Burnham rules out Labour-Green partnership over ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion

Because Green members approved the motion, it is now party policy, although it will not necessarily appear in the party’s manifesto at the next general election.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he would not support Labour forming a partnership with the Green Party while it maintains a policy defining Zionism as a form of racism, calling the position “wrong” and “antisemitic.”

Speaking in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions, Burnham said Labour would have “nothing to do with it” after Conservative MP Dame Harriett Baldwin urged him to “rule out co-operating” with the Greens.

Green members approved the motion at the party’s conference earlier this month. It defines Zionism as an ideology supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/ or domination of the non-Jewish population”.

The measure has drawn criticism from Jewish groups, four Green MPs and two former party leaders. One former leader described it as “dangerous” and “divisive”.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who has described the motion as “imperfect” and said he wanted it amended, criticized Burnham’s remarks.

“The dangerous and irresponsible blurring of challenging Israel and antisemitism is deeply revealing.”

Polanski also said: “A Labour Government who apologized over their actions over Gaza is demonstrating that it was all performative. Andy Burnham still stands with Israel whilst it kills innocent people [sic].”

He added that he is “the only Jewish leader of a political party” and said he is the victim of antisemitism every day.

Polanski has nevertheless defended a central argument in the motion, saying the assertion that “the displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people is clearly underpinned by racist ideology” was “obvious”. Israel has repeatedly denied that its actions in Gaza constitute genocide.

Because Green members approved the motion, it is now party policy, although it will not necessarily appear in the party’s manifesto at the next general election.

Ben Judah, a former Foreign Office adviser to David Lammy, called Burnham’s response “hugely welcome after the Greens measure has caused such shock and distress in the Jewish community.”

Burnham spoke just hours after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage published an op-ed in The Jewish Chronicle urging Labour to “draw a red line” and declare that “there will be no electoral pacts with the Green Party. Not now, not ever.”