is this zack polanski’s best acting role yet ?

This is undoubtedly a good 3-minute short film: hard hitting script, good photography and a half decent sound track to match. And the actor is not too bad either.

But will Zack Polanski win the hearts AND minds of a majority of members of the Green Party of England and Wales called upon to vote for a new Leader?

Polanski himself is concerned that his social media campaign may not have reached large parts of the party – that is the many hundreds of thousands of Local Party volunteers working in their neighbourhoods and communities. Their voices matter when electing a new Leader.

Will the current Deputy Leader’s unorthodox social media campaign strategy appeal to and help recruit new members? Will Corbyn’s fan base, supporters of the Palestinian cause and progressive ‘influencers ‘ such as Owen Jones or George Monbiot attract a sufficient number of actual voters to beat the quieter and reasonably well-established team of MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns?

This will continue to remain the big unknown whilst the campaign is unfolding and right up to the announcement of the result in September. Until and unless the number of new members who joined since Polanski’s unofficial campaign launch in June is published – and rules do not allow this to be done during such elections – one can only speculate.

A nail-biting time for all concerned, not least the Finance Officer, Julian Cusack, who must be extremely worried that one or two further court cases due to sex discrimination may bankrupt the Party. Leaders would also be called upon to defend party policy on the Green’s idiosyncratic definition of transphobia.

The decisive factor in the end will be the turn-out. A low turn-out will be in Polanski’s favour. It will also benefit his supporters for the deputy Leadership, Mothin Ali and Rachel Millward, and the dozens of identinarian candidates standing for the 13 GP Executive posts.

Oddly enough, this short hard-hitting propaganda film may actually backfire on our eco populist, agit-prop messiah. The vast majority of ordinary members who work hard to keep things together in their localities and regions and get Greens elected are a rather conservative lot with a small ‘c’.

Evidence of this is the relatively modest number of Green councillors (150 out of over 800) who have pledged their support for their colleague and aspiring leader.

Many members find Zack’s call to ‘learn to pick a fight’ and his personal attacks against his opponents with his use of put-downs just too much to bear and too much of a risk.

Worse scenario, as an experienced member from Doncaster shared with The Green Light: ‘The job is only for one year’. One can only hope that grassroots members will not be so cynical and that a robust majority will use their democratic right to vote en masse.