Board of Deputies declares Green Party a racist organisation after decisive vote

The Board of Deputies has overwhelmingly passed a motion declaring that the Green Party of England and Wales has adopted an antisemitic platform and, as a result, become a racist party.

The motion, carried by a decisive 118-1 vote, further stated that the Board will now treat the Greens in the same way it treats other racist parties.

This