Since winning the Green party leadership – and as our party has risen in the polls, with our membership surging – I’ve been listening closely to what people say when they stop me in the street. The vast majority have been supportive, while those who haven’t agreed with my politics have still been broadly respectful.
…
That reception in the street differs dramatically from how my leadership has been met by parts of the media. In a democracy, I should expect a challenge. Indeed, I’m not one to shy away from debate. But the reaction has gone far beyond good-faith questioning of my policy positions, or analysis of what my party is offering.
Instead, I’ve been the target of relentless nastiness – ranging from crass insults about my appearance in mainstream news outlets to the attempted ridicule of my politics by influential commentators. Of course, in being hounded by the media I am by no means unique. These attacks are often made on people with less power and privilege than me. How must it feel for members of the public who find themselves in the public eye and targeted by the tabloid media?
…
What’s now clear to me, both from the sheer number of attacks and their increasingly wild nature, is that they are a product of a political and media establishment rattled by a party that’s growing fast and willing to say the unsayable: that our country has been hijacked by those interested only in serving the super-wealthy.
…
When I was elected, I said I wanted the Green party to replace Labour as the progressive choice for people. I mean it. One poll in late October put us ahead of Labour for the first time and suggested the Greens could take the seat of Holborn and St Pancras from Keir Starmer. That’s what smashing the stale, old two-party politics and replacing Labour looks like.
The bad news for those who attack me is that we simply won’t back down. They can sound off about my teeth all they want. But the more I see them panic about the replacement of the politics of hate with a politics of hope, the more we know our movement is on the right track.