Polanski says he would ‘discourage’ use of the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’ on marches
Speaking to the BBC, Zack Polanski discouraged people from using the phrase “globalise the intifada” (see this earlier post for its meaning) but added he is “not interested” in policing language.
The Green Party leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg:
It’s not a phrase I would use personally and that’s because I think if there’s other phrases you can use or other ways to do things then why not just do them.
I want people to be more effective so I wouldn’t encourage people to use it because actually I think you can make your point a lot more effectively and not get into this conversation about language.
Words matter, but the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered, the people in Lebanon who have been killed, these people matter too, and I think if people want to protest, that it’s important we defend their right to protest.
Yes I do discourage, to give you a more direct answer, the use of the phrase but I’m not interested in trying to police people’s language.
The Met police commissioner Mark Rowley told BBC Breakfast earlier in the week that people using “globalise the intifada” are “likely to be arrested”. “We said that before Christmas and we’ve already got people arrested and charged and in court for such behaviour,” Rowley said.
Key events
Lucy Powell says Labour has ‘no magic bullet’ as MPs brace for heavy losses in local elections
Jessica Elgot
Labour’s deputy leader has warned there will be “no magic bullet” to solve Labour’s problems – or major challenges facing the country – as its MPs grapple with how to navigate the fallout out from the local elections.
Lucy Powell told the Guardian she understood there was “huge anger and despondency” from Labour MPs in the aftermath of the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal, but said the prime minister would not make a similar mistake again.
Powell, who called for Keir Starmer to be more explicitly progressive during her deputy leadership campaign, said she would not engage in leadership speculation with the party facing a potential loss of more than 75% of the council seats it is defending, as well as losing power in Wales and failing to beat the SNP in Scotland.
But she warned restive MPs there would be “no one change” that would lead to a reverse in fortunes. “There’s no magic bullet here for us. We are in a difficult world,” she said in an interview on the campaign trail in Leeds, where the party is facing off against both Reform and the Greens in different parts of the city.
“I strongly believe that we’ve got the right agenda to start turning that around. To give people hope, an opportunity and see the change in their communities.”
Asked if Keir Starmer was the right leader to deliver it, Powell said: “I’m not going to get into that. I think there’s no one change that [will affect] all of these situations. We’ve still got to tackle these big issues, and we’ve got to do it in the right way with the right values. Having some side order conversation about personnel and people, I think misses the point.” You can read the full story here:
SNP will seek new independence referendum if it wins a majority in Scotland next week
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn told Sky News this morning that his party would view winning a majority of seats in next week’s Scottish parliament election as having a mandate to demand a fresh independence referendum.
Flynn, who said the UK is “broken beyond repair” and that Scotland needs to be more empowered to make decisions for itself, told Sky News:
“History is on our side in that regard so if next Thursday we break the electoral system in Scotland once again… then I would expect the people of Scotland to be given a say over their own future, as is right in any democratic society.”
“You’re telling me that Keir Starmer saying no means something – Keir Starmer is not going to be in office come the end of next week,” Flynn said.
While he acknowledged that Starmer “might survive for a few weeks” after Thursday’s elections – which also include local council elections in England – he said the prime minister “loves a u-turn if he does somehow manage to stay in office”.
“The Westminster establishment, I am afraid, aren’t quite ready or aware of what is about to happen,” he said. “Because they cannot continue to deny that democracy exists on these isles for the Scottish people and indeed potentially for the Welsh people as well.”
A second independence referendum would need to be approved by the UK government but Keir Starmer has said he cannot imagine another Scottish independence referendum taking place during his time as the UK’s prime minister.
In September 2014, Scotland voted in a referendum to reject independence by a margin of 55% to 45%. A new Norstat survey for The Sunday Times indicates that while the SNP is on course to win Thursday’s election, it will fall short of the majority the party’s leader, John Swinney, has suggested would trigger a new independence referendum.
There is increasing momentum toward the break up of the UK with Plaid Cymru in strong contention to win power in the Senedd and Sinn Féin the largest party in Belfast.
Zack Polanski also hit out at the Times over a caricature of him in the newspaper. The Green party has complained to the editor, saying the cartoon depicted Polanski using the antisemitic trope of a “visibly hooked nose”.
