When I stood for leader of the Greens in 2025, our party was at a crossroads. The transformative leadership of Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay had taken us to an electoral success we’d never seen before. I knew we had even greater potential – and that the country was crying out for the bold politics we could offer.
We have seen unprecedented wins this year – from our first ever parliamentary byelection win to our landslide council and mayoral victories in former Labour strongholds.
Those victories have moved Labour. Our electoral successes helped topple Keir Starmer, seeing him replaced by a prime minister unarguably to his left. They forced a change in tone in the government’s relations with Israel. The government has even rowed back on some of its cruel anti-migrant policies.
Our work isn’t done. But the next phase for our party takes place in a landscape that is clearly more challenging for us. Andy Burnham is enjoying a honeymoon phase, and hasn’t yet had to make the “difficult decisions” that will reveal exactly who will lose out under his government – unpopular choices he will probably start making at his fast-approaching first budget.
Of course I wanted to win the Holborn and St Pancras byelection. But our result shows, as the polling expert John Curtice has said, that our party represents a greater threat to Labour in places like this than ever before. We tripled our vote share in a seat that Labour has comfortably held since 1983 and forced it to campaign hard in a constituency it would once have taken for granted.
We have transformed the electoral landscape and, as the first nationwide serious threat to Labour on its left in modern political history, we are here to stay.
The result also came at a difficult moment for our party. A motion voted through at our conference, “Zionism is racism”, has stirred up strong feelings among many members and the wider public too. And I know there have been questions about my approach to the motion.
I’m a Jewish man who grew up in a Zionist household. The story I was told about Israel was one of destiny and safety: a land without a people for a people without a land. But since then I have learned about the people who did live on that land – and what has happened to them. The Palestinians driven from their homes; slaughtered en masse; and those who remain, living under an apartheid system that denies them fundamental rights, including that of self-determination.
It has been difficult knowing how to approach this imperfect motion, because its substance chimes with my understanding of Zionism as the ideology that underpins the displacement and genocide of Palestinians. This is something I share with many other Jewish people, including Stephen Kapos, the holocaust survivor who was one of those supporting the motion.
At the same time, Zionism is not easily defined, and I know for many Jewish people it is bound up with identity, safety and belonging. In my view it’s not the job of a political party to tell people what to believe – and a narrow focus on definitions is neither desirable nor strategic.
There are also elements of the motion that I don’t agree with – such as dictating the future shape of a state in Israel and Palestine. While many people understandably see the idea of a two-state solution as standing in the way of concrete action to end the unbearable status quo, I believe it is not up to the British government – let alone the Green party – to decide the future for Israelis and Palestinians.
Before the vote, I made it clear that there were amendments I would like to see made, and I am disappointed that those did not pass.
I have been asked why I was not present for the vote. The answer is that my priority was fighting a hugely consequential byelection for our party. I put all my energy into the race in Holborn and St Pancras, despite Labour choosing the polling date so close to our conference, because I know that ultimately electoral success is how we drive change. I know, though, that some feel let down by that decision – and I hear that.
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My responsibility now is to bring our party together to achieve our full potential. This starts with an assurance from me: under my leadership, I will not tolerate antisemitism. No one will be made unwelcome because of their background, their faith or where they worship. I will meet any group within our party that fears victimisation to understand exactly what they need in order to feel safe and welcome.
Second, our party has grown to a size none of us could have anticipated when I became leader. Our party democracy must now evolve to meet that – creating wider engagement for members, giving leaders more responsibility to set the party’s strategic direction, and making our processes as robust and accessible as possible.
Above all, that unity must be deployed in the service of changing this country for the better. This government is on course to preside over the worst parliament for living standards in modern times. Energy bills are expected to rise again this winter; rent increases are forecast to speed up. Meanwhile, Burnham is offering no concrete support for bills and ruling out any controls on rents, and Reform UK is still using cost of living pressures to stir up division in our communities.
The Green party’s bold, principled ideas have never been more needed. From an emergency brake on rents to full public ownership of water companies, we are offering solutions that this government won’t go near unless we force it to. We have work to do – and I will bring my party together to get it done.
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Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green party of England and Wales and a member of the London assembly
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