Greens adopt policy treating Zionism as racism

[Twiglets1]

The Greens have formally adopted a policy which equates Zionism with racism, a move that will dismay the bulk of the party’s MPs and has alarmed some Jewish members.

In a vote on Sunday at the party’s annual conference in Brighton about whether to back a motion which calls for Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, to be “treated as any other form of racism”, it passed by 1,022 votes to 813.

The motion, which is now formal policy for the Greens in England and Wales, also calls for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel “with equal rights for all”.

Four of the party’s five MPs have condemned the motion, as did Caroline Lucas, the former leader who was the Greens’ first MP.

Adrian Ramsay, who co-led the Greens before Polanski, said in a statement he would vote against it, as it set out what sort of Palestinian state should exist without taking into account the self-determination of Israelis and Palestinians.

Siân Berry, another of the MPs, made the same point.

Carla Denyer, the Bristol Central MP who was co-leader with Ramsay, said the wording “risks alienating a significant proportion of Jewish people, including those who vehemently disagree with the Israeli government”.

Another Green MP, Ellie Chowns, said the motion “risks fuelling division, and risks undermining the party’s ability to advocate effectively for justice and peace”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/04/green-party-votes-adopt-policy-zionism-racism

My daughter and I were at an international competition in Ireland over the summer. An Israeli girl won gold in the category before ours and the crowd booed. I went up to congratulate her after and they were in tears - said they had to stop wearing their team kit outside as people were following them on the street. Following around a young girl to heckle her on the street.

i don’t wear anything recognisably Jewish if i have my kids with me. Happy to own it myself (sometimes), but my kids are terrified all the time (well my son is. My daughter has gone 180 and is incredibly angry which is also a worry) and I don’t know how to protect them.

i have enjoyed this thread as I am surrounded by very much the opposite in my city. Thank you everyone for sounding so reasonable.

I don’t think it’s unlikely at all. I imagine the vast majority of the country have never met a Jewish person. There are about 250,000 across the country with the vast majority in north London and Hertfordshire. There is a small community in Essex and south London. The next big community is Manchester with a reasonable size community in Leeds and some in Glasgow and Brighton. Oxford and Cambridge communities are much propped up by students with a few academics

The communities in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Nottingham Birmingham and Cardiff are tiny now and aging with very few young people. Jews also tend to stick together so communities are centred in similar areas of the cities.

vast swathes of the countryside, Suffolk, Norfolk, Gloucestershire, most of the midlands, and pretty much any village out of the main areas are likely to have next to no Jews

If this support helps you, that's great. You're not alone. How dreadful for that poor girl, it goes against the very essence of competition. That's just bigotry.

Agreed. If I'm out with my family, we would never wear anything noticeably Jewish. And if we have any conversations about a Jewish topic - upcoming Jewish festival plans, or whatever - we talk in hushed voices and check who is around. We would never talk openly on any Jewish theme.

Yet every other cultural and religious group can wear symbols and clothing showing their identity. That is so wrong.

Apparently they are all going to live peacefully together in Palestine under Palestinian rule, just like all those Jews and Christians who live in Lebanon, Syria etc still live there...except they don't. And everyone including them, know they don't. There won't be any refugees to welcome, because they will be slaughtered immediately. Then all the other people who live in Israel- gay people, Christians, Muslim apostates etc will be ethnically cleansed and the useful idiots will forget all about it when it turns into Afghanistan. Salma Yaqoob ( formerly of Respect) grinning like a Cheshire car saying the vote was not about legitimising victimisation of people for practicing their religion, yet she refused to amend the proposal to make that clear, and that protection amendment was then voted down. So if it's not going to be used to proscribe or discipline Jews who go to a synagogue why did she not make it clear in the actual proposal? The proposal also doesn't say 'political Zionism'. It just declared Zionism, so something that for a millennia has meant Jewish self determination is also covered. Non Jews have decided the definition of a word that is a Jewish word and will be policing it. They are anti Semitic and aren't even bothering to pretend they are not now.

The poor Israeli Irish football player was benched for both the Israel games despite starting all the other Ireland games. I feel for him, he must be finding it hard to reconcile this. Apparently he was instrumental in persuading the Irish team to play the games but they must either felt he wasn’t safe to play or he made that decision that he couldn’t split his loyalties

I know you said the countryside, and you are correct, but Norwich has a fairly sizeable Jewish population.

Poor man. It's a sport for god's sake.

Yeah. We go to a little local Hebrew school and someone was really anxious last time. The took a taxi up and when the taxi driver asked where they were going, her wee son answered honestly and then the taxi driver just stopped talking to them. She was so worried as he knew where we were meeting (tiny community so we don’t have our own building) and then had to have a chat with her 4 year old about lying if asked again.

My father is a survivor of a mass shooting at his synagogue (tree of life). Anniversary of that in a couple weeks so am very, very twitchy.

They had to have their own space created for them at the Green Conference to keep them safe.

There is no future for Jews in the Green Party.

💙

The police could ban it, but they won't. They never do and their tolerance (and that of subsequent governments) of the extremists has only emboldened them, as shown by the Green Party.

Presumably Polanski has hit the point on his useful idiot journey when he stops being useful. Its been said for a while that if he loses in Holborn, he'll be turfed out.

It's getting all pervasive. On another thread about Olivia Colman, I had the nerve to say that I found her irritating (no more than that). Straight away I was jumped on about the Palestinians.

Sadly predictable.

It’s pretty small. It exists, I know a couple of people there but I don’t think it’s more than a couple of hundred people. It’s 0.1% of the population of Norwich so perfectly likely not to have meet any

I miss the days when I could enjoy TV/films/books/music without being told the artists latest uninformed opinion.

The police are scared of the protestors. If they banned it (which they bloody well should) they would have to enforce the ban and they would be overrun. The protestors are vicious and organised. Too few police in the riot squad and too many in the hurty words on the internet squad.

😆

Quite. It's an extraordinary level of arrogance. I'm not interested in what David Tennant or Nichola Coughlan or Olivia Colman think about Gaza or trans rights. Just learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture.

Exactly. I got talking to a policeman whilst walking the dog and he had left the policing demonstrations section in London. He said it was awful: overwhelmed and officers spat at, goaded and cameras in their faces.

Look at what’s happening in France; kids can be mobilised via social media to see a protest as a great day out rioting.

This. I'm not interested in the usual but Gaza stuff. This is more than covert antisemitism; it's sinister and a sign of what's going on in this country. The 7th October march, as well. All planned behind the scenes. If anyone votes Green, don't have the nerve to call others racist.

I expect The Muslim Vote party will run in tandem with the Greens. Indoctrinated kids and old lefties won’t vote for a purely Muslim party, and Muslims I’m sure do not favour blue-haired non-binaries. So they will have a pact.

No Jews, no news?

Yes it is bigotry I agree.

Well done @Twiglets1 for the thread. Might have known we could rely on you for highlighting this. ❤️ shalom to our Jewish friends.