Zack Polanski and the Politics of Radical Compassion

PHOTOGRAPHY Jamie Salmons 
STYLING Baillie Jones

In British politics, authenticity has become one of the most valuable and least definable qualities a politician can have. The very notion of speaking “like a politician” suggests that too many are relentlessly media-trained; more comfortable on podcast press tours than in conversation with the public they are supposed to represent. Amid countless recent crises and cover-ups – from Epstein files allegations to Met Police misogyny, shameless foreign policy pandering, and mass arrests of pension-age peaceful protestors – several current and former politicians responsible for such scandals have meanwhile become reality TV regulars. It’s no longer unusual to see book deals announced like album drops or carefully focus-grouped memes so cringe-inducing, they do more to alienate voters than attract them.

For younger voters in particular, this kind of self-interested image management rarely builds trust. If anything, it tends to produce the opposite reaction – the feeling that political decisions happen at a distance, carried out by people trying to imitate ordinary life rather than participate in it. The problem is that authenticity, once it becomes something to perform, is usually the first thing to disappear.

Zack Polanski is not overly concerned with appearing authentic, which is probably why so many people believe he is. The Green Party leader and long-time community organiser cares more about representation than reputation, framing politics as a responsibility to people, not a career. A 43-year-old Hackney local, he does not present himself as a polished Westminster operator, nor does he seem particularly interested in becoming one. After all, anyone who arranges a magazine shoot via Instagram DM, rather than through an endless chain of press officer emails and assistants, is probably not trying to be traditional.

At the centre of his politics is a phrase he returns to often: radical compassion. “It means putting compassion in every single thing that we do, no matter who we’re working with or talking to,” he explains to me on a sunny January morning in Brixton. He says this is “sometimes, obviously, much easier than at other times”, quick to dispel any illusion that his ethics simply equate to everyone getting along. But he’s also quick to centre others in this philosophy, a trait that comes up time and time again as we speak. “It’s making sure that we’ve actually spent time listening, and noticing that no one person can speak for an entire community, but to have heard a range of views, and to represent those views, even with people who might disagree.” 

He says this requires “patience, a lot of deep breathing, and keeping…” he pauses. “Well, it doesn’t always mean keeping a smile on your face. Compassion doesn’t just mean smiling and pretending everything’s okay, but it does mean recognising that everyone in the conversation is a human being, even if you disagree with them.”

Compassion doesn’t just mean smiling and pretending everything’s okay, but it does mean recognising that everyone in the conversation is a human being, even if you disagree with them.”

The collapse of trust in Britain’s two-party system has created a rare opportunity in the electoral landscape, and the Green Party has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. Since Polanski’s leadership win in September 2025, party membership has surged from roughly 66,000 to over 215,000 by March 2026, and has already translated into wins at the ballot box. In February, Green candidate Hannah Spencer, who had worked as a plumber since leaving school at 16, won the Gorton and Denton by-election, overturning what had long been considered one of Labour’s safest seats. The result, which saw a swing of 27.5%, serves as evidence that the party could win over one hundred seats at the next general election if similar shifts were repeated nationwide. 

Much of this growth has come from Polanski’s push towards eco-populism. He reframes the party’s focus on environmental policy away from recycling or individual lifestyle choices, instead inseparable from the cost-of-living crisis, housing shortages, privatised utilities and economic inequality as a result of legislative decisions that benefit corporations and wealthy elites. But the same opening that has enabled the Greens to grow has also created space for far-right party Reform UK, bringing the kind of repulsive opinions once only uttered at Mayfair members’ clubs or hedge fund Christmas parties onto the national stage. Both parties are drawing support from disillusioned voters, but where Reform’s anti-establishment sentiment directs anger towards migrants and minorities, the Greens’ eco-populism directs it upwards: to fossil fuel companies, landlords, billionaires and the political system that protects them.

In between questions on set, our conversation drifts to The Traitors (at the time, Fiona had just attempted to oust Rachel, much to Stephen’s dismay). Polanski admits he’d love to play as a Traitor, but his experience with card games tells him he would be a much better Faithful. “It’s a bit like being a Green Party politician,” he quips. “Sometimes people ask if it’s complicated being a politician. My answer is ‘not if you’re in the Green Party’, because I’ve not taken any money from private health care, oil and gas, the arms trade companies or multi-millionaires and billionaires. I’m free to say what I genuinely think. If you’re a politician who’s got all of these vested interests, and you’re trying to balance it all without criticising them, doing the ‘right’ thing is almost impossible. I don’t envy the job they’re trying to do. I get to just tell the truth.”

