The Board of Deputies of British Jews has labelled the Green Party as “racist” following the adoption of a policy stating that “Zionism is racism.” The motion, passed at the Green Party conference earlier this month, accuses the party of promoting an antisemitic platform and has prompted widespread condemnation from the Jewish community and political figures in the United Kingdom.

The Board of Deputies voted overwhelmingly—118 to one—to declare that by adopting the policy, the Green Party has become a racist organisation, placing it in a category alongside groups historically recognised for racist ideologies. The board also urged other political parties to avoid forming coalitions or power-sharing arrangements with the Greens unless local party leadership explicitly reject the policy and support overturning it. The organisation’s president, Phil Rosenberg, said the Green Party’s position “brands much of our community, including our synagogues and communal organisations, with that slur,” and warned that cooperating with the Greens risked enabling prejudice against Jews.

The resolution highlighted that the Green Party’s call for a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine” effectively calls for the elimination of Israel as a state, which the board views as an endorsement of a policy that denies Jewish self-determination. Labour Party officials have responded to the controversy by instructing local branches to distance themselves from the Green Party’s anti-Israel stance or risk losing Labour’s support in council collaborations, though Labour’s national leadership has not formally broken ties with the Greens.

The Green Party’s motion characterises Zionism as an ideology seeking “an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population.” The policy passed by a vote of 1,022 to 813 at the party conference and faced internal dissent; four of the party’s five MPs and two former leaders publicly criticized it. Zack Polanski, the party’s Jewish co-leader, abstained from the vote on the policy and expressed a desire to amend it, though he does not intend to repeal the motion entirely.

In response to accusations of antisemitism and racism, a Green Party spokesperson defended the policy, stating that the party “does not discriminate against or exclude people for holding Zionist views.” The spokesperson emphasised that the motion is a political stance opposing the displacement and alleged ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, rejecting the Board of Deputies’ characterisation of the policy as antisemitic. The party also affirmed its commitment to speaking out on the situation in Gaza and advocating for international sanctions against the Israeli government.

The dispute underscores ongoing tensions within British politics over how parties address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fine line between political criticism of Israel and allegations of antisemitism. Both the Green Party and the Board of Deputies have framed their positions in terms of principle, with the Greens asserting human rights concerns and the Board defending the legitimacy of Jewish identity and self-determination.