On 2 September, Zack Polanski, a former Liberal Democrat who joined the Green Party in 2017, was elected leader of the party in a landslide, with 85% of the vote share. Polanski defeated Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, winning 20,411 votes against their 3,705 in a ballot of party members.
From May to July 2025, when Polanski launched his leadership bid, the Green Party saw its membership rise by at least 8%, described as the ‘Polanski surge’. The Green Party now has 79,000 members. The previous peak in 2015 was 67,000.
Polanski has described his politics as ‘eco-populist’, asking bluntly:
‘Why is everything so shit? Our wages are shit, our rivers are swimming in shit, and most politicians, they are full of it too.’
He cites prime minister Keir Starmer as a prime example:
‘This is a man who stands for nothing. He has no morals, no values, no principles, and he will defend Peter Mandelson up until the point he thinks he needs to for his own career. And I think that’s the only thing he cares about at this point.’
Polanski has added:
‘We’re not a threat to Starmer.
‘We’re the replacement.
‘People aren’t leaving Labour – Labour left them.
‘And they’re finding a new home with the Green Party.’
He commented to the Telegraph:
‘I’m really frustrated with this Government on the genocide in Gaza, the complete destruction of our public services, the continuation of austerity and the pushing of public money to private wealth. I’m running for leader because when I travel the country, I see constantly that people are looking for a party to champion them. The Green Party has not been as effective as I want us to be in communicating our message. If we had been doing that more effectively, we wouldn’t be seeing the rise of new parties.’
He has also commented on the surge in support for right-wing Reform Party leader Nigel Farage:
‘Far too often we have been on the sidelines and Farage has been in the centre of the conversation. We need to challenge Farage and his charlatan MPs as the climate deniers and the billionaire protectors that they are. I despise Nigel Farage’s politics, but it’s undeniable that he has been one of the most effective political operators that we’ve seen.’
Polanski has said he would be willing to work alongside Jeremy Corbyn, who congratulated Polanski in a post on X, saying:
‘Your campaign took on the rich and powerful, stood up for the dignity of all marginalised communities, and gave people hope!
‘Real change is coming. I look forward to working with you to create a fairer, kinder world.’
Gracious comments indeed, given that Polanski had supported the manufactured anti-semitism smear campaign against Corbyn. In July, the Times of Israel reported:
‘Polanski had previously criticized the rise in antisemitism in the Labour Party on Corbyn’s watch, saying in 2018 that he was “a pro-European Jew,” calling that “two reasons I couldn’t vote for Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.”’
Polanski recanted in June 2025, saying: ‘it was not helpful for me to assume that the Labour Party was rife with antisemitism when we now know that blatantly was not true’. In fact, we also knew that was not true in 2018.
Guardian columnist Owen Jones commented:
‘When the independent MP and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the former Labour MP Zarah Sultana announced the birth of a new leftwing party, the surge of interest shocked even its founders. More than 750,000 people signed up in support of an unchristened, nonexistent party. Polling suggested nearly a third of Britons would vote for an alliance with the Greens; among under-35s, support rose to 52%.’
The Your Party project has recently been derailed by a major disagreement, with Sultana going dramatically public about her feeling that she had been sidelined by Corbyn and his male allies, accusing them of sexism. Jones, however, reports that ‘a miscalculated game of chicken appears to have drawn to a close, and plans to launch a new party have resumed’. There is once again, therefore, hope of real change ahead.
‘Student’ Politics – Getting Rid of the Arguments
The response of Western governments to both Israel’s genocide in Gaza and accelerating climate collapse – supplying the bombs, planes, diplomatic protection and rising carbon emissions fuelling both crimes – has been a eureka moment for even the least discerning consumers of Guardian and BBC-style propaganda. ‘Western democracy’ is clearly not merely an illusion, but an illusion carefully curated to ensure that voters – who are, by and large, neither genocidal nor biocidal – do not realise that beneath the statesman-like pomp and ceremony, ‘democracy’ is a charade protecting the ruthless greed, racism and violence of a tiny elite.
From the extraordinary lengths governments and corporations go to bolster the illusion of democracy, we know that deceiving the public is a key requirement. People like Polanski who rip the veil aside must be targeted for concerted attack by state-corporate media, which are not primarily a media system at all, but a system evolved and designed for the purpose of social control.
The prime mechanism of propaganda control is to direct a ceaseless tsunami of smears at the people exposing the ‘necessary illusions’ in hopes of undermining their credibility. Noam Chomsky explained:
‘Somehow, they [journalists] have to get rid of the stuff. You can’t deal with the arguments, that’s plain – for one thing you have to know something, and most of these people don’t know anything. Secondly, you wouldn’t be able to answer the arguments because they’re correct. Therefore, what you have to do is somehow dismiss it. So that’s one technique, “It’s just emotional, it’s irresponsible, it’s angry.”’ (Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian, Chronicles of Dissent, AK Press, 1992, p.79)
The irony being, of course, that the system is itself built on childishly irrational beliefs. Chomsky again:
‘A properly functioning system of indoctrination has a variety of tasks, some rather delicate. One of its targets is the stupid and ignorant masses. They must be kept that way, diverted with emotionally potent oversimplifications, marginalised and isolated.’ (Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, Hill and Wang, 1992, p.369)
In a recent, televised discussion with former Conservative politician Penny Mordaunt, who now works for British American Tobacco, Polanski asked about the impending visit of Donald Trump:
‘Are you comfortable with the world’s most powerful man banning books, militarising the police, damaging women’s reproductive rights?’
