Greens vote to treat Zionism as racism

Green Party members voted 1,022 to 813 on 4 October for a motion that commits the Greens to treating Zionism as it would any other form of racism, Left Foot Forward reported.

The vote took place at the party’s autumn conference in Brighton. That evening, Israel’s foreign ministry announced that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar had barred Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entering Israel.

Polanski did not vote on the motion. Polanski left the conference after speaking on 2 October, to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, held for a seat formerly held by Sir Keir Starmer.

The text also supports a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine. An amendment to stop the motion being used to discipline party members affiliated with Zionist synagogues or groups was defeated by 1,026 votes to 684. A second amendment, to remove the one-state commitment, was defeated by 920 votes to 821.

On the conference floor, Ellie Chowns, the Green MP who speaks for the party on foreign affairs, and Caroline Lucas, a former Green MP, argued against the motion. Mothin Ali, a deputy leader of the party, spoke in favour.

Four of the party’s five MPs – Chowns, Adrian Ramsay, Sian Berry and Carla Denyer – publicly opposed it. Ramsay, a former co-leader, expressed deep sadness that the motion had passed.

A Green Party spokesperson said: “This has been a serious and deeply felt debate within our membership.”

Israel’s foreign ministry described the motion as antisemitic under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition and said it went far beyond “the boundaries of legitimate political debate”.

The Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council had warned that the motion “would make the Green Party the first electorally significant UK political party in living memory to adopt what appears to be an overtly antisemitic political platform”.

The Green Party holds five seats in the 650-seat parliament.