A candidate from the Green Party in tomorrow’s election has called the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel “terrorist states”.
Marc Batchford is one of several Green Party candidates in Walsall who hold extremist views. Among other things, he has blamed Jeremy Corbyn’s downfall on “the network of lies Israel spread about him” and shared a claim that Israel has “taken control of” the British Department for Education (DfE).
Batchford’s fellow party member in Walsall, Raja Ateeq, described Jews as “cockroaches”. A third candidate for Walsall Green, Joe Belcher, has been allowed to stand again in tomorrow’s election for the party, after having been excluded from a previous election for claiming that “My gut feeling tells me that the leaders in Israel and Gaza conspired to carry out what happened on 7 October in order to achieve financial gain,” writes Andrew Gilligan in The Spectator.
Batchford is standing for election – entirely without irony – under the slogan “Hope not hate”. Hope not Hate (HNH) is a British so-called anti-racist organisation which, from the conservative side, is accused of employing “frightening” tactics, smearing opponents and operating as an ideological group on the far left rather than as a neutral anti-fascist organisation.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has for many years accused HNH of being “extremist”, while others claim that the group politicised its activities in order to target Brexit supporters and conservative politicians. The left-leaning Guardian naturally came to the group’s defence immediately.
On social media, Batchford has referred to Israel as “Nazis”. He retweeted a video by the musician Bob Vylan, known for the slogan “death to the IDF”, concerning “the shocking story of how the British Department for Education has been taken over by Israeli forces”.
In addition, Batchford aligns himself with the radical former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who according to Batchford “never had any chance with all the conspiracy and sabotage from the party itself, in addition to the entire network of lies Israel spread about him.”
In March came the accusations against, among others, his own homeland and its principal ally, the United States, seasoned with the usual Jew-hatred.
Batchford wrote on X in a discussion about Iran: “We all know now that the UK, Israel and the US are terrorist states.”
I did not know this so thank you for educating me. We all know now the UK, Israel and the US are the terrorist states…#whitefuckingprivilege
— Marc Batchford (@no1batch) March 2, 2026
Batchford is not exactly a solitary radical within the Green Party, Gilligan writes.
By my calculation, Batchford is the 24th Green Party candidate in tomorrow’s election to have been exposed for expressing extremist views specifically connected to Jews, “Zionism” or Israel. Today’s edition of the Daily Mail states that the figure is 30. A further seven candidates have expressed extremist views of another kind.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski still claims that extremists are not welcome in his party. But only six members have been suspended or expelled, and for the most part several weeks after their statements came to light.
Moreover, Polanski himself has made extremist statements concerning the knife attack against two Jews in Golders Green, London. Most recently, he intensified his criticism of the Metropolitan Police by falsely claiming that the perpetrator was subjected to kicks by the police after he had been placed in handcuffs, according to the Daily Mail.
Polanski claimed today that he was “traumatised” by watching the footage in which police arrest the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings.
Two Green Party candidates were suspended only after they were arrested for allegedly inciting racial hatred. Local party members have been seen campaigning together with, and on behalf of, one of the arrested candidates and several of the other suspended candidates.
The Spectator contacted those mentioned, but both Batchford and the party declined to comment on the matter.