Would or will you vote Green if it was the only way to change a Council that has traditionally been Labour?

[IwantToRetire]

That's the situation in my council area.

Not going to list issues in my area as maybe a bit identifying, but in terms of local issues they have lost the plot.

I am not a member of or ever been a supporter of any political party.

I usually just vote for a local independent candidate, but as the suggestion is the Greens could get in, should I vote for them to get Labour out, when I despise their treatment of women.

Quick question on the topic of the Greens - what do you think Zack Polanski meant when he talked about ‘building a society that doesn’t include ’ those he identifies as ‘right wing’ or ‘far right’?

Could that view filter down to council level and affect how we obtain local services if we hold the ‘wrong’ views?

Social Credit System, a la China, eh?

Or interview by commissars before you're allowed to get public services, benefis, etc?

greens live in even more of a fantasy world than labour - so no. To run a council you need people who are not off with the fairies. I actually doubt if it's possible to improve local government much whoever you elect so you may as well opt for the least insane.

In local elections I vote for the person rather than the party. Some of the councillors are known to be rather unpleasant people, I'll not vote for them whatever label they put on themself.

Leaving aside what he means by 'far right', is he actually proposing to forcibly eject Conservative voters? Or will it be a gulag for re education?

I hadn’t realised that he’d said that. So I googled it and there he is saying exactly those words.

He’s quite a character isn’t he? Hypnotic breast enlargement one minute, social exclusion for people who disagree with him the next.

I think I might make a small hobby out of noting down Green Party statements. It would end up being a cross between Mao’s Little Red Book and the ravings of a Victorian lunatic.

They long since stopped being interested in the environment.

Oh gosh - imagine what ‘gems’ your record of GO statements would capture!

ZP is a very odd character. I can’t work out if he is mad, bad or just power hungry and totally unscrupulous. I’m sad for the GP as we desperately need a party that holds the government to account on the environment but the GP is definitely not it.

I just wonder how far they will get before the general public see how bonkers they really are.

Same but Greens.

I hadn't heard about that so went looking. Let me draw you a map of my journey down this particular rabbit hole!

1. Found a 29-seconds video clip on X of him saying exactly that, it was obviously a snippet from a longer video so went looking for that.
2. Found one on an instagram account _boldpolitics, where he says that and then the woman he's ?interviewing? responds at length. So it's not clear to me at this point if he was playing Devil's Advocate to prompt her to run with the subject, or if he was putting forth his own opinion and she was responding to that.
3. Who is she? Zakia Sewell, broadcaster DJ and writer.
4. On her Instagram account (zzzakia) there are lots of photos of her promoting her new book 'Finding Albion', including one of her and Polanski. Text against this is "i had the pleasure of chatting about FINDING ALBION with the legend that is @greenpartyzack for his @_boldpolitics podcast a few weeks back and it’s out now! ❤️‍🔥 we spoke about nationalism, the myths of albion, alternative histories remembered in folk songs, and the transformative power of the imagination — it was a v inspiring conversation ✨"
5. Archived copy of Times review of 'Finding Albion' here
6. In https://womensprize.com/in-conversation-with-zakia-sewell/ she talks about her reasons for writing the book; I only skimmed it but it seemed to me that she wanted to replace the Victorian-Empire-British-Identity with the Folk-Druid-Ancient-British-Identity. A quote from this interview: "In a moment where divisive rhetoric about race, migration and identity is becoming the norm, I hope that readers feel empowered to challenge the exclusionary visions of Britishness conjured by the far-right, that they find inspiration in the tales of resistance and collectivity in the book, and that they are reminded of the fundamentals that we share, across communities, cultures and continents." There's enough buzzwords in that one sentence to have attracted Polanski's attention for his podcast!

So - back to what he said on that 29-second clip.

"There are people though who would identify as right-wing or indeed even far right and no matter what humanity or community we put them in they are set on destroying or pushing this toxicity. Do we think we can change their minds? Or is it a case of building a society that doesn't include them?"

In the longer clip Zakia's response boils down to 'who do we mean when we say far-right, lots of people have valid concerns, more moderate, we can talk to them, but yes there are still a few people we shouldn't waste our energy on'.

But, I don't know what was said before all this, nor what was discussed after (and I really don't have the fortitude time to listen to the whole podcast (an hour? Less? More?)

