Green Party Civil War Erupts After Ex-Leader Hits Out At New 'Hard Left' Members
Deep splits within the Greens have burst into the open after a former leader hit out at “hard left” members who have joined the party under Zack Polanski . Adrian Ramsay accused them of trying to “change the direction” of the Greens amd said they would be more at home in the Socialist Workers Party. In an interview with the BBC Newscast, he hit out at Polanski’s decision not to attend a Green Party conference debate on a motion declaring “Zionism is racism”.
Ramsay voted against the motion and told the podcast that Israel has a right to exist – putting him at direct odds with Polanski. However, he insisted he is not calling for the party leader to quit. “This is not a leadership bid, I’ve been extremely clear about that,” he said. “What I want to do is to contribute to a discussion as other Greens have been doing around where we go next as a party.” Polanski replaced Ramsay and his co-leader Carla Denyer last year and oversaw a huge increase in Green Party membership.
Left out here: Leaves out what changes the picture
The article never says what the motion it keeps referring to says, that members passed it 1,022 to 813, or that it backs one democratic state with equal rights for all. Gaza and Palestinians are never named. Genocide appears only in Millward's quoted question. Without this, a reader judges Ramsay's attack and his Israel remark with no idea what members actually voted for.
How we know
- Our analysis“On 4 October Green Party members voted 1,022 to 813 to treat Zionism as racism and to back one democratic state with equal rights for all.”Fifteen news reports on the Greens' Zionism vote gave the Israeli state 773 words and Palestinians 98. Thirteen quoted no Palestinian at all.
- On the recordOn 4 October 2026 Green Party members voted 1,022 to 813 for a motion stating that Zionism is racism.newscord.org (opens in a new tab)
Ramsay said that while many of those new members are motivated by concern about the environment, others have a different agenda. He said: “What we’ve seen is a huge growth of the party over the last year. “Many of the new members that I speak to are people who’ve supported the Green Party for a long time, support our values, support our ways of working. “But there is also a small number of people who have joined, who are perhaps from the more very hard left of politics, might be more at home in the [Socialist Workers Party] or with George Galloway or with Your Party.
Who not only want to adopt some very hard line positions on certain issues, but have a very different culture to how they go about it.” Ramsay added: “There’s a much smaller group of people who quite overtly over the last year have said, you know, do we join Your Party, which frankly has floundered, and they realised they weren’t going to get anywhere. Or do they join the Green Party and have been quite overt about their aims to do that.
“This is a small number of people seeking to to change the direction of the party. And what I want to see from the party leadership is setting out that they reassert the core values and focus and ways of working in the Green Party, which are much more about consensus building, not about highly factional, highly tribal politics, and of course with the environment.” But Polanski and his co-deputy leaders, Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali, hit back at Ramsay on social media.
Left out here: Leaves out what changes the picture
The article gives Ramsay's account of entryist members at length but leaves out the reply reported the same day by the grassroots group that backed Polanski: Ramsay had put his case for the party's future a year earlier and lost heavily. A reader is left without the context that the members Ramsay describes as a small faction chose the current leadership by a wide margin.
How we know
- The Guardian reported“Adrian Ramsay put forward his case for the future of the Green party a year ago, and lost – by a landslide 84%.”Green party must avoid being taken over by hard left, says former leader (opens in a new tab)
Polanski said on X: “There’s no environmental justice without social, racial and economic justice.” In his own post on X, Ali said: “Our members are united in standing up for fairness and justice, whether that’s climate justice, social justice at home and justice abroad. This is what we’ve been doing and successfully. The idea it’s one thing or the other doesn’t wash. And even planting the odd tree Millward said: “Can we be clear that there is no contradiction between speaking out for human rights and for nature?
Why on earth would environmentalists tolerate genocide? Humans being nature after all! People and planet. Both.” Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Read the original article on huffingtonpost.co.uk (opens in a new tab)