New deputy Green leader describes racist abuse on family seaside trip

Trust Score

Mostly Verified

Confidence: Medium

Standard

Emotional Tone Low

How emotionally charged the language is (low is neutral)

Reading Level Academic

Suitable for age 19+ readers (grade 14)

Article Length Very long

2,582 words

Caps & Emphasis Normal

2.0% of words are capitalised (high can indicate sensationalism)

Executive Summary

I assessed the provided Guardian article excerpt (dated Thu 4 Sep 2025) for checkable factual claims, prioritising those that are objective and time-sensitive (party leadership results, roles, and dated statements), then conducted targeted web research. The core institutional claims about the Green Party of England and Wales leadership/deputy leadership results in early September 2025 are well-supported by the party’s own official announcements and internal election results pages. Claims about Ali’s May 2024 victory speech and apology are supported by multiple reputable contemporaneous reports (Guardian and Yorkshire Post). Several narrative claims (the alleged racist incident at Cromer; Ali’s attribution of causes; statements about Reform UK rhetoric; and broader political assertions such as “there is a genocide taking place” and “UK is active participant”) are either inherently non-verifiable from public records or would require additional primary evidence beyond journalistic recounting; these are therefore marked Unverified rather than False.

Factual Verification

Verified Claims

Mothin Ali and Rachel Millward were elected as deputy leaders (co-deputy/joint deputy leaders) of the Green Party of England and Wales, serving alongside leader Zack Polanski, announced on 2 September 2025.
Zack Polanski was elected leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in 2025 with a very large majority (about mid-80% of the vote), with results announced in early September 2025.
The Green Party’s official internal elections pages list Zack Polanski as Leader and Mothin Ali and Rachel Millward as Deputy Leaders for the 2025 internal elections.
Mothin Ali apologised for “any upset my comments caused about the Gaza conflict” after criticism of his May 2024 election speech in which he said “this is a win for the people of Gaza” and said “Allahu Akbar”.

Unverified Claims

Mothin Ali and his family were attacked at Cromer beach ‘last week’ (relative to 4 Sep 2025) with bottles thrown and racist abuse shouted, including the specific quoted slurs and alleged indecent exposure.
The incident reflects ‘extreme rightwingers using inflammatory language’ and that Reform UK and other rightwing activists have ‘increasingly ramped up anti-minority rhetoric in recent months’ (causal attribution and trend claim as framed).
Ali was born in Sheffield and has lived in Yorkshire all his life (not corroborated here with an authoritative primary record; available sources suggest Sheffield birth and later move to Leeds area, but “all his life” is imprecise).
On 7 October 2023 (day Hamas launched its attack), Ali said on social media that Palestinians had the right to ‘fight back’ (reported by Guardian, but the underlying post itself was not located/archived in this research session as a primary artefact).
Zack Polanski told a march for Palestine in June (year implied 2025) that he stood with those who ‘refuse to look away from the horror and injustice unfolding before our eyes’ (not independently corroborated here with a primary recording/transcript).
The Greens’ Gaza stance may attract voters dismayed at Labour’s position (predictive/interpretive).
‘There is a genocide taking place’ in Gaza (highly contested/definition-dependent; cannot be resolved as a simple factual verification within this workflow without extensive legal-context evaluation and up-to-date authoritative determinations).
‘The UK is [an] active participant’ in the war (a political characterisation requiring definition and evidence; not directly verifiable from the excerpt alone).
The Guardian fundraising block claims about Trump’s “second term” and defunding of US public media (not investigated in this session because it is ancillary to the article’s main subject and was not prioritised among the highest-impact claims about the Green Party leadership and Ali).

Bias & Presentation

Detected Biases:

Attribution bias risk: linking a reported racist incident primarily to ‘rightwing rhetoric’ (causal framing not directly evidenced in the excerpt).
Selection/spotlight bias: emphasis on Reform UK as exemplar of ‘inflammatory’ rhetoric without balancing with specific quotations, context, or comparative data in the excerpt.
Value-laden framing: use of politically charged terms (e.g., ‘genocide’, ‘complicit’, ‘active participants’) presented as assertions by a political actor, which may be perceived as advocacy rather than neutral description.

Language Patterns

Emotional manipulation: 0.22

Quality Assurance

Limitations: ['The article text provided is a pasted excerpt without embedded outbound links resolved (some anchors are truncated), so several claims that might be link-supported within the original page could not be directly followed from the excerpt.', 'Some claims are inherently difficult to verify (personal incident details; political causation; contested legal terms) without substantial additional primary evidence and/or legal analysis.']

Confidence

Level: Medium

High confidence in the article’s central institutional facts (leadership and deputy leadership outcomes) due to direct confirmation from the Green Party’s official releases and internal election pages. Moderate-to-low confidence on several other claims because they rely on reported testimony, interpretation, or contested political/legal characterisations, and I did not obtain primary artefacts (e.g., police confirmation, original social posts, or a verified transcript/recording of the cited march speech) during this research session.

Search Journal

Query: The Guardian "New deputy Green leader describes racist abuse on family seaside trip"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/04/new-deputy-green-leader-mothin-ali-suffered-racist-abuse-family-seaside-trip

Confirmed the specific Guardian article exists and matches the excerpt’s headline/topic/date.

Query: Mothin Ali elected joint deputy leader of the Green Party along with Rachel Millward Tuesday announced members overwhelmingly elected Zack Polanski as leader

https://greenparty.org.uk/2025/09/02/green-party-members-elect-two-councillors-as-deputy-leaders/

Used the party’s official press release to verify leadership team names and announcement date.

