Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has accused the Labour government of "an astonishing dereliction of duty" in its response to this summer's heatwaves. He is demanding publicly accessible cool spaces, grants to help households heatproof their homes, and an updated wildfire strategy.

In a speech delivered in central London, Polanski said ministers were failing to confront what he called the "new normal" of sustained high temperatures. "The response from our government is to pretend none of this is happening," he said, calling it "an astonishing dereliction of duty from those whose first responsibility is to keep us safe" (BBC News).

The Green leader described the threat to public health and food supplies from extreme heat as the "biggest threat to this country since the Second World War" (BBC News). He urged the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, to convene an emergency Cobra meeting on wildfires and drought, and criticised him for not having done so. Cobra is the government's emergency committee, bringing ministers and officials together to manage a crisis. Burnham left the Greater Manchester mayoralty earlier in 2026 to enter Downing Street after Labour returned to government (Associated Press via WI Proud, 31 July 2026; KVUE, 30 July 2026). Labour's Bev Craig was subsequently elected Mayor of Greater Manchester to succeed him (WI Proud, 31 July 2026).

Polanski set out specific demands. He called for publicly accessible "cool spaces" in communities and financial support to help households heatproof their homes against record temperatures. He also argued that more was needed to respond to higher temperatures, including an updated strategy for tackling wildfires (BBC News).

The Green Party amplified the speech on its own channels. A first-party statement on greenparty.org.uk was headlined "Heatwave deaths a result of political failure, says Green leader" (Green Party, 7 September 2024). A separate statement on the party's website recorded Polanski's line that Burnham would be "judged on whether he provides solutions to the affordability crisis, the inequality crisis and the climate crisis" (greenparty.org.uk).

The heatwave intervention is the latest in a series of policy proposals by Polanski, who has led the party's efforts to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional environmental base. In May, he launched a three-step "plan to revive High Streets" that included affordable leases for local businesses (BBC News, 3 May 2026). Earlier in the spring, the so-called "Zack Polanski effect" was cited as a factor in Green hopes of gaining extra councillors in Redditch (BBC News, 4 April 2026).

The direct appeal to Burnham carries a particular political charge. Polanski is pressing a Prime Minister who built his public profile as a regional mayor, and who is now being asked to apply the crisis-management machinery of central government to climate impacts that have, until now, often been treated as the responsibility of devolved governments — in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — or local councils. Wildfire response in England involves a patchwork of fire and rescue services, local resilience forums (regional bodies that coordinate emergency planning), and the Cabinet Office's Civil Contingencies Secretariat. A Cobra meeting would signal that ministers accept the current situation goes beyond what that routine system can handle.

The broader context is that comparing the heat threat to the Second World War is a deliberate choice of words. The wartime analogy suggests mobilisation on a national scale, coordinated across all four nations of the UK and backed by public investment, rather than the gradual, mostly devolved approach that has shaped British climate policy so far. Polanski's demand for household heatproofing grants echoes a long-running debate in Whitehall about upgrading British homes for energy efficiency, which has yet to produce a scheme anywhere near the scale the Greens propose.

The challenge for Polanski is whether the urgency of a live heatwave can turn into real political momentum for a party that still holds only a small number of seats in Parliament. The Redditch "Polanski effect" suggests local optimism about his appeal, but the gap between gaining councillors and the kind of national mobilisation he is calling for is wide. His high-street plan showed a willingness to engage on economic issues beyond the climate brief; this speech pulls him firmly back to it.

For Burnham, the political risk is sharper. A government seen as doing nothing during a public-health emergency gives its opponents a ready-made line of attack. The Green leader's charge of "dereliction of duty" is the sort of phrase designed to be replayed in opposition attacks and reshared on social media. Whether No 10 judges that a Cobra meeting would calm the political temperature, or simply amplify the sense of crisis, is the immediate calculation facing Downing Street.