UK Green Party: Zionism Is Racism, One-State Solution, and Expelling Jewish Members Over Synagogue Affiliations

The Green Party of England and Wales has, through a series of motions at its party conferences between 2023 and 2025, moved from being a party with individual antisemitic incidents to being a party that has institutionalised positions that Jewish organisations across the spectrum — from progressive to orthodox — have characterised as antisemitic.

Three specific developments define where the party now stands:

1. A formal vote characterising Zionism as racism
2. Policy positions that amount to calling for Israel's replacement with a Palestinian state
3. Membership rules that could make affiliation with mainstream British Jewish organisations grounds for expulsion

Each of these needs to be stated precisely — because precision matters when evaluating whether a political party has crossed into institutional antisemitism.

Before evaluating the Green Party's position, the definition of the term they are applying is essential.

Zionism, in its core and historical sense, is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to a homeland in the historical land of Israel, and support for the existence of a Jewish state in that territory. It is not a monolithic ideology — it encompasses:

• Labor Zionism (secular, socialist; founders of Israel)
• Revisionist Zionism (nationalist, right-wing; Jabotinsky, Netanyahu's political lineage)
• Religious Zionism (theological claim to the land)
• Cultural Zionism (Jewish national identity and cultural revival)

The vast majority of British Jews identify as Zionist in the core sense: they believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. A 2015 Institute for Jewish Policy Research survey found that 90% of British Jews believed Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. A 2017 survey found that 59% considered themselves Zionist.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the United Synagogue, the Liberal Judaism movement, the Reform Judaism movement, Jewish communal charities, and the major British Jewish defence organisations all hold standard Zionist positions — i.e., they support Israel's right to exist.

To declare Zionism a form of racism is therefore not a position about a fringe ideology. It is a position about the core political identity of the overwhelming majority of British Jews and the mainstream institutions of the British Jewish community.

At the Green Party of England and Wales conference in Brighton on October 4, 2026, delegates passed, by 1,022 votes to 813, a motion stating that Zionism should be "treated as any other form of racism" and backing a single democratic state in historic Palestine with a Palestinian right of return. The motion states it targets the ideology, not people's religious or ethnic identity, and notes that not all Jews are Zionists.

The motion drew on the formulation popularised since the 1975 UN Resolution 3379 ("Zionism is racism" — revoked by the UN in 1991) and adopted by BDS movement literature: that Zionism, by creating and maintaining a state with a specifically Jewish character, constitutes racial or ethnic discrimination against non-Jewish inhabitants of that territory.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism's analysis: The CAA, which monitors antisemitism across British political parties, documented this as a significant escalation — not merely individual bad actors within the party but a formal policy position approved by a party conference vote. The CAA noted that defining Zionism as racism applies a collective characterisation to the political identity held by approximately 90% of British Jews — and that this is precisely the kind of group characterisation that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism flags as antisemitic.

The IHRA definition: The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, adopted by the UK government (2016), the Labour Party (2018, under Corbyn, with all examples), and hundreds of local councils, explicitly lists as a potentially antisemitic act: "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour." The Green Party has not adopted the IHRA definition.

Green Party leadership's response: The party's co-leaders have variously hedged on the Zionism-as-racism framing, but the conference vote is the formal party position.

The Green Party's official international policy on Israel-Palestine has evolved in the direction of supporting a single democratic state encompassing the current territory of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza — with a right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

What a one-state solution with right of return means: There are approximately 7.7 million Jews in Israel (end of 2024). UNRWA registers approximately 5.9 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants. A single state with full right of return would create — from the moment of implementation — a state where the Jewish population and the Palestinian refugee population are approximately equal, in a region where several governments and armed groups have historically sought Israel's elimination (though Egypt and Jordan have long-standing peace treaties with Israel). Within one generation, given differential birth rates, it would become a majority-Palestinian state.

This is not a prediction — it is arithmetic. A single democratic state with right of return is, in practical terms, the end of Israel as a state with a Jewish majority and Jewish self-determination. This is why virtually every mainstream Israeli politician — from left to right — rejects the one-state-plus-right-of-return formula, and why it is opposed by the majority of Israeli Arabs as well as Israeli Jews.

The "from the river to the sea" problem: The phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" — which has appeared at Green Party events and been used by Green Party figures — is the slogan form of the one-state solution. Its meaning is territorial: the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (i.e., the entirety of modern Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza) would become a Palestinian state. There is no version of this geography in which Israel continues to exist.

