Zack Polanski has failed the antisemitism test

Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in C aroline Lucas, the former leader of the Green Party, opposed the “Zionism is racism” motion at the Brighton conference, and voted against it. She said that Zack Polanski , the current leader, “should have been there, and he should have voted”. Asked if she thought he should stand down in the wake of his defeat in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, she said: “We should see what happens. I want him to show the leadership that was missing on Sunday.” Polanski had the chance to show that leadership in a Radio 4 Today programme interview with Nick Robinson this morning. The kindest observer would say that it did not go well. Robinson put Lucas’s words to him. Should he not have been in Brighton to fight for his views on the motion, and to vote? “The first thing is, I was running in a very important national by-election,” Polanski said. “I tried to push for the conference to be postponed.” Those were the first things he had to say about why he did not take part in a debate that has split his party and united its opponents. Recommended Why this is the beginning of the end for Zack Polanski Kemi Badenoch has shown that she is not afraid of a fight for the right Did Kemi Badenoch’s speech show she’s ready to be PM? This is what our writers think He said he would have voted against the motion if he had been at the conference. “I wanted to amend it on two grounds. Those amendments fell, and so I would have voted against the motion because there are aspects of it that I don’t think are OK.” Which aspects, asked Robinson. “Demanding that there is a one-state solution. I don’t think that is up to the British government, or indeed certainly not up to the Green Party of England and Wales at a Brighton conference to decide.” Robinson said, “Leadership is standing up to people and saying: ‘You are wrong.’” Green Party leader Zack Polanski outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House, for an interview after his by-election defeat (Reuters) ( Reuters ) That is not the Green Party’s historical view: the party has long been suspicious of the very idea of a leader. It had two principal speakers, one male and one female, until 2008, and has routinely opted for co-leaders. But, after he was elected last year, Polanski allowed others to build him up as a charismatic figure who would lead a populist left movement. He didn’t disagree with Robinson’s definition of leadership, but when asked if he would fight to reverse the motion, he said: “I do want us to go back to a process where Israelis and Palestinians decide the future of their region. Now, that’s up to members because we’re a grassroots party.” He then tried to half-defend “the substance of the motion”, saying: “We’ve talked about the displacement of people, we’ve talked about the genocide – I think that’s clearly a racist ideology there.” But he refused to say whether he thought Israel had a right to exist, leaning one way in one answer and the other in the next. First he conflated the government of Israel with the state, saying that the state was guilty of apartheid and genocide, and “I don’t believe that is a state that anybody should be supporting”. But then he said: “What I want to see is a safe space for Israelis and Palestinians.” When Robinson politely suggested he wasn’t answering the question, he said: “I think I’m answering your question really clearly.” The supporters of the motion will no doubt think that Polanski was being unfairly treated by the hostile media, but most of them must think he is weak because he would have voted against it. So he will not even be accorded the saintly status awarded to Jeremy Corbyn by his supporters, many of whom have joined the Green Party. When Robinson put the Corbyn comparison to him, Polanski defended Corbyn as “a committed civil rights activist who stood up to apartheid” and said that many people who have been “slandered and smeared” have been “on the right side of history”. He clearly wants to be in the same martyred category, but today’s interview showed that he does not have what it takes, whether you call it leadership or just principle. He has neither the effortless plausibility of Tony Benn nor the stubborn carefulness with language of Corbyn. Recommended It’s time to reclaim Englishness from the racists I have ADHD – could everyone stop going on about it? What the grotesque ‘naked Trump’ statue tells us about the UK’s future back in Europe His defeat in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election is irrelevant. As he pointed out, the voters there “wanted to give Andy Burnham a chance”. Labour governments rarely hold seats in by-elections, but there was a comparable win in Ealing Southall in Gordon Brown’s honeymoon in 2007. The Greens can recover from the loss. Polanski himself, however, may never recover from failing the test set by Caroline Lucas.