Green Leadership Hopeful BITES BACK at the Smear Machine!

Right, so the Green Party is on course to take a sizeable chunk of Labour voters according to a recent YouGov survey, but with half of voters set to go to either them or the Lib Dems, how can the Greens make sure they go their way? Ed Davey’s party is mopping up votes across rural England as the local elections showed, the rejection of Tories, Labour and Reform certainly benefitting them more than it did the Greens and yet you have the co-leadership hopefuls Andrian Ramsey, one half of the current Green leadership and Ellie Chowns saying stick with us, we’re MPs now, we know what we’re doing and that that is the reason you should back them. Well you weren’t an MP before you became leader Adrian, in fact no Green leader ever has been, so it’s a strange pitch, and it sounds like, we’re the credible ones here, we’re now part of the system. I don’t say that out of spite at all, I just think that when people across the country are crying out for change, which is why Reform have done so well, despite being another Farage and Tice con job, you aren’t exactly saying you’re it.
And so then we come to the insurgent therefore. Zack Polanski. Not an MP, he is on the London Assembly, but he is talking about change, he is saying what he’d do differently, he is saying he’ll shake up the party and broaden its appeal, because it is only by doing that that more Green MPs will be elected and he’s already talking about what he plans to do and it is driving the conversation around the Green party election right now and with the attacks on him personally already being made, a sure sign the establishment is nervous, he’s the one to watch here and he’s the one I’ll be endorsing as a result.
Right so, to say there’s a lot of political disillusionment across England and Wales right now would be an understatement, the public are incensed, Starmer lied to them about what he’d do in power, no surprise to many of us who already had him long pegged, but they aren’t alone. All of the mainstream parties—Labour, Conservatives, and even the Liberal Democrats, still unforgiven by many for the Coalition years and rightly so in my view—have found themselves targets of justified public outrage for failing to answer to the everyday concerns of ordinary working class people. Where many eyes and votes have gone to Reform UK as a result of this, the Green Party of England and Wales is in an interesting place right now. The upcoming leadership election is not just a question of who will wear the mantle of leadership but its going to be a defining moment about what kind of party the Greens wish to become going forwards and how they can capitalise on the Tory and Labour collapses for the most part, whilst also seeing off Reform UK.
Do they intend to grow into a vibrant, insurgent force challenging the system from outside? Or do they opt for a comfortable position within the very establishment that people now distrust more than ever? That fundamentally is the choice going into these elections. The decision between these two paths is exemplified by the contrast between the campaign of Zack Polanski and that of co-leadership hopefuls Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns.
Now, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns are not without their achievements. Both are sitting MPs, having recently won seats in rural constituencies that only nine months ago, seeing off the Lib Dems. Ramsay winning a new seat, Chowns squashing a 25,000 vote Tory majority. However, their very success now forms the basis of a problematic and rather systemic leadership bid. In their pitch, they argue that the Green Party's leadership should be composed of sitting MPs because it lends "credibility."
But herein lies the paradox: no Green Party leader has ever been elected to Parliament before taking the helm. From Caroline Lucas to Siân Berry, leadership within the party has historically come from outside Parliament, driven by grassroots activism.
Let’s set the scene here and to do that, let’s go back to the last set of leadership elections back in 2021 Ramsay campaigned alongside Carla Denyer in a leadership bid that was built on a platform of vote for us, we look like we’re probably going to become MPs at the next election. They were telling the truth in that, both did. But that contrasted heavily with the more radical left-wing option put forth by Amelia Womack, the then deputy leader of the Green Party and Tamsin Omond, who was one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion. That was a race that, looking back on it, revealed lines within the party between those looking to scale the machinery of governance and those determined to challenge that. Ramsay and Denyer’s bid triumphed of course, but as recent polling from YouGov has shown, they haven’t exactly set the electorate on fire, or burned down the system from within.
The lesson is clear then: credibility does not come from simply being part of the system, the Ramsay/Denyer bid before and the Ramsay/Chowns bid now—it comes from challenging it. I don’t see that from them.
Zack Polanski’s leadership bid, by contrast, for is not merely an alternative; it is essential. The Greens can either content themselves with a few more local councillors each year, no knocking the fact the party has grown at local level 8 years running, holding the parliamentary seats they’ve got, maybe get another one or two depending on which polls you look at, or they can stand for real change, break through into greater public perception and be the radical change this country needs, instead of letting Reform UK just dominate headlines and media television time slots day in day out.
