Zack to the future
Are we all Polanski-ites now?
Zack Polanski has announced his bid to become leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.
It’s impossible to view this development without reference to Corbynism. The bulk of those attracted to Labour under Corbyn’s leadership of the party have been in search of a political home for the past five years.
Most were tricked by Starmer into believing he offered change. Many have now made the Greens their new home. And these activists have been joined by a significant number of Labour’s voters, particularly since the formation last year of a Labour government led by its right.
Should we ‘back Zack’? And assuming Polanski becomes the new leader, what does this mean for the left in Britain?
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Leading roles
Polanski has served as the party’s deputy leader since 2022, and he is making use of a scheduled leadership contest rather than launching a hostile takeover.
Co-leader Carla Denyer has announced her decision to step down to focus on her work as an MP for the Bristol Central constituency. Adrian Ramsay has yet to signal his intentions.
Polanski’s run is being viewed not so much as an insurgent campaign to topple the current Green leadership as it is a friendly challenge.
The aim is to shake up the party’s communications and give it coherence by having a single leader.
But implicit in his candidacy is a decisive orientation to the 39 Labour-held seats in urban centres where the Greens came second in the general election last July.
Unlike previous prominent Greens, Polanski speaks with a Northern accent and seems comfortable with a combative exchange when making media appearances.
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Polanski’s past politics
Much has been made in certain quarters about Polanski’s stance on Corbynism during the years of Brexit and his response to claims of widespread anti-semitism in Labour. His own political background was in the Liberal Democrats and it’s tempting to read him as a cynical career politician, moving to the Greens rather than Labour during the Corbyn years.
The story he tells to account for his political development is credible enough to convince most on the left. It’s fine to find it wanting, but since it says nothing about what happens next we won’t dwell on it for long here. It’s enough to say that if Polanski was really a cynical careerist, he’d have gone much further in Starmer’s Labour.
It makes more sense to regard Polanski as sincere in his views and moving where reason has taken him. He has been a consistent and outspoken critic of Israel’s war in the Gaza strip and its genocidal violence against Palestinians. As a consequence, he has been subject to sectarian abuse online for taking what was the minority position in Britain’s Jewish community at the start of the war. This has probably given him a new insight into what happened when Corbyn was smeared as a weak opponent of antisemitism.
If Polanski becomes leader of the Green Party he may be subject to more abuse, this time also of an anti-semitic and homophobic variety given that he is a gay Jewish man standing against the anti-migrant politics of the right. We can either choose to rake over his past positions or focus our attention on solidarity with those like Polanski who now use their platform to speak out for peace and justice.
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Faction fight?
The Greens allow open factions – the older Green Left and the newer Greens Organise are two anti-capitalist groupings in the party – but Polanski’s candidacy is not obviously factional.
His argument is about how the Greens are to project their left-populist policy agenda, it is not yet about that agenda itself. Although he has taken a much stronger stance against NATO – the Greens weakened their opposition to the US military alliance over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US threats to the sovereignty of Canada and Denmark under Trump have reopened the debate on defence pacts.
Boldness might allow the Greens to sustain their growth. The party has advanced in every set of local elections since Starmer became Labour leader and took the party to the right. In the general election in 2024, the Greens quadrupled their parliamentary representation and came second to Labour in dozens of seats in England.
But two of their four seats in parliament were won from the Tories. And they have hundreds of councillors who can pick up votes from across the left/right political divide. Clearer positioning towards the left might yet lead to a challenge from a Green right, particularly if Ramsay wishes to remain in the leadership.
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What does it mean for Britain’s road to socialism?
The Greens are unlikely to eclipse Labour as a governing party in the next few years but could put pressure on its rightwing leadership, acting as a counterweight to the rise of Reform on the right and the Liberal Democrats in the centre.
For the left in Britain, the recapture of Labour’s leadership by the right has led to much soul-searching. Yet a string of regroupment projects has failed to create a single yet multi-tendency organisation capable of undertaking consistent electoral work.
Corbynism today is often not only Corbynism-without-Labour but Corbynism-without-Corbyn. Collective, an organisation run by his close associates, is not officially his organisation but it does endorse him and his allies. And in parliament, he caucuses with other like-minded independents as the Independent Alliance.
Everyone seems to agree on the need for a new party, but where is it? Something may emerge for the English local elections next May.
But for those former Corbynites who are now Polanski-ites the answer is to join the Greens and turn it into the new left party.
The Greens could be part of the parliamentary majority which implements a left wing programme and begins to put Britain on the road to socialism. But they cannot become the new workers’ party to rival Starmer’s Labour – it is not currently possible for a trade union to disaffiliate from Labour and affiliate to the Greens.
Road Bloc does not take the same stance towards the Greens as some on the left, dismissing them as a party which is inhospitable to socialists and alien to the organised working class. The presence of socialist groupings in the Greens and Green Party trade unionists suggests that such a reading is too simplistic.
