The Metropolitan Police has said it will take no further action after Green Party leader Zack Polanski re-posted an image of a man wearing a T-shirt printed with a guillotine and the slogan "we're only making plans for Nigel".
Decision follows review of context and proportionality
After a review, the Met concluded that sharing the image online was unlikely to amount to a criminal offence. The force said the post had been shared by roughly 130 accounts, and investigators had to consider whether treating the matter differently because of the public profile of the individual who shared it would be appropriate.
In a statement the Met said an extensive investigation into multiple accounts would be disproportionate and not a reasonable use of police resources given the low likelihood of an offence being established.
Referral and parallel local decision
Although the Met declined to take further action over the sharing of the photograph, it recorded a crime in relation to the wearing of the T-shirt and referred that report to Avon and Somerset Police, the force covering Bristol where the photograph was taken.
Avon and Somerset subsequently said the "threshold for a criminal offence has not been met". In explaining its decision, that force noted the context around the image, its use of song lyrics, and that the T-shirt had been marketed as a satirical item. Avon and Somerset added there were no complaints from people at the event where the shirt was worn and no evidence the wearer intended to threaten a named individual or to encourage anyone to commit violence.
Political responses
The Green Party welcomed the outcome. A party spokesperson said it had been "obvious from the start" that no crime had been committed and accused Reform UK of using the episode as "a political football for their own cynical purposes".
"Once again we see that we are living in two-tier Britain. Zack Polanski is allowed to get away with inciting murder whilst ordinary people up and down the country get a knock at the door for making a joke online," a Reform UK spokesman said.
The dispute highlights tensions over how police forces assess online material posted by public figures and how resources are deployed when content is widely shared. The Met specifically cited the practical implications of investigating multiple accounts rather than focusing on an individual because the same post had been amplified by many users.
- 130 — approximate number of accounts that shared the post, according to the Met.
- Metropolitan Police — decided no further action over re-posting.
- Avon and Somerset Police — determined the threshold for an offence was not met in relation to the wearer of the T-shirt.
| Issue | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Sharing of photograph by Zack Polanski | No further action by Metropolitan Police |
| Wearing of the T‑shirt (photo location: Bristol) | Avon and Somerset: threshold for offence not met |
The episode will feed into broader debates in Westminster about how law enforcement balances freedom of expression, the satirical or artistic context of imagery, and the policing of online communications. Parties accused one another of playing politics with policing decisions; Reform UK framed the outcome as evidence of differential treatment, while the Greens argued the complaint was politically motivated.
From an operational perspective, the Met’s statement sets out a practical rationale: where content has been widely shared, investigating only one user could be inconsistent unless all accounts were also examined. That calculation, the force said, can make further inquiry an unreasonable use of resources when conviction appears unlikely.
Neither force suggested that the matter warranted penal sanction once context and intent were taken into account. The case will nonetheless be cited in future disputes about the threshold for criminality in posts by public figures and the extent to which police should pursue online matters that have been amplified across many accounts.
