Green Watch

Today’s post looks at the tax and economic policies of the resurgent Green Party.

Green Watch

Now here’s a post I didn’t expect to be writing in 2026 – a look at the Green Party’s tax and economic policies, in case they form some part of a future government.

• The reason I’ve decided to look into their plans is that they recently won a by-election in Manchester, and polls are predicting that they might win a lot of seats in the council elections being held in May.

Gorton and Denton

The by-election was a strange one – we had “anyone but Reform” tactical voting, plus a strange alliance between the Greens and the muslim sectarian vote, with a lot of campaigning focusing on Gaza.

• Videos in Urdu showed Starmer with Netanyahu and Modi.

It’s an unlikely union – socially conservative muslims with supporters of trans rights and opponents of religious schools (in a party led by a breast whisperer).

Hannah Spencer got 41% of the vote – before this, the best performance by the Greens had been 10%.

• It’s obviously bad news for Starmer, but he should survive until the Council elections.

In the Spectator, Douglas Murray noted that Hannah is an anti-intellectual: 

In Westminster, I think 90 per cent of MPs have at least one degree, and it’s time that we changed that. I want to see tradespeople on the benches in parliament, cleaners, taxi drivers, people who work in takeaways.

As someone with four degrees, I can only say: oh, dear. David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have a lot to answer for.

• Or maybe it’s smartphones and social media – in any case, this country is heading back to the Dark Ages.

The 26% swing to the Greens in G&D would see them win more than 100 seats in a General Election.

• I wouldn’t expect that many at this point, but we’ll take a look at this again after the Council elections. At the moment, I am hoping that 50 seats for the Greens will just make it harder for Labour to be re-elected.

2024 Manifesto

We’ll start with the policies from the Green Party manifesto in the 2024 General Election, as I can’t find any evidence of changes since then. 

The headlines were:

1. An annual wealth tax
   • 1% on assets over £10M, 2% on assets over £1 bn
2. Increases in capital gains taxes
   • So that capital gains are charged at the same rate as equivalent income
3. Higher NICs 
   • The rate on higher rate earnings (above £50.3K) would go from 2% now to 8%
   • NICs would also be applied to investment income
4. Aligning rates of tax on income and investment gains
5. Capping pension tax relief at the basic rate
6. Revaluation of properties for Council Tax and a survey of all land to pave the way for a Land Value Tax
   • The idea behind LVT is that it encourages developing vacant or underutilised sites, as owners are taxed on potential value (best use) rather than building improvements.
7. Building 150K new social homes per year, ending “Right to Buy”, banning no-fault evictions and rent caps in “overheated” markets.
8. Road Tax proportional to vehicle weight
9. A carbon tax
   • starting at £120 per tonne and rising to £500 per tonne over a decade
10. A frequent-flyer levy
11. Net Zero target brought forward from 2050 to 2040
    • A target of 70% electricity from wind by 2030 (!)
    • Phasing out of nuclear energy and a ban on new fossil fuel licences
12. Nationalising the railways, water companies and Big 5 energy retailers
13. Abolishing university tuition fees
14. Abolishing VAT on “cultural activities” such as hospitality and the arts, but raising VAT on financial services and private education
15. A four-day working week
16. Increasing the minimum wage to £15 and Universal Credit by £40 a week (£2K pa)
17. Workers’ rights from day one of employment
18. Universal Basic Income (in the long-term)
19. Proportional representation and votes for 16-year-olds.
20. Getting rid of the Trident nuclear deterrent.
21. Legalisation of all drugs (even heroin).

The Greens were targeting an extra £172 bn a year in tax-raising by the end of the parliament.

• In the “banana for scale” tradition, Rachel Reeves has so far raised £66 bn of taxes in her first two budgets. She says that’s everything, but who knows.
• So the Greens are aiming for 2.6 times what Labour want.

Critique

In a nutshell, this is a very anti-growth set of policies.

• It’s anti- rich people, anti-investor and anti- high earners.
• It would make it harder to save for retirement and less desirable to own property.
• It would make it easier to do nothing or next to nothing, and harder to find work (by making workers more expensive and more difficult to fire).
• It would make it harder to find a place to live.
• It would help industries that are delivered locally and hinder sectors that are international (and within which the UK is a leading player).
• It would drive investment out of the country, in part by guaranteeing higher energy prices.

For investors, there are no obvious mitigations other than to make full use of your ISAs and SIPPs.

• The Land Value Tax is a big unknown – it’s hard to argue against on moral grounds, but the devil is in the details of implementation.

I don’t want to be too negative, so let me add that as the owner of a very small electric car, I quite like the idea of Road Tax being proportional to vehicle weight.

That’s it for today – let’s hope we never have to face the reality of these foolish proposals.

• Until next time.

Mike Rawson

Mike is the owner of 7 Circles, and a private investor living in London. He has been managing his own money for 40 years, with some success.