Zack Polanski is now less popular with voters than Nigel Farage, a devastating poll has suggested on the eve of his crucial fight to win the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, reports BritPanorama.
Fresh polling from More in Common has found Mr. Polanski to be the least popular major UK party leader, falling by four points to a -28 net approval.
His net approval sits four points below Reform UK leader at -24, while Andy Burnham has received a five-point boost to his approval ratings to +16 and Kemi Badenoch has risen by two to +2.
Overall, the poll found just 16 per cent of voters thought Mr. Polanski was doing a good job as leader, compared to 43 per cent who believed he was performing poorly.
Meanwhile, 28 per cent of voters believed Mr. Farage is doing a good job, compared to 52 per cent who think otherwise.
This setback arrives just one day before voters in Holborn and St Pancras head to the polls to decide whether to elect Mr. Polanski as their next MP following Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement to stand down.
However, the fallout from a motion passed at the Green Party conference on Sunday, which determined Zionism as racism, threatens to divide the party.
This motion designates the Greens as an “anti-Zionist party” and establishes that Zionism—the movement for a Jewish state in Israel—will be treated like any other form of racism.
In the wake of the vote, the Wales Green Party’s deputy leader resigned on Tuesday, stating he had left the party after seven years.
In a statement released late on Monday, Mr. Polanski affirmed that the Green Party will “not accept any exclusion” of individuals based on religion.
“Antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli state are, and must always be, completely distinct – blurring the line between the two is not only wrong but antisemitic, and makes Jewish people less safe,” he said.
Mr. Polanski, speaking at the party’s conference in Brighton, tempered expectations for a Green victory on Friday, asserting that his position as leader “doesn’t depend on it [winning the by-election] whatsoever.”
He abstained from the vote, having left the conference to continue campaigning in Sir Keir Starmer’s former constituency.
Labour has maintained the Holborn and St Pancras seat since its creation in 1983, but local voter sentiment has shifted towards Green and independent candidates in recent years.
In the May local elections, the Greens achieved significant success, with Zoe Garbett becoming the UK’s first directly elected Green mayor in Hackney, ending decades of Labour dominance in that position. Hours later, the party won another mayoralty in Lewisham.
Labour lost three councils to the Greens—Hackney, Waltham Forest, and Norwich—while retaining its status as the largest party in Lambeth. Hastings council, which was previously under no overall control, also fell to the Greens.
Despite an initial surge in support following Mr. Polanski’s appointment as leader, the party’s national polling has declined since Mr. Burnham took over from Sir Keir in Downing Street.
