From the Liveblog of
Friday, May 8, 2026
UK Greens’ Jewish, anti-Israel leader, tells Starmer to quit; his far-left party wins mayoralty in London’s Hackney, aims for more gains
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Zack Polanski, the Jewish, anti-Israel leader of Britain’s Green Party, calls on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, and declares UK two-party politics “dead and buried.”
Polanski, whose far-left party is aiming for historic gains as votes are counted in yesterday’s local elections, is speaking in Hackney, east London, soon after the Greens win the mayoralty there — the first time the party has won a directly elected mayoralty. Hackney includes the Stamford Hill neighborhood, home to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
“My message to Keir Starmer is that he needs to go. But I don’t think that’s my message; I think that’s the country message,” says Polanski. “We’ve seen for a long time now his popularity has been going, and he’s lost the trust of the country.”
Polanski has made anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian issues a centerpiece of his party’s platform, and he and many of his party’s candidates are also alleged to have engaged in antisemitism.
Results in the elections are coming in throughout the day, and Starmer’s Labour Party is suffering heavy losses, including in some of its traditional strongholds in former industrial regions in central and northern England.
The main beneficiary is the populist Reform UK party of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which has so far gained more than 400 council seats in England, and could form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.
Early results have underscored the fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes not only to Reform, but also to the Greens at the other end of the political spectrum, and to nationalists in Scotland and Wales.
The Times of Israel Community.