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The Green Party of England and Wales’ new leader plans to stand to be a Member of Parliament at the next General Election, he has told Byline Times.
Zack Polanski, elected to the leadership with a landslide in September, is currently a London-wide Assembly Member on the devolved London Assembly, and is based in the borough of Hackney. He has now told this outlet he will run in a London constituency for Parliament in 2029.
In an interview with this paper at the party’s conference in Bournemouth over the weekend, he said: “We’ve had literally hundreds and hundreds of applications from people who want to be future MPs…A large bulk of them are from ethnic minority people [around 30%], and also people from working class communities. So I’m excited about what this cohort, this Pathway to Parliament, looks like.”
He added that the party is accepting would-be candidates into a residential course to run for Parliament. “I’m so excited about looking at 300 people, knowing that potentially 30 – maybe more – of our next MPs are there, and we’re going to grow from there.” A Green party staffer says the number of applicants for the training scheme is now around 500.
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The Greens currently have four MPs, just shy of Reform UK’s five, and are polling around 10% in support (compared to Reform’s roughly 30% backing and 20% for Labour).
The growing ambitions for the left-wing party “do all require investment”, he noted. “It all requires fundraising, but the new membership and the new money that’s bringing will certainly help.” Polanski will have a role selecting the candidates alongside the party’s executive.
He says they must “align” with the values of the party: “Not just not being racist or transphobic or homophobic, but being actively anti-racist, actively anti-homophobic, actively anti-transphobic. And the same with misogyny and any forms of hate crime.
“I want to see people who get that environmental and social justice are entirely interlinked, and I want to see people who can represent our policies in a way that’s enthusiastic and inspires their communities,” he told Byline Times, from a balcony overlooking the packed conference hall.
The new Green leader also said he was interested in “unusual” candidates to be an MP. “if every single MP looks like the MPs from the other parties that we have and speaks like them, then that’s not putting our country in the best place right now.”
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Asked if he planned to be a candidate, he replied: “Absolutely.”
He said he would stand “in London”. Pressed on whether it would be in Hackney – where Greens polled strongest in 2024, he said: “I haven’t decided. I think the big thing is I was elected under proportional representation, so I already represent every single Londoner.” He said there was “coherency” to running anywhere in London.
Speaking in the third person, Polanski added: “I’m also really keen that this is not about Zack getting elected in London. Zack is in a group of MPs who are going to be the first MPs elected in London.”
The Green Parties came in second place in 40 constituencies in the 2024 General Election – 18 of which were in London. “In all but one of these seats it was second to Labour. The Greens came second in three seats in 2019, none in 2017 and five in 2015,” according to a House of Commons briefing.
The former actor told this outlet the party was also looking to expand donations from “small and medium businesses” to fund its ambitions to secure dozens of MPs at the next General Election in 2029.
“As long as they align with our values, absolutely [they should donate]: If small and medium businesses are starting to say they want to donate, it’s largely because they can see that your political programme is benefiting them.
“And I think the question then is, how are you benefiting them? If you’re benefiting them because you’re making a cleaner environment where people are happier and healthier, then I think that absolutely aligns.”
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Fight with Farage
The London AM contrasted the Green approach to donations with that of Reform UK: “Since the last general election, 95% of their donations came from fossil fuel companies. That’s £2.1 million. And we know from polling that what people absolutely really don’t like about Reform is the fact that they’re in hock with those vested interests.”
Polanski may have been referring to research showing that Reform UK “has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019 [to June 2024], amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations.”
The left-wing “eco-populist” also returned to his attack on Keir Starmer for his controversial ‘Island of Strangers’ speech this May, which saw the Prime Minister speak darkly about high immigration levels. The PM later said he regretted the phrasing, for its echoes of far-right Conservative Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
Polanski said: “Keir Starmer says he didn’t know what he was saying when he said “Island of Strangers”…I don’t believe that.
“Do I think Keir Starmer is a racist? Well, I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he talked about an island of strangers. He says he didn’t. If he did know what he was doing, I think that was racist rhetoric. If he didn’t know what he was doing, I think he needs to be more careful about his rhetoric in future to make sure he’s not aligning with racists.”
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Clear Red Lines
The Green leader also argued Keir Starmer’s branding of Reform UK’s policies – such as abolishing the Indefinite Leave to Remain status held by millions of people in the UK, many of whom have lived and worked here for decades.
Polanski claimed the Labour PM has “been willing to flirt with racist rhetoric in order to appease Reform in a way that is dangerous and deeply divisive for this country.”
Just after Labour delegates returned home from Labour conference last month, the Labour Government announced it was making the Indefinite Leave to Remain status far harder to acquire.
“It’s so deeply cynical. It’s one of the things in politics that makes me angry. Those people are often terrified already that this is even in public conversation. When we saw 150,000 people marching on the streets, that was the moment that Keir Starmer should have got his lectern, got outside Number 10, and talked to the country about community cohesion,” the party leader said.
Within minutes of Polanski finishing his keynote conference speech on Friday, the Labour Party put out a press release branding him “divisive” like Nigel Farage.
“I don’t know what speech they were listening to, but I spent the majority of that speech talking about community solidarity, bringing people together. I literally finished a speech about a cup of tea and kindness between strangers. The only division in that speech was about oil and gas companies, about multimillionaires and billionaires who need to pay more tax.”
He argues his populist approach is “completely different” to the Reform UK leader: “Farage fuels anger in that he wants people to stay in anger, and he’s amplifying it. What I’m doing…is connecting with the anger and then immediately offering hopeful solutions, offering tangible change, and saying it doesn’t have to be this way.”
The Green Party of England and Wales closed its “largest ever” conference in Bournemouth on Sunday (5th October). A party spokesperson said the “landmark weekend…cemented the Greens’ position as the fastest growing political force in Britain.”
The party announced over the weekend that membership has now “surged” past 84,000, meaning the Green Party of England & Wales is now bigger than the Liberal Democrats.
A party staffer said internal figures show that more than one in four new members are under 30.
Polling released over the weekend from YouGov suggested Greens are “on track to supplant Labour as favourite party in London” and the most popular with young voters.
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Where Polanski might stand for MP
The Green Party’s 10 best results in London in the 2024 General Election were:
- Hackney South and Shoreditch – 23.9% (2nd place) – 9,987 votes
- Hackney North and Stoke Newington – 22.6% (2nd place) – 9,275 votes
- Lewisham North – 21.9% (2nd place) – 9,685 votes
- Walthamstow – 20.1% (2nd place) – 9,176 votes
- Peckham – 19.6% (2nd place) – 7,585 votes
- Lewisham West and East Dulwich – 19.4% (2nd place) – 9,009 votes
- Tottenham – 19.0% (2nd place) – 7,632 votes
- Dulwich and West Norwood – 18.9% (2nd place) – 8,567 votes
- Islington South and Finsbury – 17.5% (2nd place) – 7,491 votes
- Stratford and Bow – 17.3% (2nd place) – 7,511 votes
All ten of these constituencies saw the Greens finish in second place to Labour.
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