Mick Hartley

Hadley Freeman, in the Sunday Times, joins the chorus warning of the dangers of Zack P and the new Greens.

I am old enough to remember when the Greens were a gently batty lot focused on the environment. These days it’s less green and more a mix of the rainbow (ultra-progressives) and the crescent (sectarian Muslims). As a result, it produces local candidates like Saiqa Ali in Streatham, who posted “Resistance is freedom” over an image of a Hamas terrorist, and Sabine Mairey in Lambeth, who insists that “ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge”. It’s almost enough to make me miss the days when the Green Party would bang on about composting.

On Thursday, Ali and Mairey were detained — not by Green HQ but by the Metropolitan Police, on suspicion of stirring racial hatred. The party’s leader, Zack Polanski, has said that vetting candidates has been “a real challenge” because the party has been attracting “an immense amount of people very quickly”.

I almost admire how Polanski affects to see the number of raving, Jew-hating loons joining his party as a sign of his popularity, as opposed to proof that they see him as a useful idiot who is hosting the current home for Jew-hating loons. And as if to confirm his status as the latter, shortly after arresting the two Green candidates, Sir Mark Rowley, the Met’s commissioner, publicly rebuked Polanski for retweeting an allegation that police had been too violent when arresting the man charged with stabbing the Jews in Golders Green.

“It is this kind of inaccurate and misinformed commentary … that is contributing to rising tensions,” Rowley wrote. Or, as Polanski put it two weeks ago, a mere “perception” of rising tensions.

Ali and Mairey can spend this week burnishing their favourite antisemitic memes, but there are still plenty of other swivel-eyed options on the Green ballot. There’s Feda Shahin in Bournemouth, who has said that Jeffrey Epstein’s private island “is a symbol of the headquarters of the Zionists who are trying to control the world”. Or Philip Notley in Stevenage, filmed last week telling voters that “Israel shouldn’t exist”. Or Tina Ion in Blakelaw & Cowgate, who posts under the handle “thereal.anne.frank” with a photo of the murdered teenager in a keffiyeh, and has called for “killing every single Zionist”. And the Green Party’s reaction? They are shocked — as Captain Renault in Casablanca would put it — shocked to find gambling is going on in here.

And on and on. Still, Polanski can take comfort that one person believes his party is being too firm with the antisemites in its ranks. Unfortunately, it’s his deputy, Mothin Ali. The Times revealed on Wednesday that Ali advised candidates — including Saiqa Ali — who were rebuked or suspended by the party for antisemitism “to start with some class action”.

Polanski repeatedly bleats that he is “the only Jewish leader of a major political party”, as if that were a Harry Potter-like spell — expelliarmus! — that can fend off accusations his party is pandering to far left and sectarian Muslim antisemites.