Reform UK reports Green Party leader Zak Polanski to police over guillotine post
Reform UK has reported Green Party leader Zak Polanski to the police over a social media post that featured a guillotine image with a reference to Nigel Farage.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
Reform UK has reported the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zak Polanski, to the Metropolitan Police over a social media post that included an image of a guillotine alongside the words 'We're only making plans for Nigel', an apparent reference to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
The post was a collaboration on Instagram that contained 20 photographs taken at a Green Party event in Bristol. One of those photos showed a man wearing a T-shirt with the guillotine image and the song lyric. Polanski shared the post but later removed it after the image was brought to his attention.
Reform UK said the post amounted to incitement to murder. Nigel Farage said: 'If I was to post anything as insightful then I would expect to be arrested. So should Polanski.' The party also reported Polanski to the monitoring officer of the London Assembly.
The Green Party initially said Polanski 'unequivocally does not support this type of dangerous message' and that he had accepted the collaboration without realising what it contained. In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Polanski said it was an inadvertent mistake and that he had not looked carefully enough at the images. He refused to apologise to Farage, arguing that Farage had cropped and amplified the post for political purposes.
The Metropolitan Police later said they would take no further action. In a statement, they said the sharing of the image did not appear to constitute a criminal offence and that any investigation would have to look at all 130 accounts that shared the same image, which would not be a proportionate use of resources.
Reform UK reacted with anger, accusing the police of operating a two-tier system. Zia Yusuf, the party's home affairs spokesman, said: 'We have seen so many examples of people that have been arrested purely for social media tweets... any attack on the right... this is disgusting after what happened to Ann Widdecombe.'
The case has reignited debate about free speech, political violence, and the consistency of policing of online content, particularly in the wake of the murder of former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe.
On screen
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Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, mapped by channel. Ordered by how many channels carried each claim.
| Claim | BBC News | BBC One | BBC Two | GB News | ITV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Green Party said Polanski immediately unshared the post and does not support dangerous messages. | · | ||||
| The Metropolitan Police is making inquiries into the report. | · | ||||
| The post included a photo of a man wearing a top featuring the name Nigel alongside an image of a guillotine. | · | · | |||
| Zak Polanski said he condemns all political violence and that he did not look carefully at the post before accepting it. | · | · | |||
| Polanski refused to apologise to Nigel Farage and accused Farage of cropping the post to make it look like Polanski created it. | · | · | · | ||
| Reform UK reported Green Party leader Zak Polanski to the police, accusing him of incitement to murder. | · | · | · | ||
| The Metropolitan Police said they will take no further action, as the image did not constitute a criminal offence. | · | · | · | ||
| Zak Polanski is under police investigation for a social media post featuring a guillotine image; he has stated he did not notice the image and condemns all political violence. | · | · | · | ||
| Nigel Farage said if he had posted something similar he would expect to be arrested, and that Polanski should be arrested too. | · | · | · | · | |
| Polanski had previously liked posts and made comments that panelists considered extreme. | · | · | · | · | |
| Polanski said the police had not contacted him as of the time of the interview. | · | · | · | · | |
| Reform UK reacted with anger, accusing the police of two-tier policing. | · | · | · | · |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
This channel gave a straightforward news report, focusing on the basic facts of the complaint and the police response. It included a brief comment from a political correspondent but did not offer strong editorialising or analysis.
- “Reform UK have reported the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales as a Polanski to the police accusing him of incitement to murder”
- “the Green Party has insisted. This is a case of carelessness”
GB News covered the story across multiple programmes with a strongly critical tone towards Polanski. The channel emphasised the timing of the post so soon after the murder of Ann Widdecombe, accused Polanski of hypocrisy given his past comments, and framed the police response as evidence of two-tier policing. Panelists compared the case to that of Lucy Connolly and argued that a right-wing activist would have faced harsher treatment.
- “It's outrageous to post this image anywhere. Yes, it is. And I think it's absolutely right that the police should investigate it.”
- “If this was a right wing activist who'd done this, it would be all over the place. But Polanski, I think really is, I think it's got to be close at the end of the road for him.”
- “We have seen so many examples of people that have been arrested purely for social media tweets... any attack on the right... this is disgusting after what happened to Ann Widdecombe.”
ITV1 provided a very brief, neutral summary of the story, focusing on the police inquiry and the Green Party's explanation. No editorial commentary or additional context was given.
- “Police say they are conducting inquiries over an image shared by the Green Party leader, Zak Polanski.”
- “The Green Party says Mr. Polanski condemns the image on the T-shirt and hadn't realized what the post showed.”
BBC Two's Newsnight secured an exclusive interview with Zak Polanski, giving him the opportunity to explain his side. The tone was interrogative but balanced, with the presenter pressing Polanski on why he would not apologise. The segment focused on Polanski's claim of an inadvertent mistake and his accusation that Nigel Farage had cropped and amplified the post.
- “This was not my post. It was a collaboration from a photographer. It had 20 images, and I just didn't look carefully enough, and I accepted it.”
- “I think it would be odd for the police to speak to me about that, because I think it's quite obvious that I've not done anything wrong other than making an inadvertent mistake.”
- “I'm accepting my responsibility in that I shouldn't have accepted that collaboration. I'm accepting that we all need to condemn political violence, but I also think the reporting to the police, the ramping up of the language to say this is incitement to murder me, feels like that's also putting me in a dangerous spot.”
BBC News reported the outcome of the police investigation, stating that no further action would be taken. The report included the Met Police's reasoning and Reform UK's angry response, framing the story as a political row over policing consistency.
- “police say they will take no further action against the leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zak Polanski.”
- “Reform UK say it's once again, we see we're living in two-tier Britain and contrast what they see as the actions of Zak Polanski.”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.