The UK’s left-wing Green party voted Sunday to define Zionism as racism at the party’s annual conference, drawing sharp backlash from three British Jewish groups, the ruling Labour Party and Israel’s government.
Members of the Green party, which has five MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament and which enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections, backed the motion at the party’s conference, with 1,022 votes in favour and 813 against.
According to the motion, Zionism would be “treated as any other form of racism” and the party supports the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine”.
“This has been a serious and deeply felt debate within our membership,” a Green spokesperson said.
The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity under the charismatic leadership of Zack Polanski, attracting voters dissatisfied with the centre-left Labour government’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
However, Polanski’s popularity has taken a hit in recent months, polls show, following several missteps.
“This 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,” three Jewish community groups said in a letter to the party ahead of the vote.
“We also emphasised the implications for the safety and welfare of all British Jews,” the heads of the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust and Jewish Leadership Council warned.
Israel’s anger
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, called the Green party’s decision “a disgrace”.
“Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people’s right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel,” Herzog said on X.
Bridget Phillipson, chair of the ruling Labour Party and Minister for Women and Equalities, also condemned the Green Party’s conference decision.
“It is shameful to vote against a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and to condemn the vast majority of British Jews and Jews around the world as racist for supporting Israel’s right to exist,” she said in a party statement.
The motion laid bare divisions in the party with Polanski — who is currently running to become an MP in former prime minister Keir Starmer’s London constituency — skipping the vote.
Despite at least three out of five Green MPs opposing the motion, Polanski said earlier this week that the “displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people” was “clearly racism”.
United Nations investigators have accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the war in Gaza, a finding that Israel has rejected.
