Greens internal drama warms up

[fromorbit]

New long article looking at the drama inside the Greens over biology suddenly existing again despite their best efforts.

How the Green Party forgot the environment and was torn apart by trans rows
It was a party united by a single mission – to save the planet. But now the gender identity debate has left it divided and in chaos

https://archive.is/TOlNx

The article is already out of date as Zack Polanski of hypnotic breasts fame has just launched a leadership bid against Deyner and Ramsey.

Emma Bateman
It's no secret that big boobs Polanski wants the top job. He is a student politics slogan churner, a self server who distains women and wants misgendering misdemeanours to be grounds for expulsion from the Greens.
He is "LGB with the T"
Still NO DEBATE!

Pro-women Greens article on his background:;
https://concernedgreens.uk/watchlist/zack-polanski/

The existence of biology is likely to be a significant part of the leadership contest for sure so interesting to watch .

Ali Shahrar has launched another legal challenge against the Greens. Gardening needed.

May 27th is the date for Emma Bateman's legal hearing against the Greens.

On May 27th I am in court against Green Party in a case which will expose the contorted lengths the Greens go to in order to shut women up.

It isn't going to go well for the Greens given the Supreme Court ruling. This could be key moment in seeing the ruling's effect on politics and directly impact the leadership contest. It will also be probably be infuriating and hilarious in equal measure.

I wanted to mention re council by-elections, we've now hit the time when the six month rule comes into effect, and vacancies for seats that will be contested next May are not filled.

That means no by-elections in London, which would have been handy for the GP in terms of building momentum, scaring Labour and giving the new Polanski intake of members (which I assume is London heavy) something to do.

As always I take the view that what people will object too is that if ZP is prepared to lie and say men are women then he's prepared to lie about everything which makes him just like every politician ever

if people are prepared to overlook that then that's on them but there won't he enough of them plus Zak is behind the zeitgeist on this now. There's no going back to beeeer kind and no debate

'Lie' is possibly the most overused word; n politics. This just isn't how most people seem TWAW. They think of it as a (mostly) harmless fiction. Most men are totally fine with TIMs who have genital surgery having full access to female spaces and services (on the grounds that no man could contemplate the loss of his meat and two veg. with sanguinity, as far as I can tell).

Look at the polling: sex-based rights simply isn't a vote-determining issue for more than a vanishingly small minority of women. When did you last seen or hear a story on any of the free-to-air channels questioning why there has been next to no progress on implementing the SC ruling? How many GC women and sex realists do you know who plan to vote Con or Ref because of these parties' stances on women's sex-based rights?

It’s not so much about whether men care about women’s sex based rights, it’s the pressure this issue puts on political parties. Deputy Leader Mothin Ali isn’t particularly pro trans rights, and the omnicausers/TRAs will put pressure on Zacky Boy to cast out all non believers.

I agree that many will not be interested in dismissing ZP's because of his obsession straight off the bat. Yet the same is true the other way most people in the UK are not interested in it as an issue one way or another. What I think it is for him like for Sturgeon a significant flaw in someone who has an effective political approach in other ways.

Hypno thinks that women should not have sports and criminal men should be in women's prisons. This is a extreme position and NOT a significant vote winner. It is a distraction from an otherwise populist agenda.

There are two other significant ways this could trip him up.

1 - Legally in the UK women actually are a thing. The Greens are facing at least two court cases over this. His rhetoric can be used as evidence in the cases. He will spend Green time, money and resources trying to prove biology is not a thing. It seems likely he will lose these cases and this will be problem which will go on for years. NOT a good look. Remember the Lib Dems have already been forced to admit women are real. Say the Greens legally have to admit women are real after losing. Zack backtracks. This could lead to more internal rows just as we have seen in YP.

2 - Opponents taking advantage - Labour, Reform and Conservatives all potentially can use ZPs positions to undermine his appeal. Turn him into a joke etc distract him from popular positions attacking the rich, defending the environment into discussing what a women is. Moreover especially for the right the genderist position is a BIG wedge issue. It throws doubt on other things ZP is saying. The right can use it to make him look to be part of an out of touch wealthy elite which includes Biden, Obama, liberals in the EU etc who are dangerous and coming for your kids and so motivate their voters.

Thirdly, this is even before wild card elements which may pop up. The Greens are gaining many members including many from genderist circles. As we have seen in the Scottish Greens gender special candidates regularly are exposed as sex pests. Famously the Greens faced the horrific Challenor case, but outside gender critical circles this is not much discussed. Yet with the media focused more on the Greens what if the thing that never happens again inside the Greens?

So I am not saying it can bring ZP down by itself. Yet it is not going to help him in fact it is going to be a problem which is not going away.

My reckon is that a fair number of Greens are concerned about overpopulation. If people wish to sterilise themselves, and/or shorten their lives they're quite okay with that.

Deputy co leader Rachel Millward, who's earlier raised "valid concerns" over 600 male asylum seekers being housed at a barracks in her council area, had then reiterated that no she was not an hypocrite for then still insisting Refugees Are Welcome Here BC the boat arrivals Are All Doctors Or Engineers so should be allowed to work.

A public meeting happened. It went .. as well as could be expected.

https://nitter.net/ArchRose90/status/1989351116124123441#m

I don't know how Polanski would handle an audience like this if it was the London Assembly

She's running for Metro Mayor of Sussex and Brighton, she's going to have to face these audiences.

Can she square the circle of Brighton bohemianism and Sussex nimbyism?

Yes indeed. Not sure she has the skills.

Just as Zack is going to face difficult audiences too. He probably can bluster through them, but he certainly will get tested.

