In the context of Chris Williamson’s break with George Galloway’s Workers Party over his attempt to stand in Holborn and St Pancras, it would be wrong for the left to simply back Polanski. The left should at least place demands on him as a condition for any support. This motion, which was moved in Croydon Your Party the other week, put forward a correct perspective:
“The prospect of the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, standing for the Greens in the seat vacated by the former PM, genocidal Zionist and enemy of socialism, Kier Starmer, and the failure of Your Party, or the socialist left, to be in a position to challenge for Starmer’s seat, is a major political defeat.
“It cannot be repaired by simply trying to jump on the political bandwagon of Polanski and his non-socialist non-working-class party, and hoping for some later improvement in our fortunes.
“Your Party needs to sort out its internal functioning, its democracy and its commitment to basic working-class politics, or else we face extinction.
“We should not automatically extend electoral support to Polanski. We should demand three conditions for electoral support.
(a) a clear statement from the GP that the root cause of the environmental crisis their party was set up to address, is capitalism, which therefore needs to be abolished.
(b) That Zack Polanski and Your Party should issue a statement jointly defending Diane Abbot against the renewed witchhunting of her in the Labour Party, for her justified attack on NATO aggression as the cause of the war in Ukraine.
(c) That the Greens should jointly with us and others in the labour movement, launch a trade union and community-centred campaign against the environmentally ruinous plans for AI Data Centres in numerous parts of this country. And to encourage similar activities internationally.
This motion should be sent to the CEC for their attention.”
The reason for this is that, thanks to the misleadership and gross bureaucratism of Jeremy Corbyn, tens of thousands of socialist-minded militants, who were originally supportive of Your Party, were driven away and joined the Greens, attracted by Zack Polanski’s left-wing rhetoric particularly over Palestine. Our job is to formulate tactics to bring those people to the fore, and to put this pro-socialist and working-class cohort in command. That will inevitably mean a split – whether by these militants splitting away themselves, or the traditionalist right-wing being driven out, is not clear. But we cannot ignore this crucial element in British left politics, and it necessary to formulate tactics to address it. Galloway’s candidacy is not supportable, not because of his correct view of Ukraine and Gaza, but because of his anti-migrant chauvinism and anti-LGBT demagogy which is simply reactionary.
