Blair urges Labour to reject coalition with Greens after Zionism motion

Sir Tony Blair has warned Andy Burnham not to enter a coalition with the Green Party after it was widely condemned for adopting a policy equating Zionism with racism.

The former Labour prime minister criticised Zack Polanski’s party, accusing it of crossing “a dangerous line”.

“This weekend, the Green Party of England and Wales crossed a line. A dangerous line. One that it is unacceptable to cross,” Sir Tony wrote in an article for the American website The Free Press.

“It passed a resolution which effectively denounced the State of Israel’s right to exist.

“By a vote of 1,022 to 813, the party passed a motion entitled ‘Zionism Is Racism,’ which commits the party to a single Palestinian state covering all of historic Palestine—which is to say, to a world in which Israel, the state which contains the largest population of Jews on Earth, does not exist.”

He added: “Since at least two-thirds of British Jews call themselves Zionists, the party has, in effect, branded the majority of the country’s Jews racists, while declaring that doing so cannot be antisemitic.

“If you care about the future of Britain, as I do, and if you care about the future of the peoples that live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as I do, this is a signal event.”

Blair’s comments came as Labour MP Luke Akehurst said mainstream politicians should commit to a “firewall” against the Greens and refuse to work with the party after it passed a motion saying “Zionism is racism”.

Akehurst, who has supported electoral reform, posted on X: “Mainstream parties need to maintain a firewall against antisemitism. The Greens have put themselves on the wrong side of it through their grotesque decision to define Zionism, which is simply the belief that Israel should exist and that Jewish people have a right to national self-determination, as being racist.

“I hope the electorate will react by pushing them into political oblivion, but there are no circumstances where Labour or any other mainstream party can share power with a party professing an ideology that breaches the IHRA definition of antisemitism.”

Addressing his own party, Sir Tony continued: “There are those in my party, Labour, who might be tempted by the so-called progressive Red-Green coalition—an alliance between Labour and the Greens to unite the British Left.

“But this vote should serve as a warning of the dangers such an alliance would bring.”

Blair also acknowledged global concern about the violence in Gaza, writing: “We can debate the Middle East: its politics, its challenges, and its solutions. That is healthy.

“But this vote—overt anti-Jewish discrimination from what is now a mainstream British party—is a warning sign.

“It reveals something rotten. It is the duty of all of us to put it right.”

Responding to Sir Tony’s article, a Green Party spokesperson said: “We won’t take lectures from a man who took this country into a catastrophic illegal war in Iraq that was justified by fabricated intelligence.”