Green leader Polanski refuses to quit as pressure builds over Zionism motion

Zack Polanski has vowed to remain Green Party leader after failing to win the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, a defeat that came in the middle of a row over a party conference motion on Zionism. The Green leader says it is for members to decide his future, while several figures in his own party have criticised his handling of the motion.

The result

Labour held the north London seat, which became vacant after Sir Keir Starmer stood down as an MP following his ouster as prime minister, according to Politico. Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council, won with 12,292 votes, or 45 per cent, ahead of Polanski on 8,928, or 33 per cent. That is a majority of 3,364. The Conservative candidate came third. Turnout was 38.76 per cent, with 27,309 ballots cast, down from 56,786 votes at the 2024 general election, the Mirror reports.

The Greens had hoped to take the seat. They did not, but their share of the vote rose by about 22 percentage points compared with 2024, according to the BBC and LBC. Politico notes that Labour has held the constituency since its creation in 1983 and that Labour’s own share fell by four points. Polling expert John Curtice described the Greens’ showing as still by far their second best ever result in a parliamentary by-election, while warning that the party now operates in a more competitive environment, with a more popular leader in place at Labour.

Polanski: “up to the members”

Speaking after the result, Polanski told broadcasters: “I’ve taken a loss tonight, but our movement is so much bigger than one election or one motion.” He told BBC Breakfast he would “absolutely” stay on as leader. Asked on Sky News how confident he was of being re-elected, he said it would be up to the members and to the leadership election due next summer. The BBC reports that the next scheduled ballot takes place in summer 2027.

Polanski put the defeat down to voters wanting to give Labour’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, a chance, arguing that Labour now talks more like the Greens. He also said he was disappointed, adding that no politician stands in a by-election without wanting to win.

The Zionism motion

The by-election came days after Green members, at the party’s conference in Brighton, passed a motion that defined Zionism as an ideology supporting an “ethnonationalist Jewish state” and, as the BBC summarises it, backed “a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine”. Polanski did not attend the vote, saying he was campaigning in London. On the Friday he said he would not have voted for the “imperfect” motion without amendments, and he declined, when pressed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, to give a yes or no answer on whether Israel has a right to exist, saying he wants equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.

The BBC reports that the motion was opposed by one of the party’s two deputy leaders and by four of its five MPs. The Green deputy in Wales and some councillors resigned, and the European Green Party has distanced itself from the motion. Polanski has said anti-Zionism and antisemitism are distinct and that nobody will be excluded from the party because of their faith.

Reactions inside the party

• Vivien Lichtenstein, who chairs the Jewish Greens, told Times Radio that Polanski should resign.
• Caroline Lucas, a former party leader, said leadership was “frankly missing” on the motion but, according to the BBC, was not calling for him to stand down.
• Jonathan Bartley, a former co-leader, said Polanski should say sorry and called the vote a failure of leadership, but did not demand that he quit, the BBC reports.
• Adrian Ramsay, who sits as a Green MP and once co-led the party, would not offer Polanski his support on Friday and said he was working to overturn the motion.
• Baroness Jenny Jones told Times Radio that the row was a “rather big blip” and that the party does not “depose leaders by gossip and criticism”.

Outside the party, Burnham has called on Polanski to reverse the motion, which he described as “completely wrong”, and Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said the Greens now face a serious problem with antisemitism.

What happens next

The Greens’ rules make a quick removal of the leader unlikely: the next leadership ballot is scheduled for summer 2027, and a senior figure allied to Polanski told Politico that one cannot “really force a coup” in the party. How the row develops remains open: Ramsay said much will turn on how the coming days and weeks unfold, and Lucas likewise said to see what happens, while other MPs are working to fix or reverse the motion.

Featured image. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Credit: Colin. License: CC BY-SA 3.0.