How the Greens Do Like to Greenwash – Even a Lamborghini

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

The image of a Green Party councillor elected last week driving a bright orange Lamborghini Huracan Spyder certainly puts the “mental” into environmental concern.

The sainted Caroline Lucas, the Green’s first ever MP, must have choked on her kale juice at the sight of Mohammed Baghdadi Khan swanning around in the 15 miles per gallon look-at-me supercar.

Above the revving of the 5.2 litre engine, is that a scream of shock we can hear from Carla Denyer MP, formerly the Green Party’s co-leader?  Elected to Bristol Central in 2024 she  told Channel4 News, “We are in a climate emergency … We must tackle the climate crisis.”

If we are and we must, what will she make of Councillor Khan’s choice of wheels – 0-60mph in 3.1 seconds – mocking the Greens’ claim to care about the planet?

While promoting her book last year, another former Party leader, Baroness (Natalie) Bennett of Manor Castle attacked “high climate consumption” and called for a return to “one planet living”.

Earlier this week the Party waved away questions about Biggy Khan’s motor, saying it was hired for a wedding. If high climate consumption and third planet living is fine for weddings, why not for all celebrations. (Happy Friday!) Is hiring private jets also OK?

The Green Party’s local election success is impressive: two Mayoralties, control of five councils – including Lewisham, Norwich and Hastings – and 587 seats. The wins were mostly at Labour’s expense, but Conservatives should not be celebrating.

Usually practised by cynical big corporates, the United Nations defines greenwashing as “misleading the public to believe a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is.” Secretary General Guterres declared the UN would have “zero tolerance” for it.

The Zack Polanski-led, Lamborghini-driving Green Party is about as eco-friendly as Agent Orange, used by US military used to defoliate Vietnam’s forests and mangroves during the war. It seems a long way from its origins in the Ecology Party founded in 1973, and even from the party Lucas led.

The graffiti was on the wall during Hannah Spencer’s by-election campaign in Gorton and Denton back in February. All rescue greyhounds, pastel dungarees and sticking it to the billionaire class, she personifies #BeingKind idealism.

Spencer’s victory speech was hardly a Greta Thunberg-style call to arms on behalf of the planet. Her nod to the nasties of litter, fly-tipping and dirty air could have come from any parish councillor. She correctly pointed out people want “nice things” like holidays –  presumably by air and perhaps long-haul, if  Travel Trend stats are any guide.

Often reflecting rampant consumerism, nice things – like Lamborghinis?  – are usually at odds with sustainability. Cllr Khan’s Agent Orange Lambo typifies the UN’s definition of greenwashing – and Polanski’s Green Party 2.0.

The joke, now far less funny, is that the Greens were always watermelons – eco-kindliness on the outside, Corbynite hard-left socialism within. A litmus test of market meddling, rent controls are of course on their agenda. The Green Party 2.0 looks as if it is also encouraging a far more troubling and socially divisive force within its ranks than lefty radicalism: sectarianism.

“Forecasting the Muslim Sectarian Wave” by the Henry Jackson Society analyses how causes such as Kashmir were deployed to motivate the Muslim vote in the 2024 council elections.  After winning a Leeds’ council seat, Mothin Ali, now the Greens’ Deputy Leader, declared: “We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu Akbar.”

The HJS observes, “Public understanding of Muslim sectarian electoral mobilisation in England remains underdeveloped.”

Separately, it suggests that 574 sectarian-style candidates were elected last week.

Pounding the pavements in the London local council elections back in 2022, Conservative campaigners would have to remind voters “It’s bins, not Boris.” Similarly in 2026, voters could have reminded Green Party candidates, “It’s garbage, not Gaza.”

After the 2024 General Election, pollsters including YouGov, identified how almost twice the number younger women were voting Green than men in the same 18-24 age bracket: 23 per cent to 12 per cent. Just 6 per cent voted Conservative. Tori Peck explored women’s Green enthusiasm here on Thursday.

With questions about its ethics – reflected by Polanski’s Rayner-like muddle over property tax and MSP Q Manivannan flouting immigration law – the Green Party 2.0 has abandoned the green space, becoming a uni-cause mush of Palestine/trans/leftism covered in the thinnest layer of greenwash.

Believing Net Zero was enough to prove their eco-caring credentials, recent Conservative governments forgot that the environment matters to voters. There’s no point in thinking globally, but failing to act locally on seas, rivers and chalk streams, as well as “litter, fly-tipping and dirty air.”

As the Greens go red, Conservatives can remain sceptical about ruinously expensive and countryside-destroying renewables, while becoming more turquoise.