UK Green Party votes to declare Zionism a form of racism, splitting its MPs

Vivien Lichtenstein, the chair of Jewish Greens, said she could consider her future in the party after members approved a motion declaring Zionism a form of racism.

At the Green Party’s annual conference in Brighton, members adopted the motion by 1,022 votes to 813.

The conference followed a surge in party membership after Zack Polanski’s election as leader in September last year. Pro-Israel activists demonstrated outside the venue on Saturday.

A group of members brought forward the motion, which defines Zionism as an ideology supporting ‘an ethnonationalist Jewish state’. It says Zionism should be ‘treated as any other form of racism’ and backs a ‘single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine’.

Polanski proposed amendments that would have changed the reference to a single Palestinian state and stated that the motion should not be used to discipline Jewish members who attend synagogues that consider themselves Zionist. Members rejected both amendments.

The party leader did not vote, having left the conference early to campaign in Holborn and St Pancras.

Four of the party’s five MPs, Ellie Chowns, Adrian Ramsay, Carla Denyer and Sian Berry, publicly opposed the motion. Caroline Lucas, a former Green Party leader, also spoke against it during the debate.

The party’s joint deputy leaders took opposing positions. Mothin Ali backed the motion, while Rachel Millward called its wording ‘problematic’.

In a statement on Sunday evening, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council called the motion an ‘attack on the Jewish community’. Alongside the Community Security Trust, the two groups said it 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’.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the motion crossed ‘the boundaries of legitimate political debate’ and was ‘a stain on the history of the United Kingdom’. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, responded by banning Polanski from entering Israel.