Zack Polanski is peddling empty promises

As Labour sinks in the polls and Corbyn’s breakaway party somehow managed to split before even being formed, the British left has turned its attention to a new breakout star. Zack Polanski, elected leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in early September, has gained significant momentum with his prolific media appearances and social media output. The unapologetic “eco-populist” is proud of his aggressive style in the face of what he labels “the creep of fascism” — proclaiming that the only way to combat the growing popularity of Reform is by fighting fire with fire.

Polanski’s bombastic, adversarial style masks the fact that the Green’s new leader is a one trick pony

But Polanski’s bombastic, adversarial style masks the fact that the Green’s new leader is a one trick pony. With a dizzying repetitiveness that quickly becomes nauseating, Polanski has no real appreciation or answers for the plethora of issues facing the country — instead blaming any and all issues facing Britain on the twin evils of inequality and austerity.

This one-dimensional approach veers into desperate and sometimes offensive territory when he is considering social issues. Genuine divides in public opinion, such as on the issue of trans rights and women’s sports, are dismissed as irrelevant concoctions of the “billionaire press” to distract from the real issues of — yes, you’ve guessed it — inequality and austerity. Those millions of Britons who take the opposite view to Polanski on trans identity are presumably so thick as to have been duped by a scheming media, rather than having genuine and rational concerns.

On immigration, consistently polling as the most important issue facing the country for voters, Polanski has opted for an equally patronising approach. Unapologetically standing up for mass migration against the “racist narratives” of Labour and “far-right fascism” of Reform, when confronted with public concern about illegal migration, Polanski duly trots out the slogan that “the threat to our society is not arriving by dinghy or small boats – the threat is flying by private jet”.

Concerns over immigration are attributed to bogus narratives spread by opportunistic politicians, rather than the experiences of those personally affected by immigration and its consequences. As those who protested outside the Bell Hotel, from which an asylum seeker sexually assaulted a local child, can attest to, the threat of those who came on small boats very much does exist, and finger pointing at the rich doesn’t make that threat magically disappear.

As for the “bold” policies the Green Party is now putting forward, they only seem groundbreaking to those too insular to keep up with political developments elsewhere. The headline-grabbing proposal to legalise all drugs is the radical policy of yesteryear, having already been implemented and soon after ditched in the most progressive regions of Northern America like Oregon and British Columbia. The Green Party’s simple solution to bringing down housing costs, rent controls, have already been implemented in a part of Britain just three years ago, when the SNP-Green coalition introduced a rent freeze and subsequent cap in Scotland. The result: rents that rose higher than in any other area of Britain, and an enormous reduction of rentable properties.

As for Polanski’s pièce de resistance, the one policy he touts as the solution to all Britain’s woes that can finally bring an end to the twin evils of inequality and austerity, his wealth tax proposal crumbles with the slightest scrutiny. Even assuming it would work as intended, Polanski claims the wealth tax would raise between £15 and £25 billion per year. For context, last year’s total tax receipts stood at just below £900 billion, meaning the wealth tax would only increase government revenue by roughly two percent. Yet on that two percent increase alone we are made to believe that an infinite shopping list of spending commitments will be covered.

The well–documented failures of his favourite policies will do little to deter Polanski

And that’s the optimistic case. Wealth taxes on large fortunes have been tried and ditched in countries like Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Denmark, invariably failing for the same, predictable reasons: lower than predicted revenues, high administrative costs, and large-scale capital flight. Spain’s wealth tax, heralded as an example of how the tax can succeed, raised a paltry €1.9billion in 2022.

But the well–documented failures of his favourite policies will do little to deter Polanski, as ultimately his is a politics that exists in a world of fantasy, not reality. The former actor offers an exhausted electorate the opportunity to step out of the harsh realities facing Britain, and into an enchanted theatrical world where doomed policies have bountiful promise.

In his performances, he seduces his audiences by promising to “make hope normal again”, offering a world where genuine social divisions are just billionaire manipulations, where everything can be paid for by the rich, and an appeal to patriotic duty by a man who wants to break up Britain will be enough to convince the ultra-rich to part ways with their wealth rather than relocate to the numerous countries that would welcome them with open arms and low tax rates. This has a toxic effect on British politics as a whole, cruelly tricking the public into believing that political trade-offs are a billionaire trick and social divisions are an illusion caused by scheming fascists. It’s time to call the curtains on the Polanski Show, and make clear to the electorate that his political program is about as credible as claims to enlarge breasts through hypnotherapy.