09.10.2025

Zack Polanski: European arms to defend European capitalism

Red-green hot air

Zack Polanski wants to ‘save Britain’ by making it ‘fair’ and ‘more equal’. But, says Carla Roberts, genuine socialists work to organise the working class to overthrow the capitalist regime

Green Party leader Zack Polanski is certainly running rings round Your Party. In the last couple of months alone almost 30,000 have joined the Greens. A good chunk of them will be among the 800,000 or so who previously expressed an interest in joining the Jeremy Corbyn Party, but will have been entirely frustrated by the delays, the lack of transparency and factional infighting at the top (over what exactly?). Polanski’s slick social media and easy rhetoric makes YP look very amateurish indeed. The Green Party conference last weekend, where he gave a rousing ‘leftwing’ speech, will have convinced many more.

Of course, the Greens’ record membership number of 90,000 is just a fraction of YP’s 800,000 - but who knows how many have actually properly signed up to become members of Your Party? We know that around 25,000 had joined via Zarah Sultana’s previous application system and are now being transferred over to the new membership database, which is controlled by Corbyn’s right-hand woman, Karie Murphy. But how many there are, in total, is a well-guarded secret. That probably means it is not very many - and most certainly nowhere near 800,000. Another clue: the regional assemblies, which were supposed to gather YP members ahead of the launch conference in November, have now been opened up to ‘supporters’, too - ie, the invitations will be sent out to anybody who has ever signed up.

Polanski has certainly made a splash - and has performed a marked shift to the left. Those who think Your Party should stick to platitudes like peace, justice and fairness should think again. Polanski says exactly that - and says it much better than Your Party, which is still saying … well, next to nothing. As an aside, we hear that the four YP founding documents were due for launch on October 9, a few days before they are to be discussed at the first regional assembly in Manchester on October 12, which, incidentally, nobody has been invited to as I write! What an utter shambles.

Polanski now poses left, but only the naive would choose to ignore his colourful past. The man was a member of the Liberal Democrats for many years, standing in elections numerous times (and unsuccessfully so). He only joined the Green Party in 2017 and then fully jumped on the anti-Semitism bandwagon. He fought publicly for the party to adopt the IHRA mis-definition of anti-Semitism,¹ which redefines the meaning of the word: not discrimination against Jews, but criticism of Israel. Being a “pro-European Jew” he said, was one of the “reasons I couldn’t vote for Labour under Jeremy Corbyn”² - one of many attacks he has launched against JC.

Polanski has since issued a sort-of apology to Corbyn: “It was not helpful for me to assume that the Labour Party was rife with anti-Semitism, when we now know that blatantly was not true” (my emphasis).³ No, Zack, everybody who actually bothered to look knew exactly, even then, that it was a big, fat lie, designed not just to get rid of Corbyn, but to silence the entire Palestine solidarity movement. But perhaps he has changed, so let us take him at his word.

His conference speech was certainly well-received - it helped that the hall was full to the rafters (unlike the embarrassing Tory conference the week after). He was interrupted by cheers and standing ovations, especially when he spoke about the “need to end the genocide in Gaza. We cannot talk about stopping genocide without talking about the draconian crackdown on the right to protest. The proscription of Palestine Action must be withdrawn.”⁴ In interviews during the conference, he also called for the “legalisation of all drugs” - we agree.

Migration

Most interesting was perhaps his section on migration. He identified himself as a migrant: “My ancestors started in Latvia, but fled to Ukraine because of pogroms, where they faced more pogroms. Then they fled to Poland, where they faced the Nazis. Then they fled to England, where they faced anti-Semitism and so changed their name to sound more English. I changed it back.”

He culminated in a rousing call: “We say it loud, we say it clear: migrants and refugees are welcome here.” He says he spoke to a bloke called Paul who “wants to stop the boats. I told him that the Greens also want to stop the boats. We want to stop them through safe and legal routes.”

Of course, he did not discuss what should happen to people whose applications for asylum are denied or those who continue to enter illegally. Naturally, he made no mention of open borders either - but then, neither does most of the left. Groups like George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, the Socialist Party in England and Wales and the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain oppose only “racist” immigration controls - ‘non-racist’ immigration laws are okay and are needed to ‘protect Britain’ and British workers. The same arguments come from the trade union bureaucracy.

Genuine communists support the free movement of people. Everybody should have the right to live wherever they choose. The biggest drivers of migration are almost certainly war, economic collapse and state breakdown: Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, etc. But we recognise that people also move from their home country because of a lack of opportunities and the simple wish for a better life.

It is true of course, that migrants do increase competition for jobs, housing and services. Capital generally supports migration, because it tends to depress wage levels. Unfilled job vacancies in care, health and leisure are explained by lazy British workers. In fact, it is lousy pay and lousy hours that cause unfilled vacancies.

