Polanski is painted as a monster while Farage escapes proper scrutiny

The behaviour of the press in the run up to this week's local and national elections shows the same old playbook in action.

Previously: Trump and the King thing

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Last week, The Times published this cartoon by Peter Brookes featuring Green Party leader Zack Polanski depicted with a hooked nose, a classic antisemitic trope:

The Green Party complained about the image and issued the following statement:

It is astonishing that amongst a rising climate of antisemitism in the UK, a national newspaper has chosen to publish a cartoon of the only Jewish political leader in the country using tropes so clearly associated with anti-semitic depictions of Jewish people.

Zack faces daily antisemitism, and in the past six weeks two people have been arrested for antisemitic actions towards him. The words used by both politicians and the media this week, directing further attacks towards Zack in the wake of a violent attack on his community, are deeply irresponsible.

Last week in Hastings, a Green Party event was disrupted by a group who unfurled a Reform UK flag and a St George’s Cross above Polanski, before one of their number did a series of Nazi salutes towards him. A 62-year-old man was arrested. The story did not receive widespread coverage. The Independent, which did report on the event, went with the headline Man arrested over Nazi salute at Green Party rally in Hastings, which, at best, lacks clarity.

Today’s Times front page includes a story headlined Polanski’s false claims about Red Cross role during deputy run. Inevitably, the story was the subject of Nick Robinson’s first question when he interviewed Polanski on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. The Green Party leader replied:

I hosted various fundraisers for the British Red Cross, and indeed, I would go on stage and speak for them about the amazing work they do tackling humanitarian crises, on the climate crisis, and indeed, for refugees all around the world.

I used the wrong word and I accept that. But I would essentially take words on stage with me and speak. It’s important, though, and I accept this, [the British Red Cross] don’t support any political party, and I’ve made sure [that the claim] has been taken down.

In the same interview, Polanski raised the antisemitic cartoon published by The Times and continued:

… some of these stories feel like scraping the barrel and go back 10, 15 years. I’ve had many friends — I’m literally talking maybe 20 or 30 in the last few weeks — who have phoned me and said, ‘A Times journalist has been phoning, and they’ve been desperately trying to find things out about your past. They’ve asked me lots of questions and seem disappointed that I didn’t have some juicy, dirty gossip.’

It is obvious to anyone remotely paying attention that efforts to discredit Polanski have ramped up ahead of the local elections in England and the national poll in Wales on Thursday (the Scottish Greens are a separate party). The pettiness of the Times’ barrel scraping is exemplified by this section of today’s story:

As a member of the London International Gospel Choir, [Polanski] performed for David Cameron, then the prime minister, as well as Prince Charles and on the live final of reality TV show The X Factor.

One choir source alleged, however, that Polanski acted inappropriately in 2015, changing the words to the gospel song Total Praise at the Liberal Democrat party conference. Polanski is claimed to have altered the word “amen” to “Lib Dem”. He was a Liberal Democrat member at the time.

Polanski was not well-known before he was elected Green Party leader in September 2025. Understandably, his background and pre-politics career have received some scrutiny since. But the embarrassing story of how he once told a woman that he could enlarge her breasts via hypnotherapy — a claim that was egged on by a Sun reporter — has been rolled out repeatedly since then. It’s treated as far more discrediting than Nigel Farage taking a £5 million donation from a foreign-based British crypto billionaire, which he did not declare, or the fact that Farage has consistently failed to explain how his partner was able to afford to buy a home in his Clacton constituency.

The presence of Green Party candidates who have made antisemitic comments and the party’s approach to dealing with the issue is fair game. But look at how Reform’s candidates are treated, and you’ll find that it’s far from proportionate. Matt Goodwin’s campaign manager, Adam Mitula, was suspended by Reform UK in February after a series of racist and antisemitic posts he made came to light. He also engaged in Holocaust denial. He’s back already as an election agent for three Reform candidates in tomorrow’s election.

While a Labour-compiled dossier on Green Party candidates has been extensively covered in the past 24 hours (by the FT, LBC, The Daily Mirror, among many others), an equivalent document on Reform candidates hasn’t made nearly as much noise. The Lead reports:

At least 16 candidates had shared conspiracy theories, 12 had made Islamophobic comments, 10 supported fascist and far-right agitators like Tommy Robinson and Britain First’s Paul Golding, four expressed or endorsed homophobic and sexist views, three were antisemitic, and two posted pro-Russian propaganda.

In the same story, The Lead notes that three Reform UK candidates were expelled from the party over alleged former membership of the British National Party last week. Where are the major headlines about Reform UK’s fascism and antisemitism crisis?

Just today, Byline Times — for whom I am a columnist — reports that Reform UK still won’t explain why Nigel Farage met and posed with a group of far-right activists, including a man who was convicted of assault after storming a Stand Up to Racism meeting being held at a church.

It’s not just the avowedly right-wing press that is going in hard on Polanski and the Greens. On the day after the Nazi salutes were directed at Polanski, The Guardian published a long report headlined Tension and dissent: inside the Green party’s antisemitism struggle. Antisemitism directed at Polanski, including that Times cartoon and similar images of his published by the Telegraph, Sun, and Daily Mail, doesn’t warrant a mention, but another piece of Mail reporting does:

Against that argument is the view of many of those whose support has shifted from Corbyn to Polanski: that the problem of antisemitism in their movements has been deliberately exaggerated by their enemies for political gain.

They may point, for example, to news coverage such as a story in the Daily Mail quoting members of Polanski’s extended family saying he is “the leader of the future Islamic party of Britain” and warning that the Greens are “the most antisemitic party in British history”. Polanski said the people quoted in the piece were “random ‘anon’ relatives”, and that those to whom he was close had refused to talk to the newspaper.

We’re in a climate where the only Jewish leader of a British political party is constantly painted as an antisemite, while Nigel Farage — an alleged schoolboy antisemite and current day chum of the far right — can rock up in Golders Green in the aftermath of last week’s antisemitic attack and present himself as a moral titan.

I don’t believe that Zack Polanski should be above scrutiny. I’m not writing as a fan of him or of any politician, but it is quite clear that he is being analysed and challenged in a way that Farage is not. Scandals for Reform UK are like passing showers, while the Greens are currently being subjected to torrential rain.

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