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Noah & Sean are on a mission to push political imagination. Since becoming best friends at university they've both taken unconventional paths and supported various political movements behind the scenes. Watch weekly as they break down about hot political topics using their knowledge and lived experiences.
Dodged the bump in the road. I joined the Liberal Democrats before I joined the Liberal
Speaker 2:Democrats. Gonna get attacked.
Speaker 3:We're gonna ask you do One time for the one time, two time for the two time, three time for the three time. Come on. Welcome home, Stars Dem. You are tapped back in with North Star politics, pushing political imagination. You, of course, joined by myself, Noah East, on each and every platform.
Speaker 3:The mile and Malcolm x. We didn't land on Bethnal Green. Bethnal Green landed on us. Cover. Different gravy.
Speaker 3:Never lazy. Slimitar Herbert Hov live in the flesh. Galeister Campbell here today.
Speaker 2:You're not looking too slim though.
Speaker 3:I can't I figured it. I've been in the gym. I'm, of course, joined by Sean Remees Come on. On each and every platform.
Speaker 2:Say it again.
Speaker 3:The Enfield Eric Williams. Cheers. We're calling him biblical Jesus.
Speaker 2:Come on, man. Look at me, man. The hair's flowing and ting.
Speaker 3:Rory slew it. I don't know about that one. Nah, come on. If I'm jealous of camel, we'll Rory slew it. Dreamworks Moses let the people them free.
Speaker 2:Pharaoh, you're doing nonsense to my people.
Speaker 3:How you doing my brother?
Speaker 2:I'm good. We're actually at a new place today. Shout out Voices in Kings Cross because we have a very special episode, not of the North Star Politics show, but of Star Gazing.
Speaker 3:See, we took one week off and people say, what's going on? New things for the audience.
Speaker 2:Ain't it? Just like relax. You're gonna get some.
Speaker 3:You know I'm saying? 2026, yeah, we're trying out different things. And we've got an interview series coming for you, Stargazing with North Star Politics, and we have a sensational first guest. Literally, probably, I would
Speaker 2:say one of the biggest, if not the biggest name in British politics right now.
Speaker 3:Definitely right now. Yeah. For sure. Hot on the press.
Speaker 2:Hot on now. Yeah. I mean, if you can read, you've seen, it's gonna be mister Zach Polansky.
Speaker 3:We've Zach Polansky on the pod. We talked about some incredible things today. We started with his journey from theater all the way to being a Lib Dem, which some people might not have known.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Lib Dem, that was a bit of a curveball, but he explained it.
Speaker 3:Fairly well. The explanation was good. We got into a little bit about nuclear proliferation, his views on migrants
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 3:His views on a reform party.
Speaker 2:If he's just preaching to the choir.
Speaker 3:We agreed on a lot, which I understand it was gonna happen, but I think there was also a lot of good pushback from him to us and vice versa. I think it was a cracking interview if I did it myself.
Speaker 2:It And if you wanna see more of this and we because we wanna do more of this, guys, please, Oliver Twist's out here again, please donate to the pod.
Speaker 3:No. We but we need to we don't even explain it well. So what Chad, we need to do is head to the link in our Instagram bio or whatever, northstarpolitics.com, and you'll see support Slash support. Slash support. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you can donate $5.10, 20 pounds. The reason why that's so important is because we don't wanna be privatizing our our content. We don't wanna put it behind paywalls. So if you're someone who feels like you've got value from the podcast, you enjoy the podcast, or you think it's something that you really believe in, you think it's important, please just go drop us a five or 10 or 20 pounds, Ben's score, whatever it needs to be.
Speaker 2:Because if you saw what it's like behind the scenes, like, know a lot of people trying to reach out, wanna volunteer, do this. Like, I don't even wanna bring you into this right now. Yeah. You know what mean? It's it's hectic.
Speaker 3:It's many people think that we've got some mad production going on. Behind the camera right now is a wall. Like, there's a small room we're sat here right now. We're just trying to make it happen. Self funded.
Speaker 3:Need you guys support. 2026, we're trying to do things big, and we need you guys help come along the journey. We're going to the start.
Speaker 2:What's £5 to a viewer like you?
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 3:Know you got it. In it. We know you got Show us 20 bands right now. There's a money spread right now. But now Sean, give them a bit of background on our guy, Zach, before we get into the interview.
Speaker 2:So Zach Polansky is leader of the Green Party. He has basically stormed onto the political scene in the last year or so. He's previously or currently actually still part of the London Assembly. And so he's not an MP yet. Think I people kinda get confused around that.
Speaker 2:So he's actually not an MP for member of parliament for the Green Party, but he's taken the, you know, UK politics by storm. He's increased membership to around a 175,000. Basically, what Jeremy Corbyn used to be, he's kinda filling those kinda empty It's true.
Speaker 3:There's empty Jeremy Corbyn, come on Stargaze and yeah, prove us wrong. But even he's grown the green party to the third biggest political party in The UK. Yeah. And the way he's able to capture the airwaves has been sensational for a left wing leader.
Speaker 2:For sure. For sure.
Speaker 3:What do think of the interview?
Speaker 2:I thought it was great. I think people, please, just let us know what you think below. Mhmm. But should we just stop stalling and let them get into it?
Speaker 3:Let's get into
Speaker 2:it. Let's do it. Zach Polanski, welcome to North Star Politics.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me. I'm really, really excited.
Speaker 2:So how does it feel to just, you know, you're about to embark on the best interview of your life so far?
Speaker 1:Well, I do genuinely wanna say
Speaker 3:to you
Speaker 1:that I wait till the camera was rolling to say this, but I think you guys are amazing. And I'm not saying that because you're about to grill me for the next day. But also, like, whenever anything's happening in the news, like, suppose there's a big kind of issue going on, usually, you guys will pop up on my feed, either one of you or sometimes the guest you have on, and you're always on point. Like, the complexity and nuance combined with, a bold way of speaking that's just telling the truth, but not in a simplistic way that misses kind of there's often more than two sides. Right?
Speaker 1:There's often a lot of complexity in things. And the way you guys hold that, articulate it, and do it in a way that people can understand, I think, pretty remarkable. So more power.
Speaker 3:We appreciate that. That is very high praise for a man such as yourself who has a brilliant podcast, Bold Politics, if ever not hasn't checked
Speaker 1:out. That's what's
Speaker 3:We're big we're big fans. And it's also it's sincere because people might not know one of the reasons Zach is our first interview, because he actually came up to us at a politics event back in whenever it would have been at my life, might say Yeah. Brilliant event and gave us his number and got it organized. So we have to give you more than credit for that because we know you're a very busy man.
Speaker 1:My pleasure.
Speaker 3:We wanted to start the podcast or start the interview in a little bit of a different tack. We will get into more of the technical difficult questions, but we wanna understand your journey. For some of our viewers at home, you might not have heard about you before that much. What was your journey like from sort of birth all the way up until becoming Green Party leader?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the most obvious thing is I was just not political in the slightest, which is exactly why I was just talking about you popping up on people's feed because I'm hoping you're popping up on people's feed who care about politics, who care about the issues that you're talking about, but more importantly, I hope you're popping up for people who aren't that interested in politics or, like, just think it's a bit messy or a bit noisy and you can cut through in a way. And I'm hoping I'm doing that too because I think that's the number one thing. And I used to be a little bit ashamed that, like, if you'd asked me as a teenager or even if I'm honest in my twenties, like, who the leader of the opposition is, I just wouldn't have known. Like, I just wasn't interested. And then I was working as an actor.
Speaker 1:I got really into community theater. There's a project called Theatre of the Oppressed. This comes from South America, Auguste Bouwel, who was inspired by a guy Paulo Freire, who did Pedagogy.
