Zack Polanski calls for three-year cap on rent price increases in Green party conference speech – as it happened | Politics
Polanski calls for triple lock-style guarantee to limit rent rises
The Greens leader calls for a triple lock-style guarantee to ease young adults’ housing costs.
Polanski says:
Today we are calling on this government to put in place a three-year emergency brake on private rents. No rent rises above CPI, wage growth or 2% – whichever is lower. No sudden hikes. No evictions under the guise of rent rises. No more uncertainty, no more fear.
That emergency brake would give renters vital breathing space. Let wages begin to catch up with the rents that have outstripped them for far too long.
And in the long term, we’ll put in place a national Fair Rents Guarantee – to keep rents affordable for everyone, forever. That doesn’t just mean cheaper homes, it doesn’t just mean government savings.
It will mean that people can stay in the places they love, close to their family and friends. It will mean young people can take those first amazing, exhilarating steps into independence and have full lives waiting for them on the other side.
Young families able to live around the corner from the in-laws, not crammed into their spare room.
Key events
Closing summary
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and the UK live politics blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:
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Zack Polanski claimed Green party electoral victories push Labour towards a more progressive governing agenda, as he called for controls to hold down the costs of rent across the country. In his speech to the Green conference in Brighton, Polanski claimed his party made a difference to Labour’s political outlook.
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Polanski used his address to set out a new Green policy to control rises in private sector rents, modelled on the pensions triple lock. He called for a “a three-year emergency brake on private rents”, adding: “No rent rises above CPI, wage growth or 2% – whichever is lower. No sudden hikes. No evictions under the guise of rent rises. No more uncertainty, no more fear.”
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Polanski also insisted today that his authority as leader of the Green party of England and Wales does not depend on winning next week’s Holborn and St Pancras byelection, amid suggestions that the party’s popularity has peaked. Polanski, who is trying to take Keir Starmer’s former seat from Labour, described the contest as “probably 50/50 right now” and “really on a knife edge”.
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A recent lobbyist for the controversial $450bn US tech company Palantir played a senior role in helping Andy Burnham become prime minister, it has emerged. Martha Dalton, whose company Lodestone worked for Palantir in 2024 and 2025, campaigned for Burnham in the Makerfield byelection that secured his return to parliament. She worked closely with his team on strategic communications and rebuttals, and was among supporters who clapped him into Downing Street in July.
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An online crowdfunder to raise money for the UK supreme court challenge to the ban on Palestine Action has been blocked as a result of US sanctions against the direct action group. CrowdJustice, a UK company, has declined to host a fundraiser for legal fees to fight proscription because the platform uses the US company Stripe as its payment processor.
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Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester City’s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), and declare all hospitality he has accepted at the Etihad Stadium. The prime minister was widely criticised this week for saying he would be “really concerned” if ADUG were forced to sell City after being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial regulations, which led to Downing Street issuing two clarifications of his position on Thursday.
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Kemi Badenoch has declined to explicitly condemn groups of masked far-right agitators, who have blocked roads in places like Dover and Portsmouth, in what they said was a protest against asylum seekers arriving by sea, saying this was only an issue if laws were broken. “I believe in the right to protest,” she told ITV Meridian as part of a series of interviews with ITV regions ahead of the Conservative party conference, which starts on Sunday.
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Badenoch also said Labour is preparing for a general election as early as May 2027, despite the prime minister ruling out an early contest. Just last week Andy Burnham said he would not call a national vote before 2029, despite speculation that Labour’s revival in the polls could tempt him to go early. But Badenoch said the fact that so many of the pledges in his conference speech would not come into place until after the next general election points to a spring vote. Ahead of the Conservative party conference next week, the leader of the opposition said: “We could be having a general election next May.”
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Rows over potholes and a viral story about a garden gate have led to Reform UK’s latest confrontation with local media, after one of its councils announced it would refuse to engage with a reporter behind the stories. Reform-run Derbyshire county council has been accused of setting a “dangerous precedent” after withdrawing all cooperation with Eddie Bisknell, a Derbyshire Live journalist who is publicly funded to cover local democracy.
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Restrictions placed on prisoners who have been released early from jail are sufficient, a government minister has said, as he was pressed on how effective they are. Transport minister Keir Mather said the government’s responsibility is to “protect the public” as he emphasised the conditions placed on people being released are robust. He also denied the early release scheme would be indefinite.
