UK Green Party votes to define Zionism as racism

Britain’s Green Party has voted to define Zionism as racism, in a historic and divisive decision at its annual conference in Brighton on Sunday.

Members backed the motion by 1,022 votes to 813, Dawn reported, citing AFP. Under the motion, Zionism will be “treated as any other form of racism”, and the party will support 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.

“We will continue to stand against genocide”

After the vote, party leader Zack Polanski, the co-deputy leaders and the party’s five MPs issued a joint statement saying the party would not tolerate discrimination.

“We will continue to stand in opposition to genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and the illegal occupation,” it said. “We will continue to call out the heinous crimes of the Netanyahu government, and we will continue to work to ensure that the Green Party is an anti-racist party in every way.”

“We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people,” it added.

Polanski, who skipped the vote, said earlier in the week that the “displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people” was “clearly racism”. At least three of the party’s five MPs opposed the motion.

Backlash from Israel and Jewish groups

Three Jewish community organisations, the Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council, had written to the party before the vote, warning that the motion would make the Greens “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 policy went “far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate” and called on every British party, “first and foremost the governing Labour Party”, to reject it.

A party on the rise

The Greens have five MPs in Britain’s 650-seat parliament and have enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections. Under Polanski’s leadership, they have attracted voters unhappy with the Labour government’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, though polls show his popularity has dipped in recent months. Polanski is now running for parliament in former prime minister Keir Starmer’s London constituency.

The wider debate

United Nations investigators have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects. Palestinian figures say more than 74,000 people have been killed there since October 2023. Britain has also led sanctions on goods from Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Why it matters

It is rare for a party with seats in Britain’s parliament to take such a clear position against Zionism and in favour of a single Palestinian state. The vote shows how much the war in Gaza has shifted opinion in the West, even as it sharpens the debate over where criticism of Israel ends. Read our report on the US Senate vote on West Bank abuses.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn and AFP.