A Green Tragedy: sectarianism and anti-semitism

It has not been a happy fortnight for the Green Party.

Earlier this year some polls put the Greens on 20%, making them a credible electoral force and a serious threat to the future of the Labour Party. Mere months later the Greens are polling at 7% and party leader, Zack Polanski, has the lowest approval ratings of any political party leader on -28, the British press is awash with tales of division and scandal within the Party.

What’s gone wrong?

The immediate story is Zack Polanski’s loss in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election last night, having finished second behind the Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali. The seat had been seen as a winnable target after the resignation of Keir Starmer, and an opportunity to build on the Green Party’s success in the Gorton and Denton by-election and the May council elections earlier in the year.

The independent candidate, Andrew Feinstein, who had come second to Keir Starmer at the General Election in 2024, had stood aside and backed Polanski, to form a co-ordinated effort to unseat Labour. But although Polanski did succeed in cutting the Labour lead, a loss is a loss, and a loss for a party leader will inevitably bring further scrutiny. Already, there are rumours that he will be pushed to resign in the next few months, and Polanski has been forced to play down the threat to his leadership.

Part of the difficulty for the Greens is that Andy Burnham has successfully managed to stabilise the Labour Party and stop the leak of support to the left. Taking a harder line on Israel, alongside a clear pivot towards a more socialist position on economics and cost of living, has somewhat neutered the Green threat.

But the big story which has dominated the headlines this week - and reportedly came up on the doorsteps - was the motion at Green Party conference last weekend, which defined ‘Zionism’ as a form of racism, and called for a single democratic Palestinian state, effectively denying the right of Israel to exist at all. The motion, which was backed by 1022 votes, with 813 against, has resulted in widespread condemnation, particularly from the Jewish community:

• The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council branded the motion as an “attack on the Jewish community”, and went on to say “Zionism is anti-racism, creating a refuge for Jews in their ancient homeland after millennia of persecution outside it. Branding most British Jews and Jewish institutions “racist” stokes anti-Jewish hatred after a year in which British Jews have been murdered attending their synagogue, stabbed in the streets, and seen their community buildings firebombed.”

• The Movement for Progressive Judaism said: “The Green Party has made antisemitism party policy and become a racist party”.

• The Campaign against Antisemitism referred the party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

• Israel itself argued, “The Greens have adopted not only the green of Hamas, but also its ideology: the elimination of the State of Israel through armed struggle” and banned Zack Polanski from entering Israel.

As the British Board of Deputies highlighted, this motion has not been passed in a vacuum. We’ve had the desecration of memorials to the victims of the October 7th attacks, firebombing of Jewish community ambulances, as well as knife attacks on synagogues and Jewish individuals. Home Office data reveals that Jews are more than 9 times more likely than Muslims to be victims of hate crime.

Understandably, many are questioning whether Jews are safe in the party and despite Polanski’s assurances that no one will face discrimination in the party on his watch, former leader Jonathan Bartley has expressed concerns about the toxicity of the Green Party brand. Indeed, the proposer of the motion is now under investigation for her friendship and defence of Minh Quang Pham, who was jailed for 40 years in the US for supporting al-Qaeda and linked with a plot to detonate explosives at Heathrow airport.

Polanski himself has said that he did not support the motion as it stood, but that he ultimately agreed with the “substance of the motion”. However, he was absent during the vote itself, and failed to voice a clear opinion or steer the debate prior to the vote, all of which has been seen by many as a lack of leadership.

The former Green Party MP Caroline Lucas argued:

“It’s worth recalling that this motion was supported by 1,022 self-selected members – just 0.5% of the party’s total membership – an unknown number of whom were actively encouraged to join the Green party simply to vote to push the motion through. This speaks volumes about the vulnerability of our internal structures. Entryism has been a problem for many parties, but with our commitment to direct democracy and our cumbersome internal accountability mechanisms, the Greens are woefully exposed.”

