Zack Polanski ‘falsely claimed to have labored on the Ministry of Justice whereas standing for election’
Zack Polanski is facing fresh questions over his honesty after admitting he wrongly claimed to have worked for a government department while running for election.
The Green Party leader wrote on a campaign website in 2020 that he was ‘currently working at the Ministry of Justice on their training & diversity programmes’.
But after it emerged the MoJ had no record of him being an employee he admitted that he had actually been hired as an actor via a temping agency, Kreate, to help a quango appointing judges with role-play scenarios.
It comes days after the Green leader was forced to admit he had falsely claimed to be a spokesman for the Red Cross when running to be Green deputy leader in 2022.
Mr Polanski is facing wider problems as his party failed to make the impact it wanted in last week’s local elections.
That came after he was personally embroiled in a row over a street attack that left two British Jews injured.
His personal popularity tumbled after he suggested that police who arrested a suspect carrying a knife at the scene were heavy-handed in subduing him.
He is also facing questions over whether he should have paid council tax on a house boat he owned.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski speaks with members of the public as he arrives to cast his vote during the Senedd election at St Augustine’s Parish Hall in Penarth, Wales, last Thursday
The Daily Mail has established that Zack Polanski was registered on the electoral roll at a building in a marina in east London where he kept a narrowboat
A spokesman said he used the Olympian ‘occasionally’ and paid council tax as part of his rent on a flat in East London.
But his partner referred to the boat as their ‘amazing home … for three years’ when they put it up for sale for £100,000 online. The advert has since been taken down.
The Daily Mail has established that the Green Party leader was registered on the electoral roll at a building in a marina in east London where he kept a narrowboat.
Mr Polanski had post delivered to the same marina building and regularly, over a number of years, had laundry collected from the canal barge he shared with his partner, Richie Bryan.
Tax expert Dan Neidle said last night that if the boat was their main home they should have been paying council tax on it.
And if it was only used occasionally, as the Greens claimed, he may have been committing a criminal offence in registering to vote somewhere he was not a resident.
Polanski declared two-party politics is ‘dead’ as the Greens won two mayoral contests in London and gained a swathe of council seats in local elections.
Hackney and Lewisham elected Green mayors, marking the first directly elected mayors for the party and ousting Labour in both London boroughs.
The Greens also took control of two councils, Waltham Forest in London and Norwich, and won constituency seats in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
But a lack of a targeted approach, plus the anti-Semitism scandals, saw the Greens miss out in several places with votes for them only aiding other parties, such as Reform, by draining support from Labour.
Before the vote he had faced calls to ‘come clean’ and correct the record about the claim he was a Red Cross spokesman.
Asked about it by BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Polanski said: ‘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, that they don’t support any political party, and I’ve made sure that’s been taken down.’
Mr Polanski also defended his response to footage of the alleged Golders Green attacker being tackled by police.
The Green leader earned widespread rebuke last week for sharing criticism on social media after footage showed two officers repeatedly kicking a man who appeared to be the suspect in the head after he had been tasered.
Mr Polanski apologised for sharing the post in haste.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Two things can be true at the same time: officers are incredibly brave when they run towards scenes of crimes that most people, including myself, will want to run away from.
‘At the same time, I think it is accurate, and that I was also traumatised by seeing someone handcuffed and repeatedly kicked in the head.’
Public opinion of the Green Party leader has taken a downward turn since last week’s row, according to the pollster YouGov.
Some 39 per cent of Britons had an unfavourable view of Mr Polanski immediately before his social media repost, rising to 47 per cent in YouGov’s latest poll of 2,377 adults between May 4 and 5.
