{"id":664061,"date":"2026-11-01T23:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T23:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/664061\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T23:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T23:50:11","slug":"green-party-must-avoid-being-taken-over-by-hard-left-says-former-leader-green-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/664061\/","title":{"rendered":"Green party must avoid being taken over by hard left, says former leader | Green party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adrian Ramsay, the former co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, has said the party must fix its internal democracy to avoid a takeover by the hard left, saying that some new members \u201cmight be more at home\u201d in Your Party or the Socialist Workers party.<\/p>\n

Ramsay, who has been critical of the handling of the row over a \u201cZionism is racism\u201d motion passed at the Green party<\/a> conference, said there were a \u201csmall number\u201d of individuals who used \u201cdivisive\u201d tactics to influence the party\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a real crossroads point for the party at the moment,\u201d he told the BBC. \u201cAnd one option is to dig in \u2026 but I think that there\u2019s a risk it brings with it a quite divisive approach to politics, which you\u2019ve seen from small groups of people on the hard left of politics who go around different parties to try to influence how those parties are run.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there were some new members who had joined the Greens after the failure of other leftwing movements, such as George Galloway\u2019s party or Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s Your Party, who had their roots in hard left organising.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also a small number of people who have joined, perhaps from the very hard left of politics, who might be more at home in the SWP or with George Galloway or with Your Party. [They] not only want to adopt some very hardline positions on certain issues, but have a very different culture to how they go about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said those members were \u201cseeking to change the direction of the party\u201d and the leadership needed to reassert the core values and ways of working of the Green party, which was \u201cmuch more about consensus building, much less about highly fractional, highly tribal politics, and of course about the environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flaws in the party\u2019s internal democracy meant small groups could have an outsized influence he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was 0.4% of members who voted for this [the Zionism is racism motion] and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s reflective of party members as a whole, it\u2019s certainly not reflective of those I speak to,\u201d he said, adding there should be a ballot or survey of the wider membership.<\/p>\n

Ramsay, the MP for Waveney Valley, welcomed the party\u2019s growth in membership and said he was not calling for Zack Polanski<\/a> to stand down as leader over the handling of the row.<\/p>\n

He also said he was not intending to quit the party himself. \u201cI\u2019ve got no intention of going anywhere. What I want to see happen is this issue be clearly addressed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But it was critical the party disavowed the Zionism motion sooner than the two-year cycle which party rules allow for, he said, and that the party changed its internal rules to give the wider membership more control over policy, rather than the small numbers who attend the party\u2019s annual conference.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Greens Organise \u2013 the grassroots group that backed Polanski\u2019s leadership \u2013 said: \u201cAdrian Ramsay put forward his case for the future of the Green party a year ago, and lost \u2013 by a landslide 84%.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver 150,000 members have joined the party under Zack\u2019s leadership, and helped bring the party unprecedented electoral success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey deserve representatives who focus their energy on fighting for the radical solutions to the crises our country faces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsay said he believed it was also clear the party needed to refocus on its core missions around climate and nature, as well as the cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that will unite our members. I think it will ensure we still have a wide appeal as a party,\u201d he told the BBC Newscast podcast.<\/p>\n

Asked if he viewed Zionism as racist, he said: \u201cNo \u2026 I\u2019ve made clear my position on the motion, as lots of other Greens have done.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the situation in Gaza was \u201cappalling\u201d but that the motion was contradictory to the Green party manifesto from 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support equal rights for both Palestinians and Israelis, and Greens have always supported self-determination for all people.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had told Polanski directly he should have been present for the debate and vote, despite fighting a byelection in Holborn and St Pancras. \u201cI do think he should have been there and he should have expressed his view clearly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ramsay said the party needed \u201cto find a way for this motion to be changed or rescinded sooner than the two years that Zack is talking about \u2026 changing the fact that a policy can\u2019t be reviewed until two years is up\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adrian Ramsay, the former co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, has said the party must…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-664061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}