A Green Party MP has said she wants to make sure her party is not “vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists” amid the continuing fallout from the “Zionism is racism” vote.
The party faces a political maelstrom over its policy decision last week to treat Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, as any other form of racism, and to back a single Palestinian state over a two-state solution. The motion was passed at the annual party conference with just over ۱,۰۰۰ votes, approximately ۰.۴% of the total membership.
Ellie Chowns, the party leader in the House of Commons, said the ability to pass such a “significant and damaging policy” in that way made it clear the party’s structures and policy-making processes were not working.
“I don’t think that policy, ‘Zionism is racism’, represents the large majority of Green party members, nor of people in the country,” Chowns told BBC’s Radio ۴ Today Programme on Saturday.
“We don’t want to be in debates about the meaning of contested terms, we want to be united and focusing in contesting and criticising the horrific actions of the Israeli government,” said Chowns, who lost a co-leadership run against Zack Polanski in ۲۰۲۵.
The debate over whether the Greens’ decentralised policymaking structures remain suitable for a party whose membership has expanded rapidly comes hours after the party’s leader for England and Wales was defeated by Labour in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection.
Polanksi, who received just under ۳۳% of the vote on Friday, insisted he intended to remain as Green leader, despite calls to stand down, including from the chair of the Jewish Greens. The party normally holds leadership elections every two years, meaning the next election would be in the summer of ۲۰۲۷.
Chowns said Polanksi’s “clear” lack of leadership over the Zionisim motion was “disappointing”, but that he had an opportunity to unite the party, having recognised the flaws in the motion.
Tensions is heightened between the UK and Israel after the Labour government imposed sanctions on illegal settlements in occupied Palestine, and Israel retaliated by trying to close the British consulate in Jerusalem.
Research carried out before the motion was passed found that Jewish people who vote for the Greens felt their attachment to Israel had weakened, even as the percentage of British Jews who identified as Zionist rose more broadly between ۲۰۲۲ and ۲۰۲۵.
When asked about extremism and racism within the party – not only in relation to the motion but comments made by the deputy leader Mothin Ali after the Hamas attacks on ۷ October ۲۰۲۳ in which he called for an end to “white supremacist European settler colonialism” – Chowns stressed the importance of the party’s internal processes.
“I don’t know if there are extremists and racists in my party but I want to make sure that my party isn’t vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists, I want to make sure my party’s policies represent the views of the majority of members of the Green party who absolutely are not that sort of person at all,” she said.
“Of course its legitimate to have difference of opinions including on many of the matters that this motion covers,” she added.
Polanski has been accused of abdicating leadership after he missed the debate and the vote at the conference to instead campaign in the byelection, and for giving no clear message about whether or not he backed it.
In interviews after the byelection loss, Polanski said he would have voted against the motion had he attended, given that two amendments he supported, both saying any future structure of a Palestinian state should be decided by Palestinians rather than a one-state system being imposed, were voted down.
On Friday, Vivien Lichtenstein, the chair of the Jewish Greens, said Polanski, who is Jewish, made a “big mistake” by avoiding the vote. Asked if he should continue in his role, she told Times Radio: “No, I think he should resign.”
However, other members of Jewish Greens said Lichtenstein’s comments did not reflect the majority view in the group, and that a vote of no confidence in her had been tabled.
