It’s official: the Greens are an extremist party where slogans matter more than policies. British Jews had plenty of reasons to feel fear and anxiety before members voted in favour of a conference motion claiming that “Zionism is racism”. But they now have to live with a declaration by a party represented in Parliament that anyone who believes in Israel’s right to exist is a racist.

None of this makes any difference to what’s happening in the Middle East. Many British Jews oppose the Netanyahu government, something that’s rarely acknowledged by many parts of the Left. Gaza is still run by a terrorist organisation, Hamas, which carried out a massacre of Israelis, festival-goers and migrant workers three years ago. The fact that the anniversary of the atrocities falls on Wednesday, so soon after the vote, adds insult to injury. It poses a dilemma for Jewish members of the Greens, but not for those of us on the Left who are sick of the malign impact of identity politics.

“Zionism is racism” is as meaningless as another Green mantra, “trans women are women”, and emerges from the same stable of preposterous ideas. Unfortunately, today’s vote shows that the party is only sinking further into activist politics.

It’s worth recalling that Labour, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, was the first UK party to be found responsible for “harassment, discrimination and political interference” in relation to antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The EHRC specifically called out the party’s failure of leadership, which it described as “hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism”.

History is now repeating itself as the leader of the Greens, Zack Polanski, ducked voting on the “Zionism is racism” motion, rushing off to campaign in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election instead. He is not the only prominent politician to avoid contentious issues: one of the characteristics of contemporary politics is pusillanimous leadership, demonstrated by Andy Burnham’s failure to vote in a debate in the House of Commons on puberty blockers and on the assisted dying bill.

Meanwhile, pressure from activists is having a visible impact on policy, something confirmed by Burnham’s squirming over Labour’s position on Gaza during Keir Starmer’s leadership. He must be acutely aware that the Greens have become a home for disaffected members who left Labour after Corbyn’s resignation, attracted by a profoundly regressive Green alliance with Islam.

The party now has a deputy leader, Mothin Ali, who had to apologise two-and-a-half years ago for describing his election as a councillor in Leeds as a “win for the people of Gaza”. This is catnip to members of the party for whom condemnation of Israel is central to their sense of self, even if it means ignoring or denying the extreme sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7.

In a week when a plane full of Israeli passengers were nearly killed, it’s horrifying to see a UK party pass such a motion. It will not save a single life in Gaza, but it will put pressure on other parties to ramp up their criticism of Israel. The least the Greens could do, in the circumstances, is to be frank about who their allies are.

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Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.

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