Zack Polanski vows to stay as Green leader after by-election defeat and call to resign

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said on Friday 9 October that he would stay in his post after losing the Holborn and St Pancras by-election in London, as the head of the Jewish Greens called for him to resign over his handling of a party policy vote. The result leaves Polanski leading a party divided over the motion adopted at its conference days earlier.

Polanski told BBC Breakfast he would ‘absolutely’ remain leader and said he had not questioned whether he would continue. Vivien Lichtenstein, leader of the Jewish Greens, told Times Radio that he ‘should resign’. She called his decision to avoid a debate on the conference motion a ‘big mistake’, according to the BBC.

Holborn and St Pancras by-election result

Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali won Thursday’s by-election in the seat formerly held by Keir Starmer. Parliament’s official result records 12,292 votes for Abdi-Wali and 8,928 for Polanski. The Associated Press reported vote shares of 45% for Abdi-Wali and just under 33% for Polanski. The BBC said the Green vote share was 22 percentage points higher than at the 2024 general election, despite Polanski finishing second.

The defeat and the calls for Polanski to resign are separate developments. The available reporting does not establish that the conference dispute caused the election result. Polanski told Sky News on Friday that leadership was difficult, but he had signed up for the job and was ready to continue, according to the Associated Press.

Why Green members are divided over the Zionism motion

The dispute began before the by-election. Green members adopted a motion at their Brighton conference on Sunday 4 October. The Guardian reported a vote of 1,022 in favour and 813 against. The motion defines Zionism as an ideology supporting an ethnonationalist Jewish state and backs a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine. It says it is directed at political ideology, rather than people’s religious or ethnic background.

The Guardian reported earlier in the week that four of the party’s five MPs opposed the new policy. It also said the European Green Party had expressed dismay because the motion conflicted with its support for a two-state solution. Some Jewish Green members were considering whether they felt welcome in the party, and Lichtenstein was considering leaving at that point, the Guardian reported.

Lichtenstein’s Friday criticism went further: she said Polanski should resign. She told Times Radio she did not know which Jewish members he had been working with, adding that it had not been the Jewish Greens committee, according to the BBC. Her statement addresses Polanski’s handling of the dispute; it is not a reported decision by the party to replace him.

What Polanski and former Green leaders have said

Polanski said he had been campaigning in Holborn and St Pancras instead of attending the conference debate. He told the BBC he would have supported the motion only if it had been amended with caveats. He described as obvious its argument that the displacement and genocide of Palestinians is underpinned by racist ideology. Polanski has also said anti-Zionism and antisemitism are distinct, and that nobody would be excluded from the Greens because of their faith, place of worship or religious body.

Former Green leader Caroline Lucas criticised Polanski’s absence from the conference vote. Asked whether he should step down, she said to see what happened in the coming days and weeks, noting that he had been occupied with the by-election, the BBC reported. Jonathan Bartley, Green co-leader from 2016 to 2021, called the vote a failure of leadership and urged Polanski to apologise, but did not demand his resignation.

The BBC reported that the party’s next scheduled leadership ballot is in summer 2027. Members would decide then whether to re-elect Polanski if he remains leader until that point. For now, his stated position is that he will continue, while Lichtenstein’s call and the wider disagreement over the conference motion remain unresolved.