Politics Home Article | Polanski Says Greens Should Be Braced For Candidate Vetting Problems

(Alamy)

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Speaking to PoliticsHome at the party’s local elections campaign launch on Thursday, Polanski said that the party was dealing with an “immense amount of people very quickly” in its bid to field candidates in Scotland, Wales and council areas across England next month, adding: “I won’t be surprised if we have the odd candidate where we have to distance from them.”

The Greens launched their local elections campaign in London, where the party is expected to make significant gains next month, particularly at the expense of Keir Starmer’s Labour.

After dealing a seismic electoral blow to Labour by winning the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, the Greens are hopeful of seizing control of Lambeth, Islington, Southwark and Hackney councils when voters go to the polls on Thursday, 7 May.

The Greens have surged in the opinion polls since Polanski became leader in September, and now the party is tasked with finding people to stand as candidates across the country.

In an interview with PoliticsHome, the Green leader admitted that vetting such a large number of people in a matter of weeks was a “real challenge”.

“I also recognise we’re dealing with an immense amount of people very quickly, and so I won’t be surprised if we have the odd candidate where we have to distance [ourselves] from them,” he said.

The London Assembly Member continued: “I’m not planning to do that. But also, I’m recognising up front that it is a challenge that you suddenly accept thousands of people and you say, ‘okay, we’re putting your name on a ballot paper’.

“So we’re doing everything we can to make sure we’re doing due diligence. We’ll continue to do that. We’re not being complacent about it for a second and recognise the scale of the task that’s in front of us.”

Polanski predicted that his party would record its best-ever local elections results next month.

As well as winning councils in London, the Greens are expected to make gains across the country, and could be in a position to form a government with Plaid Cymru in Wales.

In his speech this morning, Polanski sought to focus on the affordability of London housing, telling reporters that he would be happy for Green councillors to block developments if they deemed them to be luxury properties, rather than affordable homes.

“We do have a housing crisis, but what we also have is an affordability crisis, and it’s about making sure we build the right homes, at the right price, [in] the right place.

“And what we see far too often with Labour councils is building luxury, unaffordable buildings that no one’s ever going to live in, often knock down communities or destroy communities that are already there in the name of regeneration, but don’t actually replace the homes with affordable homes or council homes.”

Labour has accused Polanski of blocking necessary house building. A van parked outside his press conference this morning, organised by Starmer’s party, accused the Greens of opposing over 40,000 homes.

The Green leader also used his speech to reiterate his criticism of the US and Israel in their war with Iran and Israeli strikes on Lebanon.

“Israel are behaving in a completely uncontrolled way, in a way that they seem to believe they have complete immunity to any kind of sanction or any kind of criticism,” he said, urging the government to completely withdraw the UK from its trade deal with the country.

He asked what Israel would “actually have to do” for the UK to say it is “a country that is behaving like a rogue state”.

“Any community that cares about international law needs to come together and say, ‘this is not acceptable’. We need to do everything we can to stop it. And of course, that relies on pulling every sanction, every arms embargo that we could make, to make sure that Israel can’t continue to murder innocent people.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Defence Secretary John Healey today both urged Israel to stop attacking Lebanon as the UK and other countries try to bring peace to the Middle East and the resumption of vital traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.