Greens boast of getting 15,000 new members in week since by-election win as panicking Labour MPs attempt to drive Starmer additional to the Left

The Green Party says it has seen 15,000 new members flock to its ranks since it won a former safe Labour seat in a shock by-election. 

Zack Polanski’s leftwing outfit says it has been signing people up at the rate of 2,000 a day since it won in Gorton and Denton, sparking a crisis for Keir Starmer.

Backbenchers have been demanding he lurch to the left and be ‘more Labour’ to win back voters who are quitting over issues like a hard line on immigration and efforts to cut the benefits bill. 

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is facing a growing backlash from her fellow Labour MPs over her latest migrant crackdown, with one even likening it to Donald Trump‘s brutally violent ICE.

More than 100 Labour MPs have signed a letter claiming the plans undermine the Government’s commitment to social cohesion, but she hit back last night saying ‘more Labour doesn’t mean more Green.’

Hannah Spencer, who won the Gorton and Denton seat with a majority of more than 4,000, taunted Labour, saying it ‘clearly hasn’t learnt the lessons’ from a defeat which saw it finish third behind Reform. 

‘What we heard on the doorstep is that people don’t like Labour aping Reform’s grubby practice of blaming migrants for everything,’ she said.

It comes days after a shock poll put the Greens in second place behind Reform, with Labour dropping to third. 

Zack Polanski’s leftwing outfit says it has been signing people up at the rate of 2,000 a day since Hannah Spencer (centre, in green) won in Gorton and Denton

Labour MPs have been hitting the panic button after the Greens romped to victory in what has traditionally been an ultra-safe seat.

Fears have been heightened by the ‘eco-populist’ insurgents’ success in capitalising on Muslim voters’ anger over Gaza.

A YouGov poll released this week showed the Greens on 21 per cent, up four points over the past week.

That was only just behind Reform, who pushed Labour into third in Gorton, on 23 per cent support.

Meanwhile, Labour was down two points on 16 per cent, tied with the Tories.  

Ms Mahmood last night admitted it  was a ‘difficult time’ for the Labour Party, and that the party’s identity is being ‘bitterly’ contested on issues like migration.

The Home Secretary said the party needed to be ‘more Labour’ in a speech at the IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research), telling the event: ‘It is a pleasure to be here and to be hosted by the IPPR, Britain’s leading progressive think tank, a fitting host to set out not just what this Government is doing on asylum and migration, but why.

‘There is no denying that we meet at a difficult time for my party. It is a time when who we are and what we stand for is contested, sometimes bitterly, and nowhere is that contest more keenly felt than in the politics of migration.

‘I have, of late, been offered wise counsel on this topic from certain quarters. I have been told that we must, quite simply, be more Labour. Well, you know what? I happen to agree we should be more Labour.

‘Of course, we should be more Labour. The real question is, what does more Labour mean, because, in my view, more Labour doesn’t mean more Green, just like more Labour doesn’t mean more Reform.

‘More Labour means reconnecting with who we are, who we represent, and what we believe. That begins by understanding that the Labour Party has always been a broad church.’