by Charles Moore, Telegraph
The Green evangelists of the Palestine cause in some ways share the ethos of Medieval crusaders
Electors in next week’s by-election in Holborn and St Pancras have received a leaflet from the Green Party’s leader, Zack Polanski, who is its candidate there. It depicts Mr Polanski against the backdrop of a flag which is unidentified but is not the flag of his party. The flag shown is red, white and green. The green in it stands not for environmentalism but for Islam.
The unnamed flag is that of Palestine.
Presumably Mr Polanski does not feel the need to name the flag because he assumes all voters who enjoy seeing him with it know already what it is. If they do not, the leaflet carries further helpful hints, claiming that Mr Polanski is “endorsed” by the Muslim Vote campaign and Camden Muslim Alliance.
Even if you are a supporter of the Palestinian cause, do you not think there is something odd about this? Is it right that someone campaigning for a national party in an election for our national Parliament uses the flag of another country as his main symbol?
There have, of course, been elections where foreign countries matter. In the Cold War era, for example, the threat posed by Soviet Russia was often debated. There are also foreign countries which raise special issues for some citizens – Kashmir, Ireland, Israel indeed. But I cannot, until now, think of a serious political party – which the Greens aspire to be – which has stood under the banner of a foreign country.