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The Green Party of England and Wales' new leader plans to stand to be a Member of Parliament at the next General Election, he has told Byline Times.
Zack Polanski, elected to the leadership with a landslide in September, is currently a London-wide Assembly Member on the devolved London Assembly, and is based in the borough of Hackney. He has now told this outlet he will run in a London constituency for Parliament in 2029.
In an interview with this paper at the party's conference in Bournemouth over the weekend, he said: "We've had literally hundreds and hundreds of applications from people who want to be future MPs…A large bulk of them are from ethnic minority people [around 30%], and also people from working class communities. So I'm excited about what this cohort, this Pathway to Parliament, looks like."
He added that the party is accepting would-be candidates into a residential course to run for Parliament. "I'm so excited about looking at 300 people, knowing that potentially 30 - maybe more - of our next MPs are there, and we're going to grow from there." A Green party staffer says the number of applicants for the training scheme is now around 500.
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The Greens currently have four MPs, just shy of Reform UK's five, and are polling around 10% in support (compared to Reform's roughly 30% backing and 20% for Labour).
The growing ambitions for the left-wing party "do all require investment", he noted. "It all requires fundraising, but the new membership and the new money that's bringing will certainly help." Polanski will have a role selecting the candidates alongside the party's executive.
He says they must "align" with the values of the party: "Not just not being racist or transphobic or homophobic, but being actively anti-racist, actively anti-homophobic, actively anti-transphobic. And the same with misogyny and any forms of hate crime.
"I want to see people who get that environmental and social justice are entirely interlinked, and I want to see people who can represent our policies in a way that's enthusiastic and inspires their communities," he told Byline Times, from a balcony overlooking the packed conference hall.
The new Green leader also said he was interested in "unusual" candidates to be an MP. "if every single MP looks like the MPs from the other parties that we have and speaks like them, then that's not putting our country in the best place right now."
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Asked if he planned to be a candidate, he replied: "Absolutely."
He said he would stand "in London". Pressed on whether it would be in Hackney - where Greens polled strongest in 2024, he said: "I haven't decided. I think the big thing is I was elected under proportional representation, so I already represent every single Londoner." He said there was "coherency" to running anywhere in London.
Speaking in the third person, Polanski added: "I'm also really keen that this is not about Zack getting elected in London. Zack is in a group of MPs who are going to be the first MPs elected in London."
The Green Parties came in second place in 40 constituencies in the 2024 General Election - 18 of which were in London. "In all but one of these seats it was second to Labour. The Greens came second in three seats in 2019, none in 2017 and five in 2015," according to a House of Commons briefing.
The former actor told this outlet the party was also...