‘Inequality hits you wherever you live’ – Zack Polanski

Green Party leader Zack Polanski remains the only head of a major political party who doesn’t currently sit as a Member of Parliament. Instead, Polanski, who has seen the Greens surge in both London-wide and national polls since his election in September, has sat on the London Assembly since May 2021.

But the firebrand party leader doesn’t lament not being able to directly question Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons. With City Hall as the platform, Polanski is forced to take aim at Sir Keir’s party colleague instead — veteran Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan.

While a Green-led government in Westminster is ultimately the aim, he feels any issues in London are “impossible” to look at without connecting it to national government and that his City Hall role can “work really well together” with his new job as party leader.

“A lot of the time, issues that affect us nationally affect us in London too,” Polanski told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) in an exclusive interview.

“Any huge issues that we’re having in London right now are often because the Mayor, when he ran for re-election, said a Labour government and a Labour Mayor would put ‘wind in the sails of London’.

“In most people’s experiences that’s not what has happened. It’s impossible to look at London issues at the moment without connecting it to some of the failures of the national government.

“Inequality hits you wherever you live. So if you’re a Londoner who’s struggling from rents being far too high, or you’re someone who’s worried about the price of food or the fact your wages haven’t gone up, those are the same issues, whether you live in Zone 1 in London, Zone 6 in London or indeed, if you live somewhere in Yorkshire.

“Now there are some issues that are very specific to London — we have immense pockets of wealth, but far too often they are against immense pockets of deprivation.”

When Polanski isn’t travelling the UK to address different rallies or appear on the media, he carries out his duties in City Hall, chairing the London Assembly Fire Committee and sitting on three other cross-party committees, as well as getting his chance to question Khan directly once a month at Mayor’s Question Time.

Khan’s remit — despite including a multi-billion pound budget overseeing transport, policing and housing for the capital’s nine million residents and millions more visitors — can be seen as a limit for what a national political party leader may want to spotlight.

“To be fair to him, there’s only certain things he can do within the budget he’s got, but I’m making sure that I’m pushing him with the powers that he does have. But I think there’s a wider issue there too — could he be asking for more powers or he could be doing more to call for more devolution?

“So again, these two things connect together, but it just depends whether I’m in the chamber here at City Hall pushing the Mayor to do more or I’m challenging a government minister how we can get a better deal for London or indeed any regional inequality.”

Polanski’s current priorities in City Hall are twofold — to push for a more radical solution to the climate crisis through retrofitting homes to reduce emissions, and to put workers’ rights, especially those working in the gig economy, on the agenda.

Should the Green Party skyrocket in the next election for Mayor of London in 2028 – something Mr Polanski suggests is “possible” due to the downward trajectory of the Labour Party in the polls – the leader suggests a few immediate policy changes.

What would a Green Mayor do right now? Freeze TfL fares, force the Met Commissioner to acknowledge the outcomes of the Casey Review — that the police are “institutionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic” — and build masses of social housing that is properly insulated.

Londoners who lent their vote to the Greens and ensured he was twice elected to the London Assembly can be confident he will at least serve out his term until 2028 — but he may have ambitions to follow the well-trodden path from City Hall to the House of Commons after the next general election.

Former London Assembly members include former Green Party co-leader Sian Berry, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.

“Right now I’m serving every single Londoner — in terms of a Parliamentary seat, I would love to run in one and it will definitely be in London,” Polanski told the LDRS.

With the Greens taking second place in more than a dozen London constituencies in last year’s general election, he may be spoilt for choice.

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