How did eco-idealists of the 70s descend into Israel-hating Greens of today?

Ask a colleague what the UK’s Green Party stands for today, and chances are the answer will include some mention of the Middle East and little in the way of carbon or climate change. Consider the party’s conference earlier this month in Brighton. Delegates voted 1,022 to 813 to adopt a motion equating Zionism with racism and cementing the party’s status as an "antizionist party”. Four of its five MPs publicly opposed the motion, with some saying they were “deeply saddened” by the outcome and the lack of leadership on the matter.

Zack Polanski, the party’s leader since September 2025, was absent for the vote, opting to campaign instead in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Like Zohran Mamdani, who has sought to turn his mayoral role into that of foreign secretary of New York, Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader since September 2025, has emerged as one of Britain’s most visible voices on foreign conflicts, pontificating regularly on Israel and Gaza, and not so regularly on the environment.

Perhaps it’s because I live in New York City, but I struggle to point to the last time the Greens channelled their considerable media chops and outsized attention into a major environmental initiative. To better understand how the party has changed, I spoke with Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. The Green Party’s roots go deep. It is often described as the first green political party in Europe, founded in 1973 as PEOPLE, renamed the Ecology Party in 1975 and finally rebranded as the Green Party in 1985.

During those early years, Bale told me, the party was “associated with the rise of postmaterialism, a state of mind concerned not just about the environment but with issues like gender equality, solidarity with the developing world, and the fight against exploitation and for civil liberties". Yet ecology remained “the irreducible core of the party’s worldview”. Early loyalists pushed for a move away from an industrialised, consumerist economy toward a more cooperative, sustainable, low-carbon way of life that conserved resources and biodiversity, so that future generations inherited a planet they could thrive on.

Bale noted that such a worldview dovetailed with socialism in its “antipathy to industrialised capitalism” and sees a role for the state, “albeit not a centralised, top-down state” in preventing it from exploiting both people and resources. That legacy explains the Greens’ support for a shorter working week without a cut in pay, and for wealth, carbon and financial transaction taxes to “fund high quality public services, affordable housing, public transport and moves toward a universal basic income”.

So, what changed? Bale suggests that the most significant shift is in foreign policy. For years, he explained, the Greens saw the US as “the acme of rapacious and hegemonic industrial capitalism”, opposing Britain’s lucrative involvement in the global arms trade and its willingness to project military power overseas. Under Polanski, “Israel has taken over from the USA as the party’s bête-noir.” Since taking the reins, Polanski’s leadership has seen the party criticised both from within and without for majoring too much on left-wing populism and too little on ecology and conservation, according to Bale.

Shahrar Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party from 2014 to 2016, described to the Jerusalem Post an "authoritarian shift” under Polanski, with party veterans increasingly uneasy about the direction of the party. “The rot [has] set in more deeply from Polanski’s tenure as leader,” Ali said. “Now we’re seeing the old guard like Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsay, and some of the MPs, notably Ellie Chowns, getting far more agitated around the direction of the party.”

Ali also pointed to insufficient guardrails and oversight as party membership has grown. “During the last 12 months, the party’s seen a huge increase in membership but a corresponding lack of control regarding who is entering the party and why. There are a lot more pro-Palestine campaigners, Corbynista types who were kicked out of the Labour Party because of antisemitism.” Peter Cardwell, a Talk TV presenter, former government special adviser and author of Political Animals, offered a more damning indictment, telling me: “Islamist entryists have taken over the Greens and they have become a single-issue party.

Even some of their MPs believe the antisemitic ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy is one with which they cannot be associated.” Cardwell, who hosts an evening show covering UK politics and current affairs, added: “It seems quite a while since anyone I’ve interviewed from the Green Party has actually brought up anything to do with the environment.” He contrasted the current trajectory of the party with past leaders, or “harmless eccentrics” such as Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas, who were at least impassioned defenders of Net Zero and public spirited representatives who truly cared about the core mission of the Green Party.

Jonathan Harounoff is an award-winning British author and journalist covering the Middle East and Israel’s former international spokesperson at the United Nations. He is also the host of the new show UNscripted with Jonathan Harounoff