Speaker 3:Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, what this says is, you know, most theater, you go, you sit down, you watch a show, you clap at the end, and you don't have kind of any influence over what's happening on stage. So in some ways, it's quite an alienation to that. It's kind of retelling the idea that events are happening outside of us.
Speaker 1:We're watching and we applaud and we boo and that's it. And I'm not bashing theater. I love theaters. But that's only, like, one very, like, narrow form of theater. What Theatre of Your Press looks to do is to say to the audience, you have to get involved.
Speaker 1:So there's a scene of oppression that happens on stage. And the moment that someone else, I. E. The oppressed, could do something or a bystander or an ally, someone from the audience puts their hand up and says, here's my idea. And then you as an actor goes, no.
Speaker 1:No. No. Don't tell me. Come up and show me. And they call it rehearsing revolution.
Speaker 1:So you role play, like, challenging power. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. The actor has to, like, in an authentic way go, I'm gonna respond how I think someone would really respond there. And I was doing that over and over again.
Speaker 1:And then one of the last projects I did was with a group of older black women. And, like, I absolutely loved the project. And but one of the kind of outcomes that we got from it was, oh, you need to go lobby your politicians. And they did do, and nothing happened. And we had a kind of follow-up reflective session maybe two months later.
Speaker 1:And they're a bit like, we're we're saying all the things we're gonna say and nothing's happened. And I realized, like, you're almost gaslighting people at that point. I don't mean that as a I really love the people who still do that work, and I think there's a huge role for for theater and role play, and and it's really, really important. But if there are systemic barriers in place, if a system is fundamentally broken, which means that some people will be heard, some people won't be heard, that's often economic or racial or to do with it could be a whole diversity of issues, then we need to change the system. So I started to get involved politics.
Speaker 3:Seems It to quite clear parallels there as well between the theater of the oppressed and politics in terms of trying to bring people the the sort of the spectator, maybe the passive voter into political life on a day to day.
Speaker 1:Oh, a 100%. And it's also for me as a politician, I'm I'm telling you the nicer version of the story. There's a there's a bump in the road in a second, which I'll be honest about. But a nice version of the story is just like yesterday, was in Cardiff. Saturday, was in Cardiff where we're looking to win seats on the senate for the first time.
Speaker 1:And just being out in the community and being with lots of people, like, I'm never happier as a politician than being with people I don't know, chatting to them about the things they care about, hopefully inspiring some hope. But more importantly than inspiring hope, inspiring action for people to go away as a community and organize and go get things done. I'm sure you'll be aware of the kind of three different strands of campaigning, mobilizing, and organizing.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 1:Campaigning being, you know, what most politicians do or activists do, which is to kind of find an issue and talk about it well. And that's that's a basic step. Mobilizing though being when you go, okay, we've got agreed outcomes now. Let's let's go to a rally or let's go to or a March. Great.
Speaker 1:But I think that's become almost all politics is, whereas genuinely organizing, I see as the politician's job or a leader's job to inspire people to mobilize and then to get out of the way, like, be amongst the organization.
Speaker 2:So then, like, one question that we love to ask every guest that we then is how do you conceptualize what your North Star is? So how do those experiences allow you to kind of crystallize what your North Star vision is of why you do what you do now then?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I also realized I I dodged a bump in the road. I joined the Liberal Democrats before I joined
Speaker 2:the Liberal Democrats. Get attacked. Gonna ask you that.
Speaker 1:But in terms of my North Star, it's about inequality. It's about justice. So one thing I've kind of said repetitively with the Green Party and I always want people to hear is that, yes, we care about the environment. Yes, we care about the planet. Like, we've got a climate crisis, but that is interconnected with everything else.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's no environmental justice without social, racial, and economic justice too. And if you'll let me land
Speaker 2:He's done his homework.
Speaker 1:The Green Party name is not the problem here. I think the problem is that people in the past have thought that there are preconceptions about what it is to be green. Those preconceptions being you have to be vegan, you have to be middle class to be able to afford a heat pump, you have to never be able to to drive a car even if it's to get your kids to school when there's no public transport. And none of that's true. Now so I'm caveating this.
Speaker 1:I do happen to be vegan. I don't fly. I don't drive. But you don't need to do those things to be green. I do those things
Speaker 2:How did you get here?
Speaker 1:I got the tube, actually. So I cycled to a tube stop and then on the tube.
Speaker 3:Good stuff.
Speaker 1:But we're in Central London, so it's much easier. Right? Yeah. Of course. There are people in rural communities where I meet where I you know, I used to say to them, you might have to wait for a bus for a few hours and then people are like, are you joking?
Speaker 1:A few days. Like, there just is not a bus. And if you're like suppose you're a teenager, you pass 17, 18, you've got two options which are to learn to drive and be able to actually see your mates or or go to a job or just be able to get out and about. Or you can wait every couple of days for a bus if you just want it's just not practical and possible at all, we need to invest in there. And so what I mean by the name not being, I think, the problem is I think what we need to do when we're doing more and more is to cut through so people know these are the things you should care about.
Speaker 1:Because I always think the alternative, if you're, like, creating a leftist party but you don't want to center green issues, fine. But at some point, you've got to tackle the problem or the opportunity more more accurately of what does a just transition look like. What does it look like when we work with workers to co design what their futures look like, to make sure they're in trade unions, if they're in the public sector, they're paid properly, treated with dignity and care. All of those things need to be addressed. So if you're avoiding that by saying, oh, we can't talk about green issues, at some point, that's gonna come back and bite you.
Speaker 1:What I'd rather do is say, yes, we care about the planet, but the first thing we wanna talk about is inequality because actually that's the biggest thing destroying the planet anyway.
Speaker 3:That inequality point is your North Star. It seems quite self evidently important to people like me and Sean. So I think sometimes it's important to color that in a little What is the pertinence of inequality? Why is that relevant to people that maybe are marginalized and cited, but also those that aren't?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because that affects everyone. I'm going straight from here to meet some unpaid carers, and that so that's immediately in my periphery that, you know, people who are doing a job that if that was paid I I think another way of putting this is, like, if you marry your childcare person, the babysitter, then suddenly, like, that's bad for the economy. That's no longer a job. And that makes no sense at all.
Speaker 1:And there's so many things around our economy that are just focused on what does it mean to create and produce wealth. But we know that wealth is being siphoned off. It's going upwards. It's not going to communities. It's not being invested in communities.
Speaker 1:Not just unpaid carers. If I think about care experienced young people. So I often work with with young people who've been in the care sector. And inequalities that exist in society anyway are then exacerbated. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Much more likely to face the justice system, which, you know, that's a terrible name for it because actually most of time it's unjust, particularly for for young people who are care experienced or or racialized. You could almost pick any example, though. You could think about a small business, for example. At the moment right now, they're having to pay high energy bills. A lot of the time, they're being hit by the national insurance rate in terms of employing people.
Speaker 1:All of these decisions have been made under the guise of, oh, we're we're tackling inequality, we're trying to tackle poverty, but actually, they're making worse. The number one thing we need to do to tackle inequality is to stop hoarding of wealth or hoarding of assets. And, yeah, we get straight back into the wealth tax conversation. That's not the only way to tackle inequality, but I think one of the reasons why I talk about that so much is it's a very clear way to understand within a couple seconds of going a very small group of people are hoarding our power, our wealth, and our democracy, frankly, and it's time for us to take it back.
Speaker 2:So in your worldview then, there's obviously a profound centering on intersectionality. Right? Trying to basically communicate to people that the that the struggles that we all share are somehow very intimately interconnected. So then how does the Lib Dem arc fit into that journey? How does that come come about then?
