The recent election of Zack Polanski to the leadership of the Green Party has stirred a lot of interest in the political world, and the recent Green Party Conference ushered in this newfound attention.
Traditionally seen as a fringe and single-issue party, the Greens have almost always been sidelined in electoral discussions.
Following Labour’s move to the centre under Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the new election of an energetic and fresh young leader, the Greens have surged in the polls, and Polanski has successfully made a name for himself in the world of left-wing politics.
His election on September 2 was something of an upset within the party. Though he had been deputy leader for three years prior, the rival ticket of Ellie Chowns MP and Former Leader Adrian Ramsay had the backing of many senior figures within the party.
Zack Polanski, however, managed to win in a landslide with 85 per cent of the vote and has already begun to radically transform the Green Party, with the party membership increasing by 20,000 in the month since his election.
Now, at the Green Party Conference, Polanski and his team have had a chance to lay out their vision of what this new direction for the Greens really entails.
A new direction for the Greens
The excitement surrounding Polanski has led to an unprecedented interest in his party and in his leadership, especially his self-described “eco-populism”. Many have focused on the potential impact on the Greens electorally, but it’s also important to examine what Polanski is actually advocating for.
The Greens, as their name implies, have campaigned almost exclusively on the issue of climate change. They adopted leftist positions around certain issues, such as Universal Basic Income or privatisation, but their commitment to environmental ideals was always central to their identity.
In many ways, they existed solely to get the big parties, usually Labour, to consider Green policies in their manifestos and put climate change on the agenda, as their vote share was far too small to be a serious contender in UK politics.
But by far the biggest change unveiled at the Conference was moving environmentalism to the sidelines. Zack Polanski mentioned it only briefly, 20 minutes into his speech, and Co-Deputy Leader Mothin Ali didn’t mention it at all during his speech, which instead focused on issues like Islamophobia and racism.
It’s clear that Polanski’s eco-populist shift places Reform UK as the biggest threat to the country today, with Polanski an outspokenly hostile critic of what he described as the “hateful” party led by “the Trump-loving stooge” Nigel Farage.
This also marks a pretty major tone shift as the Greens have historically seen themselves as a small community-based party. But Polanski’s rhetoric suggests he’s positioning himself as the main left-wing opposition to Reform UK and is more than willing to rise to the challenge.
No doubt this is due to the Greens’ recent successes. Since their last Conference in September 2024, they have been polling around 5 points higher and have increased their membership by 30,000, mainly due to Polanski’s influence. Also buoying them was the announcement that they have now surpassed the Liberal Democrats in membership, with the Greens now claiming to have more than 90,000 members. Around 7,000 of those came just in the last week.
The Green Party Conference provided an opportunity for Polanski to reiterate and emphasise some of the policies that have brought him so much attention and contributed to these successes.
Almost immediately, Polanski promised that “We will bring down your bills, we will bring down the cost of living, and we will protect our NHS.”. He called for increases in taxes on the wealthy and made clear that he was targeting billionaires and the top one per cent, rather than small business owners.
He also suggested a wealth tax and campaigned for the renationalisation of public services, including water companies, while claiming that privatisation cost households an additional £250 a year.
That’s not to say that environmental issues are entirely off the table. He described the Green Party as both an “environmental movement” and a “social justice movement”, and cited food prices as an example of how the issues of climate and cost of living are deeply linked.
Overall, there was a sparse amount of time devoted to climate change for a Green Party Conference.
A far-right threat
There was no shortage of rhetoric against Reform. In many ways, Polanski spoke of Reform almost as an existential threat and accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of “Reform-baiting” by adopting anti-immigration positions and attempting to appeal to the right-wing.
Co-deputy Leader Rachel Millward was even more scathing, describing “Darkness” in the current political climate and referencing First They Came, a poem about Nazi persecution, in her speech, which stressed optimism in the face of the rising far-right.
Polanski expressed vocal support of migration and said that the Greens sought to “Stop the Boats” by “providing safe and legal pathways into the country” It seems that Polanski is attempting to exploit the opportunity to become one of the few pro-immigration voices in British Politics.
Such a position will certainly be an electoral gamble as YouGov polling suggests that only 32% of Britons would describe Reform’s immigration policy as “Too tough” and that 57 per cent of Britons now consider immigration to be the most important issue in the country. The Greens’ policy could perhaps be seen as dismissive of what appears to be becoming a very large issue for voters.
Polanski’s counter to this seems to be addressing the concerns of disaffected voters who’ve been taken in by Reform’s populism. A significant part of his speech was spent telling stories of his visit to Clacton, the constituency of Nigel Farage, on his first day as Green leader and his conversations with the locals there.
He argued that many Reform voters were less prejudiced and bigoted and were more concerned about the ability of their economically deprived communities to support increasing numbers of immigrants. It seems he believes he can counter right-wing cultural populism with his own left-wing economic populism.
In this regard, the term “eco-populism” appears to be misleading, as very little of the Green Party Conference was spent discussing environmentalism. Their top priority now appears to be addressing the cost of living and economic inequality to combat the rising tide of Reform UK.
The Path Ahead
Polanski is serious and is gearing up to seriously challenge both Labour and Reform, although the Conference did reveal that the Greens may have slight issues focusing solely on economic realities.
The Greens reiterated their vocal support for the end of the “Genocide in Gaza”, and there was significant outcry after the Conference passed a motion calling for the Israeli Defence Force to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Co-Deputy-Leader Mothin Ali, who has been a radical supporter of Palestinian causes and made controversial comments following October 7, did little to allay these concerns when he opened his speech by saying, “You are all expecting me to say something controversial or shout Allahu Akbar!”
The war in Gaza has proven polarising and could weaken the Greens’ support amongst many potential voters, especially if they plan to compete for Reform’s largely conservative voter base.
A headline-grabbing motion also passed at the conference that called for “the effective abolition of private landlordism”. Green MP Carla Denyer dampened expectations and described it as “a range of policies which, over time, would reduce the proportion of the housing market that is privately rented, and increase the proportion of socially rented homes.”
These issues may be deal-breakers for some, but they clearly align with Polanski’s strategy to target left-wing voters who have become disillusioned with the Labour Party. Many times during the speech, he expressed disappointment with Labour’s stance on Gaza protests and the increasing cost-of-living that matched the concerns of many leftists in the wake of Starmer’s premiership.
The message is clear: Polanski’s eco-populism seeks to address the concerns of a wider sector of voters by viciously opposing the far-right rhetoric of Reform and Labour’s attempts to pander to it.
While the Greens have not entirely abandoned environmentalism, it’s clear that they’re willing to lay it to the side to combat what they see as one of the greatest threats in British politics.
Time will tell whether Polanski’s more hostile approach will work out for the Greens, but there’s no denying that they have had great momentum and that there is a general excitement within the party about their electoral chances.
If voters are sick of the establishment, then Polanski’s Greens represent a new party with a new vision for the country, competing with Reform not by insisting that they deserve your vote because of the danger of the far-right, but by offering a left-wing alternative that could appeal to many of the economically disadvantaged voters that Reform targets.
It remains to be seen whether the Green Party can follow Reform by eclipsing the more moderate left-wing parties, and if eco-populism will capture the left. There’s no doubt, however, that the implications of Polanski’s new programme go a lot further than just the Green Party.
Featured Image Credit: The Green Party of England and Wales on YouTube.
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