Zack Polanski's first encounter with the Corbynite left

Zac Polanski's pitch for the leadership of the Greens is centred on the idea of attracting the sort of urban, left-wing voters who were enthused by Jeremy Corbyn.

Which makes this Buzzfeed news story from 2016 unexpected reading:

The man who heckled Jeremy Corbyn at a Momentum rally on Wednesday evening is a Liberal Democrat activist who stood for the party in last month's London Assembly elections.

Zack Polanski told BuzzFeed News he decided to interrupt the meeting of Corbyn supporters because the Labour leader's "passivity and ambivalence for Europe" had contributed to Britain voting to leave the EU in last week's referendum.

The rest of the crowd reacted very angrily to the heckle, with one man stood in the crowd next to BuzzFeed News shouting, "You Tory heckler! You piece of shit!"

But what would a Polanski leadership mean for Green attitudes to Europe in 2025?

I'm no expert on the internal politics of the Green Party, but Polanski wants Britain to withdraw from NATO, and it's fair to say that the Greens have often not always been as pro-EU as they appear today.

Caroline Lucas began as a Eurosceptic, while Jenny Jones wrote an article for the Guardian on the eve of the EU referendum that was headlined 'The EU is an outsized behemoth beyond reform – the Green case for Brexit'.

Jones has since partially recanted, but there is no guarantee that the Green Party will support Britain rejoining the EU if it makes the pitch for left-wing voters that Polanski promises.

But for the mean time, this appears to be his position...

Brexit has been a disaster. We campaigned against it and it's turned out even worse than we feared. Deregulation in particular is a huge risk. Rejoin customs union & eventually rejoin when conditions are right.

— Zack Polanski (@zackpolanski.bsky.social) 27 April 2025 at 12:50