@fromorbit
I don't disagree with much of what you’ve said. The big boost in membership relieves the financial pressure on GPEW to some extent but it can ill afford to waste money on unwinnable court cases. If Hypnoboobs is interested in electoral success he will listen to lawyers and make sure that doesn't happen. TRAs would squeal, but most would agree that losing expensively isn't a good look, and the decision not to fight could be spun as strengthening and highlighting the need to reform EA2010 (I really don't want to see that become a condition of support for a minority Lab admin after the next GE - knocking on an open door, I fear).

Hypnoboobs isn't going after ROC, centrist voters or Red Wall voters. He's not trying for a FPTP majority and his ideological positioning plays well with the voters he is targeting. It doesn't repel most lefties and most Lab defectors are just desperate for a leftie vehicle, any leftie vehicle. A surprising number believed in Reeves and assumed that their govt would tack left as soon as there was cash to splash.
As for motivating anti-woke warriors, I'm not convinced that will matter, but shoehorning five- or six-party politics into a FPTP contest is going to produce chaos. Let's see how things look when the time comes.

Gatekeeping against the crazies and expelling some of the most egregiously anti-semites and sexual predators is where I agree he may come unstuck. GPEW internal democracy has been weakened to such an extent that if the will were there, the expulsions could be done, although it would be messy. But every UK party that has expanded rapidly has come acropper on this, so it's reasonable to assume GPEW will. Especially as Hypnoboobs lacks experience of leading or administering an organisation.

Could we retire the term nimbyism? It's almost always an inaccurate smear. People who care about biodiversity and the environment don't just care about their own patch. They don't want houses, nuclear power stations, data centres, fracking to happen anywhere without regard for the consequences. Their opposition tends to be most vocal and most active when their local area is threatened simply because it's the area they know best - so they know the specifics of the harms that will result and can argue more powerfully. It's also, for most people, only possible to get involved in direct action when it's close to where you live.

By all means challenge those of us who don't want houses/ renewable energy infrastructure or whatever it is built without regard for the environmental consequences about alternative approaches to tackling the problem that the crazy house-building programme or the high voltage transmission lines are supposed to solve, but don't mistake principled opposition to bad, unsustainable policy for an unprincipled willingness to turn a blind eye as long as it's somewhere else that's affected.

Millward has come unstuck on asylum seekers mainly because she's just not a very adroit politician. She does also seem to have an unrealistic view of illegal migrants, but that's not her main problem.

It will be interesting to see how Hypnoboobs does on this. It pisses me off that even on migration, where a genuinely green argument would have something for both the internationalist and xenophobic camps, he’d rather go for a simple emotional appeal to the good, decent, secure people who don't have anything to lose from the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants - there's a group who might actually qualify as NIMBYs.

@SionnachRuadh
Don't think GPEW will mind the lack of byelections. The time is needed to organise serious nationwide campaigns and train up all the wet-behind-the-ears students. With any luck it's just enough time for the hard left to get into a proper scrap with the 'good and decent people' progressives.

That's me done for a while. I have a life to sort and a living to earn.

There’s enough by-elections out here in the sticks, there’s the Reform councillors that we’ve already lost, but other parties are in a mess too and getting resignations for various different reasons, including in-fighting over political differences. And local government reform is affecting election timetables. Our local Green Party has grown, but it’s not clear that’s turning into votes from the recent by-election we had.

In turn I agree with most of your comments.

I still think though the rise of Green populism may potentially enhance populism in the Right. I think Hypno is potentially a largely divisive figure look at his clash with Zia Yusuf on Question Time where he threw around the word fascist liberally. His attacks on the rich, stated belief in open borders, flakiness on defence etc. These are all reasons that a section of the British public which you identified are drawn to him. Yet that stuff really really repels lots of other people. As you say though it is too early to really tell what will happen.

Agreed the big certain impact is going to be splitting the left/centre vote in 5/6 way politics. We get to see the impact of that in May especially in Wales where it could damage Plaid in particular.

A bit off topic but relevant to the Greens.

We just had a "Health Survey" through the door from the local Greens. I filled in the "what is important to you" section pointing out the reality of sex and its importance in the field of health, and also their capture by gender ideologists and persecution of sex realists. In the "will you vote Green at the Senedd elections" section, I ticked "No".

I didn't bother with the rest of the survey and, remarkably, I refrained from any bad language.

Its all gross oversimplification.

Take money off billionaires.
Legalise drugs.
Open all borders to everyone.
Anyone who.disagrees with you is a fascist.

Notably Polanski doesnt seem to have any toddler-level solutions for climate change or other environmental issues, or none that I'm aware of.

“Abolish landlords” I think was one recent policy voted for.

Oh, yes.

And 'landlords' appears to have somehow become code for 'Muslim men', is that about right?

"landlords and transphobes" I think is current euphemism

Great stuff. Local activism helps and has an impact.
Hopefully we will more of it in the run up to elections in May. We know what Greens in power are like for this see Bristol.

Useful blog posts

language games at the 2025 green party conference in bournemouth

https://thegreenlight.blog/2025/11/08/language-games-at-the-2025-green-party-conference-in-bournemouth/

Great background Timeline to the gender wars in the Greens -
tracking the ‘capture’ of the green party by critical theories activists
https://thegreenlight.blog/2025/10/29/tracking/

I mean, how do you actually abolish landlords? Impound people’s property? Or not allow them to rent it out? Neither seem like particularly feasible options.

It just seems like sixth form debating society level wank to me.

Generous.

Was it the Greens who said all rent paid to landlords should be discounted off the cost of the house to the tenants?