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Zack Polanski has refused to apologise after he shared an image to his Instagram page featuring a man in a T-shirt that appeared to threaten Nigel Farage.
The Green Party leader also accused Farage of being ‘fundamentally dishonest’ in the way he responded to the post and said he himself had been put in a ‘dangerous spot’ due to Reform’s broader reaction.
Polanski says he inadvertently accepted a collaboration post on the social media site without looking through all the pictures that were included in it.
Among the photographs was a portrait of a man in a shirt with a guillotine and the slogan: ‘We’re only making plans for Nigel.’
Reform UK responded furiously to the post, saying it represented a threat to the life of their party leader and reporting Polanski to the police.
Farage, the leader of Reform, said: ‘If I was to post anything as inciteful then I would expect to be arrested, and so should Polanski.’
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On Monday, the Metropolitan Police said: ‘We take reports of this nature extremely seriously, and officers are conducting enquiries into the matter.’
In an appearance on Newsnight yesterday, Polanski declined to apologise to Farage for sharing the picture, saying he did not need to as it was not done deliberately.
He said: ‘If I’d done it deliberately, I’d 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.’
The Green leader added that the picture ‘got less than 1,000 likes’ when it was first posted and has now had 3.2 million views.
He said he believed it was ‘fundamentally dishonest’ for Farage to crop the screenshot to make it look like he posted it himself.
Polanski continued: ‘I’m accepting my responsibility, in that I shouldn’t have accepted that collaboration. I’m accepting that we all need to condemn political violence.
‘But I also think the reporting to the police, the ramping up of the language to say this is incitement to murder [Farage], feels like that’s also putting me in a dangerous spot.’
He also confirmed the police had not yet been in touch with him over the matter.
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