Polanski told Laura Kuenssberg: “Jewish communities aren’t safe, and this isn’t an abstract idea for me as a Jewish person.
“In fact, in the last six weeks alone two people have actually been arrested in relation to antisemitic actions towards me and just yesterday the Times newspaper published a pretty vile antisemitic caricature of me and have yet to apologise or withdraw that.”
Sammy Gecsoyler
Organisers of pro-Palestine marches have said Keir Starmer’s threat to ban some demonstrations opposing Israel’s actions in the Middle East will “strike at the root of free assembly and free speech” in the UK.
On Saturday morning, the prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “there are instances” in which he would support stopping some pro-Palestine protests altogether. Starmer said he also wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to “tougher action”, including the chant “globalise the intifada”.
John Rees, co-founder and national officer for the Stop the War coalition, which helps organise large pro-Palestine demonstrations in central London, considered Starmer’s comments a “threat” against his coalition’s own protests.
Speaking to Sky News, Rees said a ban would “strike at the root of free assembly and free speech in this country”.
“As long as the wars continue, as long as the killing continues, people will want to say to this government, you’re complicit in this, and you should stop. And will want to say to the Israeli government, you’re setting the Middle East on fire. It’s now impacting not only the lives of Palestinians, but the livelihood of people around the globe and you should stop,” he said.
When asked about a “small percentage” of people who appear to express support for Hamas or chant the phrase “globalise the intifada”, Rees said out of the millions of people who have attended the demonstrations overall, a “minuscule number” of arrests have been made for such offences.
He said when stewards at the demonstrations see “inappropriate slogans”, they “ask people not to use them and, by and large, they comply”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for pro-Palestine marches to be banned altogether on Saturday afternoon, claiming “they are used as a cover for promoting violence and intimidation against Jews”. You can read the full story here:
Polanski says he would ‘discourage’ use of the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’ on marches
Speaking to the BBC, Zack Polanski discouraged people from using the phrase “globalise the intifada” (see this earlier post for its meaning) but added he is “not interested” in policing language.
The Green Party leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg:
It’s not a phrase I would use personally and that’s because I think if there’s other phrases you can use or other ways to do things then why not just do them.
I want people to be more effective so I wouldn’t encourage people to use it because actually I think you can make your point a lot more effectively and not get into this conversation about language.
Words matter, but the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered, the people in Lebanon who have been killed, these people matter too, and I think if people want to protest, that it’s important we defend their right to protest.
Yes I do discourage, to give you a more direct answer, the use of the phrase but I’m not interested in trying to police people’s language.
The Met police commissioner Mark Rowley told BBC Breakfast earlier in the week that people using “globalise the intifada” are “likely to be arrested”. “We said that before Christmas and we’ve already got people arrested and charged and in court for such behaviour,” Rowley said.
Here are some other key takeaways from the Zack Polanski interview on Sky News:
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Polanski said Jewish safety does not improve by “escalating tensions”.
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He recognised there is real unsafety towards Jewish people, revealing that in the last six weeks “two people have actually been arrested in relation to antisemitic actions towards me”.
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Polanski said even if some pro-Palestinian marches make some Jewish people feel unsafe, that doesn’t mean those demonstrations “actually” make them unsafe.
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“I think it is about having a conversation about how do we ensure that Jewish people are safe and Jewish people feel safe at times when they may perceive themselves as being unsafe,” Polanski told Trevor Phillips.
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Polanski said people’s freedom of speech and ability to march in opposition to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza (and to end Israeli occupation) should be allowed to continue.
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He said that whenever there are anti-semitic crimes committed they should be dealt with by existing laws.
Both the Golders Green attack and video of the police response were ‘traumatic’, Polanski says
Trevor Phillips has asked Green party leader Zack Polanski “what on earth was going through your head” when sharing a social media post condemning the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack.
Polanski, recognising the “bravery” of police officers who run towards dangerous incidents, said he apologised for his retweet because X was not an “appropriate forum” to make those comments (see post at 09.27 for more details). He told Sky News:
The first thing I did was recognise that this was a horrific crime and I showed solidarity to the victims and their families.
I then thanked the emergency responders for the brave work they did. I found it all very traumatic, especially as a Jewish person.
