Have the Greens just voted for a de facto ban on Jews?

Jon Sopel (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Adrian Ramsey (0:04)

I'm deeply saddened that this motion has passed. It doesn't reflect my view, and I don't think it reflects long-standing Green principles either. We've always supported a right to self-determination, and the manifesto on which I was elected in 2024 made clear that Israelis and Palestinians should have equal rights.

Jon Sopel (0:23)

That is Adrian Ramsey, the former leader of the Green Party, expressing his disappointment that the Green Party has adopted a Zionism is racism policy, which calls for a single Palestinian state, the end of the state of Israel, and for Jews in the Green Party, well, what?

Emily Maitlis (0:42)

Those who voted for it will tell you this is about ideology, not religion.

But have the Greens essentially just voted for de facto ban on Jews? Welcome to The News Agents.

Jon Sopel (1:01)

It's Jon.

Emily Maitlis (1:02)

It's Maitlis.

Jon Sopel (1:03)

And we were in Bryson on Friday for the Green Party conference, where kind of inevitably, and we were sort of overtaken by the Zionism is racism debate, by people coming over to our microphones and want to express their passionate views on this subject. And sure enough, that motion has now been carried. And the implications of it, I think, has caused unbelievable, widespread alarm across the Jewish community, whether you are pro-Israel, whether you're critical of the government in Israel, whatever. But all shades of opinion seem to have reacted with horror to this motion, which essentially calls for the end of the state of Israel, with no clear answer of what happens to the 10 million Jews who are living there. And what it means if you're a Green supporter and you're Jewish, about whether you're going to have to go through some kind of purity test now to see whether you can remain a member of the Green Party.

Emily Maitlis (2:01)

Yeah, just to run you through that motion, which was proposed by members of the Greens for Palestine Group, it passed by a vote of members on Sunday with 1,022 in favour, 813 against. So not a slam dunk, but a clear win for those who wanted it passed. And their leader, their own leader, Zach Polanski, abstained. He didn't cast a vote. And this is because he says, or their spokesman says, he was on the campaign trail in Hobart and St. Pancras, which is on Thursday, in which he was standing. So if you like, his mind was elsewhere. But I think it is relevant that of the actual Green MPs, four out of five were against, they voted against senior Greens in the party have been warning that this will not only be divisive, but it will scare Jewish members and make them feel unwelcome in the party. Because the motion passed means that Zionism, just to clarify, that is the movement, the ideology that led to the creation of Israel as a Jewish state back in 1948, will be treated as any other form of racism by the party. And when you speak to those, as you did on Friday, when you speak to those, you will find that they keep on resisting this idea that it is anti-Semitic, because they say anti-Semitism is about Jews or the religion, and Zionism, anti-Zionism is about a political ideology. But there are places now where that gets incredibly conflated. And one of them is in this amendment to the motion, which was going to say that obviously, Jews will be able to associate with community centers, with synagogues, with places of interest that might call themselves Zionist. That got dropped. It was voted down as an amendment. So in other words, if you are a Jewish person living in Britain, even if you feel really strongly against what has happened in Gaza, in Israel, in recent years, or in past decades, you would not be able to associate or to attend a synagogue without the Green Party motion considering you racist or participating, let's say, in racism.

And I think that will be unfathomable to so many people who have tried so hard to delineate, frankly, between what constitutes political activity and what constitutes cultural, religious, spiritual belief.

Jon Sopel (4:48)

And look, there are a million varieties of Zionists, but the basic foundational belief of Zionism is that there should be a Jewish homeland recognized by international law on what was the historic homeland of the Jews, namely Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, which you can go back thousands of years and find that there has always been a Jewish population there. It's not about offering support for Ben Gevier or Netanyahu or Smotrich, these terrible people who have done absolutely terrible things. It's just about whether you believe in a state of Israel should have a right to exist. And I think what this does is, it means that the Green Party will be able to discipline or sanction Jewish members who go to a synagogue which is seen as Zionist. Now, frankly, there is barely a synagogue in the country which doesn't believe in some shape or form in a state of Israel, a safe place for Jews to go where they can practice in freedom. And so it's not surprising that the Jewish community is saying, I'm sorry, you can't say this isn't anti-Semitic. It is clearly anti-Semitic in the fact that it is saying to Jews, you have to prove that you are not in any shape, size or form a Zionist, otherwise you're a racist. If you're a racist, we're going to boot you out of the party. And so it's a very arrogant position for the Green Party to take to say, we are going to define what Zionism is. And if you want to be part of our party, you have to disavow any association in any part of your life with bits of Zionism.