A Green Party MP has said she wants to make sure her party is not \u201cvulnerable to capture by extremists and racists\u201d amid the continuing fallout from the \u201cZionism is racism\u201d vote.<\/p>\n
The party faces a political maelstrom over its policy decision last week to treat Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, as any other form of racism,<\/a> and to back a single Palestinian state over a two-state solution. The motion was passed at the annual party conference with just over 1,000 votes, approximately 0.4% of the total membership.<\/p>\n Ellie Chowns, the party leader in the House of Commons, said the ability to pass such a \u201csignificant and damaging policy\u201d in that way made it clear the party\u2019s structures and policymaking processes were not working.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that policy, \u2018Zionism is racism\u2019, represents the large majority of Green party<\/a> members, nor of people in the country,\u201d Chowns told BBC\u2019s Radio 4 Today Programme on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be in debates about the meaning of contested terms, we want to be united and focusing in contesting and criticising the horrific actions of the Israeli government,\u201d said Chowns, who lost a co-leadership run against Zack Polanski<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n The debate over whether the Greens\u2019 decentralised policymaking structures remain suitable for a party whose membership has expanded rapidly comes hours after the party\u2019s leader for England and Wales was defeated by Labour in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection<\/a>.<\/p>\n Polanksi, who received just under 33% of the vote on Friday, insisted he intended to remain as Green leader, despite calls to stand down<\/a>, including from the chair of the Jewish Greens. The party normally holds leadership elections every two years, meaning the next election would be in the summer of 2027.<\/p>\n Chowns said Polanksi\u2019s \u201cclear\u201d lack of leadership over the Zionisim motion was \u201cdisappointing\u201d, but that he had an opportunity to unite the party, having recognised the flaws in the motion.<\/p>\n Tensions were heightened between the UK and Israel after the Labour government imposed sanctions on illegal settlements in occupied Palestine, and Israel retaliated by trying to close the British consulate in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n