Speaker 1:For sure. So the number one thing, I I suppose my sub north star. I don't know what that would be called. Not I'm not exactly with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But that feels like the opposite of the North Star. Trujeet. Trujeet. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Anyway, have to I've workshopped that one. It's proportional representation. Now, look, know when people talk about proportional representation in the past, people used to go that's like such a, like, niche abstract idea to be talking about when people are struggling to put food on the table or heat in the homes. But the truth is, like, you only have to get two questions into talking about any issue, and the problem is almost always political representation. Who are the people who are elected?
Speaker 1:And if we don't like the decisions they're making, how do we kick them out or change them to someone who will actually serve the people rather than vested interest? First Pass for Post has really created this ingrained mentality where so many seats, although this is changing admittedly. Sure. But I'd say in previous elections, so many seats were just fixed and so called safe seats, which meant that the politician there has to do almost no campaigning. They don't have to talk to any resident or any constituent or worry about campaigning.
Speaker 1:They can just go help their mates in other seats.
Speaker 3:And for people at home, First Past the Post, the current British parliamentary system separates The UK into loads of different constituencies, and whoever wins the majority of those constituencies gains power. And what you're advocating for in proportion representation is, let's say someone gains 1% of the vote in every single constituency, they would have no seats currently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But under proportion representation, they'd be proportionally represented with 1% of the And so I'm guessing, as a Green Party and someone who in the past advocated a for eco populism and still does, but maybe it's less a talking point, what you're looking for there is to add more of a plurality of voices into parliamentary discussion by having that proportion representation.
Speaker 1:Clip that up. That was so good. Yeah. And I'd say to to and I'll come back to a previous question and then answer that directly. The Liberal Democrats, when I joined them, were the only party at that time that I felt were talking about proportional representation, which has always been the thing that I've gone.
Speaker 1:We really need to get proportional representation. I've spoken to Natalie Bennett about this a lot since. So she was the leader at the time. And she said the Green Party used to get, like, ten seconds of airtime, seriously. Like, am I gonna talk about the climate crisis and inequality, like, issues that people care about, or am I gonna try and explain what proportional representation is, get them to care about it?
Speaker 1:And by that time, the interview has already interrupted me. I think we're in a different place now where people are calling for proportional representation anyway. And often, you don't need to explain it, although you explained it beautifully just then. And so in 2017, roundabout just after the Brexit referendum, actually, There's lots of cross party working, and I just started to meet lots of Greens, including Sean Barry, who then became a future leader and is an MP now. And she's amazing on proportional representation and amazing on inequality and amazing on lots of issues.
Speaker 1:And I just went, you know, that's gonna be much more my home there. Now this would be easy to be embarrassed about all of this story. But actually, I think it's one of my biggest strengths because I want everyone to go on that journey, not everyone from the Liberal Democrats, but from other parties or even more importantly, no party at all and go for whatever reason, I'm not in the Green Party yet. I haven't they haven't made that connection. And you go, well, okay.
Speaker 1:I've been on that journey. I want other people to go on that journey to go, you know what? I don't have to agree with everything this guy's saying or everything the Green Party's saying. But if there are some core things where I go, actually, that's worth getting involved with, and that makes someone on a Saturday or Sunday go to a local party meeting, get organizing, including if they disagree with something I say. You know, as long as it's not a fundamental red line, I'll talk about that in a second.
Speaker 1:But in the middle of things, if there's something I say that they disagree with, go to your local party meeting, get involved with organizing, and our party policy is fully democratic. Let's change it. In terms of red lines, we're not gonna tolerate racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, etcetera. And I know sometimes people say, does a leftist party need to be more, like, socially conservative or more accepting? And I just don't accept that because I think you can easily tie a line between social conservatism and capitalism and exploitation and extraction.
Speaker 1:And, yes, I think there's smart ways of communicating this where you're not preaching at people or lecturing and the hectoring tone from the left absolutely needs to go that that sometimes exists. But I do think there's a way, and this is eco populism, of what is the things that connect us, particularly economically, while still showing solidarity to minority and marginalized groups. And that's because I have a fundamental belief. I paused because I was like, is it fundamental? Yes.
Speaker 1:It's fundamental. Okay. That you may get a small group of people, I mean, a very small group of people who are racist or transphobic, and I'm never gonna be able to speak to those people or I should not never. That's why it's not fundamental. But right now, I'm not gonna be able to speak to those people without a huge amount of effort that I don't think is is gonna pay off.
Speaker 1:But I think for a lot of people who express those views or beliefs, it actually comes down to a much more kind of dissatisfaction or stronger than that, an anger with the political system and an anger within the quality where charlatans like Farage have been able to point at minority groups, not just Farage. We know we get this from the Labour government now too, and say they're the problem. And I really strongly believe if you can point to what the real problem is and change it, I'm not saying racism or problematic behavior will go away, but I do think it opens space for conversations to happen in more nuanced and complex ways where people aren't worried that they're fighting for their life.
Speaker 3:No. I agree. And you've you've touched on a lot there. One thing I wanna bring up from a bit earlier in what you're saying is this idea of natural progression for you being a Lib Dem and it being a natural development for you to end up being Green Party leader. And one thing me and Sean have spoken a lot about on the podcast naturally with the state of UK politics is hypocrisy.
Speaker 3:See people like Shibana Mahmoud, David Lamy, Keir Starman going in total sort of contradiction to what they said previous years ago without a natural development. Yeah. And I think, is it a media problem, a political communication problem that politicians don't feel able to concede anything in terms of I no longer agree with what I said four years ago and have that natural progression or evolution.
Speaker 1:I wanna say undoubtedly, but you also know that politicians would abuse that if we if we said too much. Oh, you're allowed to say whatever you want anytime. You can always change your mind. So again, we're into complexity and nuance, I think. And partly, I guess, question is, do you always do you trust the messenger when they're explaining why they've changed their mind and show your workings out?
Speaker 1:I guess that's the answer to this question. If someone can show their workings out and say, this is why I believed what I said before. This is for piece of information or data or research or the conversations I had, and this is why I'm in this position now. I think that allows you to gain trust. What I don't trust is I mean, Farage and the antisemitism stuff, think, is a very obvious example of this.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. He says it doesn't matter what he said when he was I can't remember when it was, like, 12, 13 years old in school. And surprisingly, maybe, I sort of agree. Mhmm. Like, some of the stuff, like the hissing at the the gassing of the Jews, like, obviously, I'd say this is a Jewish person, I'd imagine non Jewish people.
Speaker 1:And I know non Jewish people would say horrendous. However, if as an older man now than than when he was back then, says, I condemn those comments entirely and this is what I stand for now, I think there's a path to redemption there, which is okay. The problem is, one, the denying of the comments. But two, I think the much bigger problem is the things he's saying now. I'm much more concerned about those when you're the leader of reform or the leader of political party.
Speaker 1:So I think it's always recognizing people can make mistakes, and that's totally fine. In fact, I think you should be encouraged. If you're not making a mistake, That's why we get the kind of robotic or automaton politicians we get that don't say anything, avoid saying anything that might be a new thing to say or wasn't in rehearsed lines.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I wanted to draw out something around this slight idea of, like, political trust for politicians and in your experience as well. Because obviously, I think think to many people, you come across as very genuine. The fact that, like, you just gave us your number to kind of organize this, we're like, damn, didn't realize how
Speaker 1:should that. For everyone though before you started. But
Speaker 2:you've obviously sparred as well with the likes of Farage, CEO Yousef, Leila Cunningham recently as well. And, you know, it seems to us on our side, we can't really even understand how we can't even agree on basic facts of truth. Right. And actually that no. These charlatans are actually spreading a lot of disinformation.
Speaker 2:So then if that is true, then what really is their goal? Like, do they really believe in the principles that they espouse?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Are they sincere in what they're saying or are they just duplicitous from from the court?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, I I think it really is duplicitous. And I don't think that's a different question to are they just villains or evil? Yeah. I don't necessarily know that's true.