Patronising freely, Mordaunt replied:
‘I disagree with a lot of things that Donald Trump does… The thing is, Zack, you’re now the leader of a political party; you’re not the president of a student union. And you have to take responsibility for things. And you have to take responsibility for trying to have a positive impact on the world around you… I hope it makes you feel good; you can go home tonight and feel great about it.’
Thus, Polanski’s truth-telling – and these are simple but important truths obvious to any thinking person – is dismissed as childish, immature, naïve; as if profit-driven, genocidal ‘realpolitik’ was ‘mature’.
In a separate discussion involving Polanski, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, worked hard to avoid describing Israel’s ethnic cleansing as a genocide (he has since accepted that it is a genocide) and did not agree that Israeli President Isaac Herzog should be arrested when he visited London. Instead, Khan responded:
‘Well, I think what we’re seeing is an example of the Greens trying to use the forum of Mayor’s question time to raise really important issues in a trivial way.’
In fact, Polanski was raising really important issues in a really honest way. Khan, on the other hand, was answering the questions with really trivial evasions. Polanski replied:
‘Six minutes of words and the Mayor won’t acknowledge it’s a genocide.’
Echoing Mordaunt, Khan replied:
‘That was the soundbite, that’s what was been after [sic] in the last six minutes. That’s, you know, sixth-form politics in Mayor’s question time.’
Exactly as Chomsky said, ‘It’s just emotional, it’s irresponsible’, and should therefore be dismissed. In fact, it is the dismissal that can be dismissed.
When Jeremy Corbyn stood for election as leader of the Labour Party in July 2015, Jonathan Freedland opined in the Guardian:
‘Tony Blair and others tried to sit the kids down and say: “Look, you’ve had your fun. But take it from us, even if Corbyn is right – which he isn’t – he is never, ever going to get elected. This crusade is doomed. Come back home”.’
Freedland added:
‘The unkind reading of this is to suggest that support for Corbynism, especially among the young, is a form of narcissism.’
In the Observer, Andrew Rawnsley mocked the ‘fantasy’ of ‘Corbynmania’, with ‘younger audiences’ deluded by ‘the Pied Piper of Islington’, suffering from his ‘terrible delusion’.
‘Sixth-form politics’, in other words.
We all learned from the extraordinary propaganda blitz directed at Corbyn that the state-corporate Medium – led, in that instance, by the Guardian – will use literally any conceivable smear in a scattergun effort to turn as many voters as possible against an establishment threat.
If we could not be persuaded to dislike Corbyn because of his footwear (The Guardian asked thoughtfully: ‘is the world ready for his sandals and socks?’), then there was his ‘Chairman Mao-style bicycle’, his flat cap (allegedly photoshopped by BBC Newsnight to look like a treacherous Russian fur ushanka), the kind of anorak he wore (‘Critics of the Labour politician were angered by his choice of jacket, with some saying he looked “scruffy”’, noted the Daily Mail), how he bowed at the cenotaph (there were claims ‘Corbyn had deliberately bowed less dramatically than Cameron’), how he ‘mispronounced’ the name Jeffrey Epstein (former Independent editor, Simon Kelner, who is Jewish, shrank in fear at Corbyn’s pronunciation: ‘a Jewish person does know when there is something that sounds wrong, or pejorative, or even threatening’), that he had an allotment, that he had been romantically involved with Labour politician Diane Abbott, that he ‘feigned’ having to stand on a ‘supposedly’ crowded train, that he was race-blind to an allegedly anti-semitic mural that, in fact, depicted a number of recognisable, historic Jewish and non-Jewish financiers (with the biggest nose drawn belonging to the Christian Episcopalian, J.P. Morgan).
On one occasion, Corbyn’s failure to sing the national anthem generated a storm of criticism:
‘“Corbyn snubs Queen and country” (Daily Telegraph); “Veterans open fire after Corbyn snubs anthem” (The Times); “Corb snubs the Queen” (The Sun); “Not Save the Queen” (Metro); “Shameful: Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem” (Daily Express); “Fury as Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem at Battle of Britain memorial” (Daily Mail); “Corby a zero: Leftie refuses to sing national anthem” (Daily Star).’
Roy Greenslade was all but alone in noting that, as a principled republican for many years, Corbyn would have been accused of rank hypocrisy if he had mouthed the words of an anthem that strongly celebrated the monarch, rather than the nation.
If we had space, we could, of course, supply reams of similarly crazed examples relating to Julian Assange, and many other dissident voices, ourselves included.