Frustrated with the complacency of institutional politics, Zack Polanski has entered the race with a message that I think far more directly reflects the mood of the nation, which is much more along the lines of break the wheel, don’t join it.
Polanski’s brand of “eco-populism” seeks to refocus the climate agenda away from punitive, top-down policies and towards a more progressive, redistributive approach. He argues passionately that the costs of the green transition should not fall on the shoulders of the working class. Instead, the state and the wealthy—those who have long profited from environmental degradation—should bear the brunt. He has called out the government for a net-zero strategy that punishes the poor, a Green, criticising net zero, but because it has been used to turn environmentalism into a scapegoat rather than a solution, the classic narrative of Reform UK on such thing.
Polanski has shown his mettle repeatedly, taking the fight to those many dare not criticise. He recently laid into Tony Blair after the former Prime Minister's intervention on net-zero targets—Blair an his ties to fossil fuels saying any strategy phasing them out is folly, to which Polanski coolly stated that Blair should just be silent at this point. God knows so many of us wish he would, but this is yet another example of elite figures undermining climate justice while evading personal accountability, but it being challenged in a way that so rarely happens, least of all in political leaders these days, yet here we have a chance. He’s openly questioned the role of NATO, saying we should get out of it, positioning himself as a rare voice of international moral clarity in a political climate where military alliances go unquestioned and too often military action ends up superceding diplomacy. Its been a bone of contention for many on the left that the Greens back NATO – not all of us do, Polanski evidently doesn’t.
On migration, too, Polanski is a voice of rare moral courage. While Labour's Keir Starmer invokes Enoch Powell to address migration concerns, Polanski makes the moral and practical case for welcoming migrants. He identifies the true crisis as a lack of housing and opportunity—conditions that make migrants convenient scapegoats for failures that are fundamentally systemic, a reminder that that establishment wheel, needs someone to break it. Leadership hopefuls justifying being spokes on that wheel as a reason to back them isn’t going to do that.
Polanski’s stance on Israel and Palestine is equally fearless. A Jewish man as he is, raised in a Zionist household at that, he has rejected Zionism and stood vocally against the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. Unlike many politicians who have been muted or evasive, Polanski has been clear, calling out genocide and demanding justice. He has faced relentless attacks from parts of the Jewish community as a result, with outlets like The Jewish Chronicle publishing two hit pieces within two days of his leadership announcement. Accusations of antisemitism have been levied against him not for any hateful conduct, but because his principles deviate from a narrow, politically weaponised orthodoxy and he’s also quite pally with Jeremy Corbyn these days which will have Zionists wailing falsehoods all day long all on its own, but we’re all wise to that now aren’t we?
This has only served to prove how much of a threat Polanski represents to entrenched interests. The viciousness of the attacks is in direct proportion to how seriously the establishment takes his challenge.
Polanski’s appeal isn’t just ideological—it’s strategic. While Ramsay and Chowns, Denyer as well, struggle to build name recognition, with one recent poll showing 82% of respondents not knowing who Ramsay is and only 4% viewing him positively, Polanski has become a regular media presence. Despite not being an MP, despite being a Green and how little media time they get, he has consistently punched above his weight in this respect and across public discourse. He’s made the case that recognition matters—not for personal vanity, but because it opens doors for the movement as a whole. If you challenge establishment narratives, if you speak out on the big issues in challenge to mainstream views, you get noticed. It’s what Farage does every single day, but unlike him, Polanski doesn’t need to lie to do it.
One of the Green Party’s biggest obstacles is its lack of recognisable leadership. In contrast, Polanski’s communication style, perceptive media interviews, and social media savvy have positioned him as one of the few Green figures with real national resonance. Yet, even he admits the party lacks a platform—a deficit he is determined to correct.
Polanski understands that the next frontier for the Greens is in urban constituencies as well and this comes at the expense of Ramsay and Chowns I think. Of the 39 seats the Greens came second to Labour in 2024, most were in urban areas, precisely where Polanski’s message of bold climate justice and economic transformation resonates strongest. He's London Assembly, his seat is in Hackney, he hails from Salford, Chowns and Ramsay, representing rural constituencies, that saw them win just ahead of the Lib Dems, at a point they were floundering at a point as the local elections earlier this month imply they no longer necessarily are, seems by contrast disconnected from this political reality.
