Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, voted against a motion welcoming the “removal” of the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei at the London Assembly on Thursday.
In a separate motion, Polanski, who has been an assembly member since 2021, refused to condemn the vandalism of Sir Winston Churchill’s statute in Parliament Square.
Conservative assembly members brought forward urgent, albeit largely symbolic, motions to the assembly’s meeting.
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The first read: “This assembly wishes to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the appalling desecration of the statute of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square.”
The memorial was vandalised in the early hours of Friday. Caspar San Giorgio, 38, was charged with criminal damage. He denies the charges.
The motion went on to “condemn the appalling language graffitied onto a statue of great national importance, including ‘Zionist War Criminal,’ ‘Stop the Genocide’ and ‘Free Palestine’”.
The motion, which was passed with votes in favour by all but Polanski and fellow Green Party members Zoë Garbett and Caroline Russell, called on the mayor to provide the Metropolitan Police with “the full resources” required to protect “the site of national importance.”
The statue of Winston Churchill after it was defaced. It has since been cleaned
CARLOS JASSO/REUTERS
In the second motion, assembly members were invited to “strongly welcome the removal of Ayatollah Khamenei from power.” Khamenei was killed as a result of a US-Israeli strike on Tehran at the weekend, on the first day of the joint military operation.
“Under (his) regime, Iran has funded international terrorism, attacked British nationals, brutally repressed its own citizens calling for freedom, and has tried to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian citizens now have their strongest chance in decades to escape from the yoke of the Ayatollah’s brutal regime.”
During the debate, prior to voting against the motion alongside his Green colleagues, Polanski said he agreed Khamenei’s regime was “brutal” but called the attack “an illegal and unprovoked attack by the US government and the Israeli state.”
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Polanski said he could not back the motion as it included the lines “warmly welcomes the celebrations amongst London’s Iranian communities and strongly hopes that recent events mark the start of a new chapter for Iran.”
It marks a departure for the Green Party leader, who in 2023 proposed a motion himself condemning the actions of Iran’s security forces after a previous crackdown on protesters in the country.
Emma Best, the Conservative assembly member who tabled the motion, said it was a “disgrace Zack Polanski voted against a motion which echoed the sentiment of one he proposed just three years ago.
“The supreme leader and his regime terrorised the people of Iran and its enemies across the world. It is not controversial to join Iranians, here and abroad, in welcoming the end of that regime. It is sinister that the principles of the Green Party leadership can so easily sway from what is morally right.”