I’m Mark Paul, London correspondent for The Irish Times, and I am filling in today for Denis Staunton while he is away.
The leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, Zack Polanski, may be the bright new face of UK politics, but he needs to be wary of the dark old hatred of anti-Semitism.
There may be trouble ahead
As England braces for crucial local elections this week, the Greens hope to rip into the Labour Party’s vote from the left, just as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has from the right.
Elections guru and Tory member of the House of Lords Robert Hayward has predicted that Greens could quadruple their number of local authority seats well beyond 500. They could even assume control of several councils in London, Labour’s backyard.
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That matters not just because of who fixes the city’s potholes, but because a Green tide in London would further unnerve skittish Labour MPs who were already losing faith in prime minister Keir Starmer. If the Greens manage to threaten Labour’s hegemony in London, it would sap Starmer’s authority and leave him open to an internal challenge.
The Greens’ vertiginous rise in polls – they are beginning to usurp Labour for second place in most surveys – began with the elevation to leader last September of Polanski, a former hypnotist whose radical “ecopopulism” strategy has seen the party focus less on the environment, and more on other issues that excite socialist voters.
The Greens have effectively captured the energy of the Corbynistas, the massed ranks of left-wing acolytes of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. But if Polanski is the new Corbyn, he also faces the same issue that helped bring down the former Labour leader – the toxic allegation that he is soft on anti-Semitism and that his party is riddled with it.
Angst over rising anti-Semitism swirls over British politics and society like a storm cloud.
Two men were badly injured in Golders Green, a Jewish area of north London, in a knife attack last week – a man born in Somalia who came to the UK legally as a child in the 1990s has been charged with attempted murder in relation to that incident.
Synagogues were recently firebombed in Finchley and Kenton, while ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were torched in Golders Green a few weeks ago. Late last year in Manchester, two men were killed in an anti-Semitic attack on a Manchester synagogue.
Many British Jews say they no longer feel safe as they fear being unjustly targeted over the actions of the state of Israel, or by people who just use that as an excuse. Starmer has promised to clamp down on pro-Palestinian marches where, it is alleged, open anti-Semitism is often on display.
Polanski’s Green Party is perhaps the most critical of Israel in Britain. It also generates huge support in Muslim communities.
Several Green election candidates have been suspended by the party in recent weeks over allegations of anti-Semitism, including one who suggested Jews were “cockroaches”. The party’s candidate-vetting process is said to have been put under strain by its rapid growth. Senior Green figures acknowledge that it needs to improve it.
Corbyn’s Labour career was eventually ended by accusations from his political rivals and others that he was soft on anti-Semitism in that party’s hard-left factions, accusations that he always denied.
But when it comes to Polanski, a similar allegation may be harder to pin on him. For a start, he is Jewish himself. He says anti-Semitism is “personal” to him.
It may be personal, but for his rivals, it is also political. Starmer, who threw Corbyn out of Labour over the issue, says Polanski is “not fit” to lead a party due to the way he has handled allegations of anti-Semitism. All the other parties have weighed in too.
Last week, Polanski had a spat with London’s Metropolitan police chief, Mark Rowley, after the Greens leader appeared to question the actions of police officers who kicked the Golders Green attacker in the head while they were trying to disarm him.
Rowley released a public letter criticising Polanski, who responded by saying he was interfering in politics.
In the midst of all this, police arrested two more Greens candidates in London over alleged anti-Semitism, including one who tweeted a placard saying “ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s revenge”.
“I don’t believe we have a particular problem (with anti-Semitism) compared to wider society,” says Polanski. But if you’re explaining on this toxic issue, you’re losing.
Corbyn never got to grips with the issue and it cost him dearly.
Will Polanski learn from the former Labour leader’s experience?
Please let me know what you think and send me your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com