As a gay, Jewish, vegan socialist from Salford, Polanski is an almost perfect target for Britain’s right-wing press, and they have treated him accordingly. Like Jeremy Corbyn before him, and Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani in the United States, he has found that once you position yourself openly against entrenched power, criticism comes from all angles of the political spectrum. In Polanski’s case, everything from his background in acting to his name change to his teeth has been used as material for cheap discrediting. Unlike Corbyn and Sanders, however, Polanski does not have decades’ of parliamentary voting records for supporters to point to as proof of ideological consistency. He only joined the Green Party in 2017, and was elected to the London Assembly in 2021. Before politics, he worked in community theatre and as a therapist and mental health counsellor.

While critics frequently reduce his acting background to “learning lines” (a skill he says he now rarely utilises), Polanski credits community theatre for shaping how he thinks about leadership and collectivism. “Undoubtedly, the biggest transferable skill was being in a room with a community of different thoughts and ideas. It was sometimes chaos, but organised chaos,” he smiles, remembering it with fondness. He shares that he took away valuable lessons on what leadership can look like, which he still returns to regularly. “What does leadership look like that isn’t what we’re told about all the time, which is hierarchical leadership. It’s not saying I have every single answer – it’s about saying, ‘here are my core values, here are the things I’m never going to negotiate on, but everything else is still up for debate, so let’s have those conversations.’ That leadership comes from within, rather than top down.”

His time working in the creative sector has also shaped how he thinks government should support artists and cultural spaces. The Green Party’s 2024 manifesto includes ambitious pledges for a £5 billion fund over five years to help local governments keep historic venues alive, increased funding for arts education and plans to reduce ticket costs for museums, music gigs, and live theatre. Polanski rarely talks about art purely in economic terms, although he gives a “huge internal sigh” when ministers undermine the sector’s profitability. Instead, he talks about it as essential storytelling, as mental health support, and as the kind of community infrastructure that keeps people connected. 

He also believes that the stories we platform in popular culture say a lot about the kind of society we are living in. He circles back to The Traitors, half-joking that it feels telling when one of the country’s most popular television shows revolves around deception, suspicion and betrayal. Reality television, he suggests, is rarely just entertainment; it often reflects the political mood of the time. “The power and the value of community art, of independent art, of art to heal people,” he begins, “is that it brings people together, but it also solves problems we don’t always talk about in the same breath as arts funding – the mental health crisis, the climate crisis, the lack of community and integration. Art is not the only answer, but it can be a huge answer to a lot of these issues.”

The power and the value of community art, of independent art, of art to heal people is that it brings people together, but it also solves problems we don’t always talk about in the same breath as arts funding – the mental health crisis, the climate crisis, the lack of community and integration. Art is not the only answer, but it can be a huge answer to a lot of these issues.

He recognises that working-class writers and filmmakers can struggle to develop their craft without time and financial stability, meaning the cultural landscape risks becoming dominated by stories from people who already have, or can afford, access. An avid film fan, he and his boyfriend Richie have been inspired by Obama’s annual watchlist to make their own, but with a twist. “We wanted to decolonise our brains, so we have a list of countries from A to Z, and we’re working through it to watch a different film from every country in the world,” he explains. Most recently, they watched Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Estonian director Anna Hints, following a group of women protecting their country’s centuries-old sauna tradition. “It’s a film about fragility, feminism, and global politics. It’s amazing.”

He also highlights exceptional success stories, including Ken Loach and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, but argues that Coel’s story – famously turning down a Netflix deal to retain ownership of her work – required a level of bravery that should not be the necessary barrier to enter the industry in the first place.

The same logic applies to grassroots musicians and performers, and he recently spoke out against restrictions placed on buskers in Leicester Square. “They’re standing out in the wind and the rain developing their craft,” he says, frustrated. “And the same companies that profit from their music are the ones shutting those spaces down.” It reflects a wider problem in how culture is valued in Britain – a tendency, he says, for institutions and corporations to know “the price of everything but the value of nothing.”

There’s an earnestness to his responses that he doesn’t shy away from, and he often returns to theatre when talking about why culture matters. In particular, he sings the praises of immersive companies like Punchdrunk, whose productions he calls “genuinely life-changing experiences”, especially for younger attendees. He also points to traditions like Theatre of the Oppressed, where performance is used as a way for attendees to explore collective action. These kinds of creative spaces are not separate from politics at all; they are places where people practise empathy, participation and collective decision-making. 

“Anyone who’s seen a good show, read a good book, enjoyed a great piece of music, eaten food that’s excited them – all of this is part of arts and culture,” he explains. “I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to say it’s one of my very reasons to live, alongside loving my friends and family.” 

