Why did this UK political party throw a club night?

It's not out of the ordinary for a gaggle of voices to be emitting from the arches beneath Charing Cross Station on a Sunday evening, though despite the green dress code, there isn't a Charli xcx tribute act appearing at Heaven tonight — instead, this is the first-ever club night from The Green Party. With over a thousand people of all ages and walks of life filtering into the historic LGBTQIA+ venue, the crowd is omnifarious to say the least — there are politicos in suits, mums donning sequins for a Big Night Out, Bang Face hard crew, Gen Z fashion heads, and even a guy dressed up as Robin Hood. Announced just a week prior, tonight is - on surface-level - a fundraiser to "get The Green Party elected", though its difficult to see it as simply a money-making venture. 

The Green Party PARTY kicks off in the weeks following the announcement of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves' business rates changes that are poised to have disastrous implications for nightlife venues already struggling to rebound following the pandemic. This is despite a report from the Nighttime Foundation that labelled nightlife the “most undervalued asset class in culture”, with the industry estimated to generate around £112 billion annually to the UK economy – around 5% of UK GDP. Though this is nothing new, club culture has historically been, at best, an after-thought, and at worst, a point of aggravation for politicians, who have tended to respond to nightlife with oppressive licensing policies, aggressive policing, and damaging tax hikes. Who can forget John Major's Conservative government introducing its crackdown on free parties as part of the Criminal Justice Bill in 1994, including the infamous ban on gatherings with music "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats." 

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And yet here we are, at a club night with plenty of repetitive beats and its promoter recently took over from the Tories as the UK's third-largest political party. It's not a unique concept for politicians, particularly left-wing politicians, to be celebrated on the dancefloor. During Jeremy Corbyn's tenure as leader of the Labour Party, there were countless "Acid Corbynism"-themed events across the country, while more recently, Brooklyn's Paragon nightclub held its very own inauguration party for socialist politician Zohran Mamdani, who had visited venues such as Mood Ring, Gabriela, and Elsewhere in the run up to being elected as Mayor of New York City. Yet the party's choice to hold a club night, with a co-sign from party leader Zack Polanski - a former employee of Heaven and an "MC" for the evening - feels like a pointed one, both in respect to where The Green Party’s support base exists, how it organises, and the party's potential engagement with club culture and nightlife.

"[Clubbing] is part of what makes community," Zack Polanski tells Mixmag backstage at Heaven during the event. "For a long time, Thatcher said there’s no such thing as society, then we had 14 years of Conservative austerity, that’s been continued under a Labour government; but part of that austerity was to shut down libraries, community spaces, parks, and indeed, nightclubs. We want to get out of this idea that we’re all siloed, that we don’t have community, that we can’t all be together." 

With tickets at £15 a head, performances from underground names such as Lobsta B, Mixtress, DJ Love, Bradley Skeng, and a chance to catch Polanski on the mic, the event has attracted a mammoth crowd. Inside its clear the party isn't resting on simply putting on a good night though, with punters queuing at a stall in Heaven's tunnel to sign up to become a member of The Green Party, or to join efforts to campaign for Liam Shrivastava's bid to become Mayor of Lewisham. “People are very passionate and excited by this new energy and hope that Zack is bringing. But it's also about demonstrating the alternative that we want to build, and part of that is collective joy," says Shrivastava, a former club promoter and Green Party councillor who defected from the Labour party in June 2025. "I was thinking about what kind of campaign we could run, and one of the ideas I had was that we could do club nights, we could do parties... The Labour Party can't do that. I know a Labour councillor who is a DJ and runs club nights, he can't throw a party — who would come? Who's going to enthusiastically go to a party for Keir Starmer's Labour party?".

While dance music and club culture are inherently political, there's a risk of inauthenticity, or worse, exploitation, that comes with combining political campaigning and the dancefloor — are people here for a club night? Are they here to support a political movement? Does any attempt to achieve one of these goals impact the other? Tonight has been organised by Green Spaces, established by Green Party members Felix Fedele Faillace and Niall Moore, who have experience in organising dance music-led community events through their Amsterdam-based radio station and collective Slim Radio. With just a two-week lead time, the pair have managed to secure a stellar line-up with special guests, including a set from Sophie "Piri" McBurnie (formerly of Gen Z pop duo Piri & Tommy), who they say approached them and asked to be involved last minute. "It was incredible to see so many people turn up for the event. As soon as we announced it, people started telling us how much they've been crying out for something like this in politics," says Moore. "Something that's just about fun, joy, togetherness, community. That energy is there, with people who already support the Greens, who we want to bring together. But also with people who don't even necessarily think about politics, who nevertheless are craving the positivity these parties, and the Green Party, can offer."