Query: Green Party internal elections full results 2025 leader deputy leader Polanski Ali Millward

https://greenparty.org.uk/members/internal-elections/2025-internal-elections/the-winners/

Verified the internal elections winners listing (primary institutional record).

Query: Green councillor in Leeds sorry for ‘upset caused’ in speech amid calls for suspension 7th May 2024 Allahu Akbar this is a win for the people of Gaza

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/green-councillor-in-leeds-sorry-for-upset-caused-in-speech-amid-calls-for-suspension-4618878

Verified the apology wording and context reported contemporaneously.

Query: Zack Polanski elected Green party leader 85% Financial Times September 2025

https://www.ft.com/content/c72370ab-f30e-456c-a444-e49be40d5256

Secondary corroboration of leadership result and identification of deputies.

Article Content

New deputy Green leader describes racist abuse on family seaside trip | Green party | The Guardian =============== [Skip to main content]( to navigation](

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Mothin Ali was elected as joint deputy leader of the Green party, along with Rachel Millward, earlier this week. Photograph: Aatif Zafar

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Mothin Ali was elected as joint deputy leader of the Green party, along with Rachel Millward, earlier this week. Photograph: Aatif Zafar

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This article is more than **5 months old**

New deputy Green leader describes racist abuse on family seaside trip =====================================================================

This article is more than 5 months old

Leeds councillor says people who threw bottles and shouted insults emboldened by rightwing rhetoric

[Harriet Sherwood](

Thu 4 Sep 2025 06.00 EDT

[Prefer the Guardian on Google](

The newly elected deputy leader of the [Green party]( and his family were attacked on a day out at the seaside last week, with bottles thrown and racist abuse hurled, he has told the Guardian.

Mothin Ali, a Leeds councillor, said the incident was a reflection of extreme rightwingers using inflammatory language to blame immigrants and refugees for social problems.

Ali, who was born in Sheffield and has lived in Yorkshire all his life, was on the beach at Cromer, Norfolk, with his mother, wife and children when a group appeared.

“It was a lovely sunny day. I’d been building sandcastles and catching shrimps in rock pools with my six-year-old. Suddenly there were these people throwing beer bottles at us, and shouting: ‘Get out of our country’ and ‘Paki bastards’. Then one of them decided to pull his trousers down.”

Ali recounted the incident as an example of how Reform UK and other rightwing activists have increasingly ramped up anti-minority rhetoric in recent months.

“Reform UK offers simple ‘solutions’ to extremely complex problems – blame immigrants, blame black and brown people, blame Muslims,” he said.

“The language is incredibly inflammatory. It’s language that is designed to stir up hate.”

Ali said that Reform UK was a “big threat” to cohesion, but the Green party under new leadership was in a strong position to offer a radical alternative.

On Tuesday, the party announced that members had overwhelmingly elected Zack Polanski as leader and Ali as joint deputy leader with Rachel Millward, the co-leader of Wealdon district council in Sussex.

The party was now led by a “gay Jewish man, a straight practising Muslim with a big beard and from a northern working-class background, and a middle-class woman who’s a feminist,” said Ali.

“Between us, we can reach across country, class, race, religion and geography. It sends a message that Britain’s a melting pot of all kinds of people. We just created a microcosm of the macro.”

He added that the Green party was “full of very decent, thoroughly nice people, but sometimes that can be a little bit of a problem. If you’re too agreeable or too nice, people can easily ignore you. I’ve always felt we’ve got to be a lot more assertive in our messaging and a lot stronger in communicating our policies and values.

“Now we have a leadership team of three people with different styles, different reaches to different communities, all coming together and uniting as one. A wide approach with a unified message.”

The key message was one of hope, he said. “I represent one of the most deprived communities in Leeds. This morning I got a call from a lady with young children who’s paying full rent on a house that is almost uninhabitable. There are people struggling to buy food for their children. Even people in well-paid jobs are having to tighten up.

“But we live in one of the richest countries in the world. No one should be struggling to eat. These are political choices.”

Politicians need to come up with creative solutions, he said. “For example, we could create solar farms on people’s rooftops right across the country. That would help with high energy bills and the climate crisis.”

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Since being elected as a councillor in Leeds last May, Ali has been outspoken on the war in Gaza. On the day of his election, speaking against the backdrop of a Palestinian flag, he said “this is a win for the people of Gaza” and “Allahu Akbar”.

After a backlash, [he apologised “for any upset my comments caused about the Gaza conflict”]( but said criticism of his use of the words “Allahu Akbar” suggested Islamophobia.

Earlier, on the day Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October 2023, Ali said on social media that Palestinians had the right to “fight back”.

Polanski, who has said he is [proud to be Jewish but is “certainly not a Zionist”]( told a march for Palestine in June that he stood with others [“who refuse to look away from the horror and injustice unfolding before our eyes”](

The Green party leadership’s stance on Gaza may attract voters who are dismayed at Labour’s position. But, said Ali, the Greens were not “trying to win votes, but believe what we’re saying”.

“There is a genocide taking place,” he said. “We won’t know the extent of it for years, but what we see is horrible enough. The Labour party has been pathetic, but also they’ve been complicit. The UK is not just a passive observer [of the war]; we’re active participants.”

Ali said he expected the Greens to win “lots more” seats in parliament at the next election, but that he would not necessarily be among its MPs. “If there’s a need, then I’ll stand for it. If there’s someone better than me, I’ll happily step aside and sit in my garden.”

Despite the challenges, he said: “I haven’t felt this positive about politics ever. I think we can be a really powerful voice.”

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