{"id":397163,"date":"2025-09-04T11:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/397163\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T11:54:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T11:54:17","slug":"new-deputy-green-leader-describes-racist-abuse-on-family-seaside-trip-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/397163\/","title":{"rendered":"New deputy Green leader describes racist abuse on family seaside trip | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The newly elected deputy leader of the Green party<\/a> and his family were attacked on a day out at the seaside last week, with bottles thrown and racist abuse hurled, he has told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

Mothin Ali, a Leeds councillor, said the incident was a reflection of extreme rightwingers using inflammatory language to blame immigrants and refugees for social problems.<\/p>\n

Ali, who was born in Sheffield and has lived in Yorkshire all his life, was on the beach at Cromer, Norfolk, with his mother, wife and children when a group appeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lovely sunny day. I\u2019d been building sandcastles and catching shrimps in rock pools with my six-year-old. Suddenly there were these people throwing beer bottles at us, and shouting: \u2018Get out of our country\u2019 and \u2018Paki bastards\u2019. Then one of them decided to pull his trousers down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ali recounted the incident as an example of how Reform UK and other rightwing activists have increasingly ramped up anti-minority rhetoric in recent months.<\/p>\n

\u201cReform UK offers simple \u2018solutions\u2019 to extremely complex problems \u2013 blame immigrants, blame black and brown people, blame Muslims,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language is incredibly inflammatory. It\u2019s language that is designed to stir up hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ali said that Reform UK was a \u201cbig threat\u201d to cohesion, but the Green party under new leadership was in a strong position to offer a radical alternative.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the party announced that members had overwhelmingly elected Zack Polanski as leader and Ali as joint deputy leader with Rachel Millward, the co-leader of Wealdon district council in Sussex.<\/p>\n

The party was now led by a \u201cgay Jewish man, a straight practising Muslim with a big beard and from a northern working-class background, and a middle-class woman who\u2019s a feminist,\u201d said Ali.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween us, we can reach across country, class, race, religion and geography. It sends a message that Britain\u2019s a melting pot of all kinds of people. We just created a microcosm of the macro.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the Green party was \u201cfull of very decent, thoroughly nice people, but sometimes that can be a little bit of a problem. If you\u2019re too agreeable or too nice, people can easily ignore you. I\u2019ve always felt we\u2019ve got to be a lot more assertive in our messaging and a lot stronger in communicating our policies and values.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have a leadership team of three people with different styles, different reaches to different communities, all coming together and uniting as one. A wide approach with a unified message.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key message was one of hope, he said. \u201cI represent one of the most deprived communities in Leeds. This morning I got a call from a lady with young children who\u2019s paying full rent on a house that is almost uninhabitable. There are people struggling to buy food for their children. Even people in well-paid jobs are having to tighten up.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we live in one of the richest countries in the world. No one should be struggling to eat. These are political choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politicians need to come up with creative solutions, he said. \u201cFor example, we could create solar farms on people\u2019s rooftops right across the country. That would help with high energy bills and the climate crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Since being elected as a councillor in Leeds last May, Ali has been outspoken on the war in Gaza. On the day of his election, speaking against the backdrop of a Palestinian flag, he said \u201cthis is a win for the people of Gaza\u201d and \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d.<\/p>\n

After a backlash, he apologised \u201cfor any upset my comments caused about the Gaza conflict\u201d<\/a> but said criticism of his use of the words \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d suggested Islamophobia.<\/p>\n

Earlier, on the day Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October 2023, Ali said on social media that Palestinians had the right to \u201cfight back\u201d.<\/p>\n

Polanski, who has said he is proud to be Jewish but is \u201ccertainly not a Zionist\u201d<\/a>, told a march for Palestine in June that he stood with others \u201cwho refuse to look away from the horror and injustice unfolding before our eyes\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Green party leadership\u2019s stance on Gaza may attract voters who are dismayed at Labour\u2019s position. But, said Ali, the Greens were not \u201ctrying to win votes, but believe what we\u2019re saying\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a genocide taking place,\u201d he said. \u201cWe won\u2019t know the extent of it for years, but what we see is horrible enough. The Labour party has been pathetic, but also they\u2019ve been complicit. The UK is not just a passive observer [of the war]; we\u2019re active participants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ali said he expected the Greens to win \u201clots more\u201d seats in parliament at the next election, but that he would not necessarily be among its MPs. \u201cIf there\u2019s a need, then I\u2019ll stand for it. If there\u2019s someone better than me, I\u2019ll happily step aside and sit in my garden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, he said: \u201cI haven\u2019t felt this positive about politics ever. I think we can be a really powerful voice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The newly elected deputy leader of the Green party and his family were attacked on a day out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-397163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115145897744572881","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397163","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=397163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}