Speaker 1:But what I do know is true is that or I believe to be true from lots of evidence I've spent around these people for years is that they're very happy with how the system is. Very often, it's benefiting them, and it's in their absolute interest to maintain that system. It's also in their interest, I think this is even more kind of insidious is to kind of push away the idea of anyone having any imagination or the idea that anything can be better. And you really see this from the center, particularly from centrist media. They go, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree entirely with with the problems that you're identifying, but oh, it could never be any different. And I'm like, well, they're not problems for you. They're not because you're saying, oh, these things are are just how the world is and it can't be that other way. And it's this idea of, you know, no one said life's fair. And I'm like, well, lots of people have said life should be fair.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And if we're in positions of political power or political leadership or as as podcasters, like, what what is the point of this whole exercise if we don't believe we can change things and change things for the better? So I do think there's a huge kind of issue around people with wealth or and or power holding that in space. The people who confuse me a little bit more, and I think confuse is the right word, are people who don't have power and wealth and still represent those parties or those views. And I suppose you could assume that it's because they've been promised something or there's an implicit promise that they will be rewarded in the future or they will be allowed to to go, I guess, to the master's house.
Speaker 1:Like, it's it's as pretty villainous as that, I think. Oh, villainous is the wrong word. Pretty that's how society has shaped the power structures that people are, like, desperate for that power or that access. And I think the only way we can counter that is through people power, through community organizing, and making sure that just like wealth, power is redistributed and people have their own stake in in what things look like, and they're also able to hold the powerful to account.
Speaker 3:I agree. And even maybe this is a good time for us to plug our recent essay, recent essay on substat from North Star politics, the soundtrack to collapse, where we highlight some of these stewards of the status quo such as Rory Campbell, such as Alastair Campbell. Sorry. Sorry. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell who are these sometimes.
Speaker 3:Who are these sort of dulcet tones that will sort of accompany people's demise rather than inciting any sort of radical action to try and change it. I would then wanna ask you
Speaker 1:And can I just add that I think Gary Stevenson speaks on this really well, that he's obviously been phenomenal in kind of presenting the problem and coming up with a vision of a solution? Does that solution have every t crossed and every I dotted? No. Absolutely not. But the point he keeps making is that, you know, the government have an entire civil service and the act you know, access to academics all over who could get together with the vision and go, okay, let's make sure you know, there will be loopholes that that the wealthy can evade.
Speaker 1:So let's close those loopholes. Let's do all of that work. And
Speaker 2:speaking of very important question, can you actually tell us how much the government paid in debt interest
Speaker 1:in 2001? A £100,000,000,000. But yeah, you can just go to like a spreadsheet or to Google. I really wish I'd just replied Google it but
Speaker 3:No. It was a
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. See that I No. I'm back
Speaker 2:to you.
Speaker 1:One of
Speaker 2:our most viral videos is Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was backing you on that because I thought it was really insidious the way that Rory Stewart was sort of framing politics as this sort of rote learning. It's quite British in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Need to have this rote learning approach to educational understanding rather than intellectual discourse and problem solving aspect. One thing
Speaker 1:And I'm sorry. And two things can be true. I should have known that number. Like, it's a ridiculous game that's done for a very particular reason to try and discredit people. And there's a politician on the left.
Speaker 1:I'm always looking to improve in skill and to memorize things. I'm also under no doubt that I'll know that number. I'll know some other numbers. And centrist or politicians on the right or commentators at this point
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Will still try and find a fact because you can't know everything all the time. And so they'll still try and fact a fact to catch you out on. So I think the point you're making is the more important point, which actually this is about building a narrative and then building policies and then working alongside experts and academics and people with lived experience to go actually then what does the detail look like that we co design. I don't think it's the leader's job, especially, like, four years before a general election to go, here's every single number, here's every single policy, and here's every single detail. In the Green Party, by way, our members decide all of that anyway, so it's not up for the leaders to decide that.
Speaker 1:So I think both things can be true. One, I I can always improve on that. Hold my hands up to that. But two, also, it's it's just a silly game, and he knew exactly
Speaker 3:what he's doing. No. I agree. One thing we wanted to ask you, and this is more to illuminate us and people at home that maybe naturally become quite cynical with British political leaders, is we see this trend of people being quite ideological as they rise up the political ranks. And then as soon as they get any sort of taste of power, they sort of fade into wanton cynicism and sort of realpolitik.
Speaker 3:We see this with the current top brass of the Labour Party and previous Conservative Party as well. What is your diagnosis for why that happens? Because I think it could be quite easy sometimes to say, oh, they were just charlatans. Right. But I think there needs to be a serious discussion about what are the mechanisms within British political society that allows that to keep happening over and over again and pushes people who maybe were sincere five to seven years ago Yeah.
Speaker 3:To end up becoming these sort of villainous characters we see today. Yeah. You yourself are gonna encounter some of these structures, and we want you to be able to avoid
Speaker 1:them. For sure. So I think there's three points I wanna make, and the first is kind of in reverse order. The reason why I think I will be able to take them on and have been taking them on is I'd say to people, look at my record. It's not like I've just arrived at politics.
Speaker 1:I've been in the London Assembly for five years. And in that time, there have certainly been conversations that if I was looking just to have the easy road, I would not have had those conversations. And I'll continue to do that as leader. Does that mean fighting every fight all the time? Does that not mean sometimes you'll disappoint people?
Speaker 1:I think sometimes you will disappoint people. I think that's the nature of being a leader that you have to prioritize, and your priorities will be different to other people's priorities. Again, though, I'd like to think if you are showing your workings out, you're always explaining transparently and allowing yourself to be held accountable, you won't always have everyone happy all the time, but everyone will know that you're doing things for the right reasons and with intentions and not because you take invested interests. I think there's a second part. So I wanna talk about people who aren't charlatans, but first of all, let's talk about Kirst Armer.
Speaker 1:A man who We're in his area right now. Right. Yeah. It's true. A man who, like, was an international lawyer, incredibly well respected, including around the world, who now, you know, both with Venezuela but also Gaza, you can only come to the conclusion that he either just didn't believe what he was doing when he was pushing as an international lawyer or he doesn't believe what he's doing now.
Speaker 1:But either way, there's no answer there other than charlatanism. Like, there is a lie going on somewhere, and there has been no working out. I think the much more complicated conversation is I think of a few Labour MPs who I have a lot of time for and respect both politically and, to be frank, personally, as as friends is probably pushing it too far, friend friendly Yeah. And I think it's a few things. I think the biggest thing is just absolute fear, like, terrified about the media, terrified that every time they have to get a microphone in front of their mouth, that the the journalist will keep just, like, hammering them on something.
Speaker 1:I suppose this might be naive. It might be overconfident, but I just like to think it's balanced on myself. I'm confident in my own abilities that with a controversial or contentious position that I believe, I'll only believe it because I've got some data or research or I've had a conversation to believe it. Then when I get into a microphone, no matter how hostile the journalist is, I'll be happy to defend the position. And I think that's just really important that I mean, it's the biggest cliche in politics, isn't it?
Speaker 1:But if you're not willing to fool, what will you ever stand for? Like and I just think it's really, really important that sometimes you're happy to have more difficult conversations. Now I think that can be misinterpreted sometimes by people on the left, which any difficult conversation we have to run at as fast as possible even if we don't have power to influence it, change it, or sometimes I think it's fine to take an incremental position, which is pushing the conversation in the right direction, which isn't as far as maybe people would want it to go or even if I would want it to go. But I do think there's a pragmatism in not you should never say something contrary to your position. You should never lie.
Speaker 1:But I also think it's legitimate to say, the bit I wanna talk about is this. There's a wider issue, but let's talk about this bit because you want to win public support as part part of being a politician.
Speaker 3:Don't let perfect be the enemy of good something. Exactly.
