Zack Polanski's Speech - Change:NOW! Mobilising the Progressive Majority - 30/05/2026

Thank you so much. Hope is possible and I'm feeling a hell of a lot of hope looking out at Rich Mix right now. I want to start with where Neil just left off actually that people are hot and bothered in this room. And that's partly because of the extreme temperatures outside. I've just come from the Golden Lane Estate which is in the city of London where I've been at a people's emergency briefing around the climate crisis and the nature crisis.

If you've not seen the film it's being shown at a thousand community centers around the country and I'd really really recommend people go watch it. My short summary it's an emergency. We need to act now. The alarm is ringing and when the alarm is ringing you cannot keep hitting the snooze button. Right now we need the policies in place and the right people in place to make sure we're dealing with the climate and nature emergency.

We live in one of the most nature

We live in one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and when we lose nature we lose everything and it's vital this is at the top of the political agenda. Now I know for some people who might be listening to this or many of these people won't ever hear me say this. They're just worried about food on the table and heat in the homes right now. The climate crisis feels abstract to them and that's why we also need to recognize that the heart of the climate crisis is an inequality crisis. The people who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are the people who are facing the worst impacts both around the world but right here at home.

And when we hear governments of all different colors say there is no money left just think about when the 50 wealthiest families in this country own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population. That's 50 families versus 34 million people. There is plenty of wealth in this country and since the pandemic

And since the pandemic, we have seen some of those multi-millionaires and billionaires own even more wealth. And I've just seen I've got Carrie Stevenson in my eyeline, so I'll just simply say it is time to tax wealth and not work.

We also need to recognize that if it was this simple as just saying it, it would be done now. But there are powerful vested interests who want to stop everything you've been talking about today. And we know this is not some sort of conspiracy theory. We saw it with the tobacco industry. They spent so much money telling us smoking was good for us.

Well, now there are powerful lobbies, whether they be the arms trade lobby, the oil and gas lobby, private health care, gambling lobby, spending billions and billions of pounds each year, both on advertisements, but frankly donating to politicians and the media, whose job then is to tell you that better is not possible. To tell you that it has to be this way, or it can't be another way. And I see one of our number one jobs. Obviously, I'm speaking for the Green Party, but speak for the left, for the socialists, for progressives, for pluralists. We all need to be on the same page.

That one of our number one jobs is to come together, to work together, and tell the stories that better is not just possible, it is necessary. And actually, the same solutions to the climate crisis are often the same solutions to tackle the inequality crisis. If we insulate every single home in Britain that needs it, that would keep our homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It would also create hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of green jobs that could be in the public sector, in trade unions where people are treated with dignity and care. We know these solutions, but we also know that the Reform Party and parties of the right, 95% of Reform's donations since 2019 were from oil and gas companies.

So, when we get the likes of Nigel Farage or Richard Tice on TV talking about I don't even want to repeat that framing, but talking about the climate emergency, there should be a ticker at the bottom of the screen saying exactly who has paid them to say that because they have been bought and paid to be climate deniers, and we need to hold them to account.

Now, this bit's really important. I could stand and spend the rest of the evening talking about why Reform are bad, and I'd feel great. But, there's a really important distinction that needs to be made. Nigel Farage, the Reform MPs, the people who speak for them, are very different to people who might be thinking about voting for Reform. They are the exact people we need to be caring about.

Because when we say people feel left behind, they don't feel left behind. They have been left behind by decades of austerity and the successive governments, by politicians who all far too often speak to them like they're stupid, that's if they're even speaking to them at all. And ultimately, we need to reach out with this message of inequality, and point out that when multi-millionaires and billionaires are paying taking more money than ever before, the problem is not someone who's fleeing from their lives and might be traveling by small boat. The problem is flying above our head by private jet. The problem is being pumped into space when we have enough money to send people into space.