And I also found the video that was circulating online traumatic too. I accept though that conversation about that video needs to be had with the commissioner rather than on X.
In an unusually public intervention, the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, shared a letter to Polanski on X last Thursday, criticising the post the Green party leader retweeted as “inaccurate and misinformed commentary”. He said the responding police officers were “nothing short of extraordinary” and that “without their efforts to stop him (the suspect) I dread to think what the outcome could have been.”
Rowley’s impartiality has been called into question after being accused of wading into the political arena at a particularly sensitive time ahead of elections next week, including for councils in London.
PM shouldn’t have to ‘reapply for his job’, minister says, as she insists Starmer is ‘best’ person to lead the country
Amid growing speculation about potential Labour leadership challenges being triggered by the expected disastrous local election results, the transport secretary insisted that “the best person to lead our country” was Keir Starmer.
Those demanding a leadership battle should “give their head a gentle wobble”, Heidi Alexander told Sky News. She explained:
So I think here is the best person to lead our country through the period of extreme international volatility that we are experiencing at the moment.
I don’t think the public would thank us if the Labour Party turned into some sort of self indulgent debating society when there are pockets of the world that feel like they are going to hell in a handcart at the moment.
I think asking the prime minister to somehow reapply for his job when all of that is going on and he is entirely focused on the concerns of the British people would be the wrong thing to do…
I think those people who think that we should have a leadership election now and repeat the mistakes that the Conservative government made in churning through prime ministers probably do need to give their head a gentle wobble.
MPs have shifted discussions from speculating about whether the prime minister could be removed to how – including timelines, potential triggers and the mechanics of forcing a leadership contest, my colleagues report here.
In his interview, Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips also asked the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, about Keir Starmer signalling that he might want to ban repeated pro-Palestinian marches and asked her if the chants of “globalise the intifida” or “from the river to the sea” will be made illegal.
“We have actually changed the law this week to give the police more powers to deal with protests,” Alexander said, adding that the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has instructed Lord Ken Macdonald, to do a review of protests, which will be reported back to her. She would not be drawn into saying whether the law should be changed to specifically make chanting “globalise the intifada” at marches illegal.
Earlier in the week, Starmer called for police to prosecute people chanting “globalise the intifada” during demonstrations, despite criticism that by doing so would be an infringement on freedom of speech.
Intifada is an Arabic word that translates to uprising or “shaking off”. As my colleague notes in this story, many people use the phrase as an expression of solidarity with Palestinian people resisting Israeli occupation while some Jewish groups and leaders have described it as a call to violence.
The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” refers to the land between the Jordan river, which borders eastern Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Critics say the chant is a call for the destruction of the state of Israel but others say it refers to the right of all Palestinians to freedom and justice in their homeland as equal citizens.
Israel’s war on Gaza, which, according to health officials, has killed at least 72,610 people, has been classified as a genocide by human rights groups and scholars. It was launched following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Polanski’s ‘abhorrent’ response to Golders Green attack shows he is unfit to ‘lead a political party’, minister says
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, has said Zack Polanski’s retweeting of a post suggesting the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack last week was “disgusting” and “absolutely abhorrent” as she claimed he was not “fit to lead a political party”.
Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X alleging that officers were “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated by a stun gun.
The Green party leader has since apologised after being publicly criticised by the head of the Metropolitan Police, who said his actions undermined the confidence of officers to deal with dangerous people.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Alexander said:
I thought it was disgusting what he did and absolutely abhorrent. Those police officers ran towards danger, they were armed only with a Taser that they had already discharged. The guy still had a knife in his hand. They were armed with their courage and their training.
And I think for the leader of a political party to jump onto Twitter, start retweeting content criticising those policemen who responded with incredible bravery in what was a very difficult situation. I think it demonstrates that the man is not fit to lead a political party.
Essa Suleiman, 45, has been charged with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed on Wednesday in Golders Green, north London. He is also charged with attempted murder over an earlier attack that day on a man during a personal dispute in south London. On Thursday, the UK’s terror threat level was raised to severe.
Following the attack, the government announced it was making more money available for protecting Jewish communities and promised to increase powers to target antisemitic preachers but the prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been accused of not doing enough following a string of antisemitic attacks.
