Green Party leader Zack Polanski faces fresh controversy after questioning Israel ’s right to exist as a nation.

Mr Polanski told ITV’s Robert Peston : “I don’t believe any country has a right to exist. People have a right to exist.”

He claimed “semantics about whether a country has a right to exist” was the root cause of the “mess” of the current Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Zack Polanski does not ‘believe any country has a right to exist – people have a right to exist’ (Getty)

The exchange followed Mr Polanski’s poll ratings plummeted after he shared a post criticising police officers’ treatment of a suspect accused of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green last week, and after he admitted falsely claiming to have once been a “spokesman” for the British Red Cross .

He was challenged over his stance on Israel in an interview on ITV’s Peston in which he described Israel as a “genocidal apartheid state” over its war on Gaza.

Mr Peston asked him: “Israel has a right to exist?…