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Green Party leader Zack Polanski has called for a “reset” of relations with the Labour Party under its more “left” wing leader Andy Burnham, saying that the hostility between the parties had become “dangerous” when it was led by Keir Starmer.
His comments came in an in-depth interview with Byline Times’ Editor in Chief Hardeep Matharu at the 2026 Womad festival which took place in Wiltshire this weekend.
Polanski, who leads the Green Party in England and Wales, claimed credit for the departure of Starmer, calling it “my biggest achievement” in the job.
Polanski told the packed audience from the ‘World of Words’ stage hosted by Byline Times: “I think my biggest achievement in [my] first year may turn out to be playing a role in seeing Keir Starmer replaced as Labour leader by someone to his left — and I choose those words carefully, because I do think Andy Burnham is to Starmer’s left.”
He added: “If anyone from Labour is listening, this is what I want them to hear most — the toxicity between me, the Green Party and Labour over the past year has been deeply unhelpful for British politics. I’d go further: it’s been dangerous.”
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He said the killing of politicians – including most recently Reform UK’s Ann Widdecombe – is “connected to the same culture”.
“I hope there can be a reset — I’m not going to stop criticising the Labour Government, and I don’t expect them to stop criticising us, but it doesn’t need to be personal,” Polanski said. “It should be about policy, about improving people’s lives, about facts and evidence — not personal attacks on character.”
He raised the example of Labour accusing the Green Party of wanting to turn playgrounds into “crack dens”. Labour has also repeatedly claimed that Polanski uses “his platform to sow division and grievance” and has focused on past revelations about him.
Labour accused him of “chickening out” of the Gorton and Denton by-election, which the Greens then went on to win, and issued press releases claiming that he has a “blueprint for a drug-ridden Britain [that] would turn children’s playgrounds into crack dens”.
The leader – who describes his political philosophy as “eco-populism” – drew a contrast between Keir Starmer crossing the House of Commons chamber to shake Reform Leader Nigel Farage’s hand on his election as an MP with Labour’s “full-on onslaught” tweet within an hour of his own election as Green Party Leader – pointing to a Sun sting in which Polanksi once offered hypnosis sessions to a journalist and suggested that he could enlarge her breasts (Polanski has repeatedly apologised and claims that he was misrepresented).
In the interview, the Green Party Leader issued a demand for proportional representation before the next election, claiming that Andy Burnham already “has the mandate to implement PR”.
Burnham, a supporter of electoral reform, has said that he wants it to be in the party’s next manifesto. Labour’s 2024 manifesto did not mention proportional representation, but instead stated that “Labour is committed to strengthening our democracy and upholding the integrity of elections”.
“It is time for PR, and we need PR at the next general election,” Polanski told Matharu.
Despite signalling that he would be open to working with Burnham’s Government on such issues, Polanski raised concerns about Shabana Mahmood remaining as Burnham’s Home Secretary, who he said has “pursued some of the most regressive migration policies imaginable: cruel deportation videos, extending indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years for asylum seekers, people often fleeing war”.
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Media Attacks and Controversies
Zack Polanski also hit back at media attacks on him and his personal life.
Recent stories have leapt on his prior claims to have been a Red Cross “spokesperson”.
He said: “I used to volunteer my time hosting Red Cross fundraisers — they’d give me a script to read to an audience about their work on the climate crisis and humanitarian emergencies. I called myself a ‘spokesperson’ rather than an MC, and there was a week of headlines about it. Most people, hearing that story, just laugh.”
He dismissed the story and others like it as “nothing burgers”.
On the ongoing row over potentially unpaid council tax while living on a house boat, Polanski says he still cannot pay back any council tax owed on a second property months on from The Times revelations, because “the council and the [Valuation Office]… still don’t know who I should pay it to”.
“If you go to the strict letter of the law, technically I haven’t paid — I might still end up owing it — but any reasonable person can see that when you’re trying this hard to pay and they won’t take your money, it isn’t the scandal the BBC and others tried to make it.”
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Polanski told Matharu: “I worked as an actor, in nightclubs, doing admin – and, briefly, as a hypnotherapist. My point is this gets disparaged by the right-wing press, who mock the fact I’ve had lots of jobs.
“Ask any creative — actor or musician — living in London in the 2010s, and they were doing various jobs to pay the rent. I sometimes had to walk to work because I couldn’t afford the bus. That’s not a hardship story — I had the safety net of the bank of Mum and Dad, which not everyone has — but I wanted to make my own way, so I was walking to work, or going to universities for the free food.
“I lived a very different life to the one I live now, and I don’t think everyone needs to have done that, but it is a bonus in politics. When I meet people where they’re at, I’ve often had a similar or parallel experience to theirs.”
Personal Life and Independent Media
Polanski and his partner are currently house-sharing, and he pointed to media mockery of house-sharing in his 40s – including a tweet earlier this year by Telegraph podcast host (and GB News presenter) Camilla Tominey, in which she commented: “Is he still at uni?”
The Green Party Leader said: “I know so many people in their forties and fifties in the same position…[The] Westminster media bubble’s assumptions about how people live are deeply destructive — which is exactly why we need independent media, like Byline Times and others.”
He also praised this pubication, saying: “Even when Byline Times has scrutinised me, and I can think of examples, I’ve welcomed it, because I know it isn’t being done because I’ve been bought off by oil and gas companies, private healthcare or gambling firms.”
And he rejected recent characterisations that he has “disappeared” by “the Telegraph, LBC, even the BBC” as “deeply dishonest”.
Green Party membership has surged under Polanski’s leadership, from approximately 65,000 members prior to the leadership race, to 230,000 as of June 2026. The Greens were polling at approximately 9% in August 2026, compared to approximately 14% today, according to Politico‘s poll tracker.
Byline Times’ ‘World of Words’ stage at the 2026 Womad festival also saw in-depth contributions from Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti; crossbench peer Victor Adebowale; authors Otto English and James Bloodworth; Professor of American Literature at the University of London, Sarah Churchwell; musician and Womad founder Peter Gabriel; and Lincoln Project founder, US Republican campaigner Rick Wilson.
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