Polanski Tells Voters: Vote Green and Watch Labour Move
The Green leader used his conference speech in Brighton to argue that “sustained pressure” from his party had already forced Labour to shift on climate and on Israel, and that more would follow. “Vote Green, and watch Labour move,” he told activists, accusing the government of failing to act on housing and calling for a three-year cap on private rent rises. In half an hour he mentioned neither the Conservatives nor Reform.
The omission is the strategy. A leader who spends his whole conference speech attacking the governing party is not contesting the centre ground; he is contesting the same voters as Labour, and the claim of influence is how he justifies asking them to leave. It is also a defensive speech. Zack Polanski arrived in Brighton facing questions about his leadership after signs that last year’s Green surge has flattened, and about how to position against a Labour party that has moved onto his territory under a new prime minister — on electoral reform, on Europe, on sanctioning Israeli settlements. Rent control is the one dividing line Labour has not crossed, which is why it carries the speech: he wants rises capped at whichever is lowest of inflation, wage growth or 2%. He is also the Green candidate in next week’s Holborn and St Pancras by-election, which he calls “probably 50/50” and says his leadership does not depend on. The harder test comes on Saturday, when members debate a motion declaring Zionism racist — something his speech did not touch, and which Caroline Lucas, Adrian Ramsay and his own co-deputy have all distanced themselves from. Watch that vote.