ENGLAND AND WALES GREENS CALL ZIONISM RACISM AND EUROPE’S GREENS DEMAND AN EXPLANATION

The Green Party of England and Wales has adopted a policy that treats Zionism as racism and replaces a two state formula with one Palestinian state. Sister parties in Europe have asked the leadership to say whether that is now the official line.

The binding motion passed on Sunday at the party conference in Brighton by 1,022 votes to 813. It says Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, should be treated as any other form of racism. It defines Zionism as an ideology supporting an ethnonationalist Jewish state, and says that ideology privileges one ethnic group on the basis of the subjugation of others. It declares the Greens an anti Zionist party. It backs a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and a right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.

The motion also says it is aimed at a political ideology, not at the religious or ethnic background of people who identify as Zionists, and that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Lubna Speitan, the member who brought the text, said afterwards that backers wanted to oppose racist systems of oppression. “We stand united against all forms of racism and discrimination. No exemptions,” she said. Greg Hadfield, a member, told journalists the result was met with tears of joy.

Four of the party’s five MPs opposed it. Adrian Ramsay, Ellie Chowns, Carla Denyer and Siân Berry spoke against the motion before the vote. Ramsay, co leader from 2021 to 2025, said it would be widely viewed as going against the party’s long held principles. After the count he said he was deeply saddened and that the text did not reflect Green principles or his own view. Rachel Millward, a deputy leader, had called the wording problematic. The other deputy, Mothin Ali, backed the move. Former leader Caroline Lucas also opposed it.

Zack Polanski, leader since September 2025, was not in the hall. He left after his Friday speech to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras by election, where he is a candidate. He had wanted changes to the motion. Conference rejected them. He did not vote. In a statement with the five MPs, including Hannah Spencer, and with Millward and Ali, he said there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people, and that Greens will always uphold universal human rights. The statement does not repeal the motion. Under the party’s rules, conference decides policy. The MPs now have to explain a text most of them voted against.

That is the institutional problem the BBC noted on Monday. The Greens advertise member democracy. The same rule means elected politicians can be held to a foreign policy they opposed. Polanski won the 2025 leadership with 20,411 votes, 84.1 percent, against 3,705, or 15.3 percent, for the Chowns and Ramsay ticket. The conference vote is narrower than that leadership margin, 1,022 to 813, but it is binding.

The European Green party answered within a day. It represents 47 parties, including the Green Party of England and Wales. It said it supports a two state solution for Israel and Palestine, and that the Brighton motion goes against that policy. It will immediately demand clarity from the leadership and the parliamentary group, to understand the official party policy, how they position themselves on the self determination of Israelis and Jews, and how they protect Jewish people and members in the party.

Felix Banaszak, co leader of Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany, called the motion intolerable and unacceptable at a press conference. He said it runs counter to everything his party stands for, and counter to the European Green party. “There is a widely held view within the European Green party that Israel has a right to exist and that this right must not be undermined,” he said. His party would approach partner parties on how to deal with it. German Green MP Marlene Schönberger told Die Welt she was shocked, but not surprised, that the English and Welsh party had taken up what she called the language of Stalinist anti Zionism of the 1970s. She compared the text to UN General Assembly resolution 3379 of 1975, which determined that Zionism is a form of racism. That resolution was revoked in 1991 by resolution 46/86. Schönberger said the formula that anti Zionism is not antisemitism does not repair the breach with European Green principles.

Israel’s foreign ministry went further. It called the motion a clear antisemitic text, beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate, and barred Polanski from entering the country. Foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the ban on Sunday night. Polanski is not an MP. The ban does not bind the other Green MPs. It does attach his name to a vote he did not cast.

Liberal Democrat MPs used the split to invite Green members to defect. That is an electoral move, not a finding on the motion. Jewish communal outlets described the vote as an antisemitism crisis. The motion’s authors say the target is an ideology, not Jews as Jews. Those two descriptions are the argument. A party can declare a nationalism racist and still say it does not mean the people who hold it. Critics say that, in the case of Zionism, the ideology is the claim of a people to a state, and that treating the claim as racism denies a right the party still grants to others. Supporters say a state that privileges one group cannot be exempt from a racism test the Greens apply elsewhere. The Brighton text chooses the second reading and writes it into policy.

What the conference did not do is poll Israelis or Palestinians. Previous Green policy left the shape of a settlement to the people who live with it. The new text specifies the outcome. One state, Palestinian, historic Palestine, Jerusalem as capital, return for Palestinians and their descendants, equal rights for all. Equal rights is in the sentence. So is the replacement of Israel as a Jewish state. The European Greens have said that outcome is not their policy. The German co leader has said it is intolerable. The English and Welsh leadership has been asked to say which of those positions it will defend when the parliamentary group, four of whose five members voted no, next sits in a European Green room.