Green and Labour Party Coalitions face uncertainty amidst controversial Zionism policy

Following the Green Party Conference, held in Brighton in early October, and the adoption of a motion which declared Zionism as a form of racism, some local councils, where both the Greens and Labour are in power sharing arrangements, are facing uncertainty. The Green Party leader for England and Wales, Zack Polanski, has already said in mid-October, that he would not be overturning the motion, therefore giving local councils a major headache. Polanski told the BBC journalist, Laura Kuenssberg, on her Sunday programme that, while he would like to make amendments to the document it would remain party policy until 2028. The motion has divided the party and sparked a major backlash from MPs, Jewish campaigners, the UK government and even the wider European Green movement, with the UK’s equality watchdog also writing to the party for more information on it. The political and media fallout also overshadowed Polanski’s unsuccessful campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras Parliamentary by-election, in which he came second to Labour.

Ultimately, the fallout has led senior Labour decision makers to question power-sharing at a local level in England and they have called upon Green councillors to publicly disown it. Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) will also decide whether the party will continue with local deals to share power. On the 27 October, the Local Government Chronicle reported that Green Party groups on at least three English councils have refrained from rejecting their party’s “Zionism is racism” conference motion following Labour’s ultimatum to do so. The Chronicle reported that, in regard to Derbyshire Dales District Council (DDDC), the four Green councillors wrote a letter to the Labour group leader Simon Ripton saying, “Our constitution does not allow the party leadership to overturn a conference motion, and we will not be calling on our leaders to do so.” DDDC, which uses a committee system of governance, is administered by a so-called “progressive alliance” including Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green councillors. The Green group at Havant Borough Council (HBC), which is run by a coalition of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, has also stopped short of rejecting the conference motion. Reform UK is the largest party with 10 seats, with Labour on seven, the Greens on six and the Lib Dems and Conservatives holding five each. In a published statement on the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion” last week, Havant Green Party did not directly address the motion, but stated “unequivocally that we do not, and will not, conflate either Zionism with Judaism, nor anti-Zionism with antisemitism”. In a letter to HBC’s leader, Labour’s Gillian Harris MBE, the Havant Green group leader, Cllr Netty Shepherd, said she understood “that the wording of the motion is problematic for some and is creating division and fear”. Elsewhere, Green groups in some areas have publicly stated they do not agree with the policy or have distanced themselves from it, perhaps reducing the likelihood that some local authority pacts will end.

Whilst Labour’s policy is still not fully settled, the issue is the most acute in the nine local authorities where Greens are key partners in power-sharing arrangements, such as making up majorities that enable budgets to be passed and policy decisions to be made. These include Sheffield City Council (SCC), Warwick District Council (WDC) and Lewes District Council (LDC), three authorities where Labour and the Greens are in direct coalition together. The other areas where the Greens play a key role at a local authority level are: West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC), Stafford Borough Council (SBC), Broadland District Council (BDC), Wealden District Council (WDC), as well as the HBC and DDDC examples outlined earlier. In other areas, Green councillors are not central to local alliances continuing to function, including Runnymede Borough Council (RBC), where Green councillors have left the local ruling alliance after Labour’s ultimatum after the passing of the Green Party motion.