The Greens are not the only insurgent party to face increased scrutiny in recent months, with Nigel Farage’s Reform party also suffering from a similar stagnation in the polls and questions about the integrity of those at the core of the operation. As insurgent parties rise in the polls and gain additional media attention it is not uncommon for the initial enthusiasm that propelled them forward to come unstuck against the increased scrutiny and political pressures that come with success.

However, this scandal is a self-induced mess. A small subsection of the party put forward, and then carried, a divisive motion designed to appeal to the narrow and more extreme fringes of the anti-Israel movement. The Greens have already been avowedly critical of Israel and had success in pushing Labour to do more in its condemnation of Israeli actions.

Indeed, Polanski had made concerted efforts to centre their electoral appeal around their opposition to Israel. In the Gorton and Denton by-election earlier this year, they even campaigned in Urdu, one of the languages of Pakistan, with explicit calls to punish Labour for Gaza.

In many ways, they’ve had great success with this strategy and yet the dangers of appealing to a narrow fringe and indulging factional interests have come to the fore. Rather than the environmentalist movement they began as, the Greens focus has become diverted away from areas of core concern for the UK voter.

Interestingly, 27% of Green voters think they are at their best when they stand up for what is right in the Israel-Palestine conflict, compared to only 6% of the wider public. Likewise, More in Common report that since the 2024 General Election, the Green voter base has become deeper, but narrower.

Now, that is not to say that if the public don’t care about something it’s not worth caring about – at CARE we work hard on many areas that are considered unpopular or are not considered a priority with the general public. Nevertheless, as a political party seeking political power one needs to be able to commandeer support from a broad swathe of the nation and go beyond one’s own voter base to win over the undecided. And it is this which the Greens appear unable to do.

Polanski’s strategy has been successful in energising his voter base and appealing to a left disenchanted by Keir Starmer, but with Burnham reclaiming ground for Labour and Polanski’s base running away with fringe ideas, the Greens find themselves in a bit of a muddle. Antisemitism has been emboldened, Jews feel unsafe, and a British environmentalist party now finds itself in the headlines not for its environmental policies but for an extremist position on a highly-complicated conflict in the middle east.

Factionalism and sectarianism pose significant threats to the democratic health of our nation. Naked appeals on ethnic or religious lines are dividing Britain from both the left and the right. You see it in ethnonationalist appeals to ‘white’ and ‘Christian’ Britain. You see it in electoral campaigning that plays on religious conflicts elsewhere in the world to command the Muslim, or Hindu vote. And you see it in day to day political rhetoric which demonises opponents and then people acting all surprised when politicians are murdered.

The Bible sets out government as a common grace institution. A good thing that God graciously gives to everyone to uphold public justice. Genesis 9 sets out that principles of public justice are divinely mandated and are to be upheld by all humanity. Romans 13 calls on Governments to rule for the public good.

Yet in this nation, we have political parties building campaigns and momentum around ethnic and religious divisions. As many highlighted would happen, identity politics and the positive desire to see all included and playing a meaningful role in society, has hardened into a harsh form of identitarianism in which my group is pitted against your group.

The Bible also sets out the power of the tongue, that though it be small it can do great harm when used wrongly. The language our politicians use, the motions we write, the laws the legislate all have powerful repercussions that ripple out across society. A campaign calling for justice for the vulnerable in Palestine can start in a good place, but language used wrongly can result in rising anti-semitism and horrific attacks on Jews.

In their book, the Coddling of the American Mind Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that “Identity can be mobilized in ways that emphasise an overarching common humanity while making the case that some fellow human beings are denied dignity and rights because they belong to a particular group, or it can be mobilized in ways that amplify our ancient tribalism and bind people together in shared hatred of a group that serves as the unifying common enemy.”

It seems to me that sadly this week’s headlines are just another testament of how we all too easily fall into the latter and we would be foolish to think that this is a problem unique to the Greens. It is easier after all to hate than to love. It is easier to divide than to build. To break rather than to repair.

How we all need the Spirit’s help that we might love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and seek not factional private interest but the good of our neighbour and the glory of our king.