Board of Deputies votes 118-1 to declare Green Party a 'racist party' over Zionism motion

Mixed · 2The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the UK's largest Jewish body, has declared the Green Party of England and Wales a racist party, by 118 votes to one. 1 2 Right · 2The resolution was adopted at the Board's October Plenary Meeting and responds to a "Zionism is racism" motion passed at the Green Party conference in Brighton earlier in the month. 3 2 Mixed · 2Board president Phil Rosenberg said: "By adopting an antisemitic platform, the Green Party of England and Wales has become a racist party. We will treat it accordingly." He said the policy "brands much of our community, including our synagogues and communal organisations, with that slur" and called on the Green leadership to reverse it. 1 3

Right · 1The Jerusalem Post reports the Board will treat the Greens as it has treated other "racist parties", that it commended party members who opposed the motion, and that the motion's proposer, Ashley Hirst, said he was proud British Jews had "said clearly" the party was racist. 3 Centre · 1According to the BBC, the Board's motion also urged other parties not to do deals with the Greens unless they reject the policy, saying coalitions at local or national level would otherwise fail to take antisemitism seriously. 1 Centre · 1The BBC reports that Labour has already given local Green groups it is in coalition with an ultimatum to disown the motion or lose its support. 1

Centre · 1A Green Party spokesman said the party does not discriminate against people who hold Zionist views, rejected the Board's "characterisation of this motion and our party", and said the decision would not stop it speaking out against "the genocide in Gaza"; the BBC notes Israel has repeatedly denied its actions in Gaza amount to genocide. 1 Right · 3The Green motion describes Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/ or domination of the non-Jewish population"; JNS says it was proposed by the pressure group Greens 4 Palestine and passed 1,022 to 813, and the Jerusalem Post says it also backs a single democratic Palestinian state. 1 2 3 Centre · 1The motion was criticised by Jewish groups, four Green MPs, two former Green leaders and opposition parties; the Board and the Jewish Leadership Council had said "Zionism is anti-racism". 1

Mixed · 2Green leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, did not take part in the vote because he left the conference early; the BBC says he told it he would not have voted for the motion and would not overturn it, though he would like amendments, while JNS says he endorsed it in a BBC interview, calling the motion's definition of Zionism "clearly racism". 1 2 Right · 1JNS adds that Israel's Foreign Ministry said the resolution went "far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate" and President Isaac Herzog rejected it. 2