The insurgent Green Party is reportedly investigating dozens of its council candidates for alleged antisemitism as the multicultural-leftist faces having its momentum stalled by scandal.
According to a report from the Daily Mail, over 30 Green candidates for local councils are being investigated by their own party amid accusations of widespread antisemitism within the far-left party run by Jewish-heritage London Assembly Member Zack Polanski.
The issue came to the fore last week after two Green council candidates, Saiqa Ali and Sabine Mairey, were both reportedly arrested on “suspicion of stirring up racial hatred” over alleged antisemitic social media posts.
The left-wing Labour Party, which has been bleeding supporters to the more radical Greens, is said to have produced a dossier of social media posts by 25 Green Party candidates, supposedly including a string of “harrowing anti-Semitism, dangerous conspiracy theories and appalling comments supporting Hamas.”
Meanwhile, Green leader Polanski, who has openly courted the UK Muslim vote, was revealed to have liked posts that accused Prime Minister Starmer of being on the payroll of Israel and high-profile Jews.
In the wake of the recent apparently antisemitic mass stabbing attack in Golders Green, London, Polanski came under heavy criticism for sharing a post which claimed that Met Police officers were “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” while attempting to detain the knifeman.
The post drew the ire of Met Police chief Mark Rowley, who described it as “inaccurate and misinformed commentary” while describing the heroic actions of the officers as “nothing short of extraordinary”. For his part, Polanski accused Britain’s top law enforcement officer of interfering in the elections by publicly denouncing his post.
Regardless, the incident appeared to have seriously damaged the rising leftist star’s sheen, with a YouGov survey finding that Polanski’s unfavourability rating rose by a staggering 8 per cent following the Golders Green attack, to 47 per cent, compared to just 22 per cent favourable.
Prime Minister Starmer was withering in his criticism of the Green leader, saying on Friday: “You have to make a decision in that split moment according to the situation as you understand it to be. And for politicians to wade in, as Zack Polanski did, is disgraceful. He’s not fit to lead any political party.”
Controversy surrounding the Green leader continued on Tuesday, with The Times reporting that he had falsely claimed in 2022 to be a British Red Cross spokesman while running for a leadership role in the Greens.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday — the day before voters head to the polls for local elections across the UK — Polanski admitted that he had used “the wrong word” when describing his role with the Red Cross, which appears to have amounted to hosting fundraisers for the charity.
Mr Polanski’s past has become fodder for his opponents and the British tabloids, with the London Assembly member reportedly previously claiming that he had the ability to increase the size of women’s breasts through the power of hypnosis.
While he claims to have been “misrepresented”, the BBC revealed that in 2013, Polanski told BBC Radio Humberside that there was “anecdotal evidence, at least, of a growth in breast size” as a result of his hypnosis technique.
Commenting on his opponent’s latest scandal on Wednesday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage quipped that perhaps Mr Polanski is a “fantasist”.
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