The United Kingdom’s Green Party leader Zack Polanski, a 43-year-old self-styled “eco-populist” presenting himself as a progressive alternative to Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party, is banking on a political breakthrough in British local elections this week.More than 5,000 council seats will be up for grabs on Thursday as voters in 136 local authorities head to the polls, including in London and other major UK cities.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listAccording to polling group YouGov, the Green Party appears set to make major gains in the capital and could come first in as many as eight of London’s 32 councils.The party’s ratings have steadily improved since Polanski was elected leader in a landslide victory in September last year. In February, the Green Party won its first-ever parliamentary by-election, taking Gorton and Denton, a constituency in Greater Manchester which had been held by the governing Labour party for nearly a century.Polanski is viewed by political observers in the UK as a media-savvy representative of a green socialist movement which seeks to inspire younger generations for change, along the lines of New York’s Zohran Mamdani.To achieve this, the Green Party has expanded beyond its core environmental mission, experts say. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said that under Polanski’s leadership, the Greens have become “far more left-liberal and pro-Gaza focused than environmentally concerned”.“The reason the party’s poll ratings have increased lies partly in the visibility his considerable communication skills have g …
