Polanski will struggle to end the Greens’ bitter Zionism fight

LONDON — Zack Polanski’s Green Party is still feeling the heat from a controversial policy branding Zionism a form of racism. But the outfit’s intense focus on internal democracy is making it hard to move on. Polanski has sought to challenge Britain’s governing Labour Party from the left since he swept to the top last year. But he fell short in a recent by-election test, failing to get a seat in the U.K. parliament after a race dominated by internal Green bickering over the party conference motion. The motion has triggered a wave of internal soul-searching — and last week saw the collapse of several local government deals with Labour, which has spent years stamping out any hint of softness on antisemitism. The leader has since sought to regain the initiative — promising an overhaul of party democracy which aims to give its upper echelons more responsibility in setting the Greens’ strategic direction. But that’s already testing the limits of his role in a Green Party constitution that’s meant to put members in the driving seat. POLITICO spoke to 10 Green Party officials past and present to try and map out the difficulties Polanski will now face. Some were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal party matters. They painted a picture of a party caught between parliamentary representatives who want to shut down what they see as a vulnerability — and a rank-and-file membership keen to defend the right to set binding policy. Some described a leadership caught in a bind — heeding concerns from MPs while wanting to avoid over-riding party structures. “The rules that are written were meant to avoid flip-flopping,” said Doug Rouxel, former deputy chair of the Green Party’s executive committee (GPEX). “If we effectively decide every motion can be revisited, we will have to repeatedly debate motions over and over, any contentious issue where people are uncomfortable at the position we arrive at,” he said. “It’s about the general principle of undoing.” In a bind Polanski has made the Greens’ opposition to Israel’s post-October 7 campaign in the Gaza Strip a key selling point of his leftist force, tapping in to disillusionment with Labour. But the party’s stance on the Middle East was thrust into the spotlight in October when its annual conference passed a motion — backed by just 0.4% of the party’s overall membership — taking aim at Zionism as an ideology. It defined Zionism as supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state.” Party members also backed a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine.” The Green Party Conference takes place in Bournemouth on Oct. 5, 2025. | Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images The blowback in SW1 was swift. The party’s Westminster leader, MP Ellie Chowns, said the Greens need to make sure they are not “vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists.” The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, an official watchdog, wrote to the party after receiving complaints about possible discrimination. The chair of the Jewish Greens called on Polanski to resign. Green members of parliament who believe the motion is a mistake are already trying to work out how they can U-turn on or amend it. That’s easier said than done, and people familiar with the party’s internal governance have told POLITICO doing so could be near-impossible. Under the Green Party’s constitution, members cannot bring forward a motion or amendment that “significantly amends” a policy for two years after it is voted through. The people who decide whether this criteria is met are the five members of the Standing Orders Committee — a group which acts as the “Supreme Court” of the party, as described by one previous member. Of the current membership of this body, three are backed by Greens for Palestine, which proposed the successful motion. “Not a single one” of the committee would allow a motion or amendment to the Zionis