Polanski refuses to apologise for Farage guillotine post

Zack Polanski has refused to apologise for sharing a social media postthat appeared to threaten Nigel Farage.

The Green Party leader failed to apologise seven times during an interview on Tuesday evening after he shared an image of a man wearing a T-shirt with a guillotine graphic and the caption: “We’re only making plans for Nigel.”

He forwarded the photograph to his 700,000 Instagram followers as part of a series of images from a Green Party rally in Bristol on July 26. He claimed he shared the post “inadvertently” before removing it.

Reform UK has reported Mr Polanski to the police over the image. Mr Farage, the party’s leader, has called for his Green counterpart’s arrest and Zia Yusuf, its home affairs spokesman, has accused Mr Polanski of inciting murder.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Mr Polanski said he “didn’t pay enough attention to the T-shirt” and that he was horrified by its “dangerous message”.

He added that the police had not contacted him. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the force was “conducting inquiries” and took “reports of this nature extremely seriously”.

Asked by Victoria Derbyshire whether he wanted to apologise, Mr Polanski said: “If I had done it deliberately, I would be apologising but because this was a mistake, I think the important thing is that I point out it’s a mistake, that I also make sure that I condemn political violence and also, crucially, I make a commitment to be better on my social media.”

Pressed again about an apology, he said: “No. The reason for that is because... when I posted this or when the person posted it, it got less than 1,000 likes. Nigel Farage then took it, cropped it, made it look like I posted it, which I think was fundamentally dishonest – it’s now had 3.2 million views.”

He added: “I also think the reporting to the police, the ramping up of the language to say this is incitement to murder me, feels like that’s also putting me in a dangerous spot.”

Later in the interview, it was put to Mr Polanski that people should apologise for mistakes, whether they were intentional or not. In response, he claimed: “The moment I do that, Nigel Farage would run all over social media saying he was correct about incitement to murder and this would all ramp up again.”

Pressed again, Mr Polanski admitted the post sent “a dangerous message” but still refused to apologise, repeating that he had shared the post inadvertently.

He said: “If Nigel Farage wants to apologise for all the times that he’s put other people in danger then I’ll be happy to make an apology.”

Offered a final opportunity to say sorry at the end of the interview, Mr Polanski concluded: “I believe in authenticity and I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong here. I made a mistake but it wasn’t a purposeful mistake. It would be very easy to apologise but actually I think it would be false.”

After Mr Polanski shared the post to his Instagram on Tuesday, Mr Farage described it as “inciteful”.

“It is beyond belief. It is inciteful and I will be demanding that Mr Polanski is arrested. If I had done that, I would have been arrested and I would deserve to be,” the Reform leader said.

The T-shirt bearing the guillotine graphic and slogan was withdrawn by an anarchist screen-printing co-operative. Sabcat Printing, which is based in Leigh, Greater Manchester, removed the item from its website earlier on Tuesday.

The printing company bills itself as a co-operative making “anarchist, socialist and community T-shirts, along with antifascist shirts”. It describes itself as “Anarchist Tory-hating workers”.

“Before we were a business, we were ‘up to no good’,” it says, citing involvement in environmental protests in the 1990s and “agitprop” – agitation propaganda – in the 2000s.

Advertising the guillotine T-shirt, its website previously read: “Who could Nigel be? And why the guillotine?

“Whether it’s a nod to the XTC classic or a sharper bit of political satire, this design is for those who prefer their statements with a side of mystery.”

The phrase on the T-shirt originates from a 1979 song of the same name by XTC, the English rock band.

The garment retailed for £20, with Sabcat saying profits would go toward funding garment-worker solidarity campaigns and supporting trade unions.

It is unclear whether the man wearing the garment in the social media post shared by Mr Polanski bought the item from the printing co-operative.

Andrew Bennetts, one of its former directors, said the T-shirt was comedy, adding: “I know somebody else has done a version of the T-shirt now with ‘Nigel is so vain he thinks this T-shirt is about him’.”

Asked about the T-shirt being removed, he said: “He [Andrew Fox, his former business partner] probably took it down because he’s getting too much s--- off journos.”

Since the guillotine design went viral, retailers such as Cloudy Tees, Spoofy Tees and Needsshirt have been seen retailing T-shirts with the same design.

Contacted by The Telegraph, Spoofy Tees said the T-shirt had been “listed a while ago”.

A spokesman added: “We have just Googled this and come to realise how people may see a connection. We have taken this off our website.”

Needsshirt said the product had been added on Monday after they “became aware that the design was attracting significant public attention”.

The print-on-demand retailer said its role was to “offer designs that customers are already searching for rather than to endorse any political viewpoint”.

A spokesman for Mr Polanski previously said: “After attending a public event, Zack accepted a request to collaborate on a post with several images.

“Once this image was brought to his attention, he immediately unshared the post. He unequivocally does not support this type of dangerous message.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “On Monday, July 27, we received a third-party report relating to an image shared on social media. We take reports of this nature extremely seriously, and officers are conducting inquiries into the matter.”

Sabcat has been approached for comment.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]