Zack Polanski, leader of the Greens in England and Wales, said on Sunday, 18 October, on the BBC that he would not scrap the conference motion that equates Zionism with racism. “I’m not going to try to overturn it,” he told Laura Kuenssberg. He added that he wants to amend it at the first chance, but party rules hold the text until 2028.

The motion passed in Brighton earlier this month, 1,022 votes to 813. That is a sliver of about 230,000 members. The text defines Zionism as the ideology of an “ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine,” backs one democratic state across the whole territory and a full arms embargo on Israel. Polanski was not in the hall for the vote.

Asked whether Zionism is racist, Polanski, who is Jewish, said he did not find that controversial. He drew a line between what “people think it means” — a safe place — and “practical application,” which, in his words, had come “at the cost of the Palestinian people.” He said no state has, under international law, an absolute right to exist; people do. He called the two-state solution “for the birds” while Israeli candidates for prime minister, in October, reject it.

Inside the party the reply came at once. Adrian Ramsay, a former co-leader and an MP, asked for a ballot of all members, not two years of waiting. Maddy Lichtenstein, chair of the Jewish Greens, said Polanski should have been in the hall. An internal poll, reported by the Guardian, did not show a clear majority behind the conference wording.

At conference Polanski had wanted two amendments: not to lock in a single state, and to say the motion should not be used to discipline Jewish members who attend synagogues that call themselves Zionist. Both fell. On Sunday he said he respects the members’ vote and will not change the rules to overrule it.

The Guardian published the interview the same day. The BBC ran the full exchange: he will not scrap the motion, he wants an amendment in 2028, he separates “practical application” from the idea of a homeland. The words are Polanski’s. They are not a finding of fact about Zionism, Israel or international law. They are a party leader’s position, in a studio, two weeks after an internal vote.

Image: Diliff, the Palace of Westminster from the Thames, 2007, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons; Parliament's seat, not the 18 October 2026 BBC studio.

Sources consulted: Zack Polanski says application of Zionism is racist and no state has right to exist - The Guardian; Green Party leader Zack Polanski says he will not overturn Zionism motion - BBC News.