Green Party faces accusations of antisemitism amid a surge in membership and electoral prospects that has brought the party to the brink of power in parts of London, while exposing deep internal divisions over the definition of Zionism and its relationship to anti-Jewish prejudice.
With local elections days away, the party has seen its ranks swell to more than 220,000 members in England and Wales, nearly quadrupling since Zack Polanski—who is Jewish—took over as leader in September 2025 on an “eco-populism” platform. The Greens overturned a huge Labour majority in the Gorton and Denton by-election in March, securing a fifth seat in Parliament, and are targeting councils including Lambeth, where polling suggests they could gain seats.
But the growth has been accompanied by a series of antisemitism allegations that have prompted police action, internal suspensions and a public row involving Polanski himself. The issue was thrust into fresh prominence this week after two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, an attack that the Metropolitan Police declared a terrorist incident. Polanski shared an online post questioning the level of force used by officers who tackled the suspect; he later apologised, saying he had “a responsibility for lowering the temperature at a time of such tension”.
Candidate arrests and posts under scrutiny
Two Green candidates standing for Lambeth council, Saiqa Ali and Sabine Mairey, were arrested in late April on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online. Police said one post allegedly stated, “Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism. It’s revenge,” while another depicted an armed man alongside a Hamas slogan. Both remain in police custody.
Separately, Tina Ion, a Green candidate for Newcastle city council, is under investigation for social media posts that included a call for “every single Zionist” to be killed and described Zionists as “vermin” and “rats”. In other posts she reportedly referred to “Jewish Nazis” as “money-grubbing thieves” and used an Anne Frank parody account. Ion has acknowledged using “dehumanising” language but denies antisemitism, claiming her remarks were a critique of Israeli state actions and were “isolated fragments”.
The party’s vetting processes are said to be under review in the light of these controversies, with long-standing members calling for an overhaul. Elise Benjamin, a Green member for more than 30 years and a former Oxford councillor, helped draw up the party’s guidance on antisemitism but now says an “urgent review of how to make our complaints process fit for purpose” is needed. She described a “small but noisy core” of activists preoccupied with a single issue, and said she had personally experienced aggressive questioning about her identity and family origins from fellow party members.
The core conflict: Zionism and antisemitism
At the heart of the party’s internal strife lies a fundamental disagreement over how Zionism should be understood and whether hostility towards it can constitute antisemitism. Supporters of the political movement view it as the legitimate struggle for a Jewish homeland; its critics regard it as a colonial project that has led to the dispossession of Palestinians. Since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s military response in Gaza, arguments within the Greens have played out in branch meetings, Zoom calls and private gatherings, mirroring a wider social tension over how Jewish people in the UK have experienced the fallout.
The debate has crystallised around a motion proposed by Lubna Speitan, a British-Palestinian contemporary artist and party member, to designate Zionism as racism. The motion was blocked by what Speitan describes as filibustering at the Greens’ spring conference, but it could return at the autumn gathering. Polanski has expressed support for the motion, saying that if the definition of Zionism aligns with Israeli government actions, then it is racist. An emergency motion to restrict the use of “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist” has also been tabled.
Speitan said the motion was “one for the Palestinians, by the Palestinians, who are denied a voice in their own home”, and that it had input from Jewish, Christian and Muslim allies. She accused a “small but vocal group of Zionists in the party”—a reference to the Jewish Greens—of attacking the proposal. The Jewish Greens, who say they have about 170 members, argue that the motion’s logical consequence would be the proscription of self-described Zionists in the party. Speitan does not push back on that interpretation, stating that “no form of racism should be tolerated”.
Critics of the motion see it as part of a pattern in which legitimate criticism of Israel slides into antisemitic tropes. In the view of many former Labour supporters who have joined the Greens since Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the problem of antisemitism has been deliberately exaggerated for political gain. Polanski himself has accused the Campaign Against Antisemitism of “conflating being Jewish with the Israeli government”. He said in a recent interview that he had been deceived by “the cynical and systemic deliberate obfuscation of a really serious issue like antisemitism”.
Polanski previously stated in 2018 that he could not vote for Labour under Corbyn because of concerns about antisemitism as a Jewish voter. He changed his name—born David Paulden—at 18 to honour his heritage, his family having originated from Latvia and Poland. He has also suggested the party could learn from Nigel Farage’s communication style. A newspaper report quoted members of Polanski’s extended family calling him “the leader of the future Islamic party of Britain” and warning the Greens were “the most antisemitic party in British history”; Polanski dismissed those quoted as “random ‘anon’ relatives”.
Growth and the Corbyn parallel
The Greens’ membership surge since Polanski became leader has been driven in large part by former Labour supporters who left the party during the Corbyn era. Many were attracted by Polanski’s eco-populist platform and his outspoken stance on Palestine. But the dynamic has repeated a pattern that vexed Corbyn’s Labour: critics argue that support for Palestinian rights is sometimes thoughtlessly muddled with generalised attacks on Jews, or acts as a disguise for straightforwardly bigoted views.
Mothin Ali, a Leeds councillor and one of the party’s two deputy leaders, has become a lightning rod for the controversy. On the day of the 7 October attack, he posted that Palestinians had the right to “fight back”. In a separate video, he described a rabbi who went into hiding after receiving online threats because he had served in the Israel Defense Forces as a “creep”. Ali later apologised for “the upset caused” but also criticised what he called Islamophobic attacks against him. He has reportedly told a private meeting of the Greens for Palestine group that suspended members should seek “serious legal advice” and put the “party on notice straight away” over the handling of candidate suspensions.
The party’s four MPs have largely stayed out of the public debate, declining to respond when contacted, or citing busy schedules. Polanski’s leadership mandate was decisive—he defeated MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns by 20,411 votes to 3,705 in a ballot of party members—and most senior Greens are known to be broadly supportive, acknowledging the surge in attention, membership and poll numbers his media-friendly approach has brought. Some within the party believe that the Greens’ willingness to describe Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide has opened the door to bad-faith attacks from opponents, but argue that voters will be sceptical of criticisms that conflate the two subjects.
Dissent has surfaced, however. A long-serving Norfolk Green councillor quit in March, launching an attack on Polanski’s focus on issues including Palestine and claiming to speak for “a very significant number of older, deeper Greens who are looking on in horror”. In response, Ramsay posted on X that he was “deeply sorry” and added: “As a party we must adopt a strategy which unites long-term members & new supporters behind our core values.”
