The Green Party of England and Wales now under Zack Polanski

Green polling appears to have peaked, and when a decline begins those involved get desperate, which may well be behind this:

Reform UK say they are reporting Green Party leader Zack Polanski to the police after he shared a post to his Instagram which included a photo of a man wearing a top featuring the name "Nigel" alongside an image of a guillotine.

Polanski accepted a request to collaborate with another account and shared a series of pictures of a Green Party event on Sunday with his 713,000 followers.

One of the images showed a man wearing a T-shirt which said: "We're only making plans for Nigel".

A Green Party spokesperson said: "Once this image was brought to [Zack's] attention he immediately unshared the post. He unequivocally does not support this type of dangerous message."

The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, criticised Polanski on X.

Sharing a screenshot of what Polanski had reposted, he said: "If I was to post anything as inciteful then I would expect to be arrested, and so should Polanski."

It is understood Reform UK are reporting Polanski to the police. The party's home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, said "this is incitement to murder".

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brad465 said:

Green polling appears to have peaked, and when a decline begins those involved get desperate, which may well be behind this:

Reform UK reporting Green leader Zack Polanski to police over Instagram post

The post included a photo of a man wearing a top featuring the name "Nigel" alongside an image of a guillotine.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Zia says "This is incitement to Murder".
Yet they paraded someone who was convicted of something very similar at a party conference (Lucy Connolly)
Double standards much?

Ted633 said:

Zia says "This is incitement to Murder".
Yet they paraded someone who was convicted of something very similar at a party conference (Lucy Connolly)
Double standards much?

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Indeed, but it's still a monumentally stupid thing (at best) for Polanski to do.

brad465 said:

Green polling appears to have peaked, and when a decline begins those involved get desperate, which may well be behind this:

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Or perhaps its yet again Reform trying to claim they are the victims.

Polanski didn't write the message or post the image, he also didnt actively share it. Instead the person who posted it added Zacks account as a contributor. That is quite different to making a post or sharing one yourself. It is the equivalent of someone else tagging you in a Facebook post.

Now maybe you can argue politicians should be more careful when it comes to things like this than Zack clearly has been. But to call it incitment to murder and try to blame Zack personally for a post someone else made is reaching just a little in my eyes.

WelshBluebird said:

Or perhaps its yet again Reform trying to claim they are the victims.

Polanski didn't write the message or post the image, he also didnt actively share it. Instead the person who posted it added Zacks account as a contributor. That is quite different to making a post or sharing one yourself. It is the equivalent of someone else tagging you in a Facebook post.

Now maybe you can argue politicians should be more careful when it comes to things like this than Zack clearly has been. But to call it incitment to murder and try to blame Zack personally for a post someone else made is reaching just a little in my eyes.

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This isn’t quite correct. For the post to show up on a collaborating account, that account has to accept the invitation to collaborate. So although he didn’t author the post, he did decide to share it with his followers.

If I was Colin Moulding (XTC, writer of 'Making Plans For Nigel') I would be considering a cease and desist statement for dragging an epochal (and personally political with a small p) rock classic into a wholly inappropriate zone. The band's politics never encompassed this sort of directly inciteful nonsense.

JamesT said:

This isn’t quite correct. For the post to show up on a collaborating account, that account has to accept the invitation to collaborate. So although he didn’t author the post, he did decide to share it with his followers.

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Which is what I am talking about when saying politicians should be more careful.

But as someone who for some reason still uses Facebook quite a lot, if someone tags you and you don't see anything wrong with the text or the few photos that get previewed, then you accept it. You generally don't look through every single photo in a tagged post, and in larger posts that just isnt realistic (e.g. in the past ive been tagged on posts with 80 plus photos - like hell amI looking at every single one). Instagram collaborations work similarly, but I am not even sure if you get a preview. So basically, by using that feature, there generally isnt a realistic expectation that someone looks at every single image before accepting.

Again, more than happy to agree that people in public life should be more careful than Joe Bloggs, but that would require changing how social media is used in these large organisations quite a lot as tagging / collaborations are common to reach multiple audiences.

That is to say, yes its careless. But anyone like Farage trying to play the victim should focus on larger problems.

Ted633 said:

Yet they paraded someone who was convicted of something very similar at a party conference (Lucy Connolly)

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The key words there being 'was convicted'! While having no liking for Polanski, his party or his policies, legal action would IMHO be an overreaction.

Ted633 said:

Zia says "This is incitement to Murder".

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I thought Reform were all about free speech and being allowed to say what you want so long as it is “pub banter?” Surely a joke about putting a Nigel (the post didn’t actually specify which Nigel) in a guillotine is just “pub banter.”

They’re amazingly thin skinned, even for fash.

Purple Train said:

Indeed, but it's still a monumentally stupid thing (at best) for Polanski to do.

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Agreed, because it lets Farage play the victim card yet again.

I think that Reform's version of free speech is somewhat limited.

Tetchytyke said:

I thought Reform were all about free speech and being allowed to say what you want so long as it is “pub banter?” Surely a joke about putting a Nigel (the post didn’t actually specify which Nigel) in a guillotine is just “pub banter.”

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Quite.

Tetchytyke said:

They’re amazingly thin skinned, even for fash.

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Pure victim mentality from him again.

WelshBluebird said:

Or perhaps its yet again Reform trying to claim they are the victims.

Polanski didn't write the message or post the image, he also didnt actively share it. Instead the person who posted it added Zacks account as a contributor. That is quite different to making a post or sharing one yourself. It is the equivalent of someone else tagging you in a Facebook post.

Now maybe you can argue politicians should be more careful when it comes to things like this than Zack clearly has been. But to call it incitment to murder and try to blame Zack personally for a post someone else made is reaching just a little in my eyes.

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Should there be distinction between origination an offensive post and forwarding one? Plenty of people have come unstuck due to the latter and the standard excuse is that it wasn't intentional. If the law is going to apply to some then it should apply to all without distinction. Jo Brand making a joke about throwing battery acid on Farage shouldn't have been allowed either. Where does it stop.