Sexism/other issues in the Green party England & Wales - Discussion Thread 3

[fromorbit]

Zack Polanski is making things bigger yet again so another thread needed.

Well things have developed rather a lot since the start. ZP started out as being another sexist guy in politics - no shortage those around, but he thought he could take it to a new level and he proved he could do it.

The Green threads have followed his rise from the start of with the Hypnoboobs scandal and much more. There is also:

Mothin Ali as deputy Leader who clearly doesn't believe in trans thinking, but cleverly sidesteps round talking about it, has always had a issues with encouraging racist violence and is now encouraging people to sue the Green party if they attempt to stop them saying racist stuff.

The other deputy Rachel Millward represents the posh rich faction of the Greens who manages to sounding like Reform when opposing Asylum Seekers in her area, but at the same time saying we are too harsh on immigrants in general. Obviously she also doesn't believe women are a thing. Yet she is the least crazy when violence is concerned compared to ZP, and Mothin.

Hypnoboobs scandal got worse recently when it became clear from BBC footage ZP actively believed in the Hypnoboobs thesis rather than being tricked into it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9enygvezeo

Alongside all this there is constant ongoing attacks on biological reality from the party in interviews and in policy.

Now in the last week or so after a longstanding spate of antisemetic rhetoric from some Greens during the election campaign and ZP downplaying it. We have synagogues, schools, ambulances attacked, two Jewish people dead and ZP berating unarmed police for risking their lives in fighting a violent killer who was still armed with a knife things have come to a crisis point.

The Greens are becoming ever more sinister with dozens of candidates sounding like they are seventies NF supporters with comments about uppity women and Jewish power. The huge drama over a crazy motion which they were trying to pass against Israel at conference alongside a motion to prevent women having sports will surface again their September conference.

It seems likely after next week The Greens are going to be running a bunch of councils which doesn't bode well after their antics in Bristol.

Yet there is hope, in Bristol women are fighting back_: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5455053-bristol-council-is-about-to-be-sued_

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, both getting through legal delaying tactics as they move to trial. Gardening is needed. These cases if successful could be dramatic in their impact.

First thread - where you can follow the rise of ZP and lots of other scandal
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5328986-greens-internal-drama-warms-up

Second Thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5456759-sexismother-issues-in-the-green-party-england-wales-discussion-thread-2?

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

Zack Polanski 'draw up a list of IDF people', 'no one wants to live next to a war criminal' is too pro-Zionist!?

🍿 🍿 🍿

No matter what he does, it will never be enough for them.

Someone called Sabine apparently said “ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-semitism, its revenge” - sounds like the sort of thing that might have got her time in prison during the Southport riots! If Polanski hadn’t taken action, the Greens would be in trouble. As predicted on this thread he won’t be able to manage these groups and tensions, despite all his popularity and media appearances. No one can.

The Greens control 18 councils and hold 1,346 town hall seats. At a local level there are already signs that their obsession with Palestine and racial politics means they are neglecting the day job. Green-run Bristol Council has seen pothole complaints rise by 700 per cent in nine months. The party is easy to mock or to brush aside as a collection of oddballs, but if it keeps up its momentum in the polls, it could find itself acting as a power broker after the next general election. Much of the public is infuriated by Labour’s infighting, uselessness and out-of-touch zealotry. But what comes next on the left may be even worse.

they're not wrong.

ZP is now claiming he was too poor to pay council tax. This is a different excuse from previous ones.

City Hall has decided not to launch an investigation into Polanski's council tax arrangements The monitoring officer said that the matter related to "private circumstances" rather the Polanski's role as a London Assembly member They said the decision "does not make any finding on the merits of the underlying concerns”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/18/zack-polanski-financial-hardship-council-tax-green-party-uk/

Are they usually so chill about non payment of CT?

'Can't afford it mate'
'Oh, okay, no worries'

That’s what I thought! Worth a go, eh?

The correct wording to not have to pay is as follows it seems:

“I wish to make absolutely clear that there was never any intention on my part to evade council tax, avoid legal obligations, or obtain any improper financial advantage,”

“Any failure to appreciate the position arose solely from a misunderstanding of what was required in relation to an unusual and unconventional living arrangement.”
“I have personal experience of financial hardship and housing insecurity. Having lived through periods of economic difficulty on a limited income, I understand first-hand the challenges faced by many Londoners.
“My previous living arrangements reflected those circumstances rather than any attempt to avoid financial obligations.”

"greater care could have been taken in understanding the practical implications of my unconventional housing arrangements” “I strongly refute suggestions that my honesty or integrity should be called into question.”

Use it your own risk. It may not be the words, but ZPs incredible hypnotic powers which allow him to get away with this.

Also key - CHANGE your gender to being a man first. Do not try this kind of thing if you are a woman. The Rozzers will put you in jail:
Single mum unlawfully jailed for council tax debt in Wales

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/jan/18/single-mother-unlawfully-jailed-for-council-tax-debt-wales

Okay. So:

'Soz, lads. I'm a bit skint. Don't be bastards, eh?' - but in a deep voice?

