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

@Twiglets1 "This is too extreme, even he wanted it watered down."

He's been playing a very dangerous (and populist) game and he should've seen this coming. He's only got himself to blame. I hope the Greens crash and burn but a lot of young people are being suckered into this. They're sleep walking into ramifications that they don't understand.

Sorry I read your post as 4 out of 5 voted against. I suppose she could have voted against and kept quiet about it I suppose.

Well who is daft enough to vote for them?

Oh sorry! Yes 4 out of 5 did vote against it. They were Adrian Ramsay, Siân Berry, Carla Denyer & Ellie Chowns.

That means Hannah must have voted in favour of it!

Voting down the policy for Jewish members to have their own personal relationships with Jewish organisations and institutions is rather chilling. Is this some sort of communist hunting in the 1950s thing? Are they meant to boycott their family weddings? Stop speaking to their family members in Israel? I’d hope this means they won’t have any Jewish members anymore but policing people’s personal relationships is pretty icky for a theoretically free society. No one is meant to have nuanced opinions I guess.

Am sure my workplace union will jump all over it as they’re a disgusting supporter of our campus anti Zionist organisation.

As said elsewhere, I wonder if this is my cue to leave. My genuine biggest fear is missing that moment.

This is awful. A lot of antisemitic / pro Palestine people joined the Greens just to vote on this motion. If I were Jewish, I would be feeling quite scared.

It's horrific that a policy of a political party in the UK is to deny people their right to freely practice their religion, and that they will expel members who attend synagogue. Even Restore UK aren't saying this. Disgusting.

Hopefully this will increase the proportion of votes going to Lib Dem’s instead of green.

The proper Greens should splinter off and call themselves the Environmental Greens.

Leave the remaining loons to squabble themselves into irrelevance.

So disappointed in the Green Party over this and other issues eg Self ID - will not vote for them now.

Four out of five MPs plus most of the leadership should be plenty enough to do this, but several of them have already shown themselves to be cowards by abstaining.

Disgusting. I believe there may be genocide by the Israeli government. Regardless Zionism is not racism and this is antisemitism.

Just like certain rhetoric led to attacks on Muslims this will lead to (more) attacks on Jews or just as bad more fear.

I know it's easy for me to say as someone who isn't Jewish.

But I'm not sure that Green party antisemitism should be a contributory reason to leave the UK.

They are less relevant now than they were at the last GE. And stunts like this one will make them less relevant/electable going forward by the majority of the electorate.

If you’re open-minded and undecided about whether genocide has occurred, I recommend you read this legal opinion: www.justthefacts.media/p/genocide-for-dummies

Yes I think they should. The number of members will fall but at least they will be authentic again about representing environmental issues - which is hugely important in its own right.

I really hope you’re right, although you’d have thought that their attempts to erase the meaning of sex would have made them less electable yet their popularity surged.

They are now clearly the go-to party for Islamists, which is a sizeable voting bloc.

The Greens vote in favour of abolishing the world's only Jewish state and they think this makes them an anti-racist party?

Fucking state of them.

I heard one of them, a woman, being interviewed on the radio on Friday who was clearly unhappy about it, and she was asked 'if the vote goes through, do that make it Green Party Policy?' And she hesitated and said 'technically yes'. Then I'm sure she said something about needing to move in a direction of policy-making that was preparing for power (i.e. not letting the batshit members throw the party down the toilet with obviously terrible policies like this). I think they, including Zack, realise that the party is getting away from them, but well, that is their membership. Idiots and antisemites.

The MPs have put out a pathetic statement saying they will not allow discrimination blah blah but their party is now one of the most openly racist political parties in the UK. No other political party denies the rights of their members to attend their place of worship.

Aren’t there enough issues in the UK to sort out?

Watching pictures on the news it looks like a meeting of the Mothers Union and the local golf club. Who on earth voted for this? Apparently they also didn't allow journalists in so they don't even want scrutiny.

If it’s true that only a small number of party members voted on this (apparently 2,000 out of about 200,000) where were the rest of them? Why did they abstain and allow the crazies to dictate their party policy.

Ordinary Jewish people attending their synagogue are now somehow commiting a rascist act? Such fucking nonsense.

Nails it

Weirdly I feel like this shocking but not surprising, given how far the greens have fallen into batshittery in the last few years.

They should have stuck to recycling and carbon emissions.

It's ridiculous and bit imperialistic for the British Greens to think they know the best solution. It's frustrating how their focus has pivoted to things like this, and as others say, it's chilling and really creepy to get into people's personal relationships and religious practices. I also hope that those who have sense will split off.

Another layer of frustration for me from what I can read is that those support this appear to be categorizing Zionism as racism due to the treatment of the Israeli government against Palestinians. This is again putting an outsider British lens on it and ignoring that there have been many Jewish people for decades discussing that part of Zionism back to Herzl and other early proponents was racist - not in the way Polanski and that part of the Greens are discussing. Early Zionists ranked Jewish groups based both on the balance of assimilation to religiosity and on ethnic groups, discussed some as animals, and that part has been a continuous problem from the formation of Israel and in Israeli governments throughout. The early Zionist texts are horrifically against Mizrahi Jewish people which from the start resulted in abysmal treatment for decades. This is directly linked to the treatment of Palestinians and others from the area as well. It's linked to the atrocities done against African Jewish people. It's a big part of why the power structures of Israel look and work as they do.

The Jewish people who have been discussing this for so long have discussed a wide range of issues and the difficult roads to possibly deal with them, but those like Polanski reduce it down to make themselves the 'good guys' for supporting Palestinians while sweeping aside many of the victims of the Israeli government and makes it harder to discuss actual issues of racism within Israeli politics, whether they're rooted in those racist parts of Zionist philosophies or not.

They should be renamed the Trans-Gaza party. Madness.