'Zionism Is Racism' Motion Splits Green Party as Polanski Faces Leadership Pressure

The Green Party is in open turmoil after its annual conference backed a motion declaring "Zionism is racism" — a vote that has triggered resignations, put leader Zack Polanski under pressure, and raised questions about whether the party can hold together its surging vote.

The motion was passed on October 4 at the party's conference. Within days, Phil Davies, the deputy leader of the Wales Green Party, announced he had left the party. And on October 10, Ellie Chowns, the Green Party's leader in Westminster, told the BBC the party needed to make sure it was not "vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists".

Why the motion matters

The Greens' problems are not just internal. The party has become the main electoral threat to Labour on the left: in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on October 8, Polanski took 32.81% of the vote, Labour's best-placed challenger. The Greens are polling in the high teens nationally in some surveys, and Best for Britain's modelling has suggested the party could be the beneficiary of Labour's collapse among young, urban voters.

That rise makes the conference vote consequential. Jewish groups and cross-party figures have condemned the motion, and the controversy has given Labour — and the Conservatives — an opening to paint the Greens as a party at war with itself.

Polanski under pressure

Polanski has had a bruising week. After his by-election defeat, he told Sky News his future was in members' hands, while insisting the movement was bigger than one election. He argued the Greens had just recorded their second-best by-election result ever and tripled their vote share — a defence that impressed members but left critics unmoved.

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The "Zionism is racism" motion adds a second front. Polanski must now hold together a party whose conference has taken a position that its Westminster leader describes as a vulnerability to extremism. The tension between the party's activist base and its parliamentary wing — a classic problem for insurgent parties — is now out in the open.

A familiar pattern

There is a precedent that should worry the Greens. Labour spent the late 2010s consumed by internal battles over antisemitism that damaged its electoral credibility for years. The Greens' rise is built on being the clean, principled alternative to Labour — the party you vote for when you want to keep your hands clean. A row about whether the party has been captured by extremists is the single fastest way to lose that brand.

What to watch

Three things will decide whether this blows over or becomes a crisis. First, whether more senior figures follow Davies out of the door. Second, whether Polanski moves to distance the leadership from the motion or lets it stand. And third, whether Labour — which has just spent a decade detoxifying its own brand — can turn the Greens' week of chaos into an electoral argument. The local elections are months away, but the damage, if it sticks, will show up long before polling day.