failed to grab<\/a> a parliamentary seat in the wake of the row with Israel in a by-election.<\/p>\nThe Labour Party won the election for the parliamentary seat vacated by former leader Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras on Friday, fending off a strong challenge from the left-wing Green Party in a boost for British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur party democracy must now evolve to meet that \u2013 creating wider engagement for members, giving leaders more responsibility to set the party\u2019s strategic direction, and making our processes as robust and accessible as possible,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbove all, that unity must be deployed in the service of changing this country for the better,\u201d the Green Party leader added.<\/p>\n
Criticism over vote on motion<\/p>\n
Polanski also replied to the criticisms of him for not participating in the vote on the motion on Zionism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been asked why I was not present for the vote. The answer is that my priority was fighting a hugely consequential by-election for our party,\u201d he said, adding that he put all his \u201cenergy into the race in Holborn and St Pancras\u201d.<\/p>\n
He admitted that some members feel \u201clet down\u201d by his decision not to make an appearance there.<\/p>\n
The Green Party\u2019s motion, which called for \u201cPalestinian liberation, the right of return, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and a full arms embargo against Israel\u201d was criticised by Jewish groups, other parties and most Green Party MPs.<\/p>\n
After conceding defeat in the fiercely contested by-election, Polanski answered his critics, saying he would stay on as leader.<\/p>\n
He was barred<\/a> from entering Israel after his party backed a motion to define Zionism as racism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski calls for internal rule reforms to give party leaders greater control over policy after Zionism vote.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[461,591,59,57,58,9084,590,632,50,9086,229,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/p>\n