Polanski 'not fit to lead any party' after Golders Green retweet, Heidi Alexander tells LBC
The Transport Secretary said she could see herself taking the same action as the Golders Green officers, after Polanski apologised for retweeting a post accusing them of kicking the suspect.
The Transport Secretary has hit back at accusations made by Zack Polanski that she and the Prime Minister are using the fear of Jewish people to "threaten authoritarian restrictions on peaceful protests".
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The Green Party leader made the remarks amid the controversy over a post he shared about the Golders Green officers following the attack on Wednesday.
Asked what her response would be to Polanski having accused her and the Prime Minister of "using the pain and fear of Jewish people to threaten further authoritarian restrictions on peaceful protest", Ms Alexander said: "I don't accept that".
Speaking to LBC's Sunday with Lewis Goodall, she added: "I'm not going to take any lessons from a man who, within hours of that incident happening in Golders Green, was retweeting an uninformed commentator about the actions of the police."
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She added: "I think what he said about the actions of those two brave Metropolitan Police officers was pretty disgusting".
"He's rightly apologised, but someone that is so quick to jump to their phone to be retweeting that type of content is not really fit to be leading a political party in this country."
Polanski had retweeted a post on X which accused officers of violently kicking the stabbing suspect in the head after he had already been incapacitated.
He has since apologised but pushed back on criticism, saying: "You can both recognise the bravery of officers who run towards incidents that most of us would want to run away from, and find the appropriate forum to say that no one, especially the police, should be above scrutiny".
Previously, Ms Alexander said that she could see herself kicking the suspect in the attack if she were a police officer.
"If I was in the shoes of that police officer, given the situation and the fact that he had a backpack on his back and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could — if I was a police officer — frankly see myself having taken similar action."
He also criticised Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who wrote an open letter condemning the repost, saying it was not "an appropriate way to do politics". The police should not be above scrutiny, Polanski said amid the controversy.
"The reason why I've apologised is I accept that wasn't the appropriate forum".
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had already branded Polanski "disgraceful" and "not fit to lead any political party."
The row comes after Essa Suleiman, 45, was accused of trying to kill Shloime Rand, 34, and Norman Shine, 76, during a knife rampage through the streets of the north London suburb.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning and was remanded in custody.
Polanski, who is Jewish, also addressed antisemitism directly on Sunday, warning that: "Jewish communities aren't safe, and this isn't an abstract idea for me as a Jewish person. In the last six weeks alone, two people have been arrested in relation to antisemitic actions towards me."
He also said the Times had published "a pretty vile antisemitic caricature" of him, with his party complaining to the paper's editor that the cartoon used the antisemitic trope of a "visibly hooked nose." The Times has been contacted for comment.
Polanski was separately drawn into the debate over chanting "globalise the intifada" at pro-Palestine demonstrations. He said he discourages the phrase but added, "I'm not interested in trying to police people's language."