Zack Polanski votes against motion condemning defacement of Churchill statue

The Green Party leader Zack Polanski has voted against a London Assembly motion which described the daubing of graffiti on Winston Churchill’s statue by an anti-Israel protestor – including language describing the British Prime Minister as a “Zionist war criminal” – as an “appalling desecration”.

Polanski, alongside his fellow Green London Assembly members, Zoe Garbett and Caroline Russell, voted against the motion, proposed by the Conservative GLA representatives, which condemned the defacement of the wartime leader’s statue in Parliament Square. Garbett described how “non-violent direct action has always been a legitimate and necessary part of democratic political life.”

The police arrested Dutch national Caspar San Giorgio, 38, shortly after the Churchill statue was defaced with graffiti last Friday. Other wording graffitied on the statue included the phrases “globalise the intifada” and “free Palestine”. San Giorgio now faces a criminal damage charge, which he is contesting.

Dutch group Free The Filton 24 claimed responsibility for the action, posting a video on Instagram appearing to show the incident in progress. Free The Filton 24 defines itself as a group of “family and friends” of the 24 Palestine Action activists who were charged over a break-in at one of Israel-based defence firm Elbit’s UK sites in 2024.

The government strongly condemned the defacement of the statue late last week, with a Number 10 spokesman saying: “Churchill was a great Briton. This Government will always stand up for our values and the perpetrator must be held to account.”

Polanski also joined his Green colleagues in voting against a GLA motion welcoming the removal of Ayatollah Khamenei and describing how the Iranian people “now have their strongest chance in decades to escape from the yoke of the ayatollah’s brutal regime.”

Yesterday Polanski claimed that “Israel killed 160 children in a strike on a school” in Iran. At this time, it appears far more likely that the airstrike was carried out by the United States.