.

Whether Darren Jones, Peter Kyle and Hilary Benn would actually lose their seats would ultimately be decided by voters at an election, not by an MRP projection.

What the polling does demonstrate is that Labour’s vulnerability is no longer confined to one part of the political spectrum. The Greens have established themselves as a serious challenger in some urban constituencies, and their breakthrough in Gorton and Denton showed that the party can convert increased support into parliamentary representation.

For Labour, the political challenge is therefore clear even if the eventual electoral outcome remains uncertain: rebuilding support will require winning back voters who have moved in different directions, in a political environment where those voters now have more viable alternatives than they did before.