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

Sadly, we're in the age of stupid and disengaged by so many. Politicians, critically journos, and sadly, voters. MN members here a shining exception.
Oh well, at least we have £1m going to HNH to hold right and left to account.
Sorry, only the right?
Can they refund half that sum back, then?

Leo Kearse doesn't always hit the mark, but when he does, he hits it well
Wings Over Scotland on X: "https://t.co/14DycATu8e" / X

There are repercussions for this stuff eventually amongst broader public it just takes a long time to sink in. I mean we have 2-3 more years till next general election. By then the Greens reputation may be very different.

The thing is the party that will really benefit is Reform.

What I find amazing in the Omnicause lot is how Trump, Netanyahou, Farage, Musk, Robinson etc are an existential threat to the world, democracy, poor people etc...yet they're dancing around like it's Saturday night and everything is a big party.
This just doesn't compute.

Indeed I mean if Farage was really that bad you would be teaming up with Starmer and the lib Dems or even the Tories to stop him.

However the way ZP just uses dehumanizing rhetoric for Reform shows his agenda is rather more simplistic. They want a simplistic good vs bad world.

The war in the Middle East isn't complicated apparently.

Polanski now set to address a range of union conferences, starting with the Neu (teachers union, previous NUT, not the krautrock kosmiche band)

https://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/educators-fightback/2026-03-29/zack-polanski-address-neu-annual-conference?language_content_entity=en

Aim is to get them to switch funds to them.

https://nitter.net/daisyeastlake/status/2038305056597098514#m

Quite a few (PCS, that one len McCluskey was involved in etc) have already de-funded labour in a flounce from at least the 2010s let alone the Hated Tory Starmer, who's implementing such terrible bills as the workers rights act and equalising the minimum wage for 18 year olds 🤯

But then as pointed out elsewhere, green party policy is to shut down the arms industry and nuclear power and fossil fuels industry, and those workers are workers too

Argh sorry, lens old union Unite still back Labour but cut funds by 40%

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxg72nrw6vo

They WHAT?!

Good lord.

I'm also scunnered nobody cared that the Transmission concert was put on by Mighty Hoopla, who are owned by people Zak is basing his current routine on combatting. Supposedly.

Breaking... interesting if true.

Heidi Bachram
https://x.com/HeidiBachram/status/2038567850487488923

This Green councillor has revealed that the leadership of the party (aside from Mothin Ali) were going to speak AGAINST the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion. The frothing antizionists are taking this as expected.

Ex Muslim compares extreme Islam and TAs.
https://nitter.net/chanwalrus/status/2035350215234867566

Some of the "Greens" that didn't get the vote through are ranting.
It's looking rather stormy. Lubna Speitan, author of the "Zionism is racism" conference motion, promises to come back "ten times more ferociously" after her setback. "Anger! Rage!" That's her way forward.
https://nitter.net/habibi_uk/status/2038372655208735122

@SionnachRuadh If Hannah doesn't know anything about the event organisers, I would be extremely happy to enlighten her.It doesn't take a massive amount of effort to not share a stage with rape defender Lewis Nielsen.

Honestly, if you have the time it might actually be worth writing to Spencer. She ought to know who she's sharing a stage with, but it's probably easier than we like to acknowledge to fall into the trap of taking a certain amount on trust when someone you do know vouches implicitly or explicitly for someone you don't. Especially if your diary is a lot fuller than it used to be.

The Freize comment is dividing things.

Some are blaming ZP remembering his previous support for attacking antisemitism in Corbyn's Labour and the fact he is Jewish. A lot of conspiracy slop developing with people suggesting Mossad is behind it all.

Others suggest Freize who was a supporter of Adrian Ramsay and Carala Denyer for leader is lying. She is significant locally though standing down this year :
Richmond Green Party leader

One thing is certain ZP and the party leadership will have to come off the fence at the main party conference. Either back the motion or oppose it. Either will be telling.

Mossad! 😅 Zack is going to come a cropper isn't he. Everything he does, or doesn't do, will be because he's Jewish.

Hannah is in the midst of a lovebombing campaign mounted by her own side.

Polanski buttering up NEU by promising to abolish OFSTED

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/30/zack-polanski-meets-unions-in-attempt-to-get-them-to-switch-party-funding-to-greens

...Promising additional funding for education sourced from taxing “extreme” wealth, Polanski said the Labour government had come into power promising change, but they were merely “tinkering” around the edges.
The Greens would offer more radical reform. “Ofsted is a toxic, failed institution which is harming teachers and children,” he said to huge applause. “We need to end the Ofsted era entirely and move towards a genuinely collaborative model.
“And then we need to talk about academies. Another failed model pushed on to teachers and children by previous governments’ ideological drive to marketise our children’s education.”
It was music to NEU members’ ears, as was his attack on the introduction of more testing in schools under Labour with a year 8 reading assessment – which members earlier voted to oppose.
“It’s time for a different approach. One that recognises that real learning, real skills, real understanding, can’t be measured only by standardised testing. One that recognises the vital role of arts and vocational subjects, and treats them equally within the curriculum...

