Green Party MP wants to make sure it is 'not vulnerable to extremists'

Green Party MP Ellie Chowns called for structural reforms to protect the party from "extremists and racists" after members voted to adopt a motion declaring Zionism a form of racism.

The motion passed at the Green Party conference earlier this month with 1,022 votes to 813. The policy also backs a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine," which includes modern-day Israel, and defines Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state."

Chowns, the party's Westminster leader among five Green MPs, told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that the policy was "significant and damaging" and did not represent the views of most party members or the country. She said she would work to reform the party but noted she did not know whether extremists and racists were already members.

The vote took place despite only 0.4 percent of the Green Party's 230,000 members participating in the conference vote. Chowns said this discrepancy exposed problems in the party's policy-making structures.

Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas raised concerns about "entryism," the practice of signing up to a party to change its direction from within. Lucas, who served as the party's only MP until 2024, said the party's constitution needed updating and called for it to become "a welcoming place for Jewish people."

Jewish groups criticized the motion. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council responded that "Zionism is anti-racism, creating a refuge for Jews in their ancient homeland after millennia of persecution outside it."

Current party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, said he would not have voted for the motion as written. He did not attend the conference vote, leaving early to campaign in a north London by-election that Labour won Thursday. Polanski secured 33 percent of the vote compared to Labour's 45 percent, though the Green vote share increased 22 percentage points from the 2024 general election.

Polanski told BBC Breakfast he would "absolutely" remain as leader. However, Vivien Lichtenstein, leader of the Jewish Greens, called for his resignation, calling his absence from the debate "a big mistake."

A Green Party spokesperson said the motion was "one motion alongside dozens of others" and that no single interest group drives party policy.