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

The "Corbzy was framed" stuff is, I guess a form of mirroring of his new base. It's a technique in dating / behaviour therapy to build empathy iirc?

And as @1984Now notes, could he really claim that the Sun hack put him up to the hypnotits stuff when he was already advertising it?

Good piece.

'“I see people who do yoga together,” Millward declares. “Who sing together! Who dance together!” As co-deputy leader of the Greens, she says, it is her duty to “speak the truth – my truth – and to speak hope”. The crowd looks emotional.

Polanski steps up, picking up the theme. “The thing that people say to me over and over again – it would become repetitive if it wasn’t beautiful – is I’m feeling hope!” The crowd erupts in agreement'

Hope is a hell of a product to sell.

Mirroring techniques by way of Neuro Linguistic Programming are a mainstay of the dating scene. Which of course is a massive spectrum, which includes sleazy rapey PUA gurus, but extends to more ethical dating coaches who are basically just taking men with low confidence and poor social skills and giving them some techniques for talking to women. It's not all bad, but once you know the techniques you can't unsee them.

I see Zack as an unusual case of someone who's taking NLP techniques and applying them to political leadership. I sometimes wonder if he's read the late Scott Adams' book Win Bigly about the 2016 Trump campaign. Adams was a trained hypnotist and was fascinated by what he saw in Trump's persuasion techniques - it's a very perceptive book in some ways, and more people should read it, but I think Adams leans too hard into the idea that there's a super secret technique that leaders can learn to manipulate the masses.

Is that an indisputable fact? That he was promoting it actively at the time?
Because he first said it never really happened, then it did, but he was entrapped and wasn't strong enough to say no, then for him in the BBC radio interview at the time to state that it was very possible for hypnotherapy to help and indeed more research was needed.
So, you're saying it was on the list of conditions he actively promoted, and the Sun journo simply took him up on it?
Who's going to be the first current journalist to take this further and properly hold his feet to the fire?

For my sins, I actually sought out said podcast. I don't know why but there is video of the chat as well which I had to switch off BC of the sight of Mark Steel in his shirt.

It's 45 minutes. Main points :

• oh aren't Labour terrible.
• I can't even remember the name of the labour candidate in Gorton but she said she was local but no one believed her; Ha! Unlike Hannah Spencer who is a real person.
• it's a SMEAR that the greens want to legalise drugs and anyway Starmer you can buy drugs Instantly NOW. he did note that ppl are terrified of walking down the street BC of drug dealing. So... He's against legalisation and wants tougher action? Steel didn't bother to ask. (Are drug dealers part of the proletariat for Marxism purposes?)

• Zack is a really genuine sincere person.

• his wife (I don't actually know what her name is. Ali didn't use it) was busily bundling up leaflets and doing a huge amount of background work. Which reminded me of a twitter thread ages ago by an ex swp member who said the party gets the skint single mum eager beaver new members to staple together all those placards you see and didn't actually pay them but relied on volunteers.

Then he was trying to claim that that photo of him at the protest to mourn the Ayatollah (billed as an anti war protest) was possibly doctored. Some guy just turned up with an Iran flag and he had no idea where he came from. And he seems larger than the other ppl there.

Also some chat about celery and coriander. Steel trying to do BANTZ a lot. And there's a second part of it too.

Getting spicy on Good Morning Britain

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/zack-polanksi-ed-balls-good-morning-britain-video-b2965557.html

When is a journalist gonna confront Polanski that he wasn't entrapped by The Sun journo, he was already promoting his interesting approach to cleavages? All she did was take him up on what he was already offering to try to fix.
If anyone entrapped Polanski, it was himself.

Beth Rigby did broach it. He just doubled down and said it was a fix.

He's using Farage and Trump's technique of attacking the fact he's being asked the question and the questioner themselves. He doesn't actually say he wanted open borders. I suspect if he was forced to concede it, he knows he'd lose the Corbyn fanclub who've recently joined then face the backlash

Emma Bateman's case has passed another hurdle. Note Shahrar's second case also recently advanced in court. Gardening needed. These cases and the one against Bristol Greens are going to be a disaster for the Greens.

The Green Party lost their Strike Out claim against me.
In January this year at a hearing at the Central County Court in London the Green Party attempted to strike out most of my claim against them

I am pleased to say that the Party lost this Strike Out application in its entirety. I do not yet have a copy of the judgement to share, but I am relieved that the judge recognised that my whole case detailing the 5+ years of discrimination against me by the Green Party needs to be examined properly in court.

Moving through the legal system is a slow process. The next step is a Case Management Costs Conference which is listed for September, after which I hope that a timetable for the rest of the proceedings will be set. The Green Party's tactic has been to delay the case for as long as possible. I imagine that is because they do not want the behaviour of Green leaders, officers and MPs to be detailed in court,

The number of Green Party members and supporters has grown rapidly in recent months, accompanied by remarkable electoral success. The Greens are certainly on a roll. However if the Green Party considers that it is fit to govern others, it is only right that its own internal practices are robust, fair and transparent. From what I have seen and heard, little has changed internally since they expelled me. In part because the same people who bent the disciplinary system to target Gender Critical members still hold all the power.

