BRIGHTON, UK – In a landmark shift for British politics, the Green Party of England and Wales voted overwhelmingly to declare Zionism a form of racism and formally backed the establishment of a single, democratic Palestinian state. The historic motion was passed during the party’s annual conference in Brighton on October 4.
The resolution, which passed with 1,022 members voting in favour against 813 opposed, marks a major departure from the traditional Western-backed two-state paradigm. It calls for a unified state granting equal rights to all ethnic and religious groups across historic Palestine. Crucially, the motion also explicitly recognises the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to resist the illegal Zionist occupation and achieve self-determination “by all available means under international law.”
Green Party Co-Deputy Leader Mothin Ali, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, condemned the foundational ideology of the Israeli entity. “As defined in the motion, Zionism is an ethno-nationalist state resulting in ethnic cleansing, based on the belief that one group of people is superior to another,” Ali stated. “I just can’t accept that.”
The stance was strongly supported by anti-Zionist Jewish activists within the party. Stephen Kapos, a Hungarian-born British Jewish activist, endorsed the motion, asserting that “Zionism both as an ideology and practice is harmful and has no legitimacy and must be rejected.” Prominent anti-Zionist Jewish campaigner Andrew Feinstein also voiced his support at the conference, declaring unequivocally that Zionism is racism.
While the Green Party holds only five seats in the 650-seat British parliament, the vote represents a significant ideological victory for the global movement against Israeli apartheid and genocide. Notably, the party was the first major UK political faction to officially recognise the ongoing Zionist onslaught on Gaza as a genocide in 2024. The new motion echoes the historic United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which formally determined in 1975 that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
Predictably, the resolution triggered hysterical backlash from the Zionist establishment and its enablers in the UK government. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar retaliated by banning Green Party leader Zack Polanski—who is Jewish, identifies as an anti-Zionist, and abstained from the vote to support amendments protecting members attending Zionist community groups—from entering Israel.
Bridget Phillipson, the UK’s ruling Labour Party chair and Minister for Women and Equalities, echoed apartheid apologists, claiming that the vote to grant Israeli Jews and Palestinians equal rights under one state “crosses a line.” Meanwhile, Zionist lobby groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council issued a joint statement condemning the motion as an “attack on the Jewish community,” deliberately blurring the lines between Judaism and the supremacist ideology of Zionism.
Despite the intense pressure from the political establishment, the Green Party’s bold stance signals a growing shift in British political discourse, challenging decades of complicity in the Zionist project and standing firmly on the side of Palestinian liberation.
Reference: The Cradle