Green leader Zack Polanski has said he is open to working with Labour under Andy Burnham to keep Reform UK out of power but will not co-operate with prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
“I could see the potential to work with Andy Burnham to stop Reform and to challenge the rise of the far right,” Polanski told the Financial Times, adding: “I would rule it out with Keir Starmer but I wouldn’t rule it out with Burnham.”
There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that a poor result for the Labour party at Welsh, Scottish and English local council elections in May would fire the starting gun on a leadership contest to replace Starmer.
But Burnham would need to be selected to run as an MP before May in order to be a candidate for leader, and many believe Labour’s national executive committee will prevent that from happening.
Polanski suggested he was still somewhat sceptical of Burnham, who he said had “been a chameleon” in his political career, alluding to his shift from being a stalwart of centrist New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to a more leftwing figure as mayor of Manchester since 2017.
Burnham has argued that council tax should be reformed, more sectors should be nationalised and that Labour should introduce a land value tax to redistribute wealth. He, like Polanski, has also been criticised for arguing that the government should not be “in hock to the bond markets”, as he has argued for an increase in public borrowing.
Polanski defended this position: “That’s not to say the market shouldn’t have a role, but they shouldn’t be dictating what elected politicians do.”
He has been on a political journey himself, having become a member of the Liberal Democrats in 2015 at the end of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, which introduced a programme of austerity, before switching to the Greens in 2017.
His election as leader of the party in September on a leftwing ticket has precipitated a surge in support for the Greens, which now command around 16 per cent of public support, just below the Tories and Labour, making them a significant electoral threat to the centre-left government.
The party has also raised £5mn since Polanski became leader in September, according to party insiders, in line with the total income it received over the whole of 2024, an election year.
The self-titled “eco-populist” denied that he needed to improve his fiscal policy platform following a podcast in which he appeared confused about the size of government debt, who it was owed to and how much his policies would cost.
Polanski described the line of questioning by The Rest Is Politics host Rory Stewart, a former Conservative MP who co-hosts the podcast, as an “ambush”, and said there was a “fundamental dishonesty to the way that the interview was conducted” because he had been assured it was not a discussion about November’s Budget.
“I didn’t know some numbers and I hold my hands up to that,” he said, though he said he stood by the economic principles he was putting forward. These included abandoning chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, introducing a wealth tax that he claims would raise £14.8bn a year, and equalising capital gains tax with income tax.
“I am challenging a broken, failed economic model and the people defending it have no answer other than just to continue with what is broken,” he said.
A person close to the podcast said that “we would never agree not to discuss specific topics”, adding that Polanski’s suggestion that it was an ambush was “unfair and unfounded”.
Polanski told the FT he had been influenced by a wide range of economists, including Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of economics at University College London who has advised Starmer and senior members of his cabinet and has spent her career arguing for more state investment in pioneering sectors and technologies.
She has also challenged the government’s reliance on management consultants and called for “mission-oriented” policymaking, focused on aims such as combating climate change.
Asked by the FT whether he had met and received advice from Mazzucato, Polanski said “yes”, but it subsequently transpired that the Green leader had a scheduled lunch with the economist but had not met her yet.
Asked which of her ideas he was influenced by, Polanski said “just the fact she’s an economist who has written lots on the climate crisis”.
Mazzucato told the FT she thought the Green party was right to focus on welfare, the cost of living and wealth taxes as well as an environmentalist agenda. But she added Polanski needed also to present ideas about how to generate economic growth: “There’s nothing to redistribute through a wealth tax if you don’t create the wealth in the first place,” she said.
Polanski confirmed that a new think-tank affiliated to the Green party, called Verdant, is due to launch in the new year with the aim of providing more robust economic policy positions. The Greens’ former leader, Caroline Lucas, will sit on the board, but it would be independent from the party, Polanski said.
The former community theatre performer and hypnotist also said the party needed to bring in more money from donors if it wants to have a real shot of challenging Reform and Labour at the next general election. About 95 per cent of the party’s income came from membership fees, Polanski said.
The party has historically been circumspect about receiving donations from big companies and rich individuals.
“There is space for major donor fundraising,” said Polanski, adding: “I do think there will be companies out there that are doing social purpose or social good whose money is legitimate.” He namechecked green energy tycoon and Labour donor Dale Vince, who currently sponsors his Bold Politics podcast.
“I’d be really happy to talk to him about the Green party,” Polanski said. “If anyone wants environmental climate policies or nature policies, they are not coming through the Labour party.”
Vince, who gave £20,000 to the Greens in 2013, told the FT he was “considering all kinds of things at the moment”.