Zack Polanski strongly criticised for retweeting post suggesting police arresting Golders Green suspect used excessive force

The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has been criticised for retweeting a post on X suggesting that the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack. Polanski, a profilic user of social media, reposted without comment a tweet which, referring to Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, contained the message: "So essentially his officers were repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by a Taser." Mike Tapp, a Home Office minister, responded by saying: "I'm disgusted that anyone with this view is leading any political party. The Green Party has hit a new low." A spokesperson for the Jewish Labour Movement said: "The Jewish community is hugely grateful to the police for apprehending a knife-wielding terrorist before he stabbed more Jews. If a terrorist won't drop the knife used to stab two Jews, then any sensible person would expect the police to use force. It's shocking Zack Polanski and his 'comrades' are soft on terrorists." On Wednesday, after the attack happened, the Green party issued a statement saying: "This was an appalling act of antisemitic violence. Jewish people deserve safety and belonging wherever they live and we stand in solidarity with the British Jewish community. Our hearts go out to the victims and their loved ones and we pay tribute to the emergency services, including Hatzola, for their swift response." Polanski, who is Jewish, has faced criticism during the local election campaigns for not doing more to deal with antisemitism in his party. The Greens are strongly pro-Gaza, but Labour has accused them of also accepting as members people who were expelled from Keir Starmer's party over antisemitism. Today it was revealed that two Green candidates in Lambeth have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over alleged antisemitic social media posts. Asked about the Golders Green retweet, a Green party source told HuffPost UK: "Zack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn't know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response." The suspect in the Golders Green double stabbing was referred to Prevent, the official counter-extremism scheme, in 2020. His case was closed within six weeks by the deradicalisation scheme, which has faced previous criticism. Keir Starmer has said the government and criminal justice system must respond to the suspected terrorist attack in north-west London in "a swift, agile and visible way", as he convened a meeting in Downing Street.