We have enough money for wars, but we don't have enough money for books and schools, or to make sure that our NHS is funded properly, or to make sure that our public services are working properly. From the film I just watched, I want to quote a line from Jennifer Saunders, who's not the political expert I expected to be quoting today. But, she said, "We can invest all this money in AI and into magic technologies, but we can't sort out the in our rivers." And it just really spoke, you know, truth. Because the reason why we can't sort out our rivers is because we have water companies pumping sewage into our rivers and charging us extra for the privilege. When that's a 30% of our water bill is spent on profit.

It does not need to be that way and it is time to nationalize our water companies.

Because the agenda is clear. Nationalize our public services that should be in public hands. Bring in rent controls. Make sure that we're supporting communities and we are taking action on the climate. These are the obvious things that need to happen.

As well as democratic renewal. We do not have a democracy in this country. It's a pretend democracy. And I want to give a statistic that I only learned about this morning. And it might sound odd or this could be spun that I'm about to criticize a Green Party politician.

Let me say clearly I'm not about to criticize a Green Party politician. But I was looking at the local election results and I thought what is the smallest percentage of a vote in this month's elections that someone won with. Now, it happens to be a Green Party counselor in Birmingham. And the thing I want to say is they won that election fair and square on the first past the post. That's the system we have.

But they won with 20% of a vote. And this is not an aberration. This is happening more and more that people are winning with tiny percentages. When you look at the polls, you've sometimes got five parties, six parties in Wales who are polling at very, very similar levels. Our democracy is not working under first past the post and we need to change the system.

We don't need to change the system at the next election. The climate emergency cannot wait. The inequality crisis cannot wait. We know we have a democratic crisis now and it is time to bring in proportional representation.

It's also time to take on the bond markets. Now, look, I just got a 3-minute signal to end, so I'm not going to go into a big piece about the bond markets. What I am going to end this 3 minutes in, and it relates to the bond markets, is Look, I'm already always ready to criticize the Labour Party and the Labour government, but that's not why I've come here to do today, and it would not be in the spirit of this meeting. What is in the spirit of this meeting is to talk to progressives, including in the Labour Party, and I can't imagine what politician I might specifically be talking to right now. I'll let you use your imagination.

But what I would say, and I'm speaking to myself, too, is it is time for progressives to hold our nerve. Our policies cannot be dictated to by the billionaire-owned press. They are power and wealth, and the policies we need to bring in are challenging power and wealth. So, of course they're not going to like it. Of course they're going to criticize our policies, and when that doesn't work, they're going to criticize our personal lives.

I've got no idea what that might feel like. And the point is this, we need to rise above it. We need to recognize that people in this country can see through it. And when we speak clearly every single day, that ultimately the bond markets are important, but no one elected the bond markets. And if that's what we're going to do, let's scrap democracy and just have the bond markets decide everything.

But actually, someone I spoke to, Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel winning economist, also I know many other economists are are saying similar things. In fact, I think Ann Pettifor is in the room, too. That the bond markets ultimately are not ideological. They just want to know that there is a plan. So, the thing that any government or any leader needs to do is spell out that plan.

The plan to tackle the climate crisis, the plan to tackle the inequality crisis. Why borrowing to invest right now is so important, because that is money that is going to our schools, our hospitals, our transport system. That is money that is investing in our economy. And so it's so important on these issues of moral righteousness or issues that have moral clarity that progressive make sure they hold their nerves and are not dictated to by Murdoch's media or a small couple of people who own the press. That ultimately the people who own politicians are you.

People in our communities who donate to political parties so we're not taking money from vested interest or dirty money, but actually politicians are putting forward an agenda that is going to change this country for the better. The very final thing I want to say is that we can have no moral clarity at home without having moral clarity around the world, too. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't care about local or national politics and still care about what's going on in the world. So whether it's the genocide in Gaza, whether it's around Sudan, Iran, uh so many conflicts that are happening. It is so important that we rise above the warmongers, that we talk about peace and justice.

And ultimately we make sure that we create unity around the world as best we can as well as a continued commitment to pluralism and working together because the answer right here is right in this room. It's every single one of you. It's people in your communities. It's by coming together, taking on the system, taking on power and wealth, that's how we'll achieve environmental, social, racial, and economic justice, too. Thank you very much.