EAST LONDON — Zack Polanski and Caroline Lucas urged the Green party to engage with the concerns of Reform UK voters as a necessary step to address inequality during a speech in east London. Polanski made the remarks at a conference organized by the leftwing campaign group Compass.

Polanski, who was elected to lead the Green party last year, said the party must understand why voters affected by the cost of living crisis are drawn to Nigel Farage’s party. “I could stand here, and spend the rest of the evening talking about why Reform are bad, and I’d feel great. But there’s a really important distinction that needs to be made. Nigel Farage, the Reform MPs, the people who speak for them, are very different to people who might be thinking about voting for Reform.”

He emphasized that many potential Reform voters have been neglected by mainstream politics. “They are the exact people we need to be caring about. Because when we say people feel left behind, they don’t feel left behind – they have been left behind, by decades of austerity and by successive governments, by politicians who far too often speak to them like they’re stupid – that’s if they’re even speaking to them at all.”

Polanski argued that the real drivers of inequality lie at the top of the economic ladder, not among vulnerable migrants. He said the problem is not people fleeing for their lives on small boats but billionaires taking more money than ever while “flying above our head by private jet.”

Caroline Lucas, a former MP who led the Green party at various points between 2003 and 2018, was in the audience and echoed Polanski’s call. “Listening to [Reform voters] is the starting point, as many of their concerns are perfectly legitimate. We would disagree on the solutions they are reaching for, but when they have had the cost of living crisis for 20 years, and when they have had endless promises from other national governments that simply don’t deliver, you can’t be surprised that they act with a sense of desperation. If someone else is offering something that’s better, there is a sense that it’s worth giving it a try.”

Their remarks come as latest polling shows 27% of the electorate would vote Reform UK if a general election was held.