Just three months ago, few people had heard of Zack Polanski – and, it seemed, only the party faithful cared who the leader of the Greens was. Now the Polanski surge looks unstoppable. He has more than doubled the party’s membership, bringing in much-needed money and volunteers.
Nosheen Iqbal went to watch him talk to students at King’s College London, and spoke to young people about what they thought of him and if he would get their vote. The replies were enthusiastic. Before he went on stage, Polanski told Nosheen why his message was so attractive. “It’s positive and it’s hopeful. This is what a different vision of a society looks like, where it’s not about multimillionaires and billionaires [but] people power.”
With the chaos within Your Party reducing its threat to Labour, are the Greens now the party’s main opposition on the left? The Guardian leader writer Randeep Ramesh tells Nosheen that Labour is worried. “And they should be,” he says. “Because they’ve exposed their left flank and they’re bleeding votes. Zack Polanski says: ‘You can see the Labour vote fall by exactly the amount of votes that we’re gaining.’”
Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
