Zack Polanski's ‘eco-populism' could put voters off Greens, opponents say

The Guardian

4 days ago

The Green party risks going into reverse if they elect Zack Polanski as leader, his two opponents have said, arguing that his promised brand of 'eco-populism' would prove polarising and divisive and likely to put off more moderate voters.
Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the opening of the month-long leadership vote, which begins on Friday, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns said the party in England and Wales was at 'a crossroads', and could miss the chance to hold the balance of power at the next election.
'I strongly believe that most British people have had enough with populist approaches to politics that seek to simplify everything, that are all about chasing the next headline, the next set of likes, rather than real substance,' said Ramsay, who has co-led the party with Carla Denyer since 2021.
'There's no point in just speaking to a certain section of the public that already backs you. You have to communicate in a way that has a broad appeal.'
Ramsay, one of four Green MPs elected last year, is standing this time with another of their number, Chowns, after Denyer opted to stand down. The other hopeful is Polanski, the current deputy leader, who has promised to shake up a party operation he characterises as overly timid and uninspiring.
Polanksi, a fluent communicator whose main leadership video has racked up more than 2m views on X, aims to make the Greens a mass-membership 'eco-populism' movement. This would see a push for more councillors and MPs matched with a radical change in communications strategy, seeking to create headlines as effectively as Nigel Farage and Reform.
Allies of Polanski argue that, given how much effort was needed to move from the previous total of one MP to four, expanding in number to a meaningful 20 or more MPs would be almost impossible without a much bolder approach to generating media coverage.
Ramsay and Chowns, however, say this would risk undermining the party's expansion, pointing to their own seats, in East Anglia and Herefordshire, which were secured against mainly Conservative opposition.
'Anyone who wants to win in a first-past-the-post system has to be able to win the trust of people who don't agree with them about absolutely everything, ideologically or policy-wise, but feel that they can put their trust in that person,' said Chowns. 'That's the reality of the system that we work within.
'This gets to the core of the difference between the leadership that Adrian and I are offering in contrast to the leadership that that Zack seems to be offering. We're way past those kinds of old ideas of politics being binary, left and right, simplistic like that.'
Polanski, she argued, would risk limiting Green support to a committed core of little more than 10% of people, and would alienate less radical but more numerous left-leaning voters who could be drawn to the party.
'The danger of having a particularly polarising, strident approach to politics is that you seem very attractive to the people who already like you, but you may put off that wider range of people you've got to be able to attract,' she said.
The vote of party members runs throughout August, with the winner or winners announced on 2 September. Green insiders say they have no idea which way the contest could go.
Ramsay said the differences in approach, plus fragmented political loyalties which could see Labour relying on Green support after the next election, made the contest perhaps the most significant in the party's history. A Polanski win, he argued, might instead see the Greens slide back into irrelevance.
'We can't assume we will continue to go forward,' he said. 'We have dragged the Green party out of the wilderness years that we were in, in my early time in the party, when people said: 'We like what you stand for, but are you credible? Are you actually going to be able to make any difference?'
'We have shown we can win seats at the general election because we've got a message that's both bold and credible, and we have got to be both. And if you look at the sorts of tactics that Zack is proposing, they're quite similar to what happened in Australia, where [in the 2025 federal election] the Greens went back from four seats to one. So we can't assume that that progress will continue.'
A particular difference could be in how the Greens approach possible links with a new leftwing party co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. While Polanski has said he could be open to cooperation, Ramsay and Chowns are more sceptical.
'Cooperation is in the DNA of the Greens,' Chowns said. 'We have always said we will cooperate with people wherever there is common ground.'
However, she argued, the launch of the new party – which has seen disagreements between its two leaders and is still name-less – 'has not been the smoothest'. She added: 'If I was a voter looking for an alternative to the current way of doing politics, or a frustrated Labour voter, I'm not sure that that would inspire confidence.'