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People should not worry about diesel shortages, the government has said, amid pressure from the US for European countries to use their reserves. Keir Mather said Britain’s supply of diesel was “robust” and “resilient” and the country had a wide range of sources. Britain joined crisis talks with Brussels on Thursday, as they discussed whether to release fuel stocks amid rocketing prices.
Peter Walker
Kemi Badenoch has declined to explicitly condemn groups of masked far-right agitators, who have blocked roads in places like Dover and Portsmouth, in what they said was a protest against asylum seekers arriving by sea, saying this was only an issue if laws were broken.
“I believe in the right to protest,” she told ITV Meridian as part of a series of interviews with ITV regions ahead of the Conservative party conference, which starts on Sunday.
She said:
This is something that is an ancient right for this country. We should always respect that. However, I do not condone violent behaviour, violent activity and intimidation. And where that is going on, then yes, I do condemn that.
Asked if, unlike people such as Andy Burnham and Ed Davey, she was not condemning the groups for being intimidating, just any violence, she replied:
I think that we need to be clear – if people behave in an illegal fashion, we should condemn them. But if people aren’t doing something illegal, then what are we condemning them for?
The fact is that there is a problem with the boats. People are worried, the government needs to stop the boats. That’s the fundamental issue.
Palestine Action crowdfunder for UK supreme court challenge blocked due to US sanctions
Haroon Siddique
An online crowdfunder to raise money for the UK supreme court challenge to the ban on Palestine Action has been blocked as a result of US sanctions against the direct action group.
CrowdJustice, a UK company, has declined to host a fundraiser for legal fees to fight proscription because the platform uses the US company Stripe as its payment processor.
In an email seen by the Guardian, CrowdJustice said Stripe had confirmed “that it cannot support accounts or transactions linked to, or for the benefit of, Palestine Action. This includes circumstances where funds are being raised for legal proceedings.”
The US sanctions were imposed last month by Donald Trump, using powers introduced by President George W Bush in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaida on the twin towers in New York.
Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, who has brought the legal challenge against the UK ban, said:
Due to CrowdJustice’s and other platforms’ reliance on US services, we are unable to fundraise for legal fees needed for our supreme court challenge.
On the other hand, the state continues to spend millions of pounds to cover their legal costs to defend the disproportionate and draconian ban, which has led to more than 3,700 arrests for holding signs [allegedly supporting a proscribed organisation].
The British government and the US are putting every possible obstacle in our way, in order to stack the odds against us.
Andy Burnham urged by Lib Dems to reveal all meetings with owners of Manchester City
Matt Hughes
Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester City’s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), and declare all hospitality he has accepted at the Etihad Stadium.
The prime minister was widely criticised this week for saying he would be “really concerned” if ADUG were forced to sell City after being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial regulations, which led to Downing Street issuing two clarifications of his position on Thursday.
Burnham also praised ADUG’s investment in Manchester, having had close relations with the company, through which Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, during nine years as the mayor of Greater Manchester which ended when he returned to parliament this summer.
In a strongly-worded letter to Burnham the Lib Dems’ spokesperson for culture, media and sport, Anna Sabine, criticised his apparent defence of City as “extraordinary” and invoked Gianni Infantino’s aborted World Cup sell-off scheme in what she described as a difficult year for football.
“As you will know, an independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of 114 charges of breaching financial rules over a timeframe of nearly a decade, including the use of ‘sham contracts’ and schemes to disguise more than £830m of funding,” Sabine writes in a letter seen by the Guardian.
“Despite this, your response was to thank the club’s owners for their work and describe the findings as ‘contested’ and that it was ‘wrong to jump to a conclusion’. It is extraordinary that a prime minister would use his position to call into question the findings of the independent investigation, and risk undermining trust in the Premier League’s processes.
“This has been a difficult year for football’s reputation. Fifa’s conduct around the World Cup has already raised serious questions about integrity in the game we love. At a moment like this, fans expect their prime minister to stand up for the rules in place, not to appear to side with a club found guilty of breaking them.”
Sabine also told the Guardian that Burnham’s ties to ADUG should be scrutinised and is planning to write to Downing Street and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to demand details of their meetings.
