British Green Party Leader’s Election Defeat After ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Declaration

Green Party leader Zack Polanski vows to stay in his party role despite being defeated by the Labor party’s Sagal Abdi-Wali in the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election defeat for the seat previously held by former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.Ms. Abdi-Wali won 45 percent of the vote to Mr. Polanski’s 33 percent. While Mr. Polanski lost the election, the Green Party’s vote share was up 22 percent over the 2024 general election.Mr. Polanski tried to paint the loss in a positive way, and said the Greens are more of an electoral threat than ever before. “This is the foundation we’re looking to build on,” he told the BBC.The loss adds to the pressure Mr. Polanski faces over the party’s adoption on Sunday of a resolution equating Zionism with racism. The motion endorses a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine.” The Greens became the first political party in the United Kingdom to formally adopt that policy Mr. Polanski did not vote on the motion — having already left the party conference to campaign — but did not condemn it while later saying he would not have voted in favor of the motion without amendments.In a BBC radio interview, Mr. Polanski would not directly answer a question on whether the state of Israel has a right to exist.Former party leader Caroline Lucas says Mr. Polanski had failed to show leadership over the “dangerous” resolution.The Israeli government has accused the Greens of antisemitism and has banned Mr. Polanski, who is Jewish, from entering Israel.Another member of the Greens in Parliament, Sian Berry, on Friday said opponents of the resolution were “persuaded” not to seek changes to it. Ms. Berry now says she regrets not speaking up. “I can hear genuine worry about what it means for our communities, and can see genuine damage,” Ms. Berry said in a statement she posted on social media.The leader of the Jewish Greens, Vivien Lichtenstein, on Friday said she wants Mr. Polanski out of his leadership role. “I think he should resign,” she told Times Radio.Mr. Polanski has led the party away from environmental issues to a broader far-left agenda. That helped the party membership surge in his first year in the role but it also opened the door for far-left campaigners focused on pushing the Middle East to dominate the party’s politics.While the party’s popularity passed that of Labor in March, the numbers sunk through the summer and are around the same as before Mr. Polanski took leadership, leaving some party figures to question if he has peaked.YouGov polling data released Friday show only 12 percent of adults surveyed think Mr. Polanski has changed the Green Party for the better. One in four respondents said he has changed the party for the worse. More than 40 percent said they didn’t know. The poll found that 34 percent said he should stand down and let someone else take over and only 20 percent said he should remain Green leader.In analysis before the election, YouGov said that the Green Party’s net favorability rating has fallen from +5 to -19 during Mr. Polanski’s leadership. “Britons tend to see the Greens as weak, out of touch, incompetent and serving their own interests,” YouGov’s found.

British Green Party Leader’s Election Defeat After ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Declaration

British Green Party Leader’s Election Defeat After ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Declaration

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