Leader of Britain's Green Party and a member of the London Assembly, described as Britain's first digital-native party leader. A former actor who rivals Nigel Farage for wit and off-the-cuff policymaking. Under his leadership, the Greens have overtaken Labour as the first choice of voters under 35. He has promised voters a fiscal rule by which "inflation doesn't go higher than the skills and resources that we have in our economy."
Mr Polanski was elected leader in September 2025 and embraced a strategy of "eco-populism"—emphasising social justice at least as much as climate change. He shook off the Greens' middle-class reputation and has been rewarded with a polling bounce. His flashy policies include a wealth tax on billionaires, rent controls and maximum-pay ratios.
The Greens and Reform UK have made gains among economically precarious voters. A More in Common survey (December 2025, n=8,921) found that the two parties win two-thirds of voters who often go without food or heating. Both parties' voters are less trusting, more likely to agree that political institutions should be allowed to "burn" and to believe that people can get richer only if others get poorer. Private renters who have abandoned Labour tend to switch to the Greens; those in social housing tend to switch to Reform.
On February 26th 2026 the Greens surged from 13% to 41% in a by-election in Gorton and Denton, a former safe Labour seat that is the 15th-most deprived constituency in England (out of 543). Hannah Spencer, a plumber who gave up her job to stand, became the party's first MP in the north of England. "Instead of working for a nice life," she said in her victory speech, "we are working to line the pockets of the billionaires. We are being bled dry." Reform pushed Labour into third place.
Mr Polanski calls Nigel Farage "a fascist"; Mr Farage says Mr Polanski is "a lunatic" supported by "all the heroin smokers". Despite their mutual hostility, their relationship is symbiotic: each fuels the other's success by pulling apart Labour's coalition from opposite ends, and each mobilises their supporters through the spectre of the other extreme. In the Gorton and Denton by-election they jointly won 69% of the vote. Mr Polanski warned against Britain being "dragged into another illegal war" over Iran.
Mr Polanski is a prolific user of social media, in constant back-and-forth with supporters on Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok and X. He has a habit of searching for his own name online, a practice known as "ego surfing". An Economist analysis of 35,000 of his Bluesky "likes" (accumulated since April 2025) found that around a third of the posts include his name and tend to be adoring. Mr Polanski appears thin-skinned and hostile towards journalists: after a mildly critical Guardian column, he liked at least 20 posts criticising the columnist by name. Dozens of liked posts criticise journalists or the press as a whole, sometimes in vulgar terms. A Green Party spokesperson said he "often flicks very quickly through posts while on a train or between interviews" and is "sorry for any mistakes made when working fast." Mr Polanski has described social media as a "toxic cesspit".
The Green Party's 2024 manifesto remains its fullest statement of economic policy. Mr Polanski has not resiled from it but doubled down, reiterating flagship commitments such as a wealth tax. The manifesto promises free social care, no more tuition fees and a 40%-plus increase in the basic rate of working-age benefits. It would nationalise both the water industry and the big five energy companies. The party estimated these plans would cost £250bn ($336bn) a year in 2029-30, or 7% of GDP—bigger than the 5%-of-GDP increase promised by Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
To pay for the spending, the manifesto proposes £170bn of annual tax rises by 2030, narrowly targeted at the better-off. Those earning over £50,000 would see their marginal rate rise from 42% to 48%. A carbon tax would bring in £90bn a year, roughly equal to the combined yield of all 80 carbon taxes and trading schemes worldwide in 2024. Even so, an £80bn gap in 2029-30 would remain, to be funded through extra debt. Mr Polanski rails against conventional fiscal rules, arguing that stopping inflation should be the only barrier to higher spending.
The manifesto also promises to end all road building and airport expansion, increase environmental regulation, introduce rent controls and forbid firms from paying their highest earners more than ten times their lowest-paid employees. Among the few bright spots for growth is a pledge to rejoin the EU. Mr Polanski has pledged to wipe out student debt and reimburse the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign. Molly Scott Cato is the party's economy spokesperson.
A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity.