Caroline Lucas has reacted angrily to Zack Polanski’s woeful campaign in Holborn and St Pancras and will not rule out asking him to step aside. I can’t say I blame her. Polanski disgraced himself by more than tripling the Greens’ vote share from the last election, taking 33% in a Labour safe seat during Burnham’s honeymoon period. This was only the second best by-election performance in the Greens’ history. Every sensible person is suggesting that Polanski resign. Among those sensible people is the former Green leader, who once nearly became prime minister by offering to form a coalition government made up exclusively of women and forgetting to suggest a single black or brown woman for her fantasy cabinet. Let’s be honest, who hasn’t forgot other races exist? Caroline Lucas is the nation’s leading expert in not getting the Greens into power. I’m therefore honoured that she’s written this piece for her favourite establishment publication, Normal Island News: It’s hugely disappointing to see Zack Polanski take 33% of the vote share in Holborn and St Pancras and turn the Greens into a serious electoral force.When I was Green leader, I had the good grace to only take 3.8% in that seat in 2017. Not many people know that I privately apologised to the Tories for exceeding expectations because 3.8% was far too high. Our national vote share was just 1.6%. I accomplished this by making no serious attempt to engage with voters or make their lives better. Everyone who supported one of the other parties thought I was doing a brilliant job. Now, thanks to Zack, people who never liked the Greens are saying they wouldn’t vote for them. In the past six months, we’ve seen Zack’s popularity go down among the people who would never vote Green—thanks to the type of media campaign that we only see when politicians threaten change. This hate campaign is definitely Zack’s own fault. If he hadn’t threatened to change a system that’s not working for anyone but the rich, they wouldn’t be lying about him this way. The Greens have a proud history of being a neoliberal party that pretends to be socialist. It’s supposed to mop up a few left votes so it looks like we have plurality, while making radical change seem unpopular. Unfortunately, Zack has convinced young people that change is possible because he is charismatic and genuinely cares. Regrettably, the Green Party is no longer a safe space for Tories on bikes. One of my councillor friends was so upset by Polanski’s recent successes that he felt he no longer belongs in the party. Therefore he defected to the Conservatives—a party he was previously a member of until 2021. Not only has Zack turned off the handful of Tories who pretend to care about the environment, he’s attracted voters who are supposed to be disenfranchised. As such I utterly reject him and everything he stands for. Zack offered a serious challenge to a candidate that I never would’ve beaten in a million years. He’s pushing the government so far left that the Labour candidate even backed the nationalisation of Thames Water. There’s now a very real risk of sewage not being dumped on our beaches. I much preferred the days when the Greens accomplished nothing and were rewarded with regular TV invites. Those invites have dried up for everyone but Greens like me, who are prepared to slag off their party leadership. It’s like the Corbyn years all over again! Obviously, this is all connected to the fact that Zack criticises Israel. It’s highly illegal for the leader of a party in the UK to not support Israel. This is why myself and the rest of the establishment have expressed more anger at that “Zionism is racism” motion than we have at genocide. Israel’s supporters have almost every other party to choose from and this is not enough. Israel’s opponents only have the Greens to vote for and this is one party too many. Opponents of genocide don’t deserve representation any more than people who want affordable bills or a habitable planet. I don’t think I can forgive Zack for making the public think we are serious about any of these things. If the Greens’ poll ratings don’t collapse, I will have no choice but to demand his resignation.