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Zack Polanski now supports Scottish and Welsh independence

Zack Polanski has come out in support of Scottish and Welsh independence:

This is bad news for those who recently spent a small fortune on union flags.

De-unionification

In addition to being the Green Party leader, Polanski is a London Assembly member. As reported by the National, Polanski told the Abolish Westminster substack he’s in favour of Scottish independence. He added:

Our policy says that’s a matter for the Scottish Green party, but let me start in an unusual place – I feel this strongly in London – I’m not arguing for London independence, but there is often this idea that London gets too much money, but I think the real question though, is, why does London have so much wealth and power, but the mayor of London has so little ability to redistribute that power and wealth?

And so I often say to Sadiq Khan, rather than asking for more money, why don’t you ask for more powers to be able to tax wealth, and redistribute it around London.

Suggesting the same issue was true for Wales but more ‘prominent’, he said:

How can you have a country where they have to go with a begging bowl to the Westminster government – which would be bad anyway.

But we had a Conservative government, and now again a Labour government, that have demonstrated time and time again a complete resentment, a disrespect, and almost dismissive and exclusionary attitude towards the Welsh people.

I think there are other, more nuanced things, that would outrage me – do outrage me, but would particularly if I was Welsh. Like the Barnett formula, with HS2, where they are being affected by decisions at Westminster, but then not getting any benefit from it economically or socially or culturally.

And you could just keep listing things, but it just feels like they have just been hit so hard by a government which just doesn’t care about them.

Increasingly, polling shows that there is surging, rising, increasing want for independence, and so how dare any English or British politician turn to Wales and go ‘oh you need us, and I’m going to give you scare stories about how, if you go off and do it on your own, we’ll make sure you don’t have the resources to do that’.

We should be empowering our neighbours to be able to have everything that we want for ourselves, and that we want for them.

People have supported Polanski online:

Scottish Greens

The Scottish Greens reacted positively to Polanski’s statement, with co-leader Gillian Mackay saying:

Zack is right to support independence and bringing power closer to people and communities across Scotland. As Greens we believe in self-determination and the huge potential of Scotland having the full powers of a normal country.

It would ensure that we only get governments that we vote for and protect our communities from the devastating damage that has been done by 14 years of Tory governments and is being continued by Keir Starmer.

An independent Scotland would be a force for human rights and democracy on the world stage and would reject a Brexit that has hiked prices and cost jobs and the hypocrisy of a UK government that has armed and supported Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

The Scottish Greens actually severed ties with the Green Party of England and Wales in 2022, citing issues around:

transphobia and respect for the Scottish Green Party, our independence as a party, and the devolution settlement

Polanski has said he understands these concerns, having also spoken out against transphobia:


He was actually speaking up for trans people just earlier today in fact, which is always a battle given that the English media is famously the most transphobic in the Western world:

Solidarity

When Jeremy Corbyn was the Labour leader, the party’s stance on Scottish independence was always disappointing. It was also demonstrably ineffective, with Scotland continuing to vote SNP despite many agreeing with Corbyn’s overall policy platform.

The truth then and now is that the positive momentum was behind independence, and any attempt to dissuade Scots from that came across like trying to shackle them to England for electoral reasons.

Polanski is right to support independence. And much like all the other times when he’s been right, it’s going to cause an almighty ruckus in the English media.

Featured image via Jeremy, Storm & Vanessa on 5 / UKPhoenix79

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.