Green Party leader Zack Polanski has said police “should not be above scrutiny” over their handling of the arrest after the Golders Green stabbing attack, despite apologising earlier this week for reposting criticism of the officers involved.
Speaking on Sunday, Polanski said his mistake had been raising the issue on social media, which he said “wasn’t the appropriate forum”, rather than questioning whether police actions should later be examined.
His comments extend a dispute with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley over the arrest of the suspect in the aftermath of an attack that police have described as a terrorist incident targeting members of the Jewish community.
Polanski had reshared a post accusing officers of “repeatedly and violently” kicking the suspect after he had been Tasered. He later apologised for sharing the post “in haste”, saying emergency responses should be scrutinised afterwards and in the “right forums”.
On Sunday, he reiterated that position, saying public servants, including police officers, should face scrutiny, while accepting that X was not the right place to make the point. He also criticised Rowley’s public intervention, arguing that it was not an appropriate way to conduct the argument during an election period.
The row began after footage and commentary about the arrest circulated online following the attack in north-west London on Wednesday. Counter Terrorism Policing said officers were called at 11:16 BST after reports of a stabbing in Golders Green. Two men, aged 76 and 34, were injured.
Police said the suspect carried out a second stabbing at about 11:20 on Golders Green Road before officers caught up with him by 11:29. According to police, he then tried to stab officers and was Tasered and arrested. ITV News reported that after the Taser was used, officers kicked the suspect while trying to disarm him because a knife was beneath him.
The Crown Prosecution Service later authorised charges against Essa Suleiman, 45, of three counts of attempted murder and one count of possessing a bladed article in a public place. The attempted murder charges relate to the two Golders Green victims and a separate earlier attack in south London the same day.
Rowley responded publicly to Polanski’s repost, saying the criticism was inaccurate and warning it would have a “chilling effect” on officers forced to make split-second decisions in dangerous circumstances. He also said the comments contributed to “rising tensions” at a particularly sensitive moment.
The commissioner later said he was not intervening in politics but defending officers from commentary that had strayed into operational policing.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was among those who backed the Met’s response, calling Polanski’s intervention “disgraceful” and saying he was “not fit to lead any political party”. Ministers also defended the officers’ actions. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she could understand why officers might have acted as they did, given fears that the suspect’s backpack could have contained something that might “go off”.
The dispute has unfolded days after the government raised the UK terror threat level from Substantial to Severe following the Golders Green attack. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the stabbings as a “vile act of terrorism” and announced an extra £25m for security at synagogues, schools and community centres.
The attack came against a backdrop of wider concern over antisemitic incidents in north-west London. In recent weeks, counter-terrorism police have been investigating arson attacks on Jewish-linked sites in Golders Green and Finchley. Rowley said the Met had deployed thousands of additional officer shifts as part of community-protection operations and had made 28 arrests, with eight people charged, in relation to the broader series of incidents.
Polanski’s remarks also come after criticism over separate comments last week about whether Jewish people were experiencing a “perception of unsafety” or “actual unsafety”, which drew condemnation from Labour and other parties.
The Met has said it has received a letter from Polanski and will meet him after the local elections on 7 May.
For now, Polanski’s latest intervention stops short of a full retraction of the underlying criticism. Instead, he has sought to draw a distinction between the principle of scrutinising police conduct and the way he first raised the issue, saying the problem was the forum rather than the fact of asking questions at all.