BBC sideline Polanski

The BBC has just run scared from Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s truth-telling. Despite interviewing other major party leaders around the time of their conferences, Laura Kuenssberg refused to do the same with Polanski. And the Green leader has suggested this is because of his strong anti-genocide stance.

Following last week’s Manchester synagogue attack, the BBC packed Kuenssberg’s show on 5 October with establishment right-wing voices from Labour and the Conservatives. And despite Polanski being both a Jewish person from Manchester and the leader of a major party holding its conference at the weekend, the BBC refused to let him speak either in the studio or via video link.

Polanski has criticised the Labour government’s intensifying crackdown on people’s democratic rights in recent days. So the BBC‘s decision to de-platform him looks very much like complicity in this draconian behaviour.

Why are Kuenssberg and the BBC scared of Polanski?

Polanski called the BBC out himself:

I'm Jewish. I'm also Mancunian.

Every other national party leader was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg during their conference.

Maybe the BBC thought as someone who also supports Palestine – I had nothing to say?

Let's keep growing: https://t.co/Q27Jy5fuX7 pic.twitter.com/FiqUHYRLA8

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) October 5, 2025

And, it didn’t go unnoticed either:

Where’s the @TheGreenParty representative @bbclaurak ?
It is their conference in Bournemouth you know… https://t.co/yFaYSD1TGi

— Thelma Walker (@Thelma_DWalker) October 4, 2025

The Green Party is now the fourth biggest party in the UK, with 86,000 members. It has just overtaken the Liberal Democrats, is only four times smaller than Labour and three times smaller than Reform, and is hot on the heels of the flailing Conservative party. The party is on a roll, thanks largely to Labour dumping the left and aping Reform under corporate crony Keir Starmer.

It’s easier for the BBC to silence smaller parties when our awful electoral system does that too, of course. Because Labour got one MP for every 23,000 votes in 2024’s general election, for example, while the Greens got one MP for every 485,000 votes. So our system considered a Labour vote to be over 20 times more valuable than a Green one. That’s why we’ve ended up with Labour dominating parliament (holding 63% of its MPs, despite getting only 33% of the votes) and Greens holding just 0.6% of MPs despite getting over 6% of the vote.

No excuse

But that doesn’t excuse the BBC‘s cancellation of Polanski’s interview at precisely the time people around the country need to hear his voice. Because as he said last week, the government is conflating opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza with last week’s synagogue attack in a dangerous attempt to suppress freedom of speech. And the BBC‘s silencing of Polanski’s voice allowed this to continue unchallenged at the worst possible time.

Wish I could say I was shocked, but here's the Labour government constraining the right to peaceful protest again…

'You can protest but only according to our rules. The rules are: you're not allowed to use any of the tactics that make protest effective.' https://t.co/mrxYHYx55s

— Carla Denyer (@carla_denyer) October 5, 2025

Western "democracies" are so funny. You have all these liberties — as long as you don't use them. https://t.co/DvFTBH6Khs

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) October 5, 2025

Amazing that "un-British" is now being used to describe anything the Government wants to ban. I mean, it's not like there isn't a really sinister precedent here, with the term "un-Deusche Wesen" (un-German character) being used to justify burning books on or about 10th May 1933. pic.twitter.com/WP8WvQ49Q2

— Simon de Jever (@de_jever) October 5, 2025

I had to leave the Green Party Conference early today to visit the mosque that was firebombed in Peacehaven.
It's times like this we've got to come together as a community to stamp out hate and those thay seek to divide us. pic.twitter.com/sUqOQ8jEv2

— Mothin Ali (@MothinAli) October 5, 2025

If they won’t highlight the Greens’ bold ideas, we will

At the Green conference, there was support for many common-sense policies. For example, as Britain’s housing crisis rolls on, the Greens pledged to get rid of private landlords. And Polanski spoke about the need to legalise drugs in order to end the disastrous ‘war on drugs’.

Amid what genocide experts, international legal scholars, and humanitarian organisations have overwhelmingly called genocide in Gaza, Green members also agreed on the need to hold the army responsible (Israel’s IDF) to account as the terrorist organisation it is:

A Green government would proscribe the Israel Defense Forces as a terrorist organisation.

The forces currently actioning war crimes and genocide upon the people of Gaza on behalf of the Israeli government.

This must not be allowed to continue.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/yagUxfT6pm

— Greens Organise (@GreensOrganise) October 5, 2025

Polanski, meanwhile, called for the government to reverse its costly and highly controversial ban on non-violent direct-action group Palestine Action.

Clearly, the BBC can’t be trusted to fairly report on the actual political alternatives people have in this country. Good thing the Canary is about to call the fuckers out.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Good Morning Britain