The Green Party has not explicitly endorsed the phrase as official policy — but it has endorsed the substance: a single state, right of return, and the characterisation of Israel's founding as a colonial enterprise that must be reversed.

The third and most operationally significant development is the Green Party's movement toward membership rules that would make affiliation with "Zionist organisations" grounds for investigation or expulsion.

The practical problem with this rule: If Zionism is defined as the Green Party now defines it — as racism — then being affiliated with a Zionist organisation is, under this logic, being affiliated with a racist organisation. The party's disciplinary rules already allow for expulsion of members whose conduct or associations are incompatible with party values.

The question is: which British Jewish institutions are "Zionist organisations"?

• The United Synagogue — the largest synagogue network in the UK, Orthodox, affiliated with communities across London and England — holds standard Zionist positions and is affiliated with the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
• The Board of Deputies of British Jews — the main representative body of British Jewry since 1760 — supports Israel's right to exist and opposes BDS.
• The Jewish Leadership Council
• Reform Judaism UK and Liberal Judaism UK — progressive Jewish movements — both hold pro-Israel/Zionist positions in the core sense
• The Community Security Trust (CST) — the charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism — works with Israeli government entities

The implication: A British Jew who attends a United Synagogue synagogue — including the majority of Orthodox synagogues in England — is attending an institution with formal Zionist affiliation. Under a rule that makes "Zionist organisational affiliation" incompatible with Green Party membership, that person's synagogue attendance is potentially membership-disqualifying conduct.

A claim circulating on social media — that the party "voted to be able to cast out practicing Jews from their party if they participate in a synagogue they don't like" — overstates what was passed, but reflects a real concern raised by Jewish members after the safeguarding amendment was rejected: the practical effect of making mainstream British Jewish institutional affiliation a grounds for expulsion is the functional exclusion of observant British Jews from party membership.

Clarification on precision: The Green Party did not vote in so many words to "expel Jews who go to synagogue." Critics, including Jewish members, argue the effect is to define the core political identity of mainstream British Judaism as a form of racism; delegates also rejected an amendment protecting members who belong to Zionist-identifying synagogues from discipline. The party says it will not exclude anyone based on religion. The synagogue connection is the practical downstream consequence, not the explicit text of any motion.

The motion's text says it targets the ideology, not Jews, and notes that not all Jews are Zionists. Leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, did not vote, had sought amendments (including allowing a two-state solution), and said afterwards the Greens "will not accept any exclusion" of people based on religion. Four of the party's five MPs opposed or did not back the motion; Adrian Ramsay said he was "deeply saddened" by it.

The response from British Jewish organisations has been unified and severe:

Campaign Against Antisemitism: Maintains a tracker of antisemitism complaints relating to the Green Party. The CAA maintains a running tracker of Green Party antisemitism incidents.

Board of Deputies of British Jews: Issued formal statements condemning the Green Party's positions on Zionism and its failure to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The Board, which represents the mainstream of British Jewry, noted that the Green Party's positions would make the vast majority of British Jews unwelcome in the party.

Jewish Labour Movement and Labour-aligned Jewish organisations: Even left-wing British Jews — who might be natural Green voters on environmental and social justice grounds — have warned that the Green Party's positions on Zionism have made the party hostile to Jewish members.

Green Party's own Jewish members: Several Jewish Green Party members and former members have spoken publicly about experiencing antisemitism within the party and about the hostile environment created by the Zionism-as-racism position. Some have resigned.

The Green Party's 2024 UK general election result was its best ever: four MPs elected (up from one), about 1.9 million votes (6.7%) nationally, and wins in Bristol Central, Brighton Pavilion, Waveney Valley, and North Herefordshire. The party is in a phase of electoral growth.

This matters because the antisemitic institutional positions described here are being adopted by a party that is growing, not a fringe movement. The Green Party is increasingly the home of the British left that finds Labour too centrist under Starmer. Its positions on Zionism and Israel will reach a larger audience as the party expands.

For comparison: the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn (2015–2020) experienced what an official Equality and Human Rights Commission investigation called an unlawful culture of antisemitism within the party. The EHRC's investigation and report led to Corbyn's suspension from the party and Starmer's explicit repudiation of that era. The Green Party is now occupying the ideological space Corbyn's Labour occupied — and adopting, through formal conference votes rather than factional pressure, positions that are structurally more entrenched.