The Greens are coming directly to challenge Labour, the party’s new leader, Zack Polanski, has told its conference, saying that as things stand, Keir Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform UK.
Addressing a packed event in Bournemouth, Polanski condemned what he called Labour’s “managed decline” and the aping of Reform policies in areas such as migration.
Polanski, who is Jewish and grew up in Manchester, expressed his horror at the attack on a synagogue in the city on Thursday and made a strong defence of migration.
“This is a party not afraid to say migration has helped make this country what we are today. And it’s made this party too,” said Polanski, who changed his surname from Paulden to Polanski when he was 18, reversing the anglicisation his relatives adopted when they arrived from eastern Europe.
Polanski, who won the election to lead the party in England and Wales last month, cited his background and those of the party’s deputy leaders, Mothin Ali and Rachel Millward.
“I’m one of five Jewish people to lead a British political party in the last 100 years,” he said. “And that also means that I do want to spend a moment to mark yesterday’s awful attack. As a Jewish man raised in north Manchester – I feel this deeply and my heart is with the community.
“More widely I am the product of migration. It’s why defending migrants matters so much to me. It’s a common Jewish experience – a tale as old as time.”
His ancestors, who moved to England from Latvia via Ukraine and Poland, still faced antisemitism in the UK, he said: “They changed their name to sound more English – and I changed it back, knowing that real pride comes from no longer hiding who you are.”
His deputies, Polanski went on, were Ali, the son of a steelworker whose parents came to the UK from what is now Bangladesh in the 60s, and Millward, who “has family roots tied to England as far back as she knows”.
He said: “One brought up Jewish. One raised Muslim. One a child of the church. A leadership with three different backstories, in a country enriched by people from all over the world.”
With Green membership having risen rapidly since Polanski’s victory and climbing to more than 80,000 for the first time, he told the event that it was time for the party to be ambitious.
“Everything we do between now and the next election must be bold,” he said. “We have a vision for this place we call home. Boldness means connecting with how hard it is right now for so many people. It means listening, not just finger-pointing.
“At every opportunity, from the doorstep to the TV studio, our message is that the Green party will bring down your bills, cut the cost of living and protect our NHS.”
In a series of attacks on the government, Polanski said it had no apparent answers to the problems created by austerity and inequality.
“Its politics is one of managed decline dressed up as national renewal and draped in Reform-bating policymaking,” he said. “More of the same from Keir Starmer won’t just fail us now, it will hand this country on a plate to the dark forces around Nigel Farage.”
Polanski particularly took aim at Starmer for, he said, trying to copy Reform, including over migration and asylum,
“When Farage says jump, Labour might say, ‘How high?’” he said. “But the Greens won’t dance to the tune of a Trump-loving, tax-avoiding, science-denying, NHS-dismantling corporate stooge. We will say it loud, and we will say it clear: migrants and refugees are welcome here.”
The arrival of the media-savvy Polanski, who won an overwhelming 85% of the membership vote against a joint bid by two of the party’s MPs, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, has brought the Greens new members and extra attention, with more journalists attending the gathering in Bournemouth than the party’s previous conferences.
Polanski said the time had come for the party to take the fight to Labour. “It’s why Labour councillors are defecting. It’s why Labour members are joining. It’s why thousands upon thousands of ex-Labour voters are saying enough is in enough and putting a cross next to the Green party for the first time. Labour’s arrogant assumptions that it is entitled to people’s vote ends today.”