How then could the Greens with a leader like Polanski contribute to getting Britain on the road to socialism?
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Left bloc strategy
The Green left could decide to pursue a left bloc strategy. It could use the Green Party to maximise the number of left MPs in the next Westminster parliament.
The parliamentary Labour Party must be certain that if it doesn’t change its leadership and policies, dozens of MPs will lose to the Greens and left voters will hold the line rather than vote tactically.
The left needs maximum unity in alliances against Labour Right MPs. Winning may therefore mean that Greens have to go beyond just deprioritising certain seats to actually standing down, or using a run in the constituency to have conversations with left voters about how to act as a bloc.
This may mean explicit non-aggression pacts with the Independent Alliance and others. This may be controversial for sitting Green councillors and some of the party’s MPs.
And the total effect of the left bloc strategy may be controversial in itself – given the electoral system for the UK parliament, the choice which faces us is either a Labour government or Labour-led coalition or a Reform-Tory coalition.
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The hard choices
While a left bloc strategy would not give uncritical support to Labour, it recognises there is a choice to be made. The current left bloc of MPs are not indifferent to the rise of Reform and its likely utilisation by the ruling class to rehabilitate the Tories as a party of government.
But we cannot allow the centre, the status quo, to be the only alternative to a Reform-Tory coalition government.
Starmer has to be defeated, but the defeat of the Labour Right and its candidates does not entail the defeat of Labour as such. Our unions have invested in helping elect MPs who currently stand for Labour. They may be able to bring about a change of direction through a leadership contest.
The road to eco-socialism in Britain is at present only visible through a Labour government of a new type, one backed by a parliamentary majority committed to a left wing programme and supported outside parliament by a democratic anti-monopoly alliance at every level, on the streets and in workplaces.
This would be a government pushed forward by stronger unions, environmental and anti-war movements, to break with US imperialism and the Washington Consensus on privatisation and austerity. It would either capitulate to the ruling class or establish a constituent assembly, founding a democratic republic in which the working class is dominant over the capitalist class.
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Alliancism
An enlarged Green left will have to accept the fact the broad left isn’t all going to pile into their party – and that success may have unusual consequences.
One result of effective leftwing electoral pressure on Labour might be to immediately strengthen its union-backed left MPs in their battle with the Labour Right leadership of the government.
And the growing Green left will have to communicate effectively to those in the Greens who may be sceptical about the left bloc strategy becoming a fact of UK politics, reassuring councillors outside of urban centres in particular that it needn’t pose a threat to them.
A consequence of a coherent bloc of left MPs in parliament who are external to the Greens (in the form of the Independent Alliance and Labour Left MPs) may be to limit the centrist component of Green Party’s voter coalition splitting off in the course of scare campaigns in ruling-class media.
But there’s no guarantee that this won’t happen. A demarcation between greens and reds may help. However, when Britain’s ruling class gets going with a witch-hunt, the best defence is usually defiance – and solidarity.
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After the leadership contest
Green, independent, and ex-Labour Left MPs will need to feel confident they can act as tribunes of a growing social constituency.
What may give this bloc coherence is a common programme, or programmes in common with themes which transcend party lines, including not just economic but democratic demands. For example, without shared support for proportional representation at Westminster and a commitment to a form of progressive federalism, respecting the right of nations in Britain to self-determination and accepting independence referenda when requested, resistance to the Labour Right and opposition to a Reform-Tory coalition may devolve into counter-productive arguments.
Agreeing to disagree may have to extent to the European question. There’s certainly a gap in the market for a ‘rejoin EU’ party, but it is to be hoped that the Greens will not want to revisit that particular culture war.
An outline of an alternative economic strategy could be agreed by the Green, Independent, and Labour Left. It could be framed as a rescue plan, with democratic public ownership in strategic sectors of the economy, not just renationalisation of the privatised utilities, and the approach of community wealth-building by local authorities and the devolved parliaments.
The left in the Greens may need to take the initiative after this leadership contest, coordinating with the broad left in conferences to agree a common approach far in advance of the next general election. It’s something that could be initiated by an existing group of Green left members or even an entirely new organisation.
Elections matter a great deal, legislative and executive power in the state determines the terrain on which the working class enters into struggle with the capitalist class. But the speed of class struggle is faster than Westminster’s electoral cycle.
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To back or not to back?
The ideal electoral outcome of this summer’s leadership contest may be a left-led Green Party which is open to non-aggression pacts with the Independent Alliance and the Labour Left.
And those wishing to ‘back Zack’ have until July 31st to join the Green Party, if they have not done so already.
But what will decisively turn the tide in the country is the response of the organised working class in trade unions to Labour’s austerity programme – strikes and protests against cuts and closures will focus minds.
And though a significant part of the organised working class will rally behind the Greens, a greater part will not.
We will need alliances between the red and the green to bridge the gap.