Zach Polanski says the Green Party represents the "real alternative"

Doncaster Free Press

The Green party deputy leader Zach Polanski spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service during a visit to Doncaster last week to support local candidates in May's elections.

Transcript

00:00I'm in Doncaster today because we're running one of our biggest campaigns ever and most ambitious

00:03we're finding more and more people know that this Labour government are failing and they're looking

00:08for something different. Reform are trying to get in there by painting themselves as some kind of

00:12workers party and anti-establishment but we know they literally are the establishment. But the

00:17people who are thinking about voting reform are people who have really been left behind both by

00:21the local council and by national governments and successive governments. So really the Green Party

00:25in Doncaster are offering real hope and real change. They're people who are from within the community

00:30who are saying it doesn't have to be this way. They're people like Paul and Tony and Roman Ridge

00:35who are working all year round to make sure that they're knocking on doors finding out what issues

00:39residents really care about. Both yes at the national level but even more importantly at the local level

00:44things like potholes and making sure there's no fly tipping, dealing with anti-social behaviour and

00:49dealing with things like the quad bikes. All of these things are really important to people and

00:52that's what you get when you get Greens on the council. People who will ask questions of a council

00:56stand up and hold power to account and more important than anything be a real representative

01:01for the people of Doncaster. And I know in Doncaster at the minute even if you've got one or two

01:06councils on the council that'd be a really really big success but in the scenario where you potentially

01:09have a Green Council or a Green Mayor in Doncaster what does a Green Council look like?

01:13It's a really good question and I think ultimately as we're seeing more and more Greens elected across the

01:17country it's things that people are going to be seeing more and more of. So if I think of examples we've got

01:22I was just in Lancaster the other day they're building hundreds of social council homes, they've

01:26also built a solar farm, there's other lots of other places where we're spending money on

01:29retrofitting. Now that can sound quite technical but ultimately what that means is that people's

01:33homes are properly insulated. This is both good because we're in a climate crisis but even more

01:38arguably important in the short term this brings people's bills down. We know that people are really

01:42struggling with what's an inequality crisis. Rich people are getting richer than ever before,

01:46poor people are getting poorer than ever before and it's really important that Green Councils

01:50are out there basically batting for the poorest people in our working class communities and saying

01:55we know how hard it's been not just for 10 years but actually for decades and what you get with a

02:00Green Council is someone who will be on your side, who understands how hard it is right now, how hard

02:05these challenges are and will be saying there is another way. We've got a Labour government who

02:09are saying they can't tax the rich but yet they can't fund vital public services. What you get with

02:14Green Councils, not just the Green Council, is ultimately one or two voices in the chamber who can really

02:19make a difference. That's the difference that Green makes in the room to say actually it doesn't have

02:23to be this way. Everything that's happening that you're being told that is the only option that

02:26comes back to Margaret Thatcher with you know there's no alternative. That actually is an alternative

02:31and that alternative is voting Green.

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