Speaker 2:What are doing? Why'd you stop the interview?
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Speaker 2:Because this is a project that's never been done before. We definitely wanna talk about, like like, the kind of international focus, but the one big sort of elephant in the room that we haven't spoke about is the big r word, the scary reform that's on the rise as well. And the green the greens are obviously, you know, posed as the sort of antidote to to what we're seeing. One of your biggest challenges coming up, particularly even, like, you know, the local elections coming up as well, is your ability to actually cut through to the other side. Because I think you're great for people who already agree with you.
Speaker 2:But the question that I want to kind of ask is to what extent do you think you're really able to kind of cut through to those people who tend to have the natural tendencies to support reform? Because, I mean, you you have tried to, you know, pose the the language and the lights of the the the small boats crisis, etcetera, in a very different way. But I wonder if, you know, from your experience, do you really see you're you're kind of cutting through? Is it actually really working? Or are we kind of just still preaching to the choir?
Speaker 1:I think it's really working. So I'm gonna push back on that. Yeah. Even just this morning, came off the station at King's Cross and the guy went he actually called me Jack. But he said, you're Jack, the cream pie guy.
Speaker 1:Right? And I said, it's Zach. But yeah. And and then we got chatting. He was really, really friendly.
Speaker 1:So I actually presumed he was a supporter. And he was like, oh, no. No. I support reform. He said, but I really like that you're sticking it to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1:Was like, why is it that you're supporting reform? And he's like, it's for small boats, isn't I said, okay, let's put the small boats aside. He said, I agree with you on almost everything else. But he said the small boats were he he said the small boats were important to me. And I went, the most important thing?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And he said, yes. Which admittedly is a more difficult conversation. To the lots of people I speak to when I go, is the small boats the most important thing? They go, no.
Speaker 1:Reason why I'm bothered about the small boats is because look at my high street. Like, it's Yeah. Of course. Someone said this to me the other day. It's a shithole though.
Speaker 1:Like, it's it's not been invested in. Everything's closed down. Like, how can we be giving money and resources to other people? We know that's not the story, but that's the story they're saying. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Give money and resources to other people when when my neighborhood is like this. And that makes sense. Right? Like, if you don't have if you don't have a Zoom out and there's a privilege to having a Zoom out, I can totally see why you're unhappy in your life, you're unhappy with what's going on in your community, and you're told what the problem is, then that's very easy to jump on board with. Now the positive side to this is there's lots and lots of research, and I've seen this over and over again, that the biggest thing that a reform curious voter can't stand is the idea that reform have taken dodgy donations or donations from oil and gas, private health care, gambling companies.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. Sure.
Speaker 1:And this is pretty much 95 of the percent of their donations between 2019 to 2024 were from these organizations. And every time I'm on TV or radio with a reform representative and I bring this up, they try and shut it down as quickly as possible. I don't know if you saw, but I challenged Nigel Farage to a debate Yeah. A few days ago. I've got radio silence.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Of course. And I'm pretty sure that's because he knows in that debate. I'm sure he'll get some, if it goes on, some punches on me. But I will be absolutely determined to make sure that the whole country hears who's funding him, why he says the things he does, and who's paying him, literally paying him to save the things that he does as long as, you know, as well as Nathan Gill and the whole Russia connection.
Speaker 1:But, you know, much more on a domestic scale as well. The fact that most often when he's saying things, I don't think he believes them. They're they're pleasing his donors and and pushing their agenda, particularly around oil and gas. And so I think that's one thing to expose. And I think the second thing is now reform have had a little bit of a taste in power.
Speaker 1:I I saw a story that this morning that said every single reform council.
Speaker 2:Well, that one that ran by that 19 year old or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that one too as well. Although, I always wanna be careful with that because I don't I think a 19 year old can run a council. I don't think age should be the, like I've seen some older people be pretty awful running I've seen them be amazing too, but I just always feel like there's, like, an ageism that I always want to challenge.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 1:Sure. That's not defending that particular young person that seems to have done a pretty appalling job and some appalling views. But I'm always like, oh, we gotta watch the age thing on that. But no. It's about the fact they said they weren't gonna raise council tax.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And every single reform council is now raising council tax. Now I'd have a little bit of sympathy. I think there's a wider conversation there around austerity and the fact that councils are struggling for so much money. That's not the conversation they were having.
Speaker 1:We know they've supported austerity. But for them to say, we're different to all the others. We're not gonna raise your council tax. And every single reform that had council, they've raised council tax. I think it shows that these people who say they're very different are not different at all.
Speaker 2:But but do you not think there's a slight perhaps blind spot on the left where we're still failing at re articulating why we think national pride is important because I think one of the the well, not necessarily good or bad, but the things that they're good at reform is the fact that they own the language over national pride and national identity. And I feel like it kind of puts us a bit on the back foot to say, actually, it's hard for us to actually have something that's coherent, that articulates it in a way that actually feels British, if that makes sense, as opposed to kind of thinking or as opposed to basically, you know, saying that what the left's argument is is just focusing on, like, the disadvantages that aren't British people. So how do we kind of regain that conversation and win it back?
Speaker 1:I think you're right. I think we have been slow on it and on the back foot
Speaker 2:on it.
Speaker 1:I think there's legitimate reasons around colonialism and empire and what the the English flag can represent for people. I was out and about yesterday in an area I mean, there's lots of areas where England England flags were waving. And I was saying to my friend, the World Cup's coming this summer. Yeah. It's gonna be really confusing.
Speaker 1:I've definitely, like, in the past, had the Saint George's Cross painted on my face when, like, I'm at a football game or even going to the pub to watch a football game. And I'm like, are we suddenly gonna see loads of flags out and about? And then when the summer's over, do they all come down? Like, that
Speaker 3:where we
Speaker 1:all go? Or do just your football come down or does your patriotism come? And, like, although this is, like, a small issue order in, like, the grand scheme of things, I think it speaks to the incoherency around what do flags mean as a symbol. And that's because symbols are powerful because they mean different things to different people. And I think undoubtedly there are people that for that England flag, there's no racism involved in it whatsoever.
Speaker 1:They're just really proud of their country. There's maybe a sense of like, don't tell me that I'm not allowed to be proud of my country. That makes me wanna wave it even more. But we also know, in fact, to have these people in my own family who feel uncomfortable or nervous around the flag because of what it represents that they know it's being done to in in intimidate them. So I realized that so my my partner's British Indian.
Speaker 1:So the Indians of his family talk to me talk to me a lot about what what those flags can sometimes feel like for them in areas and and how those can make them uncomfortable. So to come to your question more directly, I do think we need to find a story about what patriotism is and what national pride is. The part of the story I've been telling, but I think if I'm honest, it points to your last question. It speaks to people, I wouldn't say who already agree with us, but are more more curious about it. Which is to say there's actually nothing more patriotic than being in your community, organizing, cleaning up your local green spaces, defending your library, that kind of hyper local politics that cares about community, that says, you know, water companies should be nationalized and in our hands are not, like, sold off to to foreign investors who can then pump sewage into our water, pay us extra for the privilege, and take more for their shareholders in dividends.
Speaker 1:Like, there's nothing patriotic about that. I think there's a piece still missing though, which is speaking to people who are on the right or right curious about about all of those issues around nationalization and around inequality. But I don't think it's as hard as people sometimes think it is. Mhmm. I think people sometimes think this is this impossible task.
Speaker 1:You're never gonna do it. But actually, even don't know you remember, I did a video last year where I was on beaches. It was in Eastbourne. People often think it's Dover talking about immigration with small boats and problem being inequality. Lots and lots of people, it's anecdotal, but lots and lots of people messaging me who said they hadn't thought about the Green Party before and they would consider themselves center or even center right.
