How Zack Polanksi And Zohran Mamdani Transformed What It Means To Be A Left-Wing Politician

Newly elected leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanksi, has taken British politics by storm. The self-proclaimed ‘eco-populist’ has resurrected the Green Party’s reputation amongst voters and driven the Greens’ takeover of the Conservatives as the third largest political party in the UK. And it’s not only membership that has spiked; broadcast coverage of the Greens has increased by 44% since early September.

With the party currently holding just four seats in the House of Commons, Polanski’s leadership style could be exactly what’s needed to challenge the long-standing notion that voting Green is a wasted vote. The latest voter intention polling from YouGov has put the Greens at their highest figure ever recorded by the online research data group, with the party now sitting level with the Liberal Democrats at 15%. It is clear that the Greens' newfound success has been an unequivocal result of Polanski’s leadership style, one that many argue echoes Nigel Farage’s approach, albeit from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

The success of his leadership style comes down to two factors: one, he has unapologetically embraced left-wing, environmentalist ideology, and two, he seems to be one of the few politicians willing to give straight answers. His messaging has been honest and clear, without the usual political rambling that characterises most interviews with party leaders. Unlike Starmer, Polanski has stuck with the party’s roots while also combining real issues that real people care about with the urgency of climate action, something that will and is already pulling voters in.

With the landscape of two-party politics in Britain crumbling, there is now space emerging for the Greens to take more power in Parliament and counter the rise of Reform previously seen in the polls.

Across the pond, left-wing, socialist politics is creating a similar wave of popularity in the New York mayoral elections. The Big Apple has been polarised by the self-proclaimed democratic socialist and ‘progressive Muslim immigrant’, Zohran Mamdani, who has maintained a double-digit lead in the polls, with many putting him 10 points ahead of his biggest competitor, Andrew Cuomo. With the endorsements of celebrity politicians, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani has experienced a meteoric rise from his position as an unknown state assemblyman.

Like many socialist leaders worldwide, Mamdani’s vision for New York has been deemed far-fetched and unrealistic by critics, but his popularity seems to be overshadowing what others are calling pitfalls in his policy. With his campaign focused on lowering the cost of living in New York, Mamdani has promised to freeze rent for all stabilised tenants, implement faster and free bus services in the city, and raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion to counter the city’s cost of living crisis.

For Mamdani and Polanski, their style of putting people and wealth redistribution back at the heart of politics has driven their surging popularity among voters, with both politicians being hailed as an alternative to “doom-loop politics” by Neil Howard. Where earlier generations of left-wing leaders, from Jeremy Corbyn to Bernie Sanders, struggled to translate what people saw as radical ideals into mainstream appeal, Polanski and Mamdani have embodied a new kind of progressive politics, one that is both electable and pragmatic, rather than rooted solely in activism.

However, the two have taken strikingly different routes when it came to growing support for their campaigns. In the UK, Polanski has operated outside of the political establishment, one that has traditionally been a two-party system that has left the Green Party on the sidelines for decades. His strategy has relied on positioning the climate crisis as an issue created by big corporations instead of everyday people, all while making the Green Party one that has a broader range of policies that normal people will care about and vote for.

Mamdani, on the other hand, has been working to reshape the Democratic Party from within. His campaign for mayor of New York has exposed the deep divisions between the party establishment and the progressives seeking to redefine its direction. His rise to success, and what gave him the win in the New York City mayoral primary, comes down to his ability to fill the policy vacuum left by Democratic party leadership, with the democratic socialist offering concrete solutions for ordinary New Yorkers grappling with soaring living costs in the city.

While Polanski seeks to broaden left-wing politics in Britain and pull voters from the same pool as Your Party, Mamdani is attempting to radicalise mainstream two-party politics in the US through a return to materialism and a movement away from fascism in politics.

What binds Polanski and Mamdani is not only their left-wing credentials, but their rejection of political cynicism. Their sustained momentum in recent polling does not seem to be subsiding anytime soon, with their success clearly reflecting a shift in the palatability of left-wing leaders for voters in today’s political climate. By refusing to water down their beliefs, the two politicians have redefined what it means to be unapologetically left-wing and helped shift the Overton window in some way from both sides of the Atlantic.

Image: Flickr/Eden, Janine and Jim

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