Although I do not share even his qualified enthusiasm for Your Party, Paul Knaggs is on glorious form:
The Greens are surging. Your Party is floundering. And if you can’t see why that’s a disaster for the left, you haven’t been paying attention.
In May, when Zack Polanski launched his bid to lead the Green Party, they counted 60,000 members. Now they’ve hurtled past 150,000, eclipsing both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Their social media operation has transformed from clunky graphics and earnest tweets into slick, viral videos of Polanski urging us to “make hope normal again.” Their TV appearances have evolved from awfully nice but forgettable to confrontational and headline-grabbing. Polanski champions wealth taxes, backs transgender rights without equivocation, and accuses Reform UK of fascism. He sounds radical. He looks energetic. He’s hoovering up support from the disillusioned left like a Dyson on maximum power.
And here’s the problem: whilst Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana were still rigging their vessel and arguing over who gets to be captain, Polanski’s sleek pirate ship sailed in, caught the wind, and left Your Party dead in the water. He’s parking the Greens’ rainbow-coloured tanks right on Your Party’s lawn, stealing their potential base whilst offering nothing but political theatre wrapped in radical-sounding language that means precisely nothing.
Two ships, both claiming to sail against the establishment. Both captains shouting they’re steering toward a new horizon. But only one is actually moving, and it’s moving in circles whilst the other struggles to even leave port.
Let’s be clear about who Zack Polanski is. He’s a former actor. A former hypnotist. A former Liberal Democrat. A man who has mastered the art of sounding like Jeremy Corbyn whilst meaning something entirely different. He’s regurgitating every Facebook meme the left has produced over 14 years of online rebellion against Tory rule, delivering it with a smile and an occasional wink, and people are falling for it like teenagers discovering their first protest movement.
But listen carefully to what Polanski actually says, and you’ll find more holes than substance. Take NATO. Pressed on whether the UK should leave the alliance, Polanski first pointed to “Green Party policy” to stay in NATO but reform it from within. Then, without missing a beat, he called for “removing nuclear weapons” and “building an alternative alliance based on peace and diplomacy.”
Sounds bold, doesn’t it? Sounds principled. Until you remember that NATO is a nuclear military alliance. That’s not a bug. That’s the feature. The entire architecture of NATO rests on nuclear deterrence and collective military force. Suggesting you can reform it into something peaceful and non-nuclear is like proposing to reform McDonald’s into a vegan café. It’s fantasy designed to flatter your audience without ever confronting power.
When challenged on this obvious contradiction, Polanski admitted that in the medium to long term, he’d like to leave NATO. But only if a new European alliance could be built first. An alliance that would presumably do all the things NATO does but with better branding. In other words, never. Because if you’re building a European military alliance with nuclear weapons and collective defence obligations, you’ve just recreated NATO with a different letterhead.
This is political gaslighting. Say enough to sound principled without ever saying enough to be held accountable. Appeal to the anti-war crowd whilst keeping policy papers safely inside the NATO comfort zone. Promise transformation whilst pledging obedience. It’s having your peace dividend and spending it on weapons too.
On the EU, Polanski confirmed the Greens would take Britain back into the European Union if they were in power. “Yes it is” an aim, he told Mehdi Hasan, before immediately adding that he’s not “shouting about it” because “people made a decision.”
Then he suggested there’s a “really strong argument” for another referendum because people now say Brexit was a mistake. But then he said the “more immediate concern” is inequality and the cost of living. Then he suggested that maybe a referendum wouldn’t even be needed if the Greens made it a manifesto pledge and “won a huge majority.” Then he admitted “all of these are quite hypothetical scenarios.”
Got that? He wants to rejoin. But he’s not shouting about it. But there’s a strong argument for a referendum. But maybe inequality matters more. But maybe they won’t need a referendum if they win big. But it’s all hypothetical anyway.
This is the language of a man who wants to appeal to everyone whilst committing to nothing. Of a politician who’s learned that ambiguity is safer than conviction. Of someone performing radicalism for an audience desperate to believe that someone in politics still means what they say.
The trick works because it exploits genuine hunger for anti-war, anti-austerity politics. People are exhausted by Starmer’s betrayals. They’re disgusted by billions for weapons whilst public services crumble. They want politicians who will challenge the military-industrial complex, not rearrange its furniture. Polanski sounds like he’s offering that challenge. But he’s offering nothing but aspirational waffle wrapped in radical packaging.
It’s a familiar trick. Nick Clegg pulled it. Keir Starmer perfected it. Promise everything, commit to nothing, sound radical enough to win support but safe enough never to threaten power. And people fall for it every single time because they desperately want to believe this time will be different.
But where Polanski differs from Clegg and Starmer is the ease with which he’s gathering support. And the tragedy is, he’s gathering it from people who should be building Your Party instead.
Let’s rewind. Your Party was born in chaos. A difficult birth, breech and premature. It came to us arse-ended with an early announcement from Zarah Sultana, who immediately resigned from Labour. Not wanting to be a single mother of what would be a needy child, she named Jeremy Corbyn as the father. It took a while for Corbyn to accept responsibility, but once he did, 800,000 people registered their interest.
Then came the very public row. The signs of a break-up. The disconnected and constantly let-down electorate started feeling abandoned once more. And along came the Rasputin of politics, our very own Mesmer, Zack Polanski. The former actor turned Lib Dem turned Green, the former hypnotist who smiled and winked his way through every left-wing talking point whilst Your Party floundered through its chaotic setup.
Now the ‘Your Party’s’ social media pages are full of people singing Polanski’s praises. Thousands of potential Your Party supporters are becoming Green Party members instead. Those extra 100,000 members aren’t building Your Party. They’re funding and propping up the Greens. The naivety is staggering.
