Zack Polanski speaks Bengali in bid to reach Holburn and St Pancras by-election voters
Zack Polanski spoke in Bengali as he appealed to voters ahead of the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
Mr Polanski is contesting the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, triggered by the resignation of former Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer in early September.
In a video uploaded on social media, the Green Party leader continued his streak of reaching voters in different languages, after previously speaking in Urdu and French.
According to Camden Council, Bengali is one the most commonly spoken languages in the area, alongside French and Spanish.
In a video released on his Instagram, the Green Party leader said in Bengali: “I'm Zack Polanski and I'm standing to be the MP for Holborn and St Pancras.
“The Green Party has forced Labour to change some of their most unpopular policies. Vote Green on 8th October.”
Mr Polanski was mocked by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for his Urdu-speaking video earlier this week.
When the Green Party leader asked Mr Khan a question about the climate crisis, the mayor responded in Urdu, saying: “'I thought as the member is so proficient in Urdu that I would speak in Urdu.”
Katie Lam, Conservative MP for Weald and Kent, complained about Mr Polanski’s multi-lingual campaigning, as she posted on social media: “We must ban parties from campaigning in foreign languages. It's both divisive and dishonest. It fuels group-based grievance politics.”
The vote on October 8 is widely seen as a head-to-head between Polanski and the Labour candidate, Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali.
A win in the by-election would take the Green Party’s total number of MPs to six, following an earlier by-election victory in Gorton and Denton this year.
The by-election is being used as a test run for Andy Burnham to decide whether to pull the trigger on an early general election, Labour sources have told The Independent.
With Polanski now standing in the seat as a candidate, The Independent has been told Labour strategists around Mr Burnham say it will be a clear test of whether the change of leadership has killed off the rising threat to the party from the Greens.
A party source told The Independent: “Because Keir’s seat was a target and Polanski is running in it, this gives the PM a perfect opportunity to see if the Green threat has gone with a change of leader.
“We are seeing people come back [from the Greens] to Labour. Under Keir, there was no doubt that we were losing lots of supporters and party members to the Greens.”