Green Party leader Zack Polanski has faced a backlash from within his own party after he shared a controversial social media post criticising the arrest of the Golders Green attack suspect, which the chief of the Met Police described as “inaccurate and misguided”.
Mr Polanski is facing calls to apologise for retweeting an X post accusing Met officers of detaining the suspect of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated from being tasered.
In a rare intervention, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley called out Mr Polanski for sharing the post and later accused him of “undermining” the force.
The row has exposed cracks within the party, with senior figures failing to back Mr Polanski when questioned on the matter on Thursday evening.
The party’s Welsh leader, Anthony Slaughter, criticised the post during a debate for the upcoming Senedd election on LBC.
Claiming he had not seen the X post, Mr Slaughter said: “It does seem, from what I’ve read, [it] was inappropriate to retweet.”
The party’s deputy leader Rachel Millward was also challenged on the post, telling the BBC’s Question Time programme that she was “extremely grateful” for the emergency service response.
“I’m sure it was beyond terrifying, and these people are brave, well trained in they do, I’m sure they did a brilliant job,” she said.
Asked if she would echo the post, she said: “I haven’t actually seen the retweet, so I’m not quite sure what the what he was looking at there. Of course, police response always needs to be proportionate. But the headline here is, what do we do about rising antisemitism and making sure that we don’t have hate in our society?”
Sir Mark said in a letter to Mr Polanski that he was “disappointed” in the politician’s decision to share the post, warning that it could have a “chilling effect”.
He said that the officers “are nothing short of extraordinary”, saying: “Without their efforts to stop him I dread to think what the outcome could have been.”
He added: “London’s Jewish communities are scared.”
On Friday, Sir Mark said the officers were still “shaken” hours after arrest, and insisted the rare public intervention was not political but instead an effort to prevent “undermining the confidence” of his officers.
He told LBC: “I’m not interested in politics but if somebody eminent, rather than some of the oddballs on social media, if someone eminent says something or does something which I see has a risk to undermining the confidence of my officers to act – because they need that sense of public support – they now need to intervene on that, and that’s what I did with that letter.”
Former home secretary Grant Shapps, who also served as defence secretary, told The Independent that Mr Polanski should apologise for what he called a “disgraceful” intervention”.
“Zack Polanski’s intervention is not just misguided – it is frankly disgraceful,” he said. “For a national political leader to second-guess those officers, amplify unverified claims, and undermine confidence in policing in the immediate aftermath is deeply irresponsible.
“It sends entirely the wrong signal at a time when the Jewish community, targeted here and in the past few weeks – are looking to the police for protection and reassurance.
“Polanski should withdraw those comments and apologise. Criticising officers who have just put themselves in harm’s way to stop further bloodshed is not principled politics – it is reckless, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.”
A Green Party spokesperson: “Zack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn’t know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response.”
