‘Polanksi’s pitch is simple: The Green Party needs a stronger kind of leadership that isn’t content to merely sit on the sidelines.’
Since announcing his leadership bid earlier this month, Zack Polanksi seems to have succeeded in his mission to shake things up. In an online video (which has now been viewed 1.4 million times), the current deputy leader of the Green Party launched his campaign declaring that it’s time for ‘bold action’ – and with it a promise to ‘cut through’ with clear positions and a louder voice in mainstream politics.
Polanksi’s pitch is simple: The Green Party needs a stronger kind of leadership that isn’t content to merely sit on the sidelines. Arguably, this framing is a tacit acknowledgement of the party’s historic weaknesses. Despite their electoral gains – they won a record four seats in the last general election – the Green Party is still percieved as a marginal entity, perhaps too distracted by internal politics to really capture the public’s imagination. Polanksi is undoubtedly aware of this, and seems frustrated that the Greens are shying away from the limelight during a time of deepening political instability.
A simple search of Google trends shows this phenomena unfolding in real time. Compared to Reform UK, the Green Party consistently trails in the shadow of the far-right populist party, despite only having one less seat in parliament. Perhaps it is these kind of metrics that led Polanski to describe his vision as an ‘eco-populist’ one, which apportions blame and responsibility for our broken social contract at the hands of corporations and big-business rather than immigrants and the unemployed. We should love our country’ he told the Guardian ‘Loving your community is loving your country.’ By appealing to ordinary people and reclaiming the language of patriotism from the right, Polanksi hopes to inspire a mass movement that is unashamedly pro-environment and anti-oligarchy.
Take Net Zero, for instance. Speaking to the New Statesman, Polanksi is critical of Labour’s approach to it’s implementation, saying ‘I’m angry that the government are expecting some of the poorest in this country to step up to net zero, expecting people to install heat pumps or … get a train rather than a plane, even though a plane is a much cheaper option.’ So far, so Farage. But Polanksi then goes on to argue that it is wealthy corporations and the business elite that should shoulder the financial cost of Net Zero through a wealth tax; the Polanski bait and switch.
Less than two week’s earlier, it was former Labour frontman Tony Blair who seemed intent in undermining the government’s Net Zero policy, writing in a foreword to a report entitled ‘The Climate Paradox’ that: ‘Voters feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal … any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail’. Blair’s intervention was roundly rebuffed by Labour HQ, but the damage was done.
In critiquing the delivery of Net Zero, Polanksi seems comfortable putting his neck out on the line and getting stuck into the culture wars. It also shows that he is not interested in perpetuating the Green party stereotype. For the past two decades, Green party politicians have typically been polite, highly educated and largely supportive of any policy that ostensibly seems ‘good’ for our environment. By contrast, Polanksi started out in acting, before becoming a hypnotist and getting involved in the environmental movement in his thirties. A practicing Jew, he is also vocal in his opposition to the war in Gaza – tweeting: ‘We – in our Jewish communities – don’t speak out against Netenyahu’s massacre in Gaza despite being Jewish, we speak out *because* we’re Jewish.’
In breaking with this mould, and actually pushing Labour to re-evaluate their delivery of Net Zero, Polanksi seems to be shedding some of the cautiousness that has previously held the Green’s back. It’s a risky strategy amongst an electorate not renowned for their ability to absorb nuance, but perhaps the kind of audaciousness that might resonate with an electorate hungry for visionary leadership.
By contrast, incumbant co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who is seeking re-election on a joint ticket with Ellie Chowns MP, seems to take the opposite approach to Polanski, saying:
“There are parts of the political spectrum that are determined to turn this [Net Zero] into a political football but I think reasonable people within all parties need to resist.” Ramsay’s cautiousness and reluctance to truly engage with the populist tactics of Reform may well prove to be his undoing.
Instinctively it would appear that a more combative Green Party would make life harder for Labour. Afterall, the Greens came second to Labour in 39 seats in the general election. If they were able to convert another three or four of those at the next general then they would prove that they are more than a marginal political presence. Polanski wants to go further than that though, arguing that there’s a gaping hole in the left of British politics that the Green’s should be primed to exploit at the scale of Reform. In the interim, it’s also not inconceivable that independent MPs, such as Zarah Sultana and Apsana Begum, who have both had the Labour whip withdrawn, may choose to join the Greens.
With Polanksi at the helm, Labour, and particularly those on the downtrodden left of the party, could finally encounter some robust opposition to Starmer’s ultra-pragmatic policy agenda. In some respects, this would probably be (secretly) welcomed by the likes of Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband, who both seem ill-at-ease with the Starmer’s recent overtures towards Reform. A more strident and disciplined Green party with a confident and capable leader should help redress the lop-sidedness of our current political moment, which disproportionately platforms far-right ideas at the expense of everyone, but especially our society’s most vulnerable and marginalised groups.
Early momentum certainly seems to be on Polanski’s side, with Ramsay’s co-leader Carla Denyer recently announcing that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election. If Polanksi is able to realize his vision, then the Greens will finally bring a genuine sense of dynamism into the left of British politics, which has been left withering on a vine since the demise of Corbynism.
Grace Pengelly is a writer and editor. Read more of her writing on politics and culture at The Murmuration.
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