In the final weeks of the Green Party leadership contest, Zack Polanski’s victory came to feel like a fait accompli. So when his win – by 20,411 votes to Ellie Chowns and the incumbent co-leader Adrian Ramsay’s 3,705 – was announced on 2 September, it wasn’t much of a surprise. But the margin of victory was.
Polanski is a self-proclaimed eco-populist who, until about three months ago, pretty much nobody had heard of. But now, with his charisma and bolshy debating style, the Green Party’s radical new leader could determine the fate of the British left. His acceptance speech offered a rousing, ambitious vision, pledging to take back the political space from “Reform millionaires” and “charlatans like Nigel Farage”. The party’s membership has sharply increased over the past 12 months, reaching a record high on the day of the election, as disaffected left-wing voters, many of whom previously backed Labour, have found a political home in Polanski’s Greens. Many new members reportedly joined the party specifically to vote for him.
This has been a long campaign. Nominations for the party leadership officially opened in June, but in reality the race began when Polanski announced his decision to run shortly after the local elections in May. Though his ambitions were no secret to Green Party insiders, he did not forewarn the then co-leaders, Ramsay and Carla Denyer, of his intentions. Nor did he notify Chowns, who sits in the Commons alongside Ramsay as one of the party’s four MPs. So, it wasn’t just the public who were taken aback when Polanski burst on to the scene with his calls for eco-populism.
But, despite the hype Polanski’s campaign attracted, concerns remained about his suitability for the role. He is a member of the London Assembly rather than an MP, and some in the party worry about the logistics of having a leader outside of parliament. Others suggested that, as a former Lib Dem who only joined the Greens in 2017, Polanski’s intentions could not be trusted. He did not receive the backing of party grandees such as Jenny Jones or Caroline Lucas. Polanski’s critics also feared his leftist rhetoric might put off parts of the party’s traditional base: quieter, rural, small-c conservative seats in former Tory shires and Lib Dem heartlands. Indeed, Polanski (who won 86 per cent of the vote) did not reach the heights of popularity enjoyed by Lucas at the time of her first leadership election in 2010 (98 per cent).
By contrast, Chowns and Ramsay were the establishment candidates. In parliament, both MPs – who won former Tory safe seats in 2024 – have pushed forward a Green agenda concerned predominantly with conservation and nature (which is sometimes disparagingly described as Nimbyism). This leadership election, they pursued a softer, more centrist politics, as opposed to the loud left-wing approach taken by Polanski. Their campaign made it clear that a vote for them was a vote for business as usual – a cautious and environmental leadership style, which Chowns and Ramsay described as helping to maintain the party’s “distinct identity”. In rejecting them, Green Party members have sent a transparent message: they no longer wish to be cautious.
Polanski’s campaign did not only generate conversation about the future of the Greens, but renewed debate about the shape of the British left. It is to the left that Labour is most at risk of losing core voters. The new, as-yet-unnamed left-wing party founded by the former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana shares many of Polanski’s aims: to provide a home for disaffected voters on the left of British politics, to institute a wealth tax, to raise awareness of the crisis in Gaza and to tackle climate change. Polanski must now work out how to ensure his party remains a distinct force in any prospective alliance. Ipsos polling seen by the New Statesman shows nearly half of all 2024 Labour voters would consider voting for an alliance between Corbyn and Sultana’s new party and the Greens.
The day before his victory, Polanski spoke to Corbyn on the phone. When I asked him about the substance of this conversation, he said: “What I’ve been saying is the same thing I’ve been saying publicly: that I believe the Green Party right now is the best movement for growing a green left… It’s not my job to manage what other people do, but it is my role to represent the cooperative politics in the Green Party values and say we’re always ready to talk.”
The road ahead will not be easy for Polanski. As Reform sets the agenda, and talk of mass deportations, flags and asylum hotels occupies the Labour government, the left remains conspicuously silent, as Andrew Marr writes on page 24. Though Polanski was widely lauded for a campaign video focusing on small boats, he will now have to tackle Farage head on. This moment, when it comes, will be the first true test of the strength of Polanski’s populism.
The Green Party has spent the summer deliberating over whether to stick with what it knows or to go all in with Zack Polanski and the populist left. On 2 September, it decisively chose the latter. But the party’s excitement is also tempered by trepidation: its vaunted new leader must now translate his popularity inside the party into votes across the nation.
[See more: Downing Street has derailed its own good news agenda]
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This article appears in the 03 Sep 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Age of Deportation
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