The Board of Deputies of British Jews has voted overwhelmingly to declare the Green Party of England and Wales a racist party, after the Greens adopted a policy branding Zionism as racism at their conference earlier this month. The motion passed by 118 votes to one at the Board's October plenary meeting, and the Board said it would treat the Greens as it has treated other racist parties.

What the motion says

The resolution says the Green Party has, "by adopting an antisemitic platform, become a racist party". It urges other political parties not to enter coalition agreements with the Greens unless local party leaders reject the policy and commit to overturning it, warning that forming such deals would amount to "failing to take antisemitism with the requisite seriousness". Board president Phil Rosenberg said: "No political party has the right to tell Jews that a central part of our identity, rooted in thousands of years of history, faith and peoplehood, is racist."

Green Party response

The Green Party motion, which passed by 1,022 votes to 813 at its conference, described Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population". It was criticised by four of the party's five MPs and two former leaders. A Green spokesman said the party does not discriminate against people who hold Zionist views and rejected the Board's characterisation of the motion and the party. Labour has already told local Green groups it shares power with that they must disown the policy or lose its support.