Zack Polanski “should be ashamed” of the Greens’ record on antisemitism, Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf fumed in a devastating BBC Question Time rebuke after the Golders Green attacks. The explosive row erupted in Thursday’s episode as panellists debated how to keep Jewish communities safe following Wednesday’s appalling stabbings.
The Reform UK home affairs spokesman highlighted Thursday’s arrest of two Green council candidates on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred with allegedly antisemitic comments. He went on to slam Green co-deputy leader Mothin Ali for saying the “actions of Hamas on October 7 were simply them fighting back”, before turning on Mr Polanski himself. The panellist said the Greens had become a “poisonous vessel for extremism and antisemitism” and said Mr Polanski “should be ashamed”.
Mr Yusuf questioned if the “3,700 antisemitic incidents recorded last year alone might have convinced” Mr Polanski of the scale of the problem. “I wonder if the two Jewish men now fighting for their lives as a result of being stabbed repeatedly in Golders Green might convince Zack Polanski that the threat is in fact real?” he fumed.
He ended by saying the Greens had been “hijacked by extremists” and were becoming “vehicle for sectarianism”.
Rachel Millward, the Green co-deputy leader who was on the panel in Maidenhead, said it was not “impressive to play party political football” and suggested that politicians need to “move above hate”.
She added: “It isn’t just antisemitism, there is racial hatred across our societies that I have not known in my lifetime.”
Speaking earlier in the show, Conservative Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins said antisemitism was “a national emergency” and that it is “coursing through university campuses”.
She has called on the Government’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy to be widened to intervene earlier to stop those at risk of falling into extremism.
Mr Polanski sparked a furore on Thursday when he shared a post online criticising police officers’ actions while detaining the attack suspect. Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley accused him of sharing an “inaccurate and misinformed” social media post.
A Green Party spokesperson said: “Zack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn’t know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response.”