LONDON — Since it won last July’s general election, Britain’s Labour government has often had to compete for headlines — and votes — with the right-wing populist party, upstart Reform UK.

Led by Nigel Farage — a supporter of US President Donald Trump, who admiringly dubbed him, “Mr. Brexit” — Reform has edged into the lead in the opinion polls, captured a formerly safe Labour seat in a special election, and won control of a slew of local authorities.

But while Labour and the Conservative opposition struggle to adjust to the challenge posed by Reform, it is inspiring one of the country’s leading Jewish politicians in his bid to capture the leadership of the left-wing Green party.

Zack Polanski, currently the Greens’ deputy leader and a member of the Greater London Authority (GLA), is standing on a platform of “eco-populism,” pledging a “much bigger, much louder, much more effective” party, and saying it needs to learn from Farage’s success.

“Is this the left-wing Farage?” wondered ITV News, when it interviewed 42-year-old Polanski in June.

Polanski’s supporters have another role model in mind: Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democrat who last month won the party’s nomination for the New York mayoralty. Both men, they claim, “show that you don’t have to follow the agenda of the right, but can shape the agenda yourself,” and that “radical politics” can be “fun, personal, and recognizable.”

Polanski’s supporters have another role model in mind: Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democrat who last month won the party’s nomination for the New York mayoralty

The Green party — which takes a tough anti-Israel line and supports the BDS movement — faces a choice in the leadership contest between the conventional environmentalism offered by two of its four MPs, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, and Polanski’s more populist approach.

For years on the fringes of British politics, the Greens have made steady progress in recent years. Disillusionment with Labour — which has seen its support slump from 34% to 22% — could help the party grow further, and complicate Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s path to re-election in four years.

Last year’s general election saw the Greens win an additional three seats in the House of Commons — their highest-ever representation — while the party now has 800 council members in over 170 local authorities.

Unlike Ramsay and Chowns, who are running on a joint ticket to become co-leaders of the party, Polanski has opted not to have a running mate, declaring that the party needs “someone at the top… that’s a recognizable face.”

A gay vegan, Polanski — who declined to be interviewed for this piece — has a colorful biography. Born David Paulden in Salford in northwest England, Polanski changed his name at 18.

“Growing up, my stepdad was called David, and I didn’t like being a little version of my stepdad,” he recently told Big Issue magazine. He opted instead for Zack in tribute to the Jewish refugee Zach in Michelle Magorian’s wartime evacuation novel, “Goodnight Mister Tom.” Paulden was dropped in favor of Polanski — his grandfather’s surname before the family decided to anglicize its name to avoid antisemitism in Britain after its arrival from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century.

Growing up gay and Jewish led Polanski to understand what it feels like to be marginalized, he said in a 2022 interview. The name switch was important, he recalled, because he wanted to be proud of his identity.

Before entering politics, Polanksi, who went to drama school in Atlanta, Georgia, worked as an actor, taking part in immersive theater productions, and as a hypnotherapist. In 2013, Polanski attracted minor tabloid fame when he featured in an article in The Sun newspaper claiming hypnotism could enlarge its female reporter’s breasts. (Embarrassed by the incident, he has since apologized.)

Although Polanski’s first political moves were as a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats — he represented the party in the 2016 elections to the GLA — he has since emerged as a leading light on the left of the Greens, whom he joined in 2017. In 2021, he was elected to the GLA and became the party’s deputy leader a year later. At the time, he called for the party to broaden its agenda beyond the environmental issues that have allowed it to pick up support among both urban........

© The Times of Israel