‘Watermelons’: Zack Polanski and the rise of the ‘green outside, red inside’ eco-populists

Zack Polanski on the campaign trail for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection in London Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press/Shutterstock

Watermelons: the term used to describe the members of the Green party of England and Wales who are green on the outside and red on the inside. People in this faction are environmentalists but bleed socialist ideologies.

Of the roughly 160,000 people who have flocked to the party since Zack Polanski became leader last year, most are thought to be in this camp, drawn to a political space on the left that they see as vacated by the Labour party.