Speaker 1:It really made them think differently about things. And I think this is never gonna we're never gonna get changed from to come back to the to the stats and data thing, from repeating stats or data or numbers. People are just like, well, that's not my experience or my friend's experience. Powerful storytelling though that's grounded in truth is actually emotional and hits people in the heart and feels real to their experience, I think is how you shift things over time. And we're straight back to Theatre of the Oppressed because I you know, that's that's why my my journey is is very clear because I think getting people involved so they have a protagonist in their story and they're able to tell their own story by voting in the ballot box for the party that they feel like they've been involved in co creating, I think is a powerful way to turn the country around.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm I'm not too sure because I'm a bit concerned about and I'll draw it back to when you referenced Gary Stevenson earlier and then also when you said talking about the reform vote of the amount of the Kings Cross. I think sometimes we're hitting a stumbling block around mechanisms because we agree with you that it's very important to push political imagination. And if we contrast the the sort of the parallels of maybe a redistributive wealth tax or addressing inequality versus addressing the small boats, it seems that, say, that reform vote you met today maybe feels yeah. These seem like two avenues towards solving the similar problem of me being enfranchised in my local community and having more wealth pumped into my local community. But on the one hand, with these sort of small boats, this seems to be a quite clear, easily visualizable mechanism to achieve that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And on
Speaker 3:the other hand, maybe they're hearing people like yourself and Gary Stevenson saying, well, when we get in power, the civil service will work it out. And for for somebody maybe a bit more politically discerning, they're thinking, I think let's just go with this first, which seems like more of a clear causal chain to get to my solution.
Speaker 1:I think you you make a really good point in terms of I often think about politicians on the right or even in the the labor government right now when I'm debating them, and I just think, how much easier is their job? Like, they often accuse me of the Green Party of simple answers. I'm like, actually, what we're always trying to do is take very complex systems and in a holistic way. Because also in this conversation too, we've not talked about the role of the media. You're almost not gonna be able to do some of the things that I'm talking about right now as effectively as we need to until you have a media that's held accountable, that can't just report lies, and that actually is regulated in a way that means, you know, it's not the Wild West out there.
Speaker 1:GB News being a propaganda machine twenty four seven for the right. So there's also that huge inequality. And so the truth really is is it's very complicated because you need system change of all sorts of areas. And it's always the job of the politician to go actually, okay, what's the biggest change I can make right now that I'm gonna focus on? If you try and focus on everything, you lose out.
Speaker 1:So when I'm debating people from from an opposite angle, I often think they've got the easiest story to tell. And it surprises me how badly they sometimes do. It's just communicating a very, very simple thing when they're held under challenge. They they kind of fall apart with it. Whereas my observation is people on the left have to be so much more agile in being able to hold up the conversation to have the data and stats and the bar to, like, be incredible is so much higher.
Speaker 1:I do think that's a good thing, by the way. I'm not complaining about it because I think it just makes us all raise our game and just be that little bit better. But it's an observation that we're forced to do that all the time, and there's almost no space to make any kind of mistake. Whereas for those who are putting forward what I would say are simplistic ideas that aren't gonna change things, like stopping with small boats, We get straight back to it. I talked a lot in Calais about how there was a report that people in Calais aren't allowed to leave.
Speaker 1:They're stopped at the train station. They wanna get to Lille, is the nearest processing center. Police are stopping there, particularly if they're someone of color. They're taking their phone, their bag. Their bag often contains their their passport if they've managed to get a passport or get their passport from their their home country or their phone, which often has the application process on it to get the to get the asylum that that you're seeking.
Speaker 1:You don't just go to Lille once. You have to go three times, and it's about $50.60 euros on the train. So pretty much an impossible task for most people to be able to claim asylum in France. So then we talk about the small boats and almost well, very, very difficult to get over on a small boat and then be able to to claim asylum, which is why people are led to desperation.
Speaker 3:I think, structurally, one of the things we also say is a way to articulate the problem to people on maybe the reform leaning side that, yes, we do think we do we don't think that people should be arriving at our borders on small boats. Think it's a horrific thing for someone to have to do. But the fact that this is the process they need to go through says more about the gutting of our public infrastructure. That Britain, one of the biggest economies in the world, doesn't have the systems in place or the wealth within the public sector in place to process people.
Speaker 1:I'm taking that answer to a bank now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. We wanted to go into international relations.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, obviously, the world seems like it's a on fire. We're we're shifting to a multipolar world. And just to kind of bring in this topic, I'm just gonna read you a quote from mister Trump. And he recently said
Speaker 1:This isn't like fanboying, is it? I'm I'm not on this podcast thing at the very time.
Speaker 2:It depend it all depends what you think. He said, my own morality, my own mind is the only thing that can stop me.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:How are you as a potential leader of Britain on the international stage, going to rise up against well, not even rise up, but stand up against Trump?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think the first thing, and it might not be the place you expect me to start, is we do need a diplomatic relationship with Donald Trump. Cool. And then when I opposed this the second state visit, lots of people in the media were like, he's not being serious like a leader of a party or a future you know, a prime minister right now can't not meet with democratically elected leaders. And I agree with them.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean you have to bow down to them or you don't have to be subservient to them, and you certainly don't have to roll up a red carpet, spend so much on security because you're stroking their ego. And I think it's very obvious what happens with a bully when you stroke their ego and you give them what they want. They ask for more and more and more, and that's exactly what what we're seeing right now. Donald Trump's incredibly problematic, but also he's a symptom of the wider problem, a wider problem around imperialism, a wider problem around Britain for far too long, still clinging on to the idea that we're some kind of super global power Mhmm. That needs to be involved in everything instead of and this is we're talking about how to appeal to the right partly.
Speaker 1:I'm not just looking to do that. But we do need to worry about our own national security. We're a country that that is under threat, but a lot of the threats we're facing are cybersecurity. And there was a report from the government last month that said the biggest or two months ago, the biggest threat facing The UK right now in terms of national security is the climate crisis, is wildfires and floods and the civil unrest that can be caused in the future by increasing impacts of of the climate crisis. So that's not saying we don't need to take Donald Trump seriously.
Speaker 1:We absolutely need to. But even if the frame for a start is about what does this country need to do right now to defend its borders or national security, it's actually to invest in climate resilience, to invest in cybersecurity, and not to keep pumping money into Trident, for instance, a nuclear weapon that hasn't had a successful test operation in the last decade. So not only are we funding something, it doesn't even work. So the idea that it's a deterrent, we have a deterrent that doesn't work, but no one seems to talk about the detail and nuance of this.
Speaker 3:I I agree, and I think it is really problematic that we can't have a functioning functioning nuclear deterrent without US support. But what I'd say is, especially with the developments in Venezuela recently with the Trump administration abducting Nicolas Maduro, and then we see that in relation to also Russia invading Ukraine. Ukraine And previously before the fall of the USSR having the fifth largest nuclear arsenal. Does it make logical sense for you to be pushing for a more independent Britain decoupled from The United States while at the same time wanting to reduce our nuclear arsenal?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it does. And I think you need to tell the story in a logical and coherent way. I think Europe is also a part of that. And again, there's some complex nuance here.
Speaker 1:I want to see us have closer relationships with our European neighbors. Think I Brexit was one of the most catastrophic decisions this country has ever made, both economically, socially, culturally. And the and is important. European Union right now, particularly right now, is deeply problematic. Like, it's full of leaders who are on the right or even on the center who have been complicit or active participants in the genocide in Gaza, who we should absolutely stand in solidarity with Ukrainians, and they absolutely do.
Speaker 1:And it's fair to say also have problematic relationships around Ukraine and kind of their own vested interests in in furthering the war. And then I think Iran's also an example of this right now. People should absolutely show solidarity, must show solidarity to the women in particular through the Women Life Freedom Movement, to the protesters and the digital boycott. But also, let's not pretend that some of the people who are supporting those Iranian protesters right now, particularly if they're supporting them on feminist lines, give a shit about women in Gaza. And so I think there needs to be a moral coherency and congruency to what you're saying.
