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Zack Polanski set to challenge right-wing hatemongers on BBC Question Time again

Green leader Zack Polanski will be back on BBC Question Time (BBCQT) for the second time in two months tonight. Again, he will be the sole left-wing voice, challenging the political establishment in an “immigration special”. And that’s why he dropped a Have I Got News for You appearance to attend, because he thinks it’s ‘vital to speak up for migrants right now’:

An important chance to shift the debate

The establishment political parties all sit on the right (including the softer-right Liberal Democrats). So it will be on Polanski to present a meaningful left-wing perspective.

And last time, he absolutely did. He challenged Reform’s Zia Yusuf over the “misinformation and fear” the far-right party spreads on the topic of immigration. And he stressed that:

The immigrants haven’t caused austerity. The same Thatcherite policies that you and your party support, and the Conservatives, are what have caused the devastation in this country.

He added that a decade and a half of Tory-Lib-Dem-Labour austerity politics have divided communities by shutting libraries and community centres while failing to invest properly in healthcare and housing. And it’s not immigrants we need to blame for all that. It’s the increasingly obscene wealth and power of the super-rich, and “the politicians who haven’t taxed them properly”.

In short, Polanski placed the focus firmly on: the destructiveness of right-wing neoliberal austerity policies; the need to tax the super-rich; the importance of condemning all discrimination; and the danger of Reform’s Thatcherite and fascist propaganda. The clarity of his message was absolutely a breath of fresh air, and BBCQT will be a more hopeful watch as a result.

The private jets are the problem – not the small boats!

Keir Starmer is the least popular prime minister ever because he’s an elitist genocide-backing neoliberal stooge fawning over the far right rather than actually improving ordinary people’s lives.

The establishment’s focus on immigration is a divisive distraction tactic. The simple truth is:

  • Britain has an ageing population, low birth rates, and skills shortages. Together with government underinvestment, that makes immigration essential.
  • People from other countries who come to work in Britain contribute strongly to the economy. (And they absolutely don’t ‘break the bank’, especially if the state allows them to work and pay tax as soon as possible.)
  • Many asylum seekers come from countries that the US-UK establishment has pillaged, undermined, or destroyed in some way.
  • Hostile environments don’t stop immigration. They just make it more dangerous. Dealing with demand locally and inequality internationally would reduce immigration more than any other policy.

Polanski is 100% right that we need safe, humane policies, and a focus on ‘the private jets and yachts, not the small boats‘. Because the super-rich class has a free pass to piss over borders, and its economic, political, and military power is what truly causes people to leave their countries behind. The damage it causes on a daily basis is far greater than any damage immigrants could ever do. Yet it’s some of the most vulnerable people in the world who don’t have access to safe cross-border journeys.

Our focus needs to be on neoliberalism, not immigration. And if Polanski brings that focus to BBCQT tonight, he’ll be doing Britain – and the world – a great service.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.