Zack Polanski has stormed to victory in the Green Party leadership election on a platform promising bold communication and “eco-populism”.
The new leader said he would now “take the fight to Labour”, telling Sir Keir Starmer’s party: “We are here to replace you.”
While he’s made a name for himself as a feisty media performer among the party faithful, he’s little known outside the London Assembly, where he is an elected member.
Beating two of the party’s four MPs to the leadership, the 42-year-old has already faced down the charge that he doesn’t have the establishment heft of those elected to Parliament in a first-past-the-post system.
His pitch to the membership was to move away from the tried-and-tested towards a riskier path, with a decisive shunt to the right and a more confrontational communication style.
Polanski has had an unconventional path to politics, previously working as an actor, hypnotherapist and mental health counsellor.
A 2013 article in the Sun that still dogs him involved a reporter, who posed as a client, claiming he helped her to boost her bust through the power of thought.
Asked about the piece following his win, Polanski said his time as a Harley Street hypnotherapist pre-dated any of his political ambitions and he had immediately apologised.
“We are all more than one mistake,” he said, adding that Labour was “terrified” of his popularity if they were “rifling through stories from a long time ago where I was clearly misrepresented”.
Born in 1982, Polanski grew up in Salford, heading to university in Aberystwyth, north Wales, before ending up in Hackney, east London.
He is gay and also Jewish, changing his name from David Paulden when he reached 18 in order to embrace the identity erased by his family’s anglicised surname, as well as to differentiate himself from his stepdad, who had the same first name.
His first foray into politics was joining the Liberal Democrats, a party he now criticises as being insufficiently left-wing, and standing unsuccessfully for Camden Council and the London Assembly.
He joined the Greens in 2017, working as a local party chairman before getting elected to City Hall in 2021 and becoming the party’s deputy leader in 2022.
As deputy leader, Polanski has played a role in the party’s growing electoral success.
In last year’s general election, the Greens quadrupled their number of MPs to four, with his leadership rivals Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns among those joining Parliament.
Caroline Lucas had been the party’s sole MP for 14 years, before standing down at last year’s election, and she had thrown her weight behind the Ramsay-Chowns joint ticket.
While Ramsay and Chowns have been seen as continuity candidates, Polanski wants to move away from the “stats and spreadsheets” style, promising a mass-membership “eco-populist” movement that connects with voters on an emotional level.
Key to that approach is Polanski’s approval of Nigel Farage’s “storytelling” skills, which he told Newsnight could be harnessed to send a different message to a wider audience, including Reform UK supporters.
He said the Greens had to “connect with that anger and turn it to hope, turn it to possible solutions”.
In his “eco-populism” leadership pitch he has linked the climate crisis to inequality and called for radical action, “not briefcase politics”, to fix unfair systems.
He has promised to lower bills with green energy and nationalised water companies, while also taking the “fight” to Labour, particularly on inequality.
The battle on inequality includes his longstanding support for a Universal Basic Income, a small, non-means-tested payment for everyone that covers basic needs.
As a former property guardian and long-time renter, Polanski has also campaigned for decent, warm homes for everyone.
He has called for the government to take action on what he describes as the genocide in Gaza, as well as being arrested for his activism with environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion.
His election potentially opens the door to cooperation with the new left-wing party being set up by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
The arrival of a new left wing party, headed by Jeremy Corbyn, threatens to take a chunk out of the Green Party’s support, polls suggest.
But unlike some in the Greens, Polanski views the new party as an opportunity rather than a threat.
He has spoken about forging a new “Green left” and of collaborating with Corbyn on policy, although he has stopped short of proposing a formal electoral pact, saying it is “too soon”.
This is a potential headache for Keir Starmer, as he battles to hold on to left wing voters, many of whom had already deserted his party for the Greens at the last election.
Asked during a press conference following his victory whether he would form an alliance with the new party, Polanski said it was “too soon to talk about joining electoral coalitions”.
But he added that he was interested in working with “anyone who wants to challenge a failing Labour government and take on fascism and the far right”.
He said he was “watching the situation very closely” but his immediate focus was on growing the Green Party.
Being bold and radical does not come without risk, as Chowns and Ramsay, who were both elected to Parliament in previously Tory areas, had been keen to point out during the campaign.
Jettisoning the careful calibration both those MPs managed to balance to win half the party’s Westminster seats from the Conservatives could leave them, and the 3,705 Green members who voted for them, out in the cold.
Polanski sought to address these concerns in his victory speech, saying: “To those of you who didn’t vote for me, this is a democracy. We don’t have to agree on everything. We just have to have common cause.”
But the four Green MPs will now have to elect one of their number to lead their group in the Commons, setting up another potential source of tension.
Because of the way the Green Party is structured, with a leadership election every two years, members will get a chance to give their verdict on Polanski’s new direction well before the next general election, due in 2029.