That poor woman.

I'm wondering how long before the purity spiral on I can be more Pro Pal than thee comes for Your Party's current Sultana faction.

(The yp thread is around but drifting into obscurity with them). They've already labelled Jeremy Corbyn as a Zionist and it's only a matter of time before they turn against Sultana

I actually thought YP had disbanded.

They keep having factions split off. Zarah Sultana is iirc still badged as a Your Party MP in parliament

It all seems to have been a long hard slog that started with the promise of making Corbynism a thing again, and is going to end up with Max Shanly, Crispin Flintoff and sundry other hustlers all ending up as leaders of their own micro-parties.

If only they'd taken up another hobby, like building model planes.

It all goes to show that you can't hothouse a party into existence. The Greens and Reform have plenty of issues, and they've been around for decades (if you count Reform as the continuation of the old UKIP) and put in the hard yards. They may yet become credible.

The pop-up parties around Uncle Jez and Uncle Rupe, once you get past the elderly leaders who don't seem to know or care what's happening in their parties, look more like Nigerian email scams.

If only they'd taken up another hobby, like building model planes.

But that's a hobby that requires patience, accuracy and attention to detail.

I was also thinking earlier re Corbyn following things you said yesterday that he’s quite similar to Rupert Lowe in that sense. But Corbynmania seems to have died a death along with Your Party.

I guess they will all just take votes from the main parties. Restore and the other right wing micro parties from Reform and will split that vote. All the left wing ones from Labour/Greens. It’s anyone’s guess at this point!

The pop-up parties around Uncle Jez and Uncle Rupe, once you get past the elderly leaders who don't seem to know or care what's happening in their parties, look more like Nigerian email scams.

'So it’s the 80s. It’s all leg warmers and Wham! Are you with me? I was born in the winter of 82, in Salford. As a teenager I lived next door to the McVities factory – which just so happens to be right next to a little known constituency called Gorton and Denton. I still remember waking up to the smell of chocolate in the mornings, wafting down the street. Look – it wasn’t perfect, but we had everything we needed. And we still had a sense of hope – that working hard could get you places. '

https://greenparty.org.uk/2026/03/18/zack-polanski-lays-out-plans-to-back-the-caring-majority-in-major-speech/

I mean if Burnham becomes PM we can look forward to endless Labour PPBs where he's talking about when he was a boy on the moors with his pet kestrel Kes, and his mam indoors making bread and dripping for tea, and how that upbringing filled him with a burning desire to paint the buses yellow.

It's one of my firm beliefs that, to get a party from a small hobby group to a serious national force, you need at bare minimum 20 years of hard graft doing really boring grassroots politics.

We could talk about the growth of Labour from the late 19th century to being a party of government in the 1920s. Or the Liberal Democrat revival, that usually gets credited to Ashdown, but really started with Grimond and Thorpe in the 1950s. Or the SNP and Plaid starting in the 1930s and not really establishing themselves as serious parties until the 1970s.

And there are some groups that never scale up - the SWP has been around in one form or another since 1950, and I defy any SWP member to identify anything it's achieved since Rock Against Racism in the 70s.

I think the Jez and Rupe thing - it's an attempt to hothouse parties into existence based on personality cults around old men. YP has got a bunch of Trots and Stalinists who have mostly been around a long time while achieving very little, and young IDpol activists who are certifiably insane. Rupert has, for mystic reasons of his own, launched a party and hired a bunch of 20something internet micro-influencers to run it, while he potters round like Young Mr Grace telling them they're all doing terribly well.

The one thing I have less faith in than established parties is the idea that you can magic up a replacement for them.

Caring majority.

Quiet bat people.

I remember a theory* that the Labour Party was allowed to succeed to contain the rising interest in communism. The political machine gave the workers a party because it was preferable to fighting off communism.

The old Greens haven't been given the opportunity to grow because its easier for Labour and Conservative to introduce 'Green' policies themselves. It remains to be seen if the pivot to whatever they are now will be a threat to be contained.

Similarly the UKip threat was contained by the brexit referendum. Reform seem to be allowed to succeed to contain the anti immigration feeling. Neither Labour nor Conservatives want to do it themselves, so are allowing Farage a go, in the hope whatever he can do is enough.

If this theory is right, I think Corbyn and Lowe are seen as too fringe to be taken seriously, at the moment.

** I think the theory either came from my grandad or my old economics lecturer, so maybe not true!

Extremists complain about containment, but containment is not always a bad thing. Especially when you look at who's complaining.

Nigel often boasts that he did more than anyone to kill off the BNP, and if it wasn't for him you'd have something much uglier. You don't have to like Farage to see he's got a point - especially because he believes you have to gatekeep your party, even if his gatekeeping is patchy.

Refusing to gatekeep means a party gets taken over very quickly by extremists and morons - see YP, see Restore, and I think even the Greens are starting to realise that they're in danger of reverting back to being the David Icke party.

Beautifully put.
A fantastic turn of phrase never goes to waste with you.
You really need to start that Substack.