The Green Party of England and Wales is growing faster than it knows how to handle. Since Zack Polanski took the reins as leader, membership has rocketed from 68,000 to over 230,000. That is an explosive influx of new energy, but it has brought a volatile ideological civil war straight to the party doorstep. The flashpoint? A fiercely controversial grassroots proposal known as Motion A105, which seeks to formally declare that Zionism is racism.
For a party trying to cement itself as the premier progressive alternative to Keir Starmer’s Labour, this debate is a tactical nightmare. The motion originally headed for a vote at the spring conference in March failed to hit the floor only because of procedural delays, multiple no-confidence votes against the party chair, and repeated Zoom crashes. Now, as the autumn conference approaches in October, the leadership is desperately trying to figure out how to stop this internal bomb from detonating their hard-won electoral momentum.
The Green Party Electoral Gamble is Backfiring
The Greens did not stumble into this crisis by accident. Under Polanski’s direction, the party aggressively pivoted toward an "eco-populist" platform. They leaned heavily into anti-war rhetoric, called for an end to UK arms sales to Israel, and actively courted voters who felt completely alienated by Labour's centrist shift. In urban areas, this strategy worked remarkably well, pushing the party to historic heights in local polls.
But courting the radical left means inheriting its deepest factional battles. By opening the doors wide to thousands of former Jeremy Corbyn loyalists, the Greens also welcomed a fiercely committed block of anti-Zionist activists.
What looked like a genius electoral strategy in local council elections has transformed into an existential branding crisis. The mainstream media has latched onto the party's internal fights, with right-wing outlets printing savage takedowns and questioning whether the Greens are becoming hostile to Jewish members. Vague policy statements cannot hide the reality that the party is caught between its new activist base and the need to look like a mature party capable of governance.
Inside the Chaos of Motion A105
To understand why this issue is so radioactive, you have to look at what Motion A105 actually demands. Authored by British-Palestinian artist and activist Lubna Speitan alongside the Greens for Palestine steering group, the motion goes far beyond a standard condemnation of geopolitical actions.
The text defines Zionism as a fundamentally racist, ethnonationalist ideology. It calls for the complete dismantling of Israel in favor of a single democratic state across all of historic Palestine. On top of that, it pushes to unban the direct-action group Palestine Action and demands the release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners.
Critics within the party point out that the logical conclusion of passing such a text is authoritarian. If the party officially declares Zionism a form of racism, any member who identifies as a Zionist could face immediate expulsion under anti-racism rules. The Jewish Greens faction warned that this would force Jewish members to choose between their political home and their basic cultural identity. The Israeli embassy threw fuel on the fire, calling the proposal intellectually bankrupt and comparing it to long-revoked UN resolutions from the 1970s.
The Factional Rift Tearing at Direct Democracy
The real structural vulnerability of the Greens lies in how they make decisions. They pride themselves on a radical model of direct democracy. Unlike Labour or the Conservatives, where the leadership tightly controls the policy platform, Green party policy is decided by a simple majority vote of members who turn up to the biannual conferences.
When the party was a small, tight-knit group of environmentalists, this worked fine. With 230,000 members, the system is completely broken. Only a tiny fraction of the membership—often less than one percent—has the time, money, and ideological fervor to travel to conferences or sit through hours of grueling online procedural debates.
This creates a massive democratic deficit. Organized fringe groups can easily pack a room or a Zoom call to push through highly specific, radical policies that do not represent the broader membership or the millions of people who vote Green at the ballot box. Senior party figures are quietly admitting that letting 0.05% of the membership dictate national policy is unsustainable if they want to win parliamentary seats. They are scrambling to propose new delegate systems or universal online voting models, but changing the constitution takes time the party simply does not have before autumn.
The Identity Crisis for a Jewish Leader
Right in the middle of this crossfire stands Zack Polanski. His position is uniquely complicated. He is a gay, Jewish, non-Zionist man leading a party accused of harboring antisemitism.
Polanski’s public handling of the issue has been a masterclass in political tightrope walking. When asked on Times Radio whether he believed Zionism was inherently racist, he refused a simple yes or no. Instead, he argued that it depends entirely on the definition. He stated that if the definition is tied directly to the current actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, then yes, it is racist, and he would vote for the motion. But he also admitted to hoping the debate would not dominate the conference agenda, fearing it would sabotage local campaigns.
This ambivalence satisfies no one. The radical wing sees his hesitation as a betrayal of core progressive values and an attempt to appease the establishment media. Meanwhile, moderate Greens and external watchdogs argue that by even entertaining the debate, Polanski is legitimizing a rhetoric that makes British Jews unsafe. Former leader Caroline Lucas openly intervened, stating that the motion’s wording caused deep concern because it targeted individual Jewish people rather than focusing strictly on state policy. Polanski’s attempt to act as a hands-off spokesperson rather than an assertive leader is leaving a vacuum that factions on both sides are rushing to fill.
The Practical Reality Moving Forward
The Greens cannot afford to spend the next two years talking about Middle Eastern geopolitics if they want to survive the next general election. The electorate votes Green because of climate change, wealth taxes, public ownership of utilities, and broken public services. Every hour spent arguing over the definitions of international ideologies is an hour lost talking to ordinary voters about their energy bills.
To stop the bleeding, the party leadership needs to take definitive operational steps before the autumn conference arrives.
First, the executive committee must use its remaining procedural mechanisms to refine the wording of submitted motions, steering the focus away from identity politics and toward concrete international law and foreign policy goals. Second, the party needs to fast-track its internal constitutional review to replace the chaotic mass-meeting model with a representative delegate structure. Finally, Polanski must stop hiding behind the excuse of being a mere spokesperson. Leadership requires drawing a clear line between legitimate, robust criticism of foreign states and policy positions that alienate entire minority communities at home. If the Greens cannot manage their own internal democracy, voters will quickly conclude they cannot be trusted to manage the country.
