Sexism/other issues in the Green party England & Wales - Discussion Thread 2

[fromorbit]

Zack Polanski is making things bigger again.

We need a new thread to discuss all his antics and the ongoing situation in the Green party which is getting more ever more bizarre. While it is getting ever strident in denying biology it also has Mothin Ali as deputy Leader who clearly doesn't believe in trans thinking, but cleverly sidesteps round talking about it.

The fight back from Green Women's Declaration,(https://www.greenwomensdeclaration.uk/ ) continues and the court cases against GPEW from Emma Bateman and Shahrar Ali are developing.

In Bristol the Women of Wessex are causing panic amongst the ruling Green council just by turning up and asking questions. This may result in another court case.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5455053-bristol-council-is-about-to-be-sued

With local elections in May and elections in Wales incoming lots more to discuss and call out.

First thread - where you can follow the rise of Hypno Boobs:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5328986-greens-internal-drama-warms-up

Note the Scottish Greens which are a separate party to the Green Party England/Wales have their own thread for all their drama. They split off because GPEW didn't hate biology enough at the time.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5313420-scottish-greens-being-sexist-again?page=1

People like Polanski are not serious people. He's someone who in normal times would likely at most be a senior activist for the LDs, a position in Stonewall, organizing Pride Month in London. Or would have stayed a hack in Harley Street or had a mainly off on career as acting coach etc.
In normal times, running the Greens would be impossible.
I believe he's seen the populist schtick of Trump, Farage, now Mamdani, sees the Green leadership as an opportunity to bigger things, and the abnormal times we live in has propelled him.
Of course, he has no story, narrative, hinterland etc, all he has is LD activism in a new and very visible & audible soapbox.
But look what happens when he opens his mouth.
The BoE can ignore debt, carry on printing money, he can't point to any city to support his idea of rent controls, he wants an "alt NATO" with non aligned developing countries, he's libertarian on hard drugs plus while we're at it, medicalising of trans IDing youth (more drugs liberalising).
At least Corbyn had a hinterland, a CV you could point to as in it for the long haul, and genuinely helped predictable beliefs.
Polanski has none of this, the most pathetic man in British politics.
Oh, I forget, hypnotits as well.

Outlines the problem.

The Greens’ defence problem
Why Zack Polanski will have to abandon his opposition to Nato

https://archive.is/YgR6U

However it ignores the reality of the Greens. The thing is Green policies are very much controlled by party votes. Say Zack thinks I better get more normal on defence. He needs to get the party to follow.

The issue is the Greens have had an influx of left wing crazy. So the current pro NATO policy might be overturned at conference in Spring March 28th.

Plus other stuff might happen as mentioned earlier. The Greens might pass a whole bunch of anti Israel policies for a start most notably the motion to recognise Zionism as racism.

Motion A105 entitled “Zionism is Racism” to be debated and voted on at the upcoming Green Party Spring Conference. The full motion is here:

1. The Green Party declares itself to be an anti-Zionist party.

2. The Green Party rejects attempts to normalise the racist subjugation and oppression of Palestinians; to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism; to deny or minimise Palestinian human rights; to create hierarchies of racism; and to normalise or attempt to justify apartheid, ethnic cleansing or genocide. With this we reject the adoption or use in frameworks of the non-legally binding IHRA and JDA definitions of antisemitism (or alike), which have been weaponised to silence legitimate criticisms of the actions of the state of Israel. We affirm that definitions of anti-Jewish discrimination should not equate Jewish identity with Zionist ideology or political practice. As with any ethnicity or faith group, no single political ideology should be ascribed to an entire people.

3. Following from Motion E05, which affirmed that Israel is an apartheid State committing genocide, and Motion E07 supporting reparations and accountability, the Green Party supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.

4. The Green Party affirms the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination, including the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges that the struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under international law is legitimate.

5. The Green Party heeds the call from Palestinian civil society to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, and calls upon the United Kingdom Government to impose full embargoes and sanctions against Israel.

6. The Green Party calls for the release of all Palestinian prisoners of conscience (including Marwan Barghouti), the end of the use of administrative detention of Palestinians by Israel, and the treatment of Palestinian combatants in accordance with international humanitarian law, including in particular those provisions dealing with prisoners of war in the First Additional Protocol of the 1977 amendments to the Four Genevan Conventions of 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.

7. The Green Party calls for the removal of Palestine Action from the list of proscribed organisations in Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 (i.e. de-proscription).

8. The Green Party calls for the release of all prisoners detained for non-violent direct action in support of Palestinian rights and the end of the genocide, apartheid and the illegal occupation of Palestine and supports the demands of the Prisoners for Palestine.

I sadly imagine there might be more anti-women/men stuff too.

Imagine having to defend all that. As Green Light Blog indicates the structure of the Greens based around conference votes leaves it very vulnerable to entryism.

