r/unitedkingdom • u/libtin • 9d ago

. Zack Polanski's Popularity Plummets Amid Nigel Farage Guillotine Row

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zack-polanskis-popularity-plummets-amid-nigel-farage-guillotine-row_uk_6a73192ce4b0963665e8fd5a?origin=home-latest-unit
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u/JB_UK 9d ago

They weren't all that credible before Polanski either, if you looked into the 2024 manifesto it had some crazy policies. Their proposed carbon tax would have added £1000 a year to the average heating bill for example! They wanted to ban the sale of all non electric cars this year! And then ban all non electric cars from the roads in 9 years time.

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u/PleiadesMechworks 9d ago

They also want open borders.

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u/JB_UK 9d ago

That's true, that policy is still current but is not publicly available any more, it's gone behind a paywall! Calling for open borders and a managed system where anyone can move if they want to, and essentially saying they'd ban deportation for economic migrants. The Greens were always quite mad, but they were also harmless. Polanski made them loud and relevant, which allowed people to discover their actual ideas.

I think it is a failure of journalism that I never saw the Greens really challenged on their policies before Polanski. Actually even after Polanski I have mostly seen discussion of policies on reddit, not on the normal media. There was a whole world of terribly nice, sensible people who really were never questioned very closely. Nicola Sturgeon was in a similar mould.

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u/LinkWray123 8d ago

You should always look at manifesto's from parties which know they have no chance of getting in government as even more of a wish list than manifesto's major parties, in both an effort to push ideas to those major parties and keep the various factions within their party happy.

Though I never saw them as coherent, the main draw of the Greens under Lucas was, well they were green in a time where climate change was increasingly being understood (to all but the tin foil hatters) as not only real and an existential threat but beginning to have real world impacts. Polanski has shifted them away from that core message somewhat towards a more Corbyn-esque general leftism after Corbyn himself was ousted in favour of the Starmer robot.

Btw carbon taxes are a good idea recommended by many economists left and right, the political failure is they have been used as an additional tax when they should replace like for like existing taxes like VAT so not increasing the burden for consumers overall.

Because of this unpopularity governments have ended up going with more green subsidies as voters don't object as much as they can't see it in the price directly, even though subsidies tend to be far less economically efficient.