Michael Savage
Rows over potholes and a viral story about a garden gate have led to Reform UK’s latest confrontation with local media, after one of its councils announced it would refuse to engage with a reporter behind the stories.
Reform-run Derbyshire county council has been accused of setting a “dangerous precedent” after withdrawing all cooperation with Eddie Bisknell, a Derbyshire Live journalist who is publicly funded to cover local democracy.
Stephen Reed, the Reform council’s deputy leader, said the reporter would now have to work “twice as hard” to do his job after confirming that Bisknell’s inquiries would be ignored.
It comes after a neighbouring Reform council last year banned journalists from a major local newspaper. Nottinghamshire county council eventually ended its ban on the Nottingham Post and its website, Nottinghamshire Live, after being threatened with legal action.
In the Derbyshire case, Reform said its decision had been made after a “prolonged period of concerns”, which culminated in a story about potholes.
Councillors had hoped to produce positive headlines with a press release stating that the number of potholes in the county had been slashed from 12,000 in April to less than 700 – a figure it described as the lowest recorded in over a year.
However, an article by Bisknell, one of a group of local democracy reporters funded by the BBC, reported that questions had been raised about statistics used in the release.
Polanski: Burnham’s Labour ‘bending to the whims of fossil fuel giants’
Zack Polanski uses the conclusion of his keynote speech to set out the differences between the Greens and Andy Burnham’s Labour party.
He says:
Our differences with this Labour government could not be clearer. While they play politics with our planet, we stick to the science. While Andy Burnham barely whispers a word about climate, we seek urgent action.
While they bend to the whims of fossil fuel giants, we take the only credible principled stand that exists. Keep oil and gas in the ground.
He goes on:
One of my political heroes, Tony Benn, he once said ‘hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself’.
Over the last year, we’ve seen just how powerful hope with a plan can be. It has fuelled our membership to record levels, propelled our party to amazing electoral success but more importantly, it’s changed our country for the better. But we in this room all know we are just getting started.
Polanski concludes:
And so when times get tough, when our opponents attack us, or smear us, or try to put obstacles in our way, we remember that fear will get us nowhere. Only being brave – being bold – will take us where we need to go.
And when I’m in need of hope all I need to think of is what is in front of me right now … The movement that has brought us so far already because only with real hope and real change can we build the country and the world we can be so proud of.
That brings his speech to a close, to rapturous applause from the delegates in the audience.
“The sight of pensioners being put in handcuffs and bundled into police vans for holding up cardboard signs has been a stain and a shame on this country’s reputation for far too long,” Polanski says in reference to the Palestine Action arrests.
The Green leader says that those scenes are “the awful symptom of a rot that runs much deeper”, adding:
To a Labour government so determined to crush dissent that it labels those with views it doesn’t want to hear as terrorists. Terrorists. Terrorists.
Hundreds of Labour MPs who were willing to label people terrorists to troop through the voting lobbies to approve it.
You know something? Our MPs didn’t troop through the yes lobby. Our MPs were cowed by fear or malicious attacks in the press. They stood up for the principles we all hold so dear.
Those principles? Free speech. Civil liberties. The right to dissent, which has won us our most precious freedoms. And Greens? We stand with one voice now as we say: Drop the charges, end the genocide, deproscribe Palestine Action.
Polanski makes the case for the electorate to back the Greens in elections by suggesting only the Greens can guarantee affordable rents.
He says:
And that’s why we are needed, people need an alternative. Only by voting Green can voters be sure that they will back a real plan for shaking up the housing market.
Only by voting Green can they put an end to the rental rip-off and guarantee affordable rents.
And only by voting Green can they choose a future where houses don’t sit empty as mere investment assets but as the safe place to rest our heads at night that we all need. That’s what a Green vote gets.
Polanski calls for triple lock-style guarantee to limit rent rises
The Greens leader calls for a triple lock-style guarantee to ease young adults’ housing costs.
Polanski says:
Today we are calling on this government to put in place a three-year emergency brake on private rents. No rent rises above CPI, wage growth or 2% – whichever is lower. No sudden hikes. No evictions under the guise of rent rises. No more uncertainty, no more fear.
That emergency brake would give renters vital breathing space. Let wages begin to catch up with the rents that have outstripped them for far too long.
And in the long term, we’ll put in place a national Fair Rents Guarantee – to keep rents affordable for everyone, forever. That doesn’t just mean cheaper homes, it doesn’t just mean government savings.