In practical terms, and as evidenced in our two blog posts covering the Autumn 2025 Conference in Bournemouth, this means that 1600 self-appointed members out of 50000 – half with less than 2 months membership – approved key reports, major policy reviews, and voted for new policies and organisational changes with no accountability to anyone but themselves.

Conference is not a delegates event, nor do attendees have to be known to their elected Local Party officers. They are free wheeling individuals with enormous power.

The thought of 2000 new recruits from former Socialist Working Party activists migrating from Your Party and registering to take part in our Conference is the stuff of nightmares !

No less than 124 motion – a record – have been submitted for the coming 2026 Spring Conference. The Executive has decided that will be a one day and online-only event because of cost. It has been reported that due to the surge in members, the Party’s income has been boosted by £5 million.

https://thegreenlight.blog/2026/01/27/one-member-one-vote-is-an-illusion-of-democracy/

The Greens also now calling for stricter regulation of gambling, which I don't in principle have a problem with, but it's an interesting contrast to calling for the deregulation of heroin.

He's just throwing anything out there now.
Snort as much coke as you like, but no way can you bet online between lines.

Green party voters actually now put housing and the economy ahead of the environment

https://archive.ph/Io93B

(New Statesman)

If the Greens are transforming into [generic left wing Omnicause party], but with an even more middle class membership than Labour, I wonder what that does to their electoral base.

I'm thinking of Tory to Green switchers who vote Green because they're really passionate about clean rivers and bird sanctuaries and want their shopping to be ethically sourced. The kind of people who elected Ellie Chowns, or who elected Hannah Spencer as a councillor in Hale. Michael Gove calls them hobbit voters.

The Zackists may feel there are bigger rewards elsewhere, and they may even be right about that. Though sending lots of very middle class activists to campaign in working class urban constituencies may not be as easy as they think.

This is very good advice though. Your risk perception is pretty buggered when you are off your face on coke.

Gambleaware, indeed.

There are a lot of Lib Dem type voters who also vote Green for those same reasons. If they cock up on the environment ( as they have in Brighton, which has one of the lowest recycling rates in the country) they are left with the Gaza votes and the Hard Left entryists- who are diametrically opposed on some isdues, as YP has found out, but anyone not blinded by ideology could have told them.

@RainbowBagels It's a numbers game. Starmer/McSweeney calculated quite early in the last parliament that there was a net electoral benefit to going after centre and centre-right votes at the expense of shedding votes on the left and green flanks. Part of the calculation was that those voters had nowhere else to go and would be squeezed into the Lab column in order to boot out the Tories; part that they were disproportionately in safe seats - so their votes weren't needed - and part was simply that the potential Con-Lab switchers far outnumbered the disgruntled lefties and greenies. Polling generally suggested that a breakaway leftwing party would attract 10-15% of the electorate.
Hypnoboobs has cemented the GPEW as that leftwing party in England (helped by YP idiocies), but to win FPTP seats he took needs to decide how to play the numbers game.

So far GPEW seems to be assuming that it can pull off the LD trick of pulling votes from different political segments in different constituencies. But the LDs' success in doing that has always depended on a safe, bland image and on Lab having a leader who doesn't frighten their more prosperous voters. Hypnoboobs now has lots of experienced Lab campaigners at his disposal, if he's smart enough to take advantage, but I do wonder if GPEW is going to have to be careful to avoid its alphabet salad supporters putting off some more mainstream voters on the doorstep and acting as GOTV for Reform or Con. It probably won't matter in most of the contests where GPEW has a realistic chance of winning, but it just might in byelections if they are bussing in activists and not organising the novices.

I'm still not convinced GPEW is yet in a position to win big in a GE, but if Reform can displace the Tories, GPEW can displace Lab and - as with Reform - the process of attracting more support will build a more mainstream, less scary image: positive feedback loop.

Farage is being very canny in bringing Ben Goldsmith over to Reform, and building conservation policies that will be consistent with ending slavish devotion to Net Zero and stopping housebuilding in the Green Belt etc.

Anyone with a credible claim to a green world view takes the climate and biodiversity crises incredibly seriously. Caricaturing that as 'slavish devotion' to net zero simply betrays a lack of understanding.

There is plenty of scope for discussing strategies for achieving net zero as quickly as possible, whilst minimising the inevitable impacts of policies implemented to tackle the unfolding climate and biodiversity catastrophes and mitigate their impact, but the less we do and the more slowly we do it, the worse things are going to be for our children and their children. Wishful thinking (which includes imagining that we have a 'human ingenuity will drive technological innovation' get-out-of-jail card we'll be able to play before things get really dicey) is not going to minimise the consequences - and some very high-impact consequences of historical carbon emissions are already baked in (many scientists think we've passed the tipping point for melting of the Greenland ice sheets).

It's slightly surprising* that people of the right - who always want their children to benefit from their hard work/inherit their financial and social assets - are so unwilling to accept relatively modest lifestyle changes to spare their children much more drastic lifestyle change and a lower quality of life.