That belief – that culture and community are essential to joy – also shapes how he talks about protest, civil liberties and political participation. At the time of our conversation, eight activists incarcerated for alleged pro-Palestine protest action were undertaking a hunger strike after being held on remand for over a year. They ended the strike in mid to late January, and by February, six had been acquitted of some charges and released on bail while still facing the possibility of retrial on others. At the same time, more than 2500 pro-Palestine protestors have been arrested since the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation (as of January 2026), raising alarming concerns about parliamentary priorities, the use of police resources, and why those protesting violence are more readily criminalised than those enabling it.

He is careful when talking about protest, particularly when encouraging others to take action. “It would be very easy for me to sit here and say that everyone should go out and protest, everyone should put their body on the line,” he says. “But the truth is, we live in an unequal society where people, particularly people of colour or marginalised people, could face worse consequences from the police than someone who doesn’t fit those categories. Consider your privilege, and use that wisely.” He is particularly aggravated by the way the hunger strikers were portrayed in parts of the media, where separate incidents were deliberately conflated to misrepresent them. He describes the coverage as “very specific and very targeted”, saying it reduced a nuanced situation into a story with clear villains and easy headlines.

Let’s be clear, that’s because there have been many juries that have acquitted people who have taken protest action. A group of citizens who don’t have vested interests have listened to the evidence and said, ‘they’re not guilty.’ That makes the government and the police look really bad, as it should do.

He links this to Justice Secretary David Lammy’s proposal to significantly reduce the use of juries in England and Wales. “Let’s be clear, that’s because there have been many juries that have acquitted people who have taken protest action,” he contends. “A group of citizens who don’t have vested interests have listened to the evidence and said, ‘they’re not guilty.’ That makes the government and the police look really bad, as it should do.” These issues are not separate from his stances on representation and community responsibility. They are all questions about power – who has it, who is protected by it, and who is punished for challenging it.

When the conversation turns to LGBTQIA+ rights, he is careful not to speak as if any community is monolithic. Drawing on his own experiences as Jewish, he points out that no community agrees on everything, and that one of the most important lessons he has learned through years of working within queer spaces is not to generalise. Publicly, Polanski has been a staunch supporter of trans+ rights, criticising the EHRC’s guidance on single-sex spaces and services as “horrific”, challenging transphobic media narratives, and pledging to support improved policies on trans healthcare and self-identification, ensuring the party he’s cultivating protects all LGBTQIA+ people. Most recently, he appeared on stage at Trans Mission, a benefit concert held at Wembley Arena in March to raise money for charities Not A Phase and the Good Law Project, where he apologised “on behalf of all politicians” for letting trans+ communities down. 

“When people ask for solidarity, the only authentic response is to give it,” he says. “The problem that we’ve all got, collectively – no matter what our sexuality, age, gender, ability or disability – is vested interests, which is the power of the multi-millionaires and billionaires who seek to divide us. The best thing we can ever do is stand together in solidarity.”

This ideology is something Polanski is trying to build structurally through the Green Party’s Path to Parliament scheme, an initiative designed to support and train people from underrepresented backgrounds to stand for elected office. “Of all the things I do, it’s one of my favourites,” he grins. The scheme aims to open up politics to people rooted in their communities who may never have seen themselves as future MPs or councillors. “There’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t be able to be a member of parliament,” he asserts. “The key is in the title, it’s literally to be a representative.” 

And it’s already working. In Hackney, 19-year-old university student and Deputy Mayor candidate Dylan Law has been campaigning on affordable housing and protecting youth services, arguing that many young people are being priced out of the communities they grew up in while youth clubs and local services continue to disappear. In Lambeth, Brixton Rush Common candidate Zvikomoborero Chihoro is similarly campaigning on youth opportunity and grassroots investment, focusing on how local economies can work for residents rather than developers. Even his deputy leaders, Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali, entered the party through community work. Together, they represent just some of the diverse backgrounds Polanski is welcoming into his Green party: small business owners, youth campaigners, and local community organisers.

“We’ve had a much bigger group of people from global majority communities, from working-class communities, from LGBTQIA+ communities, than ever before. It’s amazing to see so many young people get involved in politics, as well as older new members,” he shares. “Everywhere I go, I’m meeting people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s who are saying they’ve never been involved in a political party, but they’re feeling hopeful, so they’re getting involved. I’m really excited about this.”

This is his long-term goal. Electoral wins matter, but building a movement matters more. He often says that the most important skill for any prospective MP is not developing big ideas or debating, but listening and understanding what people actually need. The aim, he says, is not just to elect more Green politicians, but to change who feels allowed to participate in politics at all. Authenticity, it turns out, is not about sounding different from other politicians, but about making politics something everyone believes they can be a part of. 

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