English Green party leader Zack Polanski tells Australian colleagues to ‘connect with anger’ to counter rightwing populism | Australian Greens
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, told his counterparts in Australia they should start “connecting with public anger” and learn from the “storytelling power” of populist right-wing politics.
Speaking via video link at the Victorian Greens’ campaign conference on Saturday night, Zack Polanski said the party in Australia needed to “get over” Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, just as his own party had taken on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
He said the political right is “very, very good at tapping into people’s anger, fueling it, and that makes things happen faster.”
Polanski said progressives have a responsibility not to fuel that anger, but they need to listen and talk about it.
“People are feeling increasingly angry, increasingly frustrated, and increasingly ready for change,” he said.
“I think that’s something we’re not very good at as progressives is connecting to anger. I think sometimes we rush to hope, we rush to solutions, so we don’t connect in quite the same way.”
“But if you can recognize the pain that people are feeling right now, the struggle that people are feeling right now, connect with that, and then provide people with solutions, that would be very powerful,” Polanski said.
Polanski said progressives should separate leaders of right-wing parties from those who intend to vote for them.
“I imagine a lot of people who are considering voting for them may actually be Green voters,” he said. “They’re people who reject established politics, who want to see something different, who may have issues with some of your policies, but what they’re really worried about are the underlying messages about the cost of living and inequality.”
The Green party is fresh off election victories in England and Wales, including a historic by-election victory in February, with strong results for the independent Scottish Greens; but polls also show that once-minor Reform UK is now the main party on the right. Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell said the situation was similar in Australia, with the party grappling with how to be the “antidote to frustration” without “beating” and giving airtime to One Nation.
He asked Polanski how he sees the Greens’ place in “this fractured political landscape.”
“I didn’t want to give Reform air time for a long time and actually just wanted to focus on our promising alternative,” he replied.
“But it’s getting to the point where, depending on the way you define One Nation, you may have already reached that point, to the point where they dominate the news agenda, or often other political parties are constantly dancing to their tunes.
“So I think it’s gotten to the point where you actually have to take them on, and you have to take them on head on as an antidote.”
Polanski said he would “never underestimate the power of hope” and that having a plan is essential.
But just talking about solutions runs the risk of appearing unrealistic or uncaring, he said.
“It’s a bit like when you have a friend and you’re upset about something,” he said. “If someone immediately starts jumping to what you can do about it, sometimes it feels like they haven’t really heard you.
“Whereas if they can give you a minute to get really angry about something, to be angry about something, to hold that space and then propose solutions together, that’s a really powerful experience, and I think it’s exactly the same in politics at a macro level.”