*The reasons for this are interesting and relevant to why climate policies to date have been an abject failure.

Bah. I have work to do and should know better than to waste my time on this particular problem in an online dialogue.

Isn't it true that all parents, regardless of class background, political or ideological positioning want their children to benefit from their own successes and/or gains?

On another note, I'd like to see how many potential left wing green voters are actually prepared to give up their world travel habit which usually involves taking flights. Not too many, I imagine.

I'm afraid when our industrial electricity prices are vastly the most expensive in the world, then there's a problem with how we're doing Net Zero.

I've been ruminating on the Green's latest TV advert and I finally realised what it reminded me of

brilliant!

Yes. And net zero seems to involve outsourcing our carbon emissions to other countries to deal with, sometimes by dumping excess waste into the sea. It does little to reduce overall emissions if we are buying coal and oil from other countries at a massive cost to consumers, then getting the government to give people money because they can't afford their energy bills.

Polanski as a sofa guest on newsnight with Arlene Foster

ZIppy's row with Telegraph journalist continues

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/zack-polanski-ill-informed-poshness-174947557.html

The thing is, Zack couldnt care less. He hasnt thought the NATO thing through for more than 5 minutes. All he knows is that the Leftist entryists and the activists and the Gaza crew dont care for NATO and they are more likely to read his tweets about people with double barreled names than The Telegraph. If they thought further than their own ideology they would know that we would massively have to increase on the ground military spending ( including bankrolling the defence of the ' global South' in the way the US bankrolls us now in order to have his pie in the sky defence alternative, and no nuclear deterrent. Of course Russia and Iran would immediately stop their nuclear programmes too.

@Shortshriftandlethal Isn't it true that all parents, regardless of class background, political or ideological positioning want their children to benefit from their own successes and/or gains?
No disagreement from me on that - the popularity of Osborne's IHT policy says that's true, although I could name plenty of lefties who claim they would be happy to pay a punitive rate (their children are all doing well, having benefitted from the subtler forms of inherited advantage).

I specified ROC because I was responding to 1984Now, who is self-proclaimed ROC, and I do think that asking people to accept lifestyle change now to spare their children works better as an appeal to ROC than LOC (who seem to prefer social justice arguments and making climate action a moral issue). Miliband is persisting with his Panglossian line that action on climate (he always ignores the interdependence of climate and biodiversity…) will be good for jobs, good for energy bills and good for the UK's resilience and international competitiveness.

@1984Now I'm afraid when our industrial electricity prices are vastly the most expensive in the world, then there's a problem with how we're doing Net Zero.

So what would ‘doing net zero right’ look like as far as you’re concerned? I think it's vital we find ways to go further and faster, so I'm always interested to hear what people find acceptable and think would be feasible in countries accustomed to short-term democratic governments.*

Arguably the biggest problem with the UK’s climate policy is that it's focused on reducing production-related emissions, rather than consumption-related emissions. (To be fair the focus on territorial emissions is mainly a product of the flawed COP process.)

As climate change is a global phenomenon it would be better still if, rather than concentrating exclusively on reducing domestic carbon consumption, we focused on maximising emission reduction per pound, regardless of geography. This would mean spending most of our climate budget on reducing emissions in parts of the world where there are big wins to be had at a relatively low cost (and excellent ROIs). Scope for the UK to develop genuine economic strength in some areas too (we’re on a hiding to nothing trying to do that in batteries or low carbon energy hardware, because the supply chains don't stack up).

I hoped that Trump’s tariff policy might prompt more interest and debate about using carbon tariffs to level the playing field and shelter producers who invest in emission reduction (or have to meet higher environmental standards) from international competitors who don't. Create a coalition of nations committed to action and grow markets for sustainably produced food, steel, consumer goods etc. The EU did start to take steps towards a 'carbon border adjustment mechanism' and that's something I think we should be involved in.

*The challenges of the climate and biodiversity crises are good reasons for favouring a more proportional election system that would be more conducive to consistent policy-making and long-term investments.

The Police Federation are not happy with Zack
Police Federation of England and Wales (@PFEW_HQ): "We’ve written publicly to @ZackPolanski following his comments on recent Elbit protest verdicts. Welcoming outcomes while failing to acknowledge a police officer being seriously injured matters. Empathy for those harmed in the line of duty should never be optional." | nitter

@SionnachRuadh I'm not surprised they are unhappy. The verdict is astonishing, and you have to be a nasty piece of work to celebrate it.

Good letter, and absolutely correct. Im glad he has been publicly cslled out on that and I hope he is asked about it again and again. Iirc the person who broke the police officers back was a hung verdict. If nothing else, the person who did that should be retried for GBH ( possibly with intent) as smashing someones back ( when they must have had their back to them on the floor) is clearly GBH with intent, but there is a risk that again, a jury will find them not guilty. Otherwise, what are we saying? That if people get carried away with their sledgehammers they should be not guilty of a crime?