Trevor Phillips ‘smirked’ as Polanski described Nazi’s saluting him

Zack Polanski’s appearance on the Sunday interview slots was always going to be contentious. In the runup to the local elections, mainstream political parties and media outlets have circled the wagons around the status quo. This saw various politicians and media figures gunning for Polanski, including host Trevor Phillips:

When Jewish people speak out against genocide, why are our voices dismissed?

And smirking while I describe someone Nazi-saluting at me isn’t just disrespectful – it feels deeply antisemitic.https://t.co/iU3sxveUZb

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) May 3, 2026

The questions is this: why would Trevor Phillips – the longtime Labour operator who made Peter Mandelson his best man – take issue with Green Party leader Zack Polanski?

Polanski — It’s a mystery

As Zack Polanski noted, Reform supporters turned up at an event and threw Nazi salutes at him:

Nothing to see here – just a bunch of racist Reform UK voters doing nazi salutes when Green Party leader was addressing a crowd.

Let me repeat that- Reform fans casually doing nazi salutes to @ZackPolanski

Any outrage?? pic.twitter.com/WRGiCMVVTv

— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) May 2, 2026

Given that these people literally did Nazi salutes, we’ve opted to refer to them as ‘Nazis’ in the headline.

Guess how the British media reported on all this anyway:

The following exchange between Polanski and Phillips also became heated:

"Why is my Jewish identity being erased from this conversation?" asked @ZackPolanski

"No.. don't try that one on me!" responded @TrevorPTweets pic.twitter.com/pMWKZjQ91Y

— The Daily Britain (@dailybritainonx) May 3, 2026

In the above, the two men were discussing the allegation that pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide marches are actually ‘antisemitic hate marches’. When Polanski tried to give his perspective as a Jewish man, Phillips shut him down, prompting this from Polanski:

why is my Jewish identity being erased from this conversation?

Phillips responded:

No, no, no, don’t try that one on me. My point is that currently the policy is that if somebody believes that an incident is a hate crime, whether they are a victim or not, it is recorded as such by the police. It is regarded as such by the courts. What you are saying is because you don’t think it’s a hate crime, it shouldn’t be.

Phillips seems to be suggesting that any reported hate crime is legally considered to be such regardless of any subsequent investigation. This doesn’t seem to be the case as far as we can tell?

Potentially he’s doing a poor job of explaining something else; if not, he’s talking rubbish.

Obviously we couldn’t have a workable system in which any accusation of a hate crime is immediately treated as definitive without any investigation. And we know this isn’t workable, because it’s what we’ve experienced with Israel’s defenders in the media and political establishment for the past few decades.

If you called out Israel’s apartheid in 2016, journalists and politicians would gang up and call you an antisemite; the same thing happens in 2026 for Israel’s genocide. The difference now is there are too many people calling Israel out for it to prove effective.

Back to Phillips’ confused point, obviously we need to judge the marches on what they actually are – not on how the hostile media depicts them:

#trevorphillips tries to argue that because some people say the pro Palestinian marches are hate marches, they are.@ZackPolanski is spot on, there is nothing hateful about marching in support of the Palestinians & against Israels brutal occupation & genocide. pic.twitter.com/jD5jNdZPEg

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 3, 2026

Unsurprising

To be completely fair, it’s not surprising some Jewish people feel threatened by the marches. If their only awareness of these marches comes from the mainstream British media, of course they’re going to think the protests are attended by rabid antisemites. This is how the smear works. And it’s why we can’t back down when the establishment comes at us with these false narratives.

Featured image via Sky News