Since the election of Zack Polanski, no one can fault the Green Party for making the most of him. Polanski is doing a good job of making the most of his fresh face status. His "eco-populism", which emphasises the us vs them populism characteristic of Corbynism at its most successful has leant itself to spiky social media posts and a refusal to play the usual media game. Polanski promised he would be a Farage-like figure, albeit from the left, and he's making a good fist of it. His social media shorts have gone viral, he's earned praise from Alastair Campbell(!) for his easy style and the slogan "make hope normal again", and following a short campaign he was granted a slot on Laura Kuenssberg after he was "overlooked" during party conference season. Less noted but also important is Polanski's new podcast, Bold Politics. Featuring interviews with well known left and radical figures, such as Grace Blakeley, Owen Jones, and Gary Stevenson, this has drawn in a layer who spend less time on your Twitters and Blueskys and more cycling around the politics podcast circuit.
We make our own history, but not under circumstances of our choosing. Polanski and the Greens are fortunate that there are two more things in their favour. Which, interestingly enough, almost repeat what happened a decade ago. Though this time as triumph, rather than tragedy or farce. Obviously, enthusiasm for the Greens is a blowback against the reactionary cul de sac Labour has parked mainstream politics in. In their cynical and reckless fashion, Keir Starmer and galaxy-brained Morgan McSweeney have charged to the right in an effort to dampen any progressive expectations their support might have following 14 wasted years of Tory government. Being racist and posturing hard on immigration is ideal: the lure for Labour is the same as it was for the Tories. Create scapegoats, stir up panics against them, and reap the benefits from clamping down hard. The overall balance of forces in the country remain unchanged, but the government gets to look effective. For Labour, to McSweeney's mind this tees up the support for Reform, but in the absence of any positive sell in 2029 the choice is between Starmer and Farage. That's right, this Labour government would rather risk opening the door to a government of the extreme right than abandoning its present course and tipping toward the centre left.
The Green surge of 2025 is then a larger echo of the Green surge of 2015. Millions of people are sick of this politics. No one voted Labour last year to chip away at social security, starve public services, give NHS data to private corporations, rip up the green belt, arm a genocide, outbid the racists on immigration, demonise trans people, or slavishly kowtow to billionaires at home and abroad. The Greens are well placed to intersect with this discontent, because Polanski is just about the only politician talking about these issues. Had history pivoted the other way and Adrian Ramsey and Ellie Chowns won the leadership, would they have made the most of this? It's doubtful.
I said just about the only politician, because the others who might have capitalised on this are Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Arguably, as Your Party is going through its founding process and there not being much to join might have counted against their appeal. But undoubtedly, last month's fireworks have put plenty of would-be recruits off. Just the idea that the new party could fudge it on landlords, and could fudge it on trans people, the opaque moves and secrecy, and now the lack of faith in its leading figures because of all this rubbish, why not head to a party that has name recognition, a support base, a ready-made structure that is very democratic, and a seeming absence of the back biting and media leaking some are intent on importing into Your Party from Labour and the trade union movement? The Greens are taking off, in part, because the main player in the new party has dithered and delayed, and then the project was almost tossed into the skip. Politics waits for no one. If there's an opportunity, someone will move on it. Zack Polanski has, and this is why the Greens are surging and Your Party will have to play second fiddle to them. For good or for ill.
7 comments:
To your list of things people didn't vote Labour to get you might add - militarisation of society and threats of war with Russia and, of course, pesonal corruption that has led to 5, 6, or is it 7 Ministerial resignations. That is without mentioning the sheer incompetence on all fronts of the self styled grown ups in the room.
Polanski is also, I presume deliberately, aping Farage by peddling his own populist fairytales; in this case an all you can eat free buffet of everything 'progressives' could ever want paid for from Scrooge McDuck's moneybin. What's interesting is the people who usually decry populism and political fairytales going along with it, which suggests such people are perfectly willing to suspend disbelief when it's the right sort of populism and political fairytales.
However, under first past the post, I'm not sure he can actually fool enough people to do what Reform might be able to do, which is to displace the established parties in the spaces he's targeting. I think some of the culture war nonsense has already peaked, what I suspect will be more telling at the next election is the fault line between net beneficiaries and net contributors to public spending, the former will absolutely believe Scrooge McDuck will pay for the buffet, but the latter will probably take more convincing that it won't be them walloped again when it turns out the moneybin is a fairytale.
The fact that Polanski is talking to serious economists and moving away from the alleged fairytales you are discounting, plus your uninformed comment about public spending, means your comments may just be the usual 'household budget' that's been mainstream for far too long.
The Zak Polanski phenomenum is a sad repeat of the way so many on the Left fell hook line and sinker for the concocted " Leftiness" of Kier Starmer and his Ten Pledges of Corbynite policy continuity during the Labour Leadership contest. Most on the Left were simply too lazy to actually check out what Starmer had been up to as authoritarian DPP, US State Department puppet, and member of the Trilateral Commisssion , since posing as a civil liberies lawyer. Similarly it should be clear from outer space that the name-changing, ex actor, ex hypnotherapist conman, Zak Polanski, is a glib opportunist, chancer , and possibly a state asset too. But the ever gullible Left buys it all.
Anyone falling for this Green ballyhoo should have a look at the Green council's enforcement of Austerity in Brighton in the past, the transition of the Irish Greens into austerity enthusiasts in coalition , and the German Greens turning into bonkers warmongers, as soon as the ministerial limos hove into view. The policy package of both the Greens in their Left pose now , and Your Party , are identical, and will appeal only to the privileged middle class radicals in the big cities. A large cohort of voters, but not large enough to gain significant MPs to matter, especially as they will split their vote unless adopting local non aggression pacts .
@ Fred Engels
Would be interesting to know who these 'serious' economists are? I know he's been talking to certain left-wing polemicists who spout pseudo-economic populism, but the Boob Whisperer still seems rather attached to populist junk ideas like wealth taxes which have a poor rating amongst serious economists and more importantly an even poorer record in the real world. But then I suppose there's a big difference between ideas designed to generate a following and ideas intended to be credible Gov't policies. If Rachel Reeves came out and threatened to fund the all you can eat buffet from Scooge McDuck's moneybin the markets would have a meltdown, but right now Polanski is only teasing the gullible. There's no free lunches, there's no cheap energy, there's just a question of who pays, or perhaps more pertinently who can actually be forced to pay?
As a priviled, middle class radical in a big city they will certainly get my vote as the most progressive of the parties. And they get my vote despite being what Kamo refers to as a net contributor. Not sure if it is because I like fairy tales or because they have policies that might slow down environmental disaster in the UK.
I think people just want the hope of some change with some honesty. They have policies which are ambitious in the short term but nonetheless present a road map for a new future longer term. I am thinking of joining after over 20 years in the Labour Party.
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