UK Green MP says party must avoid capture by extremists and racists

Ellie Chowns, the Green Party's leader in the UK House of Commons, said on Saturday she wants to ensure her party is not “vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists”. The comments follow a conference motion that treats Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, like any other form of racism and backs a single Palestinian state rather than a two-state solution. The row is still ongoing.

The vote and the criticism

The motion was backed by just over 1,000 members, roughly 0.4% of the party's total membership. Chowns told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that passing such a significant and damaging policy this way showed the party's structures and policy-making processes were not working. She said the policy represents neither the large majority of Green members nor of people in the country, and that the party should focus on criticising the Israeli government's actions rather than debating contested terms.

Chowns lost a co-leadership contest to Zack Polanski, who leads the party in England and Wales, in 2025. She called his lack of leadership on the motion disappointing, but said he had a chance to unite the party.

Polanski and the Jewish Greens

Polanski received just under 33% in Friday's Holborn and St Pancras byelection, which Labour won. He says he will stay on as leader, despite calls to quit, including from Vivien Lichtenstein, chair of the Jewish Greens. Leadership elections are normally held every two years, so the next would be in summer 2027.

Polanski is accused of abdicating leadership because he skipped the conference debate and vote to campaign in the byelection and gave no clear message on his position. After the byelection he said he would have voted against, since two amendments he backed were rejected. Other Jewish Greens members say Lichtenstein does not reflect the group's majority view, and a no-confidence vote in her has been tabled.

Tensions between the UK and Israel are also high after the Labour government imposed sanctions on illegal settlements in occupied Palestine and Israel tried to close the British consulate in Jerusalem.