Polanski’s openness to Zarah Sultana is the collaborative spirit the left badly need right now

Ahead of the Your Party conference next weekend, the establishment media obviously wants to intensify division as much as possible. One Times article, for example, said Green Party leader Zack Polanski was calling on Zarah Sultana to ‘defect’ (a word it seemingly put in Polanski’s mouth). But while we shouldn’t trust the Murdoch rag‘s intentions, we should absolutely emphasise that Polanski’s openness is exactly the kind of collaborative spirit the left sorely needs.

Ignore the Murdoch storm in a teacup

The Times, as a more upmarket version of the Sun, hardly has any interest in the left presenting a meaningful challenge to the right-wing establishment. So we need to take everything it writes with a pinch of salt. In this case, for example, it led with talk of ‘defection’, but didn’t quote Polanski as saying that. It did, however, note him saying:

I believe Zarah largely does align with my values.

And he clarified that the Green Party would be happy to welcome “anyone who aligns with its values” – something any sensible leader would say if they’re looking to grow their party. He added:

Ultimately though this has got to be a decision for those MPs.

Not exactly him ‘inviting Sultana to defect’, then. And unsurprisingly, the Times spent a lot more time talking about the challenges Your Party has faced so far than actually quoting Polanski. It knows full well that its readers tend to be centre-right, middle-class extremists (the ones who preferred Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn in 2019) who think we need to protect the super-rich and call anyone slightly challenging their stranglehold on the country ‘extremist’, “the very worst in British politics”, or “world ending” (actual comments below the article). As one reader commented:

I prefer when they’re spread all over the place then they are less likely to get voted in anywhere.

The right wants us divided. We NEED a spirit of cooperation on the left!

Corporate media and its backers aren’t the only ones who want bickering on the left, though. Because from undercover cops to the establishment politicians sending them to spy on left-wingers to protect the interests of the rich and powerful, a key task of the state is to foster division among progressives.

With that reality in mind, we absolutely need the kind of collaborative spirit Zack Polanski has been embodying as Green leader. It’s not just necessary if the left is going to forge an alliance that can defeat Reform UK and its Labour-Tory enablers. It’s also a good look. Because while few people in the country knew Polanski before he became Green leader, he has come out swinging in the past three months with a message of focusing on our similarities more than our differences. And the statistics speak for themselves. Green membership has skyrocketed and Polanski has the highest net favourability rating among both voters in general and 2024 Labour voters. The messaging of cooperation and hope matters.

‘Collaboration, cooperation is in our DNA’

As soon as he became Green leader, Polanski emphasised that “collaboration, cooperation is in our DNA”, backing up his previous promise to work with anyone challenging the far right. And he’s emphasised his willingness to work with others on the left repeatedly ever since. Zarah Sultana, meanwhile, has done the same, insisting:

We will work together, unite to fight Farage and to fight fascism.

There are differences in terms of the scale or detail of what Polanski and Sultana have been promising or campaigning for. But fundamentally, the mission for both is one of peace, democracy, and equality. And the clarity of their pledge to work together to defeat the far right – whatever that alliance looks like in the end – absolutely needs to be the focus of our public messaging. Because division doesn’t win people over to the left. Hope does.

Featured image via the Canary