Green Party promotes then deletes interview with site censured for anti-Jewish and LGBT hate
Zack Polanski, Mothin Ali and Hannah Spencer were interviewed by 5 Pillars, which has conducted chats with some of the UK's most notorious neo-Nazis
The Green Party’s Leader, Deputy Leader and candidate for Gorton engaged in an interview with a publication which has repeatedly platformed some of the UK’s most notorious Neo-Nazis and white supremacists for rants about Jews and LGBT people, with the interview subsequently shared on the Green’s Twitter account.
Zack Polanski, Mothin Ali and Hannah Spencer appeared in a video interview conducted by 5 Pillars, a notorious Islamist outlet which has used its “Blood Brothers” podcast to host individuals such as former BNP leader Nick Griffin, Patriotic Alternative Leader Mark Collett and former Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen.
That video interview was subsequently shared on the Green Party’s Twitter account, but was removed on Thursday morning, some 12 hours after Jewish News approached the party for comment.
In the 5 Pillars video, the Green party’s by-election candidate for the Gorton and Denton constituency, Hannah Barnes, told the interviewer that “I’m really keen to show that we’re not divided…I’m the only candidate that is challenging Reform UK. I’ve sat at the hustings and challenged Matt Goodwin about the things he’s said about our communities…in the face of such hatred and division, we need someone who’s going to stand up to the bully.”
5 Pillars used to be a publication under the imprint of the Impress media regulator, but left after it was repeatedly disciplined for breaching the discrimination clause of its standard code.
In the final ruling before 5 Pillars left the regulator, Impress found that a Blood Brothers interview between Dilly Hussain, deputy editor of 5 Pillars, and Jayda Fransen, had allowed Fransen to espouse antisemitic theories without pushback, encouraging hatred or abuse towards a specific group, in this case, Jews.
The Impress adjudication stated: “The interviewee’s (Fransen’s) unchallenged assertions that Jews were responsible for Pornhub, for ‘the abortion industry’ and for ‘the LGBTQPZ plus agenda’, and that there was a ‘disproportionate number of Jews occupying positions of authority’, had the effect of perpetuating a narrative of prejudice against Jewish people.”
The Blood Brothers interview with Fransen was deemed inflammatory enough that it was subsequently removed from YouTube, although it is still available via the 5 Pillars website. In a previous ruling, related to Hussain’s interview with Neo-Nazi Mark Collett, Impress also ruled that 5 Pillars had had breached Clause 4.3 of its code “by encouraging hatred or abuse against groups based on gender identity, religion, and sexual orientation”. In the interview, Collett had made highly inflammatory comments, including stating that “When you talk about Jewish influence, you have to take into account things like the porn industry, feminism, cultural Marxists, the whole LGBT industry, the anti-racist industry, the holocaust industry. All of these things, all of these endeavours are controlled or disproportionately controlled by people of Jewish descent, and they are wielded in such a way that they have a negative impact on the white population.”
5 Pillars has also interviewed Nick Griffin, perhaps the UK’s most notorious Neo-Nazi, on two separate occasions – once in late 2023, the second time just two months ago, where, as per the 5 Pillars website, one of the topics of discussion was “Why did Dilly and Nick’s first podcast from December 2023 trigger the British political establishment and the pro-Israel lobby?”
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, was also featured in the 5 Pillars interview, which was shared by the Greens on their social media channels.
“Reform UK is an extreme danger”, he told the media outlet.
“And I don’t mean that to scare people, but I would say I’m scared. I know that a lot of communities are scared. And that’s because what we’re facing is a really extreme party”, the gay Jewish man told 5 Pillars, which was also censured by Impress after broadcasting a 2021 video in which its Deputy Editor described homosexuality as “a crime against Allah”. After being pressured to return a grant from a charity which had donated to 5 Pillars under the impression that they had been doing good work combating misinformation about the Covid vaccine, 5 Pillars released a video titled: “5 Pillars fightback against the LGBTQ agenda”.
In further comments from Hannah Spencer, the Green candidate, who, as Jewish News has previously noted, had not mentioned either Israel or Palestine on Twitter until April 2024, told 5 Pillars: “I think it’s a chance really to say that we have a proud history of standing with Palestinians in Gaza.”
Spencer went on to tell 5 Pillars: “and a lot of us here – again, it comes back to just doing the right thing and sticking up for each other, and whether that’s an issue on our doorsteps or on the other side of the world, it’s human decency to stand up and say something when we think something is wrong.”
One person who approved of Spencer’s comments was Roshan Salih, editor of 5 Pillars, who posted the video with the Greens along with the comment: “Decent responses from Hannah Spencer here.”
Salih previously served for half a decade as the head of news in London for Press TV, the Iranian regime’s television channel. Earlier this month he called for people to boycott any businesses which had “free Iran” posters in their windows, claiming that they were doing what “Iraqi dissidents” did before 2003 – “making up lies about human rights to manufacture consent for Western invasion”.
It is believed that the Iranian regime murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens in January, after protests against the regime.
Earlier this month, Salih also tweeted: “From what I hear in Gorton and Denton, the Greens aren’t doing enough to get the Muslim vote which they need to win. Muslims don’t seem motivated at the moment to vote Green so it looks like it’s a two horse race between Labour and Reform.”
It is unknown whether that tweet had anything to do with the Green Party’s subsequent video interview with 5 Pillars.
Mothin Ali, the Deputy Leader of the Greens, who previously conducted an interview with 5 Pillars in 2024, told the outlet: “Right now we’re in the middle of a fight between the hate of Reform and the hope of the Greens. We’ve got an option of transforming this country. This is such a pivotal election. If we win here, the dialogue in this country just changes.”
Responding to the Green Party’s interview with 5 Pillars, a spokesperson for the Jewish Labour Movement said: “5 Pillars should not be touched with a barge pole. With a history of outright antisemitism, homophobia and extremism, no political party aiming to become mainstream should be anywhere near them.
“This is a clear signal that the Green Party and Zack Polanski simply do not care about the harm they are causing as they chase the left-wing, populist vote.”
A Green Party spokesperson said: “At a busy action day, Green representatives spoke freely to everyone there who wanted to hear from them. No one viewing the interviews could possibly conclude there was anything antisemitic about their interviews.”
Jewish News has asked the Green Party why it subsequently shared the video by the outlet on social media, but has yet to receive a further response.
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