Polanski meanwhile told the BBC in October that he would not seek to overturn the motion himself — and that he would not be able to even if he wanted to.
Polanski’s current stance — making amendments to the motion at the first available opportunity in 2028 — remains unchanged, a Green Party official told POLITICO. They stressed that his support for governance changes is geared towards a long-overdue rule update rather than this specific policy.
But Green MPs hope to use the pressure of public interventions to get results sooner. Adrian Ramsay, a former leader of the party, has said Polanski’s “strong communication and motivational skills” have shifted the dial on the climate and cost-of-living — and implied they could do so here.
That has, in turn, prompted pushback from defenders of the Green Party’s structure. “Some of these people wrote the job role of leader, and now they’re expecting someone to do it very differently from how they designed it,” said Rouxel, the former deputy chair of the party’s executive committee. Polanski, he said, simply does not have the power to intervene in democratic processes.
Pressing for an overhaul
MPs are forging ahead anyway. Ramsay told POLITICO the proposals set out by a working group on party governance had a “good chance” of being heard at the party’s next conference in spring.
“I’ve spoken to some of the people on the working group who are determined to do that. The bigger question is whether there can be movement on the motion itself in that time period, which is harder but essential,” he added.