The Party begrudgingly pays lip service to the notion that women's rights matter, but I do not believe that it is possible for anyone who is decisively Gender Critical to be elected to a national position in the Green Party even now. So this legal case is important because if political parties are places where orthodoxy is enforced and challenge is punished, something vital to democracy is lost. The protections that keep debate alive must be defended.

Preparing for court involves significant costs, and I’m deeply grateful to all who have shared or contributed to my crowdfunder. I realise that my case has stretched on and on, but it is more important than ever to hold the Party to account, and I am determined to do so - it is the right thing to do and I will win.

Your continued support is truly appreciated.

He really looked unhappy, miffed, in that interview. It went about as badly as it could have. Inyerviewers need to press him on why he even thought his avenue of interest therapeutically could ever have been tenable Apologizing simply for saying he was gullible in going along with the "sting" is just disingenuous.

I thought he was very Starmerish in that interview - peevish and prim that they were daring to ask questions he didn't like.

He was better when he could spout optimistic slogans but suspect the media will have great fun getting him to explain the detail behind his claims instead of the BIGLY words he prefers.

He gets really arsey really quickly if interviews don't go the way he wants. I suspect he will have more difficult interviews to do in the future...

I think that is partly what happened to Corbyn in the end. The more people saw of him, the more his image went from benevolent grandpa to grumpy old man.

It's getting to be a pattern. He'd have been better off if, right out of the gate, he'd owned the hypnoboobs thing and just said that many of us do silly things when we're young, but that's not who he is now.

Instead he gets visibly arsey about it every time he's asked, then he takes to X and posts about how he's being smeared and this means he's got the billionaire owned media rattled.

Journos are noticing, which means he'll be asked about it more.

This is Zack's problem: his increased prominence means more people want to talk to him, but he's not very good at dealing with any interviewer less sycophantic than Bastani. (He's not great with Bastani either)

Agreed. And given the increased entryism from what used to be called the loony left / omnicausers and the resulting range of batshit policy proposals, there'll be plenty of material to be picked over. The grandiose promises and statements that are his preferred method of communication will be probed and analysed - he'll be asked to provide details.
It looks as if we're in for some amusement if this is his preferred method of dealing with challenge.

Agreed. The thing is ZP dodginess when facing questions has long been apparent and has been highlighted on this thread again and again. Because when asked about biology he goes particularly evasive and has done from the start.

When he said he admired Trump and Farage style he was telling the truth. Classic male bluster is his go to.

Post election he will have to deal with a lot of hard stuff so we can expect more melt downs.

A bunch of racist councillors just elected for the party.
The party conference in September with a huge drama over Israel and biology likely.
The law suits against sexism ticking along.
Green Councils in power doing crazy stuff - like declaring peace in Gaza while failing to collect the bins and booting women out for asking questions.

It's going to be like Keir Starmer being asked about penises. If journos know it gets under his skin, they'll just keep coming back to it.

Yes. And no matter how much he rehearses a "neutral" response it will always fail. As we know, there are no rational arguments for believing that women can have a penis or that children must be gaslit into believing their bodies are wrong but sex change is the cure.
All he'll have is incoherent bluster and pursed lips - believers always beclown themselves and the media will have a field day 😅

One thing I will note about Zack mania. Unlike the case for Jeremy Corbyn, I have yet to see poetry being written about him.

https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=134597

He has recited poetry though, as mentioned in previous thread when he was citing Benjamin Zephaniah

Just had a Green canvasser at my door. Told her I wouldn’t vote Green due to their gender ideology . She said she didn’t want men in women’s loos but transgender men had never assaulted her so were obviously fine. She also mentioned ‘hermaphrodites’ ffs.
Wonder who I will get next ?

Benjamin Zephaniah the wifebeater.

Figures.

Absolutely. Peevish and prim and liable to have a wee strop.

It'd be quite entertaining if it wasn't for the size of the cult he's creating.

My canvasser also mentioned ‘science’ . Hahahahah.

Still haven't seen a Green canvasser, and they're projected to do well hereabouts.

Mind you, in my area (Labour controlled for about 1000 years) I haven't seen any Labour canvassers. This might have something to do with the local party being in special measures for corruption and nepotism, a chunk of the members going Gaza Independent, and the remaining members are apparently on strike.

@fromorbit Green Councils in power doing crazy stuff - like declaring peace in Gaza while failing to collect the bins and booting women out for asking questions.

I just don't get the whole Gaza obsession. Whichever side you're on, there's not much the UK government can do, other than condemn atrocities, and it's completely irrelevant to UK councils and trade unions. I can just see it, Hamas/IDF saying to themselves, "Oh, Brighton council doesn't like what we're doing, let's stop."