It will mean that people can stay in the places they love, close to their family and friends. It will mean young people can take those first amazing, exhilarating steps into independence and have full lives waiting for them on the other side.
Young families able to live around the corner from the in-laws, not crammed into their spare room.
Polanski says the Greens main priorities are to “tax the very richest, bring our public services back into public hands and end rip-off Britain”.
Speaking in Brighton, he says:
I am always guided by three essential questions: how do we make life more affordable? How do we back the caring majority over a tiny wealthy elite? And how do we protect our planet for generations to come?
Now, I’ve been knocking on lots of doors lately for some reason. Particularly in an area I’ve known for a long time. Lived there, worked there, seen it change.
Some of the changes are really visible. Luxury high-rises springing up on spots that used to be green space for council estates. Porches out the front of what used to be family homes – stuck all over with lock boxes for Airbnb keys.
But some of these changes are subtler. Many of the doors I’m knocking on look the same as they did ten or twenty years ago.
He goes on:
But behind those doors something has shifted. It doesn’t matter whether it’s council homes, or terraced houses – I hear one thing again and again. Mums answer the door, and tell me ‘I’ve still got my kids living at home with me.’
Nineteen year olds who can’t afford student housing, so they’re living with their parents and commuting to uni. But they’re missing lectures because they can’t afford the train in and out. Missing out on living with strangers who could have become friends for life.
Or there’s the twenty five year olds who can’t find a job, no matter how many tens or hundreds of applications they send. Who can’t imagine ever being able to afford to rent even a room of their own, never mind having a whole place of their own. That feels like an impossible dream.
Polanski delivers speech at Green party conference
We are about to hear from Green party leader Zack Polanski at the Brighton conference. You can watch live here:
A group of Jewish community organisations have written to the Green leadership with their concerns about the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion.
The party is set to debate on the motion at its annual conference this weekend.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has published a joint letter with the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council, saying:
This motion’s call for the elimination of Israel, including through violence, shows utter disregard for the security of Israeli Jews, who account for around half of all Jews in the world. In adopting this policy, the Green Party has placed itself on the extreme margins of democratic politics in relation to this issue.”
They added:
That the leadership of the Green Party have not opposed this motion shows a staggering indifference to the welfare of British Jews.”
As a reminder, Green members will vote on a motion this weekend that calls for the party to define Zionism as racism. Our senior political correspondent, Peter Walker, has the latest in this report:
An organisation pushing the Green party to equate Zionism with racism has encouraged people to join the party specifically to support that agenda, and has links to activists who say that pro-Israel “infiltrators” must be rooted out of the UK, the Guardian has learned.
Some Green members are increasingly concerned that the party risks being manipulated by extremist outsiders over a motion to be voted on at the party’s annual conference this weekend, which states that “Zionism is racism”.
Some Jewish members have said privately they fear it will be difficult for them to remain in the party if the policy passes.
Zack Polanski, who leads the Green party in England and Wales, has come under pressure to take a definitive stance on the motion amid worries the controversy will harm the party in next week’s key Holborn and St Pancras byelection, where Polanski is seeking to win Keir Starmer’s former seat.
The motion came top of a members’ ballot of policy issues to be debated at the event in Brighton. It calls for a single Palestinian state and, if passed, it would mean members who support Zionism – the movement for a Jewish state – could be disciplined for racism.
The controversy reflects a longstanding debate about the definition of Zionism, the political movement whose supporters see it as the necessary struggle for a Jewish homeland, and whose critics see it as a colonial project that has inevitably led to the dispossession of Palestinians. The term Zionist is, meanwhile, sometimes used as a synonym for Jew by antisemites.
Read more:
Here are some pictures from inside the Green party conference in Brighton:
UK diesel price hits record high of £2 a litre
Over on our business live blog, Graeme Wearden reports that the average price of a litre of diesel in the UK has hit £2 for the first time, in the latest example of how the cost of living has sharply gone up since the start of the Iran war.
New data from the RAC shows that diesel hit an average price of 200.01p a litre this morning.
That means diesel prices have surged by 40.5% since the start of the Iran war at the end of February, when diesel cost 142.38p a litre.
A 55-litre tank of diesel now costs £110.01 – £31.70 more than 28 February, the RAC says.
