UK Green Party adopts ‘Zionism is racism’ platform

Delegates backed the measure 1,022 to 813 at the party’s annual conference on October 4, 2026.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

The UK Green Party voted Sunday to define Zionism as racism and formally adopt an anti-Zionist platform, approving a motion that drew condemnation from British Jewish organizations and a declaration from Israel’s Foreign Ministry that the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, will be barred from entering Israel.

Delegates backed the measure 1,022 to 813 at the party’s annual conference on October 4, 2026.

The motion characterizes Zionism as an ethnonationalist political project that privileges one group over others and maintains that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

The new policy supports Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), an arms embargo against Israel, Palestinian liberation, the right of return and a single democratic state across historic Palestine.

Party leader Zack Polanski, who is seeking election to Parliament on Thursday in former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s now-vacant London constituency, did not vote. The Green Party received 6% of the vote in national elections in 2024.

Three of the party’s five MPs — Adrian Ramsay, Ellie Chowns and Carla Denyer — publicly opposed the motion, as did former leader Caroline Lucas. They warned that adopting the measure could alienate Jewish people and deepen divisions.

British Jewish organizations strongly condemned the decision.

The Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Movement for Progressive Judaism said the measure effectively makes antisemitism official party policy and jeopardizes the safety of British Jews, The Guardian reported.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also denounced the vote, describing the resolution as a “stain on the history of the United Kingdom” and saying it went beyond legitimate political debate.

In an X post, Israel’s Foreign Ministry pointed out that the Green Party defined the Green Party’s resolution as “calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state ‘from the river to the sea’ – meaning the destruction of the State of Israel.”

The statement continued, “The resolution constitutes a clear antisemitic text according to the IHRA definition, as it denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. Therefore, as a first step, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has decided this evening to declare Green Party leader Zack Polanski barred from entering Israel. The decision has been coordinated with the relevant authorities.”

The Israeli government said following the decision that it now viewed the Green Party as “a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism”.

Party figures responded to the controversy with a joint statement pledging that the Green Party would remain anti-racist.