Published Updated

Israeli Politicsupdated 6m ago2 min read

British Green Party Votes To Define Zionism As Racism, Investigates Lubna Speitan

Green Party adopts motion defining Zionism as racism and backs a single Palestinian state. Israel bans Green Party leader Zack Polanski from entering the country after the vote.

Read the story
British Green Party Votes To Define Zionism As Racism, Investigates Lubna Speitan
Image: ميدل ايست اونلاين
Act

A live campaign is complaining about BBC. Take action →

Scored

Reuters was read line by line by the Watchdog: 5.4. See the score →

Greens vote, investigation begins

The British Green Party conference in Brighton concluded on Sunday, October 4, 2026, after participants voted to recognize Zionism as a racist movement, with 1,022 conference participants voting in favor and 813 voting against.

“Where members have expressed views that do not fit in with the party's values, we have internal processes to investigate and an investigation is underway.”
BBC

The Green Party then launched an investigation into party member Lubna Speitan after court documents listed her as a "close friend" of a man later jailed for supporting al-Qaeda.

Image from AFP
Image: AFP

Speitan told the BBC in an Instagram post, "I reject all defamatory and nonsense claims made about me," and she added, "Racism is. Zionism is. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is. Let's talk about that."

The BBC said the motion defining Zionism as racism was approved by party members by 1,022 votes to 813, and it also called for a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine."

Reporting for this sectionAth-Thawra NetBBC

Al-Qaeda link and party fallout

Court documents described Speitan as a "close friend" who could provide "critical testimony regarding Pham's mental state," and the BBC said Minh Quang Pham was jailed for 40 years in the US after pleading guilty to supporting al-Qaeda. The BBC reported that Speitan later wrote to a US District Judge that Pham was one of the "few people I regard with such high respect and esteem," and she said the judge "truly knew the Minh [Pham]" they may have "probably had the whole case dismissed."

Adrian Ramsay, a former party leader and Green MP for Waveney Valley, said the motion was an "unhelpful distraction" and "wrong in principle" because "the Green Party has always supported the right to self-determination and that has to apply to all peoples." The BBC also reported that four out of five Green Party MPs opposed the motion, and it said under Green Party rules, motions supported by members become official party policy but will not necessarily be included in the party's manifesto at the next general election.

Image from Al Jazeera
Image: Al Jazeera
Reporting for this sectionBBC

Israel bans leader, Labour reacts

Israel banned Green Party leader Zack Polanski after the party approved the motion equating Zionism with racism, and the BBC said the motion was approved by 1,022 votes to 813. The United States said it would make "representations" to the British government over the issue, and the BBC reported that the by-election in Holborn and St Pancras was due to take place on Thursday.

Senior Labour party figures said it was very unlikely their party would cooperate with the Greens in the future after they adopted a policy treating Zionism as a form of racism, and Labour chair Bridget Phillipson called the move "shameful." The Guardian reported that Polanski said antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli state "are and must always be completely distinct," and it said the Greens were campaigning heavily for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection where Polanski is seeking to win Starmer's former seat from Labour.

Reporting for this sectionMiddle East EyeThe Guardian