The Green Party of England and Wales adopted a binding policy motion at its Brighton conference declaring that Zionism should be "treated as any other form of racism" and backing a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine "with equal rights for all." The vote won just over 1,000 votes — approximately 0.4% of the party's total membership. Four of the party's five MPs opposed it. The European Green Party, representing 47 parties across the continent, responded immediately. It said it would "demand clarity from the leadership and parliamentary group of GPEW" on how the party positions itself toward "the self-determination of Israelis and Jews as well as the protection of Jewish people and members in the party." The alliance supports a two-state solution and considers the new motion a direct contradiction. Felix Banaszak, co-leader of Germany's Alliance 90/The Greens, called the motion "intolerable and unacceptable," saying it "runs counter to everything that Alliance 90/the Greens stands for in Germany" and to the European Green party's position. He said his party would approach European partners to "clarify how to deal with this." Sandy Ruthven, chair of Amnesty International UK's charitable trust and a longstanding Green member, resigned and accused the party of failing to confront antisemitism. The crisis has exposed a deeper structural problem: the Greens' highly decentralised policymaking model, where binding policy is set at two annual conferences typically attended by a small fraction of members. Former co-leader Ellie Chowns, now the Green MP for North Herefordshire, said the party's governance "urgently need to be modernised" and questioned whether sub-1% participation should produce binding international commitments. She stressed that "there is still much more that unites us than divides us" with European Greens. A party source offered context for the German reaction, noting that "the German Greens support arming Israel, opposed a ceasefire to Israel's onslaught on Gaza, backed the suspension of funding to Unrwa and co-sponsored a Bundestag resolution describing the arguments and methods of the peaceful, Palestinian-led BDS campaign as antisemitic." The gap between the two parties' positions on Israel-Palestine predates this vote. The structural tension is real: giving MPs greater authority over members would undermine the party's commitment to grassroots democracy, but the current model produces incoherence and grants disproportionate influence to the most time-rich activists. One insider suggested a compromise — members setting broad strategic priorities while smaller accountable bodies develop detailed policy. Another senior Green defended direct democracy as "fundamental to the party's character." Daniel Schuster of the Simon Wiesenthal Center called the decision "absurd" and "itself racist," noting the timing days before the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks. Green leader Zack Polanski tried to thread the needle, insisting antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli state "are, and must always be, completely distinct" while defending the party's pressure on the UK government over trade with illegal settlements.