Zarah Sultana has finally come out to explain the key differences between Your Party and Polanski’s Greens. And these differences matter. They’re not trivial. They’re fundamental.
Your Party, Sultana explains, is “class-based” and “isn’t shy about talking about class-based politics.” As she put it: “We are embracing class war, and this time we plan to win it.” The Greens, for all their progressive rhetoric, don’t talk about class. They talk about identity, environment, social justice in the abstract. But class? The fundamental division in society between those who own and those who work? Barely mentioned.
Your Party would cut all diplomatic relations with Israel. The Greens would not. As Sultana said: “The Greens believe that we can have diplomatic relations with Israel, and we think that is not okay and acceptable and we must sever all diplomatic ties.” That’s not a minor policy difference. That’s a fundamental split on anti-imperialism and international solidarity.
Your Party wants to leave NATO. Actually, leave it, not reform it into some imaginary peace alliance that will never exist. The Greens want to stay in whilst pretending they might leave someday if conditions are perfect, which they never will be.
These aren’t cosmetic differences. They’re the difference between a party rooted in socialist principles and a party performing radicalism for liberal voters uncomfortable with Labour but not ready to actually challenge power.
Nothing exemplifies progressive liberalism better than that on the debate on Trans rights.
Yes, both parties share problematic positions on the culture wars that plague the left. Both seem to prioritise trans rights over women’s rights. Both appear comfortable with open borders that create a reserve army of labour, benefiting corporations whilst pushing down working-class wages. That’s what passes for the left these days, even though it’s a world apart from socialism.
But here’s where the Greens distinguish themselves in the worst possible way: they have a documented history of expelling members who dare to advocate for women’s sex-based rights, who cite the Supreme Court’s judgment on what a woman is, or who invoke Article 10 protections for freedom of expression. Stand up for women’s spaces, women’s sports, or the biological reality the Supreme Court affirmed, and you’ll find yourself shown the door faster than you can say “no debate.” The Greens don’t just hold these positions. They enforce them with the zeal of true believers, purging dissent and treating basic defence of women’s rights as heresy.
Your Party may share some of the same confused positions on gender ideology, but at least they haven’t started expelling members for defending women’s rights. At least there’s a chance you can stand up for Article 10, cite the Supreme Court, and advocate for sex-based protections without facing a disciplinary hearing. At least for now, that is.
And at least Your Party is honest about its class politics and anti-imperialism. The Greens offer wokery without the socialism, identity politics without economic transformation, progressive aesthetics without challenging capital. They’ll expel you for saying women are adult human females, but they’ll never threaten the banks or the arms manufacturers or the corporate interests that actually shape policy. They police language whilst leaving power untouched.
The liberal left cries: but who will beat Reform? Who will stop Farage if not a coalition of progressive parties? The answer is simple: certainly not parties that offer nothing but wokery and false promises that dissolve in the cold light of scrutiny. In a first-past-the-post system, you don’t win by trying to be everything to everyone. You win by standing for something clear enough that people know what they’re voting for.
Right now, Polanski is doing a brilliant job regurgitating Corbyn’s battle cries without the conviction or credibility behind them. He’s performing radicalism for an audience that desperately wants to believe. And they’re buying it because they’ve been let down so many times they’ll grasp at anything that sounds vaguely left-wing and has good production values.
But here’s the test of any politician’s sincerity: what are you willing to lose by holding your position? Corbyn lost everything. He was smeared relentlessly, abandoned by his own MPs, subjected to the most vicious media campaign in modern British political history. But he never wavered. That’s what principle looks like when it costs you something.
Polanski’s version of principle costs him nothing. It offends no one who matters. It threatens no powerful interests. It allows him to sound radical whilst pursuing entirely conventional politics. The establishment finds him perfectly acceptable because he poses no threat. He’s another waiting-room attendant, pulling in the disillusioned left and keeping them comfortably contained, safely neutralised, perpetually waiting for the “medium to long term” that never arrives.
He’s another Starmer in the making. Another Clegg. Complete with radical credentials that will be conveniently forgotten the moment real power beckons. The establishment stooge doing exactly what the establishment does: making the electorate safe, channelling discontent into controlled opposition that changes nothing fundamental.
And the cruellest irony? The people giving the most support to the Greens are often those pretending to support Your Party. They’re on Your Party’s social media pages praising Polanski, joining the Greens, suggesting coalitions. They’re funding the very organisation that’s undermining the genuine left alternative they claim to want.
It doesn’t matter how or why it happened. Polanski is mopping up Your Party’s potential base right now. And if you’re one of the people helping him do it, if you’re one of those naively suggesting the Greens and Your Party should work together, if you’ve joined the Greens thinking they’re basically the same thing, you need to understand what you’re doing.
You’re not building the left. You’re building a prettier version of the same old politics where nothing fundamental changes. You’re funding a party that will say radical things but do conventional ones. You’re supporting controlled opposition designed to make you feel good about your politics without ever threatening the systems that keep you powerless.
Your Party may have had a chaotic birth. It may still be finding its feet. But at least it’s actually trying to build something different. At least it’s honest about class war and anti-imperialism and challenging power rather than managing it. At least it represents a genuine break from the politics that have failed us, rather than a rebranding of them.
The Greens under Polanski are offering you marshmallow clouds and tangerine skies. At this moment, Your Party is offering you class war and the chance to actually win it. If you can’t tell the difference, you deserve what you get when Polanski inevitably betrays you the way every establishment-safe radical eventually does.
It’s a case of two ships competing for the same waters. Both captains claim to lead the rebellion. But whilst one argues about navigation and the other sails in circles, the establishment laughs from the shore. Polanski has taken the wind from Your Party’s sails. But only because you’re letting him. Stop falling for political theatre and start building something real. Or accept that you’re just another audience member applauding a performance that changes nothing.
