The Greens are now in the midst of a leadership battle. After co-leader Carla Denyer announced she would not seek re-election, two of their new MPs, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns – both polite, nice, long-term campaigners who won rural seats in traditionally Conservative areas – are running on a joint ticket. Polanski wants to take a more populist bent, to challenge Reform, which is now the go-to place for said fed-up voters. The Greens have made steady progress in recent years, winning councillors and now four MPs, but hovering under 10% in the polls, they aren’t a real challenge to Labour.
Polanski wants to change that. “We need bold communication from the Green party, as we’re at a point in politics where the one thing that is definitely certain is the status quo won’t hold up,” he told me.
Reform’s MPs and leader have questioned climate science, vowed to get rid of renewables and refer to net zero as (in a rather juvenile fashion) “net stupid zero”. But this tone is at odds with the mood of the UK – polling continually shows that the majority of Britons, including Reform voters, care about the environment and accept the science behind human-made climate change. However, Polanski believes that unless someone goes out there with a populist green message, climate denial and far-right politics will take hold.
“The question is, what is next? And the path we’re very easily on is this rise of fascism, of climate denial, the continued depletion of nature, for the pursuit of corporate capital. We need to show there is an alternative,” he said.
Ramsay and Chowns, for their part, think the Greens are doing a pretty good job, quadrupling their MPs at the last election, and their professional, hard work will boost those numbers further in 2029. The pair want a more moderate tone that will appeal to more people. They said in a recent Guardian interview that the Greens should be wary of trying to “appeal to your existing supporters or to a particular base”, adding: “We’re seeing with Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives what can happen if a party elects a leader just based on appealing to a particular base of support.”
It’s true that Polanski’s unashamedly leftwing pronouncements could put off some of the more conservative voters who lent the Greens their vote last time. But he argues the Greens currently aren’t cutting through, and it’s hard to disagree. When we went out door-knocking, most people didn’t know what his party stood for. One even asked if they were “campaigning to fix the ozone layer”.
Polanski’s trying to fix this perception by going up against rightwingers on the radio and experimenting with TikTok. Polanski has taken advice from leftwing influencer and author Gary Stevenson on how to get noticed on social media, and points out his leadership bid video has so far had over 1.5m views.
Polanski’s supporters also argue that it is much better to have one leader of a party, rather than two, as the message can be diluted. They also point out that because Ramsay, currently co-leader of the party with Carla Denyer, represents quite a conservative constituency, he has accidentally undermined the Green message. This is because his constituents are vehemently against a plan to build pylons in the area, which would bring renewable energy from offshore wind onshore. He used his first day in parliament to speak up against pylons and, as a result, the Greens have been ridiculed by Labour for being opposed to renewable energy ever since.
Ramsay has since told the Guardian that he is totally pro renewables, and was just representing the views of his constituents and asking for them to be consulted on the pylon scheme. But, unfortunately, it has given Labour a stick with which to beat not just Ramsay but the entire Green party.
Members will be voting for the leader or the leaders of the Greens this summer. The party certainly is at a crossroads – and it remains to be seen which approach is the best to fight off the climate-denying far right.
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