Moreover, Polanski wants more people joining the party too, growing it as the next major grassroots movement, funded entirely as the party is by membership. Polanski has said in a recent interview that many of the people who could become the next generation of Green MPs probably aren’t even party members yet. Growing the membership and radically expanding the party’s appeal is central to his agenda. He has spoken openly about welcoming defectors from Labour even—those disillusioned with Starmer’s rightward lurch and looking for a genuine political home. He’s also said he’d welcome Corbyn into the party if he fancied it.
A persistent criticism of the Greens is that they are a party of middle-class white people—well-meaning, but disconnected from working-class reality. Polanski is determined to change that. He’s framed Reform UK, currently surging in the polls, as a party of millionaires representing billionaires, cosplay-ing as allies of the working class. He’s right—so he wants the Greens to be the true alternative: working-class rooted, anti-austerity, and ecologically principled, but not burdened with having to pay for all of that, the wealthy would have to cough up their share, the only party right now that would do that. Reform are millionaires backed by billionaires, so are the Tories, so are Labour and Ed Davey of the Lib Dems, former coalition minister as he is, talks up sucking up Tory votes and becoming the new home of Conservatism.
People have turned to Reform not because they love far-right politics but because they are angry and they’re saying what they want to hear and they get the media time to say it. People feel abandoned. They want a politics that understands why their lives are hard—and offers real solutions to that. Polanski is the only Green leadership candidate who seems to understand this and is prepared to fight Reform not by mimicking them or appeasing them, like Starmer but by challenging the system that birthed them and feeds them.
Despite all of this, I’d go so far as to say because of all of this, Polanski has been unfairly maligned—not just by the right-wing press, but even within the party.
Green peer Jenny Jones insinuated that Polanski supporters are attacking other candidates, putting out a tweet saying:
‘Hi Zack Polanski, some of your supporters are slagging off Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns.
Could you ask anyone backing you to stay polite? Supporting you is their absolute right, but no need to be nasty about others? Whatever the result, we all have to work together afterwards!’
She tagged Ramsay and Chowns into that as well. Surely a DM or an email would have been more fitting, why make that public? But Polanski kept it classy, replying:
‘Hey Jenny, Totally agree that we’ll have to come together as a party - to win and to succeed. We’ve all had some c*ap this election already - and I know we all reject it sincerely!’
It had all the hallmarks of the old Chuka Umunna attack on Jeremy Corbyn when he came in for some flak, saying call off the dogs.
Polanski has no control of social media, people should keep this classy, shouldn’t go all out attacking other candidates abusively, but Jenny Jones passive-aggressive swipe at Polanski here in the public domain was a low blow and shows there are those in the Green Party fearing change. Remember when so many of us socialists joined Labour to back Corbyn? This feels like that again, an opportunity to join something and be part of something bigger, backing an insurgency, a movement for change, by backing Zack.
These accusations are not just in poor taste—they reveal a deeper fear among some in the party that genuine change may actually be within reach and they quite like their party the way it is.
But real change won’t come passively. Corbyn played it nice, we saw what happened, so instead change must be demanded. It must be voted for. It must be fought for, it must be defended if needs be, it is our right after all. That is why it’s so crucial that those inspired by Polanski’s vision join the Green Party before the end of June and cast their vote in this leadership contest.
This leadership election is about more than the future of the Green Party. It’s about the future of British politics. Zack Polanski is not just running to lead the Greens—he is running to remake them into the party the country needs right now: bold, fearless, inclusive, and unafraid to speak uncomfortable truths to power.
In a time when the public is crying out for leadership that actually represents them, the Green Party has a unique opportunity before it and so do all of you if you choose to join us. It can choose to remain a small, respectable voice within a broken system. Or it can choose Zack Polanski—and become the megaphone for a movement ready to break the system apart and build something better.
The choice is clear. The future is calling. Will the Greens answer? Will you be part of them saying hell yes? I will be. Back Zack.
For an insight into what the greens are fighting for here, get a load of what that same YouGov poll had to say about Starmer in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch, historically bad stuff as it is.
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