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

Asking if people supported Israel ... how sinister.

I would have answered none of your business.

To be honest, I find this article somewhat one-sided.

It frames the Jewish connection to the land as 'historical presence' and 'biblical patrimony’, omitting the documented continuous Jewish presence in this region over millennia.

It mentions modern European antisemitism and the Holocaust, but glosses over the global, multi-millennial history of anti-Jewish persecution.

It ignores the expulsion and flight of roughly 850,000 Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries around the same time as the Nakba, a parallel refugee crisis essential to understanding the modern region's demographics.

My worry is that lots of well-meaning people will read this article, see it as well-balanced, and wonder if the Greens might have a point after all.

I would have answered none of your business.
Me too.
And I'd have suggested she got on with doing her job

Which is why a Reform government is the best outcome of a bad bunch IMO. The police need to be able to do their job even when they don’t have the consent of “community leaders”.

I think the danger also comes from Far Left atheists who happily openly hold Christianity in contempt yet are absolutely fine with Islam and will defend the Niqab, segregation of women, family/clan based voting etc and are for some reason attracted to the most fundamentalist religious section of Islam while they rightfully criticise the Religious Christian Right. They will not defend the religious freedoms of anyone else, and there are many more of them than there are Muslims. At least Christ and the Virgin Mary are highly revered in Islam. They will cheer on hardline Islamists, Labour will impose blasphemy laws that only apply to Islam then they will soon find out that it's not only Gays and Jews they don't like, but atheists.

Yes this, I now know more about the history of Israel and Jewish people in the middle east than I ever really wanted to. Tbh it’s clear to me which way the aggression has been and it’s pretty much always been muslim majority towards Jewish minority and it was no different in europe.

Having lived in the gulf for a long time I’m sorry to say the vast majority of muslims will believe any old shite about Jews. The language they use about Jewish people is some of the worst racism I have heard (and I’m not white so I have been on the receiving end of it myself). It is completely unhinged and I struggle to understand why so many in the west struggle to identify it for what it is. It’s just good old racism, rooted in envy I think. Tbf Christians also get a tough ride in the middle east so it’s not like people are particularly kind to any minority, and gays, and women ofcourse, and anyone from any other minority. I don’t know maybe it’s changed from ten years ago but I doubt it.

People obsess over white racism but I have never seen anything like the level of racism which is explicit as I have in the middle east.

I went to school up north and remember a lovely visit to the local synagogue. There were quite a few jewish children in my school.

Has Andy Burnham said anything about this? I don’t think I’ve seen or heard anything from him on it. I wonder whether or not he is actually going to comment.

My experience is that many people underestimate how much antisemitism there is amongst Muslims. By no means am I saying that every Muslim is an antisemite, but I've had the experience, in a Muslim-majority country, of indrawn breaths and a hush falling across a table when I happened to mention the Jewish background of someone we'd been discussing in complimentary terms.

And re the Guardian article linked above and the breakdown of it posted by @inamarina- no surprises there at all. The Guardian, like the Independent, has never been able to report even-handedly on anything to do with Israel. The persistent drip drip drip of one-sided information is ultimately destructive of democracy.

As far as I can see none of the party leaders have commented. Probably because of Thursday’s by-election.

I would expect Kemi to come out swinging on this one. She is usually very forthright on this topic.

Which is being imported. The worst example of antisemitism I've seen from a school student was from a yr8 boy, a refugee from Syria. What he was sharing on his phone would have made Julius Streicher proud.

In North Scotland? Where? That's fascinating.

It is pathetic and so childish. Absolute refusal to accept any responsibility.

I think it is important to note that large swathes of pro-Palestinian Greens who happily have voted for this motion, who will be organising and attending marches on the 7th October are not Muslim.

This appalling antisemitism isn’t simply a Muslim issue to be weaponised by Islamophobes. There are plenty of non-Muslim hard left Israel-haters who are antisemitic.

That is no longer a fringe extremist view but party policy, of a party whose leader and MPs are not Muslim.

Don't agree with that.

But I've been wavering between the Conservatives or Labour (I'm a "floating voter") and I'm leaning more towards the Conservatives.

Kemi seems stronger than Burnham at taking a stand against antisemitism, amongst other things.

The Islamist takeover of the Green Party is almost complete. Once the numbers are there, the LGBTQ crowd will be out.

As David Baddiel has shown, Jews Don’t Count.

Not enough Jews to be worth making a fuss about them.

Best not defend the Jews in case we upset a larger voter group.

(Yet, apparently, Jews are disproportionately powerful.)

Has nobody heard the post-Holocaust reflection attributed Pastor Niemoller?

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Why did he not speak out? Was it just because he was not a member of the group? Was it because he didn’t think the group was that significant? Or was it because he was afraid of the bullies?

These people learned nothing from Iran
The left catering to fundamentalist fascism is something I will never understand

Me too. Never voted conservative before but I admire Kemi's strong clear stances in the face of so much insanity.

Yes. Pictures from the conference were of an overwhelmingly White demographic. The Hard Left have yet again found that they have an awful lot in common with the Hard Right. The Green Party is the Horseshoe theory in action.

Yes, I think this is possible. Watch out for another 'scandal' like the council tax paying situation. (Not saying that wasn't - it was - but someone could well be dirt digging on him.)

Yep the Jez fan club is alive and kicking still today just some of them have moved home temporarily to the Green party

Me too.

That's how I feel.

My family are all Labour or Green (I voted Labour at the last election too) and will be horrified if I decide to vote Conservative but I'm fed up with all this antisemitism. At least Kemi takes a clear stance on that even if she hasn't specifically commented on the Green vote yet (it is the Conservative conference to be fair).