Polanski is currently not sufficiently threatening to merit Corbyn-level abuse. But an opening propaganda salvo in the Daily Mail gave an idea of what might be in store: ‘His jagged, gapped teeth had shades of Hannibal Lecter. Better watch out’
If we don’t mind jagged teeth with gaps, there are other issues that might persuade us to reject a politician campaigning to stop genocide, systemic injustice and climate collapse against UK leaders blocking all resistance. Quentin Letts wrote:
‘Designer-stubbled Mr Polanski spoke for quarter of an hour without notes. You don’t become a Harley Street cleavage quack without the gift of the gab.’
In 2013, a newspaper reporter requested a hypnotherapy session to increase her breast size and self-confidence for an article in the Sun newspaper. Polanski, then working as a hypnotherapist, did the session without charge and featured in the published article. He said the article did not accurately reflect what happened but subsequently apologised for his involvement. The story has been made a major issue across the media.
After his election victory had been announced, Letts commented:
‘Soon he was locked in an embrace with his boyfriend. It was some time before they could be separated.’
Why the emphasis on duration in the text and in the caption to a picture showing the embrace? Having reviled Polanski’s teeth, stubble and quackery, were we being invited to feel uncomfortable with the idea of him hugging his boyfriend?
Patrick Kidd wrote in the Telegraph:
‘The tribe’s underwhelming participation did not stop Polanski from speaking bullishly, or whatever the vegan option is (quornily?), about enthusing the wider public. “I promise you, nothing will make you feel more inspired than joining the Green Party,” he said, though perhaps he meant to say “insipid”.’
Kidd also noted Polanski’s teeth and stubble:
‘There is something of the modern BBC executive about Polanski’s appearance, though his dentistry is old-fashioned gappy English. With his wide-open collar, close-cropped hair, designer stubble and fixed smile, he has the look of someone with one of those job titles like director of cohesion or head of future, who spews out visions about “the lake of content” and “the bubble of opportunity”.
In 2016, John Moternan observed of Corbyn in the New Statesman:
‘His air was similar to the one he displays at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) — the bewildered geography supply teacher look.’
In 2015, an entire Guardian article was focused on Corbyn’s dress sense under the title:
‘Get the Jeremy Corbyn look: “retired postman” is the big fashion trend at Labour conference’
As was initially also the case with Corbyn, the Guardian has not gone straight over to the attack on Polanski. The initial focus has been to view him primarily as a warning to be heeded by a Labour leader the Guardian worked so assiduously to bring to power. The paper had a dedicated, movingly optimistic series of articles titled, ‘Starmer’s path to power’. On 2 September, the standfast introducing a Guardian leader, read:
‘A mass politics of anti-austerity, identity and climate is emerging from the left’s margins. Keir Starmer cannot afford to ignore it’
The piece concluded:
‘Labour’s defence of an old order that is crumbling away has only helped Mr Polanski. Unless Sir Keir reclaims the narrative terrain and offers transformative policies – and fast – British politics will not see only realignment but rupture.’
Readers actually donating to this corporate newspaper – thus supporting editor Kath Viner, struggling to get by on £527,695 (as of April 1, 2023) – might ask themselves why the Guardian’s chief concern is to ensure that a man who ‘has no morals, no values, no principles’ ‘reclaims the narrative’.
Another Guardian effort to save Starmer was titled: ‘Is there anything Labour can do to save itself from disaster? Our panel responds’
The key focus:
‘Over a year into power, Starmer’s government is floundering – but it still has time on its side. In the second of a two-part series, our panelists suggest ways of reversing the slide’
The Guardian’s true values, shared by Starmer, were hinted at in a piece by senior political correspondent Peter Walker, titled: ‘Greens take step into unknown with election of Zack Polanski as leader’
What is this anxiety-inducing ‘unknown’?
‘… Polanski will be under pressure to show he has not just the patter but also the judgment, with some eyebrows raised by his call in May for the UK to consider leaving Nato, which was not in the manifesto’.
A profile in the Observer noted that Polanski had previously worked as an actor and hypnotherapist:
‘He may well need all his theatrical and hypnotic powers to transform some of his convictions into popular policy. The Greens have long supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, but, even with eastern Europe under threat from an increasingly bellicose Russia, Polanski also wants to see the UK withdraw from Nato and an alternative arrangement of “peace and diplomacy”.’
As key cogs in the Perpetual War Machine, firm supporters of the West’s wars of aggression – even when they claimed to be in opposition to the Iraq war, for example – leaving Nato is something the Guardian and Observer will not countenance. Such talk should be reserved for the ‘student union’ and ‘sixth-form politics’.
As with Corbyn in 2015, the fevered ranting from the extreme right-wing press will be accompanied by initially muted criticism from the extreme centre, at the far end of the truncated media ‘spectrum’. Also as we saw with Corbyn, to the extent that Polanski offers genuine hope of change, the response from the Guardian, Observer, BBC, Independent and others will rise in pitch until the threat to ‘adult’ genocidal and biocidal politics is removed.