New Green Deputy Leader pledges to speak up for those who feel unseen, unheard, and unrepresented. By Adam Colclough

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In his first speech as deputy leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski said there can be no environmental justice without racial, social, and economic justice too.

Speaking at the party conference in Harrogate, Polanski said that in the UK of 2022 too many people felt “unseen, unheard, and unrepresented”, adding that the Greens will be the party to “take their worries and needs and speak truth to power”.

He highlighted the importance of diversity, representation, and electoral reform in delivering a fairer and more inclusive society.

He said that representation and diversity were both “massively important”, and that he wants to use the platform provided by the deputy leader’s role to “speak with rather than for” those communities who don’t feel they have a voice in politics.

Key to doing so is, he said, reforming the UK’s “broken voting system”, which leaves many people and communities outside the decision-making process. A problem that can only be solved through the introduction of proportional representation.

This would encourage the development of “grown up collaborations” that “work in people’s interests”, and he called on Labour leader Keir Starmer to “listen” to his members who blocked a vote in favour of putting introducing PR into party policy by unions and grassroots members.

The party conference saw delegates back motions aimed at promoting social justice, these included introducing a ÂŁ15 an hour minimum wage and backing stronger trades union rights.

Work, Employment and Social Security spokesperson Professor Catherine Rowlett said the current minimum wage had been eroded by “inflation and the cost-of-living crisis” creating “dire levels of in work poverty”.

Raising the minimum wage to £15 an hour would, she said, be part of creating a “new social contract” where “a basic standard of living isn’t a luxury”.

Matthew Hull of the Green Party Trades Union Group successfully proposed a motion backing a ‘positive charter of workers and union rights’, saying it will protest the “fundamental right to organise and strike”.

Too many people, Zack Polanski said, feel unrepresented when major decisions are made about their lives and communities a fair society is one “that includes everyone”, adding that “in the Green Party, representing people is our priority”.