The Greens in Sheffield are inadvertently aiding Reform UK - Yorkshire Post Letters

As the Green Party thankfully or regrettably according to your opinion begin to make inroads into Sheffield Council they need in my opinion to show a lot more competence and a much better attitude towards listening to communities and the people they represent and in being spokespeople for the environment, which is surely the whole reason their party is in existence in the first place.

Firstly they have completely and rather idiotically underestimated the very credible threat that Reform poses to community cohesion and to their own hopes of running councils in South Yorkshire.

Reform won Barnsley Council in a landslide at the last local elections, a council which Labour had held for its entire 50 year existence before this year. They have run Doncaster Council with a similarly large majority for a few years now.

One of the Reform councillors in Sheffield has resigned following the revelation of his having a Nazi symbol for a tattoo. The Reform threat is not something which will be successfully opposed with mealy mouthed, vague promises of a better tomorrow should the Greens take control of the House Of Commons, or through planting a few trees.

It is only by working together in a broad alliance as Hope Not Hate used to that the far-right can be successfully opposed and defeated. In 2010 the British National Party (BNP) was in control of Barking Council and was in serious contention of electing its first ever MP.

A coordinated campaign by Hope Not Hate and other groups and high profile individuals saw to it that the BNP lost all its councillors and failed to get an MP elected. Similar work is needed in Sheffield. Labour are doing a good job of calling out Reform for what they are, and by calling for resignations from the council if and when Reform councillors are exposed as Nazi sympathisers.

The Greens need to be doing the same, instead of their incredibly and bafflingly choosing to provide Reform with free advertising in the last election on their social media by portraying the election as a choice between the Greens and Reform when the truth was that Labour and the LibDems were and still are the two largest parties on the council.

Lobbying for cleaner air, a stricter vape ban in public places, upgraded public transport such as reopening the Sheffield - Stocksbridge rail line, reinstating a range of limited stop bus services to better link areas in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and beyond (much like the former Fastline services South Yorkshire Transport used to do) and improving life chances with improved educational pathways and reinstating lost library services in the poorest communities have all been ignored by the Greens in recent elections in favour of the very negative campaigning seen with the ‘it's Reform vs Green’ posts and election publicity in the last election and in general.

This fuels voter apathy which fuels support for Reform. We ignore Reform and the far-right at our peril. If the Greens really are the progressive change they proclaim to be they need to start backing up words with solid policy and opposition to Reform and the far-right.