There's been a swell of support around The Green Party since Polanski took over as leader in September. Putting wealth inequality, fair treatment of LGBTQIA+ people and refugees, opposition to the Palestinian genocide, and an overarching message to "make hope normal again", at the heart of the party's policy has helped The Greens surge in the polls, with a recent YouGov voting intention survey placing them at around 17% (they got a 6.4% vote share in the 2024 general election). While The Green Party has seen much of its growth come as a result of Labour's decline in popularity, the party is clear that it is not only setting its sights on the government, with the party taking a Derbyshire council seat from Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK in a "historic win" last week. An ITV News poll from late last year suggesting that 32% of 18-25-year-olds intend the vote for them, versus around 25% for the Labour Party – while the Young Greens, the party's youth wing for under 30s, is the biggest of any political party in the UK with 40,000 members. With young people at the core of its supporter base, it makes sense that the party would look to club culture as an opportune moment to fundraise and keep its 2025 momentum going — albeit an unusual one for a political party. 

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Throughout the night there's a balance between old school rave bangers and modern dance-pop cuts, with the younger members of the crowd and older heads unifying in various shades of neon green to skank to The Prodigy; it feels deeply idiosyncratic when, at one point in the evening, Heaven's cavernous main room is filled with chants of "Who's ready to change" to the tune of Charli xcx's '365'. “Music is how we make friends, make connections and memories… how we meet people. This is what politics should be all about," says Faillace. “If we really want to win and beat Reform, then we need to be able to come together and form really strong communities — that’s the only way. Hopefully, this creates those bonds, and people will be able to go out and door-knock and do other work for the party.” The potential for dancefloors to be places of community and organising doesn't seem to be lost on tonight's organisers, or the crowd — who are enthusiastically waving signs, cheering on candidates, and donning political messaging. Even in the build-up to the event, The Green Space social media page is full of testimonials from the acts who are playing tonight, including Lobsta B, Bradley Skeng, and DJ Love. “It felt really inspiring to connect the causes I believe in with dance music," says Mixtress. “And see to that energy from The Green Party candidates and Zack. It feels rare now to see nightlife bring people together like that.”

While the Green Party have only four MPs and no direct control over the government's policy on nightlife, there's a clear effort to put forth its stance on club culture in general. Polanski highlights the government's recent budget, which included wide-ranging tax hikes for venues, including a dramatic increase in business rates — which Labour later U-turned on, offering a 15% discount on rates for pubs and grassroots music venues, though nightclubs in general have not been afforded similar support. "Part of it is recognising how damaging this budget was to so many clubs," he tells Mixmag. "Whether it's business rates, national insurance or minimum wage and just refusal to tax multi-millionaires and billionaires and to really redistribute money around the economy, [it all] means that it's hitting poorest working class communities the most. This government often talk about supporting pubs, and that's important, but rarely is there anything for clubs." Heaven's owner Jeremy Joseph, who has been vocal about the detrimental impact the economy is having on the venue, adds: "I’ve written to MPs, councillors, and more over business rate increases and heard nothing. The impact on LGBTQIA+ spaces is being ignored, and it seems like Zack and The Green Party are the only ones wanting to actually do something." 

Polanksi draws on his former life as a Heaven employee, including "many a night outside doing the guestlist and many a night on the dancefloor", in recognising the importance of these venues as places of community. "I could see the importance these venues have for people in the LGBTQIA+ community," he says. "If your university doesn’t feel like a safe place, or your job, or your family, coming to these places can be the one night where you just feel like yourself, get on the dancefloor, and be in your community. The idea that these places are under threat should worry us all.” 

All faces are facing the front of the main room in anticipation as he makes his way onto the stage — despite how stuck-in everyone has been on the dancefloor, its clear who the headliner is for tonight. There are loud whoops, cheers, even some tears as he lists off party slogans to the tune of Bonnie Tyler's 'I Need A Hero', before taking off his rainbow jumper to reveal a "Vote Hope" slogan T-shirt and jumping into the crowd for a dance. The next morning there are videos all over social media of the moment, some complimentary, some not. Regardless, it appears to have accomplished what it likely was always meant to, and that's to get people talking — something Polanski's Green Party seem to do better than many progressives.

"People coming together for a fundraising night for a political party is part of saying collectively, we can get out there and campaign," says Polanski. "But that doesn’t have to be sad, it doesn’t have to be a sacrifice all the time, actually you can have a great night, raise some money, and then get on with the serious work tomorrow." 

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on X