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Zack Polanski has called on the government to tear up the UK-Israel trade agreement, after the Israeli strikes on Lebanon.
Polanski called for Keir Starmer to ban the US using UK airspace and said sanctions should be imposed on Israel, after accusing the nation of “behaving in a completely uncontrolled way”.
“What is it going to take for this government to actually put robust sanctions on Israel?,” he said at the launch of the Green party local election campaign in London.
“It is outrageous that Israel is still enjoying diplomatic and trade privileges from the international community. As a Green party, we are calling on this government to make much more robust sanctions, to withdraw the UK-Israel trade agreement and to end the genocide.”
Polanski said the prime minister’s insistence that the UK was “not involved” in the conflict with Iran was not “entirely truthful”, because its bases had been used to aid US bombers attacking Iran.
“What we need to do is disentangle the UK military and the US military, ban the US from using our airspaces,” he said.
Asked about the economic cost of ending the trade deal with Israel, Polanski said the UK should not put “a cost on people’s lives”.
Polanski called Trump an “increasingly unpredictable and dangerous man”, and said recent events had “vindicated” his position on the US president. “Just a couple of days ago, he said he was willing to wipe out a civilisation,” he said.
The Green leader used the press conference to criticise Labour on housing, saying Green-run councils would focus on building new council houses and “stand up” to property developers who resist building affordable homes.
Labour has promised to build 1.5 million new homes in England by the end of the decade, but developers have said the target is too optimistic. Steve Reed, the housing secretary, has admitted there would need to be a sharp surge to meet it.
“We do have a housing crisis, but what we also have is an affordability crisis,” said Polanski. “And actually it’s about making sure we build the right homes at the right price at the right place. And what we see far too often with Labour councils is that building luxury, unaffordable buildings that no one’s ever going to live in.”
Labour accused Green party councillors of trying to block 42,000 homes across the country since 2018 and said they were not delivering social rented housing in areas where they were in power.
Reed said: “There is nothing progressive about keeping London families in temporary accommodation. If you’re not willing to build the homes Londoners need, you are choosing to keep them there.”
Polanski said it was “an absolute nonsense” figure, but added: “If a development is being blocked because it’s an unaffordable luxury development, then I’m proud of any Green party council that does that.”
The Green party’s Hackney mayoral candidate Zoë Garbett said she would push London mayor Sadiq Khan to impose rent controls. When Polanski was asked how, as local authorities cannot impose rent controls, he said it was not “some radical, wild policy”.
“What’s wild is that we’ve spent over £70bn in the last five years on welfare, which has been money going straight from the government into the pockets of private landlords, as opposed to building social, social homes or council homes that could be rent capped or rent controlled straight away,” Polanski said.