Speaker 1:And a person anywhere should be a human being anywhere. And so we're missing that. To answer your question more directly then, so I think the question is, how do you work with your European neighbors to have mutual security where you're working together? What does procurement look like across borders around military and defense? Wouldn't be in favor of the European army, but what does it look like if you're saying let's work with Europe to make sure that we've got mutual security?
Speaker 1:Now we're into the place where you could go, what's your next detail on this and what's your next policy on that? And I think it's a fair enough answer to go, that needs to be worked out, but we all need to be work I say we. People in power need to be working this out right now so there is a credible and viable alternative. But my biggest observation of all of this is I'm not new to this conversation. In the last you know, a year ago, I said that NATO was heading for tricky times.
Speaker 1:If Donald Trump is threatening to to invade Greenland, then article five was triggered. Like, what do you do if two NATO countries are at war? And that's pretty much, you know, the media for days and days and days run headlines saying this is a ridiculous conversation, blah blah. And now a few of them are saying, we need to have that conversation like like that's happening. So I don't think it's always our role to, like, provide every single answer.
Speaker 1:I think it's often our role to say, what are the what are the questions we need to be asking right now? And then, yes, we do need to find answers. But very often, we're not even asking the right questions because the question is banned or not even been allowed to ask, you know, with so called sensibles going, you can't answer that question because it's always been this way. You're using too much imagination. But I think the single most obvious thing right now is the status quo is not well, I mean, it's very obviously not working.
Speaker 1:Donald Trump just went into Venezuela and kidnapped.
Speaker 3:But you know, would have been possible if Venezuela had access to nuclear arms.
Speaker 1:I think it would have been more unlikely. But then I don't think I don't think we can always trust, and this is a pretty grim thing to say, that Donald Trump will always be deterred by someone not having a nuclear weapon. And actually, we just escalate and escalate and escalate, and then we are literally talking, you know, about an existential crisis. That's what happens with with nuclear I
Speaker 3:just wanna hold you on that a little bit because I'm not sure about the I'm not sure if it's coherent to look for a sovereign autonomous British state on the on the global realm that's able to enact policies they see fit and decouple from their reliance on US tech infrastructure, let's say, while at the same time not having the military capability to defend themselves from arbitrary interference.
Speaker 2:And I and I think just to piggyback on that as well, I think there's there's something there's another gap that we see kind of kind of from that left wing figures is this idea of, like, political sovereignty as well. Right? Right. Because actually, what reform, etcetera, are doing quite well is navigating that conversation around reclaiming sovereignty. But we seem to kind of hide away from it as if it's a bad thing, whereas it seems like it's becoming increasingly necessary in the kind of multipolar world that's emerging.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I feel like we're having two conversations, though, because we absolutely need military capability. That's absolutely true. The question is, like, what form does that military capability look like and what are the actual credible threats? I think there's another part to this too where, you know, Donald Trump wants NATO spending to be 5%.
Speaker 1:Let's be really clear why he wants that. That's because The US militarization, he benefits from the entire world developing weapons and and having more wars because then that's more money for the military. The military is obviously inherently connected to oil and gas. We've known that for a long time, but we've seen that particularly in Venezuela where helpful thing about Donald Trump in this instance is there's no mask. He's being very clear about why exactly he's doing that.
Speaker 1:So, yes, it's gonna be a huge job to decouple from US militarization and to not have such a reliance on US tech To see Palantir being given a platform now on the BBC, like their spokesperson, just to be able to broadcast to the media and to the whole country is another step in that in that being deeply problematic. So I don't think any of this is easy, but I think you have to start by going, yes, we do need to decouple. We do need to look at the so called special relationship because there's nothing special about it at all. We're just being subservient to whatever the needs and wants of America are. It's important to say that that's not just Donald Trump.
Speaker 1:This has been problematic for for decades under American presidents. I just think Donald Trump, it's never been more obvious and explicit that the system we have isn't working, this was the natural conclusion or whatever comes next could be even more of a natural conclusion, which is pretty scary if we don't turn things around. Much more hopeful answer here, though, is none of this has to be this way. We can have conversations about what an alternative looks like. I think people from the military do need to be involved in those conversations.
Speaker 1:So it's not that I'm just saying, you know, I'm not a pacifist. I think there are times when you need to be able to defend yourself. But it's not about just filling the conversation with pacifists or even people like me who are less inclined, I would say, to go to war. I think you do need people who have been to war there. I think Clive Lewis is a good example, the the Labour MP.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've heard him say a few times that when you've been to war and you fought for your country, you're a little less inclined to vote for the country to go to war because you've seen through your eyes the horrors of war. And I just always think that that kind of story is very often missing from from the national conversation too.
Speaker 3:I think as we look to wrap up as well, we wanna talk about political imagination and communication. We've been incredibly impressed since you were elected Green Party leader with your ability to grow the membership, but also change the style of interaction. One thing we said when we started North Star politics is that we want to open up for people something that is inherently interesting. A lot of times in sort of Westminster based political media, they're trying to liven up the parts of politics that aren't interesting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Whereas what you've done very well, both of you actually are entertaining stuff on Twitter as well as bold politics, is that you draw out the inherent interesting sides of politics. For people that still feel very apathetic about politics as an avenue to improve their life, what would you say to them? What would you say to the Green Party's goals over the next four years towards the next general election that what would they what are the Green Party looking to do in those next four years, and then if they were to be successful in the next general election?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wanna answer what I want other people to do, and then I'll answer what I want do, what I want other people to do. I think stuff like a World Transformed is absolutely phenomenal, which is, for those who don't know, it is like a political kind of conference that started around Jeremy Corbyn's. In fact, it was during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, has now detached from the Labour Party. So in Manchester this year, it's just its own separate thing, but it's both politics.
Speaker 1:It also has musicians, bands, theater, arts. So it's like a kind of festival almost where people are encouraged to go engage and it'll actually be interesting and fun and enjoyable and communal. But also, the politics is very much there. I should also say there was a pub quiz which I hosted, which I apparently, Ed Milivan did it a few years ago, Zara Sultana last year, and then and I did it this year. So, yeah, there's all that kind of stuff going on, which I think is really, really important to engage people who wouldn't necessarily go to a political event or a political conference.
Speaker 1:In terms of what do I want the Green Party to do in the next few years, I think the number one thing, and it's been a theme of stuff I'm talking about in 2026 so far, is the amount of people who come up to me on the street or even when I'm on my bike, sometimes at red lights, someone will run over to me and be like, you really inspire me. I'm making hope norm you're making hope normal again, etcetera, etcetera. And it's really lovely. Obviously, both on two levels. My ego loves it.
Speaker 1:That's also really lovely. It's also really nice to see people I wanna connect and and do. But what I very quickly turn around now to is, first of all, thank the person so I don't seem ungrateful. But second, so what are gonna do about it? Because what we've gotta get out of is this, like, looking to people, whether it's one person or whether it's a small group of people to go, you need to save us or you need to get get us out of this.
Speaker 1:No no one's coming to save us. And I think, again, you might have said this on your podcast, like, Green Party aren't gonna save us. I'm here to say I'm not gonna save you. I I can't save anyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What I can do and what I'm hoping to do and more of in the next four years is to be out on TV and radio and on podcasts and my own mediums to inspire people to have conversations, to go make their own content, to go speak to their own friends, family, strangers, to be inspired to take action. Obviously, the most obvious action that talks about it already is to get along to the local party if they're in the green party and to get organizing and get out there, whether that's leafleting, door knocking, going to have conversations. People sometimes think door knocking is like this quite strange task. And actually, as I said, it is a quite strange task. But actually, the majority of people on doorsteps are really, really happy because you're not turning up to preach at people.
