While reshaping the Green Party into an anti-Israel protest group has grown their membership numbers dramatically, Zack Polanski has unleashed ‘dark forces’ into British politics, Senior Features Writer Guy Adams has warned the Daily Mail’s Deep Dive podcast.

Ahead of today’s local elections, Foreign Correspondent Chris Pleasance spoke to Adams, whose recent exposé of Green Party leader Polanski and the antisemitism allegations engulfing his candidates has raised serious questions over the party’s ability to govern.

A Daily Mail investigation revealed yesterday that 30 Green Party candidates are under investigation for alleged antisemitism, with two already arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred towards Jews.

Adams explained that antisemitism within the party is the inevitable consequence of Polanski’s politically motivated ‘pivot’ towards the Israel-Gaza conflict to siphon off Labour’s disaffected hard-left.

While reshaping the Green Party into an anti-Israel protest group has grown their membership, Zack Polanski has unleashed ‘dark forces’ into British politics, Guy Adams has warned

Although the strategy has made the Greens a growing political force, evidenced by their victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection, Adams argued that a party winning council seats for single issue protest candidates is not in the best interests of British society or democracy.

‘Central to understanding the Greens under Zack Polanski is that it has become the party Labour was under Corbyn’, Adams told Deep Dive.

‘All those left-wing voters who hate Keir Starmer because he’s a centrist – many of whom were kicked out of Labour due to well documented concerns of antisemitism – have now joined the Greens.

‘The party has also picked up a lot of support from Muslim communities, due to its keen interest in Middle Eastern affairs.

‘This has been a very successful policy by Polanski. Membership when he was elected leader sat at around 30,000. The Greens now have 230,000 members.

‘An awful lot of those are activists who are, one might argue, obsessed with Gaza and Israel. They see council elections not as being about bins being collected, potholes being fixed or local authorities being run well, but as a means to install people in positions of power to campaign against Israel.’

Adams advised listeners to think of Zack Polanski more as a ‘content creator than a politician’, skilled at getting attention on social media but possessing very little governing experience. 

Polanski, a former Liberal Democrat council candidate, became leader of the Greens in September 2025 aged 43, after stints as an actor, corporate coach and hypnotherapist.

Adams said Polanski, who he likened to a ‘hard-left Donald Trump’, is ‘very good at picking fights on social media’ to boost his profile, a strategy that backfired spectacularly after the Golders Green terrorist attack when he criticised police for their handling of the suspect’s arrest.

Adams explained that antisemitism within the party is the inevitable consequence of Polanski’s politically motivated ‘pivot’ towards the Israel-Gaza conflict to siphon off Labour’s disaffected hard-left

Adams said Polanski, who he likened to a ‘hard-left Donald Trump’, is ‘very good at picking fights on social media’ to boost his profile,

Adams advised listeners to think of Zack Polanski more as a ‘content creator than a politician’, skilled at getting attention on social media but possessing very little governing experience

A poll published this week found his favourability rating had dropped 14 points in a single week as a result.

‘Most people that go into politics have run things’, Adams explained.

‘They have been on local councils. They have been on parish councils. They might have run businesses, or worked for the Civil Service. Polanski has never done any of that.

‘He’s never really had a proper job but he is very good at picking fights on social media. He understands that in the modern social media environment, conflicts, arguments, get people clicking. They get people talking about you, which will get you votes.

‘If journalists write articles that are disparaging about him, he will amplify posts that are quite abusive towards that journalist. He’s always trying to amplify an online narrative about him.

‘That’s very similar to what Donald Trump does. Trump announces policies on social media in a way that can be quite unwise, which he will later have to walk back from. The same is true for Zack Polanski – the Golders Green attacks last week, for example.

‘That made him look stupid. It sat badly with voters and he had to apologise. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. Polanski has got people talking about him. He has become the main character of this election.’

With Polanski’s combative self-promotion and his party’s embrace of the anti-Israel movement, Adams argued the Green leader risks reintroducing sectarian politics into mainstream British life.

None of this helps the country, Adams argued, which simply needs to be better run.

‘Thirty candidates have been investigated for antisemitism. Despite the arrest of two, I am pretty sure the Greens are going to do very well at the Local Elections.

‘There is a section of the electorate to whom this kind of stuff isn’t a reason not to vote Green, but may actually be a reason to vote for them.

‘This is what I mean when I talk about dark forces, this sort of sectarianism… I think that’s really dangerous and something our politics really doesn’t need.

‘If we are going to elect councils that are run by people whose primary motivation is Middle Eastern politics, then we’re heading towards sort of a dark place.’

To hear Guy Adams break down the state of every major political party ahead of today’s local elections, search Deep Dive: Who Really Are Polanski’s Greens? wherever you get your podcasts.