What will Zack Polanski do first with the Green Party? | Listener questions
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Greens have a new leader. Listeners want to know what's in store for the left now.
Tom McTague is joined by Andrew Marr, Rachel Cunliffe and Megan Kenyon to answer listener questions on:
- the future of the Green Party under Zack Polanski
- Jeremy Corbyn and Your Party's position on trans rights
- whether a pro-immigration left party could win working class votes
- if the Lib Dems have any "serious" policies
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.0 | The lefts have never been comfortable with kind of authoritarian structures. |
| 0:08.0 | That's a trouble. |
| 0:09.0 | That's what's what's... |
| 0:10.0 | Zach Polanski may well discover quite quickly. |
| 0:13.0 | Labor have got a strain of authoritarianism in them. |
| 0:16.0 | I said the left. |
| 0:22.3 | The Greens have a new leader. |
| 0:24.6 | What will Zach Polanski do first? |
| 0:28.5 | I'm Tom McHagg and this is the New Statesman podcast listener questions edition. |
| 0:33.3 | Joining me in the studio to answer your questions are Andrew Maher, Rachel Cunleff and Megyn Kenyon. |
| 0:33.6 | Hello. |
| 0:34.1 | Hello. |
| 0:39.4 | Okay, so coming up, we've got questions on Jeremy Corbyn's new party, your party. |
| 0:43.3 | Trans rights, the Lib Dem policies and alternative voting. |
| 0:49.1 | But first, we have a question from at Jake Summer 5469. |
| 0:53.9 | What can Zach Polanski realistically do in terms of shifting the direction of the Greens. While he did |
| 0:54.9 | receive a very large leadership mandate, would his ability to shape the Greens not be limited |
| 0:59.7 | by a rather different direction of the party in recent years, especially with four MPs who heed |
| 1:05.2 | closer to the previous leader's vision? Also, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how this shift |
| 1:10.3 | might be too little |
| 1:11.7 | too late, given that the Greens could potentially be outflanked by the Corbin-Sultana project. |
... |
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