{"id":394028,"date":"2025-09-03T07:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T07:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394028\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T07:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T07:52:14","slug":"new-green-leader-polanski-distances-party-from-electoral-pact-with-corbyn-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394028\/","title":{"rendered":"New Green leader Polanski distances party from electoral pact with Corbyn | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new Green leader, Zack Polanski, has said he would need to see \u201cvery strong arguments\u201d before agreeing any electoral pact with Jeremy Corbyn<\/a>, arguing that there is enough space on the left of British politics for both to thrive.<\/p>\n

Polanski earned a resounding mandate<\/a> to take the Greens in England and Wales in a more explicitly leftwing direction on Tuesday, winning 85% of member votes, a crushing defeat for the joint ticket of Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, two of the party\u2019s four MPs.<\/p>\n

Cheered by supporters at an event in London, the self-styled \u201ceco-populist\u201d<\/a> promised to mimic the media-friendly tactics of Nigel Farage to tackle not just Reform UK but also Labour, saying the Greens under his leadership would not support a Keir Starmer government.<\/p>\n

Calling Farage a \u201ccharlatan\u201d who pretended to care about ordinary people, Polanski added, to cheers: \u201cMy message to Labour<\/a> is very clear: we are not here to be disappointed by you. We are not here to be concerned by you. We are here to replace you.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Ramsay and Chowns have been largely dismissive of the planned new party<\/a> to be co-run by Corbyn and another former Labour MP, Zarah Sultana, Polanski said during the campaign<\/a> that he was open to potential cooperation.<\/p>\n

But speaking to the Guardian after the result was announced, Polanski said it was too early to say what, if anything, might come from this.<\/p>\n

Asked if the Greens might hypothetically stand down candidates in a pact with the new party, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s not my starting point, because at the moment I\u2019m not quite sure what Zarah Sultana\u2019s and Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s platform is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polanski said he expected the Greens\u2019 programme to be more radical and would need to be shown \u201cvery strong arguments\u201d for any formal pact. A more likely outcome would be cooperation over which seats each party targeted.<\/p>\n

He rejected the idea that the left of politics was a crowded field, highlighting that Starmer had not even condemned Farage\u2019s \u201ctoxic tirade\u201d about the proposed mass deportation<\/a> of immigrants, merely saying he was \u201cgoing to do it in a different way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that the left of politics is actually a contested field,\u201d he said. \u201cAdmittedly, if Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana do set things up, then it will be a busier place to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick of being in media studios where I or the other Green is the only person who\u2019s making the humanitarian argument. But if there are more personalities in our political spaces making those arguments, yes, at election time, there\u2019s going to have to be conversations about how do we cooperate and make sure we\u2019re getting out of each other\u2019s way. But more widely in politics, I think more voices on the left is actually just a really good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polanski presented himself as an insurgent voice during the election race, despite being deputy leader, arguing that the Ramsay-led tactic of gradually amassing councillors and then MPs was too timid and slow for an era in which Farage could win the next election.<\/p>\n

Speaking to supporters after the result was announced, Polanski said he wanted the Greens to aim for more than 30 seats at the next election, saying it was \u201ctime to be really ambitious, and to be visionary\u201d in getting the party\u2019s message across to voters.<\/p>\n

He ended his speech with an appeal for voters enthused by his message to sign up: \u201cIf you\u2019re feeling hopeless, if you\u2019re feeling in despair, if you\u2019re feeling politically homeless, there is a political home for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promise you nothing will make you feel more inspired, more ready to get out there and more like we can turn our country around than joining the Green party<\/a>. So join the Green party today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corbyn congratulated Polanski in a post on X<\/a>, saying: \u201cI look forward to working with you to create a fairer, kinder world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellie Reeves, the Labour chair, also congratulated him but said the new Green leader \u201cmust level with the British people\u201d about whether he backed continued Nato membership, after he said during the campaign that Donald Trump\u2019s approach made this unfeasible.<\/p>\n

Asked about the comments on Nato, Polanski said that while he maintained the alliance was untenable under a Trump-led US, he did not advocate immediate UK withdrawal, only if an alternative European defence alliance could be set up, a process he said could take years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new Green leader, Zack Polanski, has said he would need to see \u201cvery strong arguments\u201d before agreeing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-394028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115139283911726202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}