A left-wing pressure group is pushing for more radical Green Party candidates at the next election.
LONDON — The Green Party’s breakthrough at the last U.K. general election was driven by its moderates. But a new guard, loyal to leader Zack Polanski, is betting that only a radical turn will push the party forward.
Activists on the left of the party are on a drive to recruit their own candidates to stand at the next election as they seek to recast the parliamentary party in their chief’s self-styled “eco-populist” image.
It has echoes of the ideological civil war playing out in the U.S. Democratic Party, where this week, progressive Abdul El-Sayed defeated an establishment-backed candidate to become the party’s Senate nominee in Michigan.
But the internal fight inside the Greens has as much to do with personality as with politics.
Green activists loyal to their leader are furious with two of the party’s members of parliament who publicly broke ranks with Polanski over his refusal last month to apologize for an Instagram gaffe.
Polanski — drawn from outside parliament — has adopted a combative style of politics since becoming leader of the Greens in England and Wales in a landslide last September, replacing the more traditional co-leaders Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer.
Under Polanski’s leadership, the party has tripled its membership. It won its first by-election in Greater Manchester in February, snatching a seat from the governing Labour Party.
Now Ramsay and Ellie Chowns — who stood on a joint ticket against Polanski for the party leadership — have been accused by local Green representatives of an “unacceptable undermining” of the party leader.
It comes after Polanski re-posted an Instagram photo of a man wearing a T-shirt featuring a guillotine, and the slogan “We’re only making plans for Nigel” — an apparent reference to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The move was reported to the police by the right-wing party, though no further action will be taken.
But allies in the party argue that the MPs — who both won rural seats in Westminster at the last election, increasing the party’s representation in the House of Commons from one MP to four — are simply representing their voters, and appealing to a broader coalition.
Packing Parliament
Some Green organizers, activists, and elected local politicians who spoke to POLITICO say the parliamentary Green party is out of kilter with its membership.
“The way Adrian and Ellie responded to Zack’s post showed that they were so out of step with the party and the leadership,” said Ashok Kumar, a prominent Green activist. “They represent constituencies that, since the move ten months ago, aren’t part of the growing metropolitan base,” he added.
Members of Greens Organise (GO) — a pressure group aimed at expanding the party’s activist base and pushing it to the left — are strategizing how to get candidates who align with Polanski’s vision selected ahead of the next general election.
They are in private discussions with several New York City Democratic Socialists of America organizers who were behind Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rise. Former Bernie Sanders staffer Spencer Reed spoke to GO members last week at a virtual session focused on recruiting socialist candidates. Abdullah Farooq, who sits on the DSA’s national political committee, appeared at a meeting in May.
The candidate recruitment process spearheaded by GO — which has drawn inspiration from other international left-wing groups too — will focus on finding people “who don’t want to be politicians,” according to officials on their steering committee.
Local parties have complete democratic control over who they select, but the group will give guidance on how to identify individuals with talent and socialist politics, and help run campaigns to win over the membership.
GO members are encouraged to create local networks by asking neighbors about who is already campaigning in their community and who people would go to if there is an issue on their estate or in their workplace.
“These people are out there, but they’re not going to respond to even the fourth, fifth, sixth email. We need to go and speak to them and to understand what their ambitions are, what their fears are about getting elected, and whether or not they’re suitable,” said one member of GO’s steering committee, granted anonymity because they work in a politically restricted role.
The group is even urging party leaders to push back selections — originally scheduled for this summer — so they have time to find the “right” people.
“The party needs a bit more time for all the new members to bed in and get to know the party,” said the GO figure quoted above. “Most local parties have quadrupled or quintupled in size. It’s a completely different operation to what we had before.”
The party needs candidates pushing for a more radical approach, rather than the moderate stance represented by the old guard, according to GO figures.
“We want socialists who aren’t going to fold under the pressures of the establishment once they’re elected,” said the GO steering group member previously quoted.
Sour grapes
That clash of cultures bubbled to the surface last week after Polanski accepted a tag on the guillotine post. In the aftermath, he condemned the image but refused to apologize.
Ramsey told Times Radio he would have said sorry if he was in Polanski’s position, and Chowns later told LBC she would have “apologized immediately.”
A Green London councillor, granted anonymity to speak frankly like others in this piece, said the move by Ramsay and Chowns was an “unacceptable undermining of the party leader.”
“They need to recognize that Zack won 85 per cent in the leadership contest because of his bold, combative approach,” the councillor said. “Being polite and establishment-friendly is a path to irrelevance for the Greens.”
Others suggested the two MPs — who are most at risk of losing support in their Tory and Lib Dem-leaning seats as the party shifts in a more radical direction — could be publicly criticizing Polanski for petty reasons.
“If they genuinely believe he should apologize for the post, then there’s space for that, but if it’s for another reason — sour grapes that they lost the leadership or they’re trying to undermine a party that’s succeeded a lot in the last ten months to preserve their own fiefdoms — the criticism should be discounted,” said Kumar.
“The party is in a much weaker position after the highs of the past three to six months, piling in at this particular moment is particularly jarring,” he added.
Sophia Brown, a councillor in Islington and a member of GO, said the “decision to draw a line in the sand” between themselves and Polanski seemed unnecessary.
But she reckons the differences are “more a case of messaging” and “how antagonist you want to be” than policy.
“They stood against each other for the leadership campaign and so they came at it with very different approaches,” she said, “I would want to know what is the political calculation there beyond do they honestly believe that it was just so important that he has to offer an apology?”
Representing voters
But a Green Party parliamentary official played down the significance of Ramsay and Chowns’ comments.
“I think it’s very clear that they have not made big interventions,” the official said. “They haven’t thrown their toys out the bathwater. In any other party, the opposite has happened,” they added.
The official — granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record — said that the parliamentary Green party “represents their voters.”
“They all have personal mandates, they were elected in 2024,” the official added.
“They were able to do this urban-rural coalition that Green parties normally find really hard. The message in Hackney might not work in North Herefordshire. That’s fine, you focus on different parts, that’s what all parties do.”
The official stressed Polanski is “thinking how to keep that coalition together” and “talking to MPs about how to do that.”
Chronically online
Some Green Party organizers do acknowledge there is valid criticism to be leveled at Polanski’s “chronically online” behavior.
One local party chair described the debacle as an “unforced error,” adding: “He [Polanski] should have perceived months ago that he was too online. He has too much faith in his own instincts and this is preventing proper checks.”
It is not the first time the Green leader has come under fire for hastily reposting content.
In April, Polanski was forced to apologize after sharing a post criticizing how the police had handled an attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green in London.
While some close to Polanski recognize that his social media activity — he dolled out 35,000 Bluesky likes in a year — is problematic, others maintain that its success in significantly raising the profile of the party outweighs the harm done by oversights.
“Think how little one or two mistakes is in thousands of posts,” said one person who has worked on the party’s election campaigns. “We wouldn’t be where we are without Zack’s social media profile,” they added.