So Zack Polanski missed the Green conference to go on the march but, if Andree Frieze is correct, had briefed members to speak against the motion for him?

Have I got that right because it is not behaviour I would expect from a party leader?

I might have a pretty low opinion of Starmer but, I'd be very surprised if he ducked out of an event where such an incendiary proposal was being debated.

I don't think he's good with Difficult Conversations. He likes the applause, and after all he's manifesting himself to be a populist. Populists need to be popular.

I read that Carla Denyer was going to speak against it. She's so far been fully paid up on the #BeKind TWAW stuff. Winder if Natalie Bennett was going to take a position on it too?

Thing is this latest is like similar past examples of Green internal divisions.

When there were attempts to get pro women/gay motions passed they used conference management stuff to block them.

Whatever is going on it will come out.

Also rumours that Zp and Hannah dancing with gay fetish folk on stage is not going down well with some Muslim members.

Oh yeah, the bruvvers ain't gonna be happy.

I was wondering why Mothin Ali wasn't there twerking

Wasn't there a school in Lefty North London in the mid 70s that invited 11 year old pupils into staff meetings to contribute to school policy?
This is the late 2020s equivalent.

Zoe Williams on Nice Normal Green girl next door Hannah Spencer MP

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/30/wow-people-were-so-angry-at-labour-green-mp-hannah-spencer-on-politics-plumbing-smears-and-snobbery

Lots of the plumbing. Not about the property portfolio

I'm a dyed in the wool Right voter (Conservative in the last six GEs), and if you'd asked me even 6 months ago who'd win the next GE, I'd have said Reform/Tory coalition.
Today? Despite the cringe that is Polanski, my money is on Greens winning 75 seats, maybe 100+, denying Farage anything like what he needs, and some sort of Greens tail wagging the Labour dog outcome.
What was a rising of right wing young Boomer voters in 1979 to get a leader that spoke their values, will in 2029 be angry Zoomers/Millenials/younger Gen X whom Polanski is a lightning rod re extreme wealth, Trump, Omnicause values.
And like Farage who can successfully shrug off those school allegations, Nathan Gill etc, Polanski is doing the same in being impossible to pin down (Hypnoboobs, Islamo-Green associations).
Hannah Spencer is the prototype for the candidate to get the party the biggest breakthru of all.

The problem Greens have in general elections is that nearly every candidate in target seats will have to be capable of being in a coalition government. Because it might happen.

They have to learn from the mistakes of the lib dems, when their performance killed them off for years. Hannah Spencer is nice, but she's not home secretary material.

They havent got that long to find these candidate and promote them. Preferably not on stage with a stripper.

The same can be said for Reform, but they are ahead of the Greens with named candidates.

Reform had this problem after the last election with only 5 MPs, because McMurdock (an unvetted paper candidate who nobody expected to win) turned out to have some unfortunate personal history, and Lowe of course was a massive unguided missile who they had to get out of the party before he caused serious damage.

The current task is to look in the petri dish of 270,000 members and see if there are 600 vaguely plausible people who could stand as MPs. Defections play a part in that, because if you're going to have 20 people who look like they could be the cabinet, you have to buy in talent.

The new Zackist GPEW is also going to have the standard leftist problem (or maybe anti-establishment problem, if you look at the long history of UKIP/Reform candidate selections) - you need candidates who aren't loonies. I don't mean candidates who will pass the Times test of not having Fraser Nelson or Hugo Rifkind harrumphing that these are not serious people - they'll say that about anyone anti-establishment, and I'm keenly aware of some of the dud politicians Fraser has promoted as emerging talents - they just need to not seem like loonies to voters on the doorstep.

There are lots of newly minted GPEW members - the kind of people who would be in YP if it was a going concern - who frankly shouldn't be allowed out in public.

Polanski is very thin skinned. You could see how angry he got when women were disobedient in party meetings.

He spent the weekend rage tweeting a female journalist because she dared.criticise him (32 tweets in 48 hours). Also lead his speech onstage with a veiled reference to her, it seems.

www.thejc.com/opinion/i-reported-on-zack-polanski-his-thin-skinned-response-was-telling-qv9e1wng

It is entirely possible he is so thin skinned because he is suffering severe imposter syndrome. A grifter like him suddenly in the public gaze like this he probably didn't imagine all the hoopla that would ensue.