Tackling anti-Semitism is more important than party politics.
I proved that when I – alongside other determined colleagues – took it on in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.
We knew we could not let our party be taken over by these vile, racist entryists and I’m so proud that we didn’t. Now I see the same people, and the same corrosive views, in Zack Polanski’s Green Party – and once again I must call it out.
Yesterday Polanski offered an apology for his shocking response to the Golders Green attack. In the wake of that horror, he took to X to criticise not the attacker – but the police.
I welcome his apology, slow though it was to come, but it is nowhere near enough. He must now turn to every example of anti-Semitism within his own party and disown anyone guilty of it. In short, he needs to get a grip.
In my own local area, Polanski has put up a candidate who has posted on her channels that Keir Starmer is a ‘Jewish Zionist’, that 9/11 was a ‘false flag attack’ created by Israel, who has made offensive remarks about the Holocaust, suggested that politics is ‘over-represented with Zionist Jews’ and that the White House is ‘run by Jews’.
Referring to the October 7 pogrom in Israel, this individual claimed that ‘Palestinians resist, by any and all means. Last October, some of them did precisely that.’
She was talking, remember, about the callous murder of hundreds of civilian men, women and children, and she did so proudly and publicly online.
In the wake of the horrific Golders Green attack, Zack Polanski took to X to criticise not the attacker – but the brave police officers who tackled him
Conservative politician Steve Reed (pictured) says that Polanski’s long overdue apology for his shocking response to the Golders Green attack is welcome, but nowhere near enough
She has now been arrested but, astonishingly, remains a Green Party candidate. She is one of many Green candidates to hold such abhorrent views.
I wrote to Polanski last week to urge him to ditch these candidates spewing racist hatred. I assumed that he simply didn’t know about their views. After all, he’d admitted he’d carried out virtually no checks on his candidates – an incredible admission in itself.
I pointed it out so he could fix it. But instead of dealing with this serious problem, he changed the subject.
He said it was all ‘propaganda’. Incredibly, he then revealed he had even apologised to Corbyn for criticising his handling of anti-Semitism during his time as Labour leader, saying: ‘If I knew what I know now … yes, I would have supported Jeremy Corbyn.’
This is the problem with the hard Left. Their arrogant and false moral superiority means that they cannot comprehend that they themselves could ever be capable of racism. And instead of listening to the pain of victims and learning, they double down – and lash out.
That’s what Corbyn did and that’s what Polanski is doing now. However, for as long there are people in politics willing to call this out, there is still hope that it can be defeated.
So my message to Polanski and any political leader is this: Don’t repeat Corbyn’s mistakes and turn away.
Instead, put party politics aside, disown these candidates – and let’s eradicate anti-Semitism in British politics and society once and for all.
Steve Reed is Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
