The Green Party have said Zack Polanski’s promised conference interview on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show was cancelled just days before going to air.
The interview’s cancellation means Polanski is the only major political party leader not to be interviewed by Kuenssberg during their conference.
Green sources told Byline Times the interview had been planned to air on Sunday, but was scrapped by the BBC in light of the Manchester synagogue attack.
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In a post on X, Polanski questioned why the BBC pulled the interview even though he is both Jewish and from Manchester.
He wrote: “Every other national party leader was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg during their conference. Maybe the BBC thought as someone who also supports Palestine – I had nothing to say?”
The Greens had requested an interview with the show after Polanski’s election as leader at the start of September, but this didn’t come to fruition.
Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch featured in interviews on the programme instead.
The BBC had said at the time they were planning on interviewing Polanski during the Green Party conference in Bournemouth, party sources told Byline Times.
One Green Party source told the publication the decision to cancel Polanski’s interview was “extraordinary”, and that offers to do a short down-the-line interview with Kuenssberg were also blocked.
The BBC has since said they will offer Polanski an interview on Laura Kuenssberg’s show “in the coming weeks.”
In a statement to the Byline Times, a spokesperson said: “Zack Polanski has been interviewed across various BBC News programmes across the course of the Green Party Conference – during which he has been asked for his thoughts relating to the horrific attack at the synagogue in Manchester.”
They added the the invitation to be interviewed on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg in the coming weeks “remains open.”
Over the weekend, the Green Party’s membership surpassed that of the Liberal Democrats, the first time this is believed to have happened since January 2015.
As of Monday, it stands at over 86,000.