Exclusive: Green party leader advocates leaving Nato and says Britain should wean itself off its reliance on the US
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/20/uk-should-consider-expelling-us-forces-from-british-bases-says-zack-polanski
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Is the UK actually seeking to leave NATO? From everything I’ve seen this seems like it would be a deeply unpopular move even with support for distancing the UK from the US. Am I missing something?
Polanski is just the leader of the Green party, he’s not even an MP. The leave NATO thing isn’t even Green party policy, it’s to reform it from within, he just started talking about leaving it during the leadership election and has defended it since.
Yeah okay, that makes sense. Thank you! What a weird point to grab onto then when the “reform NATO” one already works so well with distancing from the US and doesn’t further UK isolationism.
TBF, Polanski isn’t an isolationist. He says we should build an alternative alliance with our European allies, though why just making NATO less America-led or even America-less isn’t something he’s explained to my knowledge. I suppose saying ‘leave NATO’ is more attention grabby than the more nuanced ‘we need to become less dependent on America and instead rely on our European partners’.
None of the major parties advocate it. Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t a fan but I suspect he’s less relevant now.