But the idea that competition is lessened by immigration laws is entirely illusory. If people cannot move legally, they will move illegally. And illegal workers will radically intensify, not reduce, competition. They will accept even lower lousy pay and even longer lousy hours.

Communists do not support immigration controls of any kind. Our task is to organise all workers, whether they are legal or illegal, whether they were born in the UK or abroad, whether they are UK subjects or not. Every worker needs to be in a trade union, every worker needs to be won to join the struggle against capitalism and for socialism, which, if it is anything, is international.

What is socialism?

Interestingly, Polanski barely touched on ‘traditional’ Green Party policies and only mentioned them in passing:

I've been asked dozens and dozens of times if the Green Party is an environmental movement or a social justice movement. As if you can’t speak up for our working class or LGBT+ communities at the same time as challenging the fossil fuel industry. So, let’s clear this up. You cannot be an effective environmentalist without talking about the deep inequality in our society.

He raged against the “poison of extreme wealth” and called for an unspecified “wealth tax” of the “top 1%” that is supposed to help “end rip-off Britain”, which he characterised as “a country where a tiny few have taken our power, our wealth. Things must change and, friends, it is time to take it back. The issues we face are rooted in an economic model which is built on austerity and privatisation. We will reverse this and break the shackles of poverty.”

Take it back? When has it ever belonged to ‘us’? And what “economic model” do you mean, Zack? Is it capitalism? How do you ‘reverse’ that? When Zarah Sultana was recently asked about a possible pact between the Greens and Your Party, she said she opposed it, because “the Greens aren’t a socialist party and they are not based in the power of the working class”. Quite right. Zack Polanski replied to her, stating:

Do we shout that we’re a socialist party regularly? No, because I think most people don’t know what that means, and you switch people off. So, instead, I talk about lowering bills, about the public ownership of public services, and taxes on multimillionaires and billionaires. These are all socialist policies, and they’re all embedded and deep within the Green Party.⁵

Taxing the rich more and renationalisation hardly amount to socialism. Wage-slavery continues, while some big capitalists might flee the country, depriving you of their taxes. Clearly, there is no national, tax-funded road to socialism. Socialism is the transition to communism, the international rule of the working class. That is not what the Greens want. Their programme does not go beyond capitalism and no amount of painting it ‘radical red’ will change that.

Polanksi’s view on Nato in this context is also of interest. Yes, he is to the left within the Greens - just. The 2024 manifesto states that the Green Party “recognises that Nato has an important role in ensuring the ability of its member states to respond to threats to their security. We would work within Nato.”⁶ Polanski, on the other hand, has said Nato is “out of date”, because it is run by Donald Trump. He does not want to leave straight away though, but organise “alongside people who are working for peace and for democracy and diplomacy in the world”. Oh, and who is that? Our “European partners”⁷ apparently - you know, the ones currently supplying arms to Ukraine and Israel. Such a European defence pact would clearly defend - and advance - the interests of European capitalism in exploiting and robbing the world.

The former deputy leader of the Greens, Shahrar Ali, might have condemned a successful conference motion that grandly talks about “abolishing private landlords” as “reading like the Communist manifesto”, but, of course, it did no such thing. The most radical demand in it was that tenants would be given first right to buy when a landlord sells, with their “total rent paid discounted” and government-backed financing provided.

Small and medium

Green perspectives as a whole remain firmly located within the narrow confines of capitalist society. True, there is an implicit rejection of monopoly capitalism, state hypertrophy and the ecologically destructive logic of production for the sake of production. However, sole traders, local businesses, mutual banks, cooperative enterprises are upheld as the alternative. Towards that end the Bank of England is to be given a mandate to fund the transition to a “fairer”, green capitalism, based on small and medium businesses, which apparently are the “lifeblood of our economy and our communities”. Finance capital is reined in (or so they think), but continues, albeit in ‘responsible’ form. Essentially the same happens with industrial capital.

Programmatically, the Greens are unmistakably a petty bourgeois party, which wants to reform capitalism in the interests of the petty bourgeoisie - and that makes it (should the need arise) a possibly attractive option for the bourgeoisie too.

No, Polanski is no socialist and there is no repeat of the existential fight reminiscent of the German Greens in the 80s, when the ‘fundis’ tried to fight for an anti-capitalist programme. The ‘realos’ famously won and have made Die Grünen into the most pro-war party in the German parliament.

Polanski has no real answers that go to the root of our problems - ie, capitalism and how to overcome it. However, he has certainly managed to take the wind out of Your Party’s sails (it does not help that the YP ship is drifting along without a rudder in sight). All this stresses the importance of socialists fighting for the most radical programme and most democratic structures within Your Party. We might not succeed in turning it into what is actually needed - ie, a Communist Party that openly fights for the overthrow of capitalism and the rule of the working class - but we should certainly try to win over large sections of the membership.