Speaker 1:The number one question you come with is, what's your opinion on this? What do you care about? So actually, when you're knocking knocking on doors, the number one thing you're doing is there to listen Mhmm. And just find out the views of people. And I think people feel really motivated by that because every kind of conversation they're having, they're going really getting to know what people care about and they believe.
Speaker 1:So that's one thing. The second thing I'd say though, it has to be more widely than than party political politics or electoral politics. So I really wanna see people, yes, inspired by the Green Party, but actually going along to a local community meeting or on their estate or in their workplace.
Speaker 3:I I wanna bring it back one degree because I I wanna and I think it's really important for to think about. It's people that don't have a preexisting care about politics. Because for someone to step out of their house and head to a local local green party meeting Yeah. Yeah. That's quite a long way down the road.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Someone who doesn't even think of politics as a as a thing on their day to day. Yeah. What would you say to them to just excite them about that?
Speaker 1:I think it's first of all, think you have to come from if I'm not if I'm not excited yet, you gotta go from propelling away from fear or propelling away from unhappiness. If someone's really happy and they're not politically aware, they kind of don't need to be politically aware. Right? They're really happy. Their life's probably going okay.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about people who maybe are deeply unhappy or just kind of getting through and just think it can never be another way. And I think it's connecting to the inequality that's in their life, whether it's the fact that wages have been stuck in 2008, but, know, food prices are racing ahead, whether it's the fact that they can't afford to rent or the millions of leaseholders who are having to pay service charges and and, you know, are just stuck in that system from a labor party who said they were going to abolish it and now saying they're going to reform it. Yeah. But the people that are to reform it with the management companies and insurance say, like, I think it's getting people to see that the decisions that are being made in their lives that are allowing the unhappiness to happen or the stress to happen to them. Just feels like everyone's running all the time and they just need to be able to to slow down.
Speaker 1:And you can only slow down if the system allows people to slow down and breathe. And so that's a systemic thing. And I think it's getting people to realize it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to be running all the time. The way to slow down though is to engage with politics or at least start to ask
Speaker 2:political questions. The very final question, because I know you're gonna get snatched out the room quite soon, is then from a personal perspective, how do you actually stay hopeful? Right. Because actually, like, to be the engine behind this, like, movement and inspiration of hope and boldness can be quite taxing, though.
Speaker 1:The opposite, actually. It's super easy for me. I'm not saying it has to be like that forever on the podcast. It's very easy. No.
Speaker 1:But the hopeful bit is super easy because people stop me everywhere I go, whether it's on trains, riding my bike, or just, like, out and about telling me about a community project they've done or why they believe we're gonna turn things around. Or they come to me and they're not feeling hopeful and they feel really, really grim about things. And we chat and then by the end of the chat, I see them smiling or going, okay, I hear that and then going away. And so that's kind of a self perpetuating hope that I think goes round and round and round. If people don't feel like that, though, they don't have to feel bad about themselves.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying everyone has to feel hopeful all the time. There's a lot going on in the world, I can understand why people won't feel hopeful. But again, I sound like I've come here with a hard sell. If anyone's not feeling hopeful, I'd say just spend a day, like, going out and knocking on some doors and leaflets and just you realize that human beings are pretty fundamentally good. They're just sometimes in really crap situations where they want the situation to change and they're looking for whatever answer will make that change.
Speaker 1:It's really imperative if you have the ability to that we turn up and we make that change.
Speaker 3:Zac Polanski, there has been an incredible interview. We've touched a lot of bases. We started in the theater oppression. Yeah. And we've ended with you getting approached in real life on the day to day and inspiring you.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for being our first interview in the Stargazing series, and we hope to have you back soon.
Speaker 1:I've loved it. Thank you.
Speaker 2:And make sure you do come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure. I will do. And donate to the podcast, guys. These guys need money.
Speaker 1:Oh, we do. We actually do.
Speaker 3:Thanks very much, Zach. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Oh. How was that?
Speaker 3:It was good, man. That was a honestly, it flew by.
Speaker 2:It did it did fly by. Humble of Griefest. Humble. Humble.
Speaker 3:But you know what it is? That's gonna happen. But at the same time, I think it's more important we wanted to platform Zach to speak to our audience.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 3:Definitely. So we didn't wanna bring him here and just start butting heads with one another and go at it head hammers and tong. But at the same time, we wanna have constructive discussion.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We should have done it like Rory Stewart and just, like, brought him in, asked him the next question.
Speaker 3:Blindsided him, all that all that kind of jazz. We didn't wanna do that at all. Yeah. For sure. I think it's important to think about Zach's role as he grows in in political media.
Speaker 3:I think today what we've seen is someone who has developed his craft as a political communicator to an excellent level, but is also able to think on the on the job, if you know what saying? Definitely. So he was actually responding quite articulately to what we were saying, and he was also responding quite sort of insightfully to what we were saying, trying to build, holding himself back from saying certain things, reflecting, and I thought it was very impressive on the fly.
Speaker 2:I think without a doubt, he definitely comes across as very genuine. He definitely comes across as someone who's quite thoughtful. I think I haven't I don't know if I've really come across a politician before whose entire politics is so centered on intersectionality, where he's so sort of brutally committed to actually just talking about how all of these different issues that people face intersect with one another. I thought that was quite impressive.
Speaker 3:The energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The energy is really good.
Speaker 3:More energy than others and he's been working in No the
Speaker 2:no I do think there is a conversation left to be had around the kind of blind spots that we brought up. So one of them being around so how you kind of reclaim conversations around actual quite important topics such as political sovereignty, patriot patriotic identity, etcetera.
Speaker 3:Even the one about the mechanisms for actually achieving wealth redistribution.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Definitely. But I think overall though, it's good. I think he's also quite honest that, yeah, maybe right now I don't have all the answers
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I'm gonna have a team. I'm gonna have, you know, the the necessary resources to get there. But I mean, to some extent as well, he also has to play the game.
Speaker 3:Right? Yeah. So It's also Even just at the end there, I thought it was interesting when we talked about how to actually animate someone into politics and it seems like and I think this does
Speaker 2:I I caught him
Speaker 3:out of it. It did. Obviously, definitely caught him out, I think it's quite a natural problem with people that are so heavily invested in politics as politicians, is they forget about the people they don't come across. Yeah. The people they do come across that are saying, hey Zach, hey this and that.
Speaker 3:Have some level of political animation. Yeah. The people that just
Speaker 2:mean, size bias.
Speaker 3:Right? Exactly. Yeah. You know that picture of the plane that's got all the bullets on it and all that kind thing. It's that kind of phenomenon.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think there is something to be thought about there for Zach, which is like, what are my headline talking points that are gonna aliven those people that could not give a lam patty about politics? Do you know what mean?
Speaker 2:No. Definitely.
Speaker 3:But At home, first of all, if you haven't got to the point of the video and you're just chatting with the boys and you haven't liked the post, commented, all that kind of stuff, make sure you do that now. We appreciate your support. Head to northstarpolitics.com forward slash support us to drop us a little a couple coins to keep everything going.
Speaker 2:And and I think it's worth actually saying that we we aren't Green Party members or like supporters or anything like that just yet. So he still has to do so a bit of legwork to actually earn our support. But if we ever do come out and as party members, we'll we'll say that.
Speaker 1:But right
Speaker 2:now, we're North Star politics. That's what we are.
Speaker 3:That's the first episode of Stargazing. Stars them at home. Let us know what you thought. Would be an intimate interview series we have with different political figures and maybe even people outside of politics. There's people who got stars in their eyes Yeah.
Speaker 3:Got somewhere they're going and we wanna see where their journey's taken them.
Speaker 2:So let us know who you wanna see.