My overall impression is that he's got a podcast to make, she uses the right buzzwords to suit his ends, he got her on to discuss her book, which discussion he aimed to guide to back up his hazy political claims. He thinks he can label everyone who doesn't agree with him as far-right / toxic / dangerous and their minds need to be changed; so he leads the conversation in that direction.

In times gone by, if a Green had said they wanted to build a society that doesn't include [whoever] I'd have assumed they were planning to set up a hippy commune somewhere near Totnes or Glastonbury. When Polanski says it now - hmm. He has ambitions to be in charge of us all, so when he says 'society' he's talking about the entire UK. There's a whiff of coercion ("change their minds") with a threat of expulsion if they won't ("doesn't include them") there, isn't there? Because people who don't agree with him are far-right / toxic / dangerous so that's all right, isn't it, to use those agree-with-me-or-else means against them? Because the end justifies the means, right?

I do believe that Polanski has accidentally said the quiet part out loud. I had thought it might just be 'say something controversial to start the conversation' but I don't now think that. His Utopia is only for him and his.

"Could that view filter down to council level and affect how we obtain local services if we hold the ‘wrong’ views?"
Sadly, I think it absolutely could. We've already see it in ?Bristol? where Green councillors walked out because women wouldn't stop banging on about their rights. So yes, I think the top-down message to Green councillors is that if you can dismiss someone as racist / transphobic / islamophobic / body-shaming / insufficiently zealous / insert personal bugbear here - then you should definitely dismiss their needs/input, they don't deserve the council's services and we shouldn't waste our scarce resources on these Untouchables. And they'll get that warm fuzzy feeling as they deny service, the one only experienced by the virtuous believers on the right side of history.

There's no election in my area, but if there was I don't think I'd be voting Green.

Yes, thanks for that fuller description - I was careful to quote exactly what he said.

Can you listen to the clip and see if you think he said “people I would identify as right wing… etc” - it’s a small discretion but also potentially telling of his rather controlling intentions. I may have heard it wrong.

He said:
"There are people though who would identify as right-wing or indeed even far right and no matter what humanity or community we put them in they are set on destroying or pushing this toxicity. Do we think we can change their minds? Or is it a case of building a society that doesn't include them?"

The clip I watched included his words in text at the bottom, so I transcribed them, listened to it again checking that his speech matched the text (it sometimes doesn't if it's automated).

Here's the clip I took his words from, it's within someone else's tweet.
https://x.com/Skint_Eastwood1/status/2045211234874908873

No - I could never vote Green.

I have to say I am rather chilled by that.

It’s worth listening when politicians say stuff like this. He could do it.

The Greens in Bristol already are, when they refuse democratic process to women wanting to discuss women's rights.

No. Despite the MANY issues I will always vote Labour.

Here's the full youtube interview. Time stamped to relevant part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=PQ4Of6LiuF8&t=1499s

ZP:'I'm a former theater actor that got into politics and I'm listening to you and I'm like, that's just it though, isn't it? It's people coming together to create new stories in symbiosis with what's happening in the world and then to vision the future. I think so often the things that hold us back is billions of pounds have been spent on propaganda telling us things can't be different or they have to be this way. All the toxicity and division are exactly how it should be, as opposed to people are fueling that and they're being paid to fuel that and actually we
could create something different before we go into complete utopia - which I'm totally there for. Uh, there are people though who would identify as right-wing or indeed even far right and no matter what humanity or community we put them
in they are, uh, set on destroying or pushing this toxicity. Do we think we
can change their minds or is it a case of building a society that doesn't include them?'

I'm all for a future without the far-right or the far-left. Send them all into space 🚀

I wrote a lengthy post but realised it could be boiled down to...

'This is terrifying.'

Apart from anything else, it's very alarming that he has this deep contradiction in his thinking:

'All the toxicity and division are exactly how it should be, as opposed to people are fueling that and they're being paid to fuel that and actually we could create something different before we go into complete utopia - which I'm totally there for. Uh, there are people though who would identify as right-wing or indeed even far right and no matter what humanity or community we put them in they are, uh, set on destroying or pushing this toxicity. Do we think we can change their minds or is it a case of building a society that doesn't include them?'

This isn't an idle thought, is it? He is proposing eliminating division by excluding people whose views differ from his own.

I agree with a pp, he is a very dangerous man. Smily and superficially positive, but the words don't mean what they sound like they mean. When he says 'utopia', he means 'a place where everyone agrees with me'.

He is grim. Power-hungry, dishonest, manipulative, and utterly intolerant.

Word.

No never in a billion years would I vote for those insane idiots.

No