Still thinking of voting GREEN? Meet the councillor who called David Lammy a ‘coconut’ and the Argentinian who believes Britain should hand back the Falklands

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Green Party’s election candidate called Justice Secretary David Lammy and former Home Secretary Priti Patel a “coconut” in a racist slur.

Hau-Yu Tam, deputy leader of the Greens in Lewisham, south-east London, has backed the campaign to remove Hamas from Britain’s list of terrorist groups and shared social media posts branding Zionism, which supports the state of Israel, as ‘the Nazism of our time’.

An investigation by the MoS could reveal Ms Tam is one of a number of Green candidates standing in next month’s local elections who have made highly offensive comments or have highly questionable pasts, including criminal convictions.

Our audit found that a candidate in London boasted of attacking Stansted Airport and blocking a plane deporting 25 criminals, including a murderer and child rapist, while another candidate threw orange dust into a £300,000 garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Others running for council next month defended vandalism of Winston Churchill’s statue or tried to peddle conspiracy theories; These include a candidate who questioned whether the drone attack on an RAF base was a so-called ‘false flag’ attack.

The statements come as the Greens are expected to win hundreds of council seats in the May 7 elections; in fact, the far-Left party was ahead of the Labor Party in a poll last month.

The MoS can reveal Ms Tam, described as ‘brilliant’ by Green leader Zack Polanski when he left Labor last year, scolded Mr Lammy after he told ministers he had a family member on benefits when he probably shouldn’t have.

Writing about These coconuts.’ The post was later deleted.

Despite repeated allegations of anti-Israel bias and editorial failures at the BBC, Karishma Patel, of Brent, north London, left her journalism job over what she described as the company’s ‘failure to hold Israel to account’.

Coconut is a pretty offensive racial slur; meaning that someone is black or brown on the outside and white on the inside.

Dame Priti Patel MP, now Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: ‘It doesn’t surprise me that a green candidate is called a coconut. The left preaches tolerance until a woman of color refuses to agree with them and their intolerant views; The mask has fallen and the public can see the sheer disgust of the Greens.’

Ms Tam also retweeted a post that said: ‘Zionism is pure evil and must be eliminated.’ A few days later he shared a post saying that Zionism was ‘undoubtedly, unquestionably the Nazism of our time’.

He also praised lawyer Franck Magennis, who worked on an unsuccessful application to remove Hamas from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ list of banned organisations, writing that he was “extremely proud” of Mr Magennis “for being one of those who led this intervention”.

The Green Party told the MoS: ‘These comments do not reflect the views of the party.’

The Greens will field more than 2,000 candidates across England and are expected to win at least four non-Labour councils in London following a surge in opinion polls.

But our investigation raises questions about the party’s vetting of its candidates.

Labor leader Anna Turley MP said: ‘The Greens are fielding a surprising number of crazy candidates. Zack Polanski needs to say whether he supports their views and whether he is happy to represent his party. If he doesn’t, he should make it clear and kick them out.’

Potential local politicians identified by the MoS audit include Jo Dowbor, who is fighting to win a seat in Islington, north London.

Ms Dowbor, who grew up in Argentina, appears to support Buenos Aires’ claim to the Falkland Islands by reposting a photo on social media of a football fan wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Malvinas’ [Argentina’s name for the Falklands] It belongs to Argentina.”

In an interview with a newspaper in Argentina, he claimed that questions about the sovereignty of the islands were still being discussed and said: ‘It is not considered resolved.’

He added: ‘I would very much like to seek a diplomatic solution to resolve years of tension.’

Stephanie Golder (pictured centre), a candidate in Tower Hamlets, east London, was one of three Just Stop Oil activists who threw orange dust into an award-winning display garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2023.

Conservative Party leader Kevin Hollinrake MP said: ‘The Falkland Islands belong to the British. This is not a matter open to negotiation.’

On Saturday night a Green Party spokesman said: ‘This election is about justice, not the Falklands.’

Other candidates may turn out to be eco-fanatics who participated in some of the most notorious protests of the past decade.

Ed Thacker, a self-proclaimed ‘anarchist’ psychotherapist based in Haringey, north London, was given a suspended prison sentence after he and 12 others broke through the fences at Heathrow Airport and chained themselves on one of the runways in 2016. The protest caused 25 flights to be canceled and led to ‘enormous’ costs.

A year later, Mr Thacker and other militant protesters from No Deportations locked themselves in Stansted and stopped a Home Office deportation flight.

The protest meant that 60 people, including 25 criminals imprisoned in the UK, were forced off a plane bound for Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Mr. Thacker and other activists were convicted under the Aviation and Maritime Safety Act, but their convictions were later overturned.

The son of a West End theater director, Mr Thacker boasted of his woke credentials writing on the Green Party website: ‘I spent years in feminist and queer collectives that challenged every heterosexual, cis-gendered man like me to explore how cis-heteronormative patriarchy affects our behavior.’

Stephanie Golder, a candidate in Tower Hamlets, east London, was one of three Just Stop Oil activists who threw orange dust into an award-winning display garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2023.

Later that year he was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for being part of a group that caused £100,000 of damage to a service station on the M25.

He’s not the only candidate who sees vandalism as a legitimate form of protest.

Jo Dowbor, who grew up in Argentina and is fighting to win a seat in Islington, north London, said Britain should give back the Falkland Islands. Here’s her picture with Jeremy Corbyn

London Assembly member and Greens candidate for mayor of Hackney, Zoe Garbett, caused uproar last month when she appeared to justify the attack on Winston Churchill’s statue.

Ms Garbett described the outcry over vandalism as ‘Extremism and hysteria pushed by the Right’.

‘It’s the policies rather than worrying about the statue that should worry us all’ [that] The UK’s complicity and continued support for Israel provoked such action.’

Susan Hall, leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, said: ‘I am truly shocked. ‘I don’t know what happened to the Green Party.’

Meanwhile, other so-called Green politicians have also pushed wild conspiracy theories.

Mark Adderley, an aspiring TV producer from Croydon, south London, regularly rants about Israel on his YouTube channel with his wife Nadia Sawalha, presenter of ITV’s Loose Women.

After a kamikaze drone believed to have been fired by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon hit a British base in Cyprus in March, Mr Adderley asked: ‘Could the drone attack on the RAF be Israel’s false flag?’ He published a video titled.

“The media and governments that support Western Zionists and are complicit with Israel will all say: ‘Well, it must have come from Hezbollah,'” he added.

In another video he made a rather offensive comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany.

He added: ‘Israel is the greatest threat to the sovereignty of every nation on this planet because they are the chosen people, the deceived cult. It’s just a cult.’

The Green Party said the videos have since been deleted and do not represent the party’s views.

Mr Adderley is one of many Green candidates who spend more time making offensive comments about Israel online than talking about local issues.

For example, Chandni Chopra, candidate for Heaton ward in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, declared on social media that she was “proudly” chanting “death, death to the IDF”. [Israel Defence Forces]’ during the last protest.

He also posted a video of himself and a group of activists demonstrating at Labor MP Chi Onwurah’s office after he abstained from an SNP parliamentary motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Ms Chopra filmed herself demanding that the MP ‘face his constituents’, adding: ‘We are waiting for you Chi Onwurah.’

Meanwhile, despite repeated allegations of anti-Israel bias and editorial failures at the BBC, Karishma Patel, based in Brent, north London, has quit her job as a journalist over what she described as the company’s “failure to hold Israel to account”.

Ms Patel, a finalist in last year’s Miss Universe UK beauty pageant, said the BBC had ‘failed Palestinian children’ after it was removed from BBC iPlayer after it was revealed that the child narrator of a controversial documentary was the son of a minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.

The Green Party said on Saturday night that it was the only party ‘standing up to establishment politicians and their super-rich friends’.

Additional reporting: Christian Calgie