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Corbyn says he can ‘absolutely’ work with Polanski

In a new interview, Your Party’s Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he’s “absolutely” happy to work with Zack Polanski and the Green Party. At the same time, he said there will definitely be differences between the two parties.


Left alliance

In the video above, the New Statesman asks Corbyn:

Zach Polanski, who I’m sure you know, is the newly elected populist leader of the Green Party and he’s running on quite a similar platform to the platforms you ran on in 2017 and 2019. I wondered what you thought of Zach and how you think your party will work with the Greens going forward.

Corbyn responded:

Well, I know Zach of course and we had a very pleasant breakfast together in a very nice cafe in Stoke Newington, as you do. Very nice it was too. And we had a good chat. Yeah, I get on with him. I like him. We can work together.

Corbyn added:

We’re not the same party. We don’t necessarily hold all the same views. I think that the people coming into Your Party want to see a stronger version of socialism than the Green Party would tolerate.

This may be true, but it could also be the case that a lot of the Greens’ new members think they can push the party in a more socialist direction. Both parties define themselves as being member-driven, after all, and the Greens’ policy platform could move leftwards now that their membership has more than doubled.

Either way, as Corbyn said:

Does that mean we can’t work together? No, it means we can absolutely work together on key issues. And I hope that we will come to some kind of agreement that we’re not going to knock each other out in particular areas – in elections.

But it does mean we can work together with them on Palestine, we can work together with them on environmental sustainability issues. Surely what the public need is that, and if we’re providing a space, and a voice, and an opportunity for the united left to put forward that position, that’s got to be a good thing.

Corbyn certainly has a strong track record on the environment. In the 2019 election, Friends of the Earth actually ranked Labour over the Greens on climate policy, which does make you wonder what the latter party were doing around that time (the Greens did lead with Greenpeace, to be fair).

Corbyn continued:

We’ve got a triopoly of political thinking in Westminster – Tories, Labour, and Lib Dem – basically the same on foreign policy, economic policy, and social issues.

Corbyn also agreed it’s about “working together”, adding:

My enemy is Reform and what they’re doing to our society. The racism they’re promoting, the violence that Tommy Robinson and his friends bring to the streets; that’s the dangers in our society. And there’s some horrible parallels with what happened all over Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

We’ve got to stand up for social justice and not allow the blame culture towards very vulnerable people fleeing in desperation to try and get to a place of safety.

Featured image Bristol Green Party (Wikimedia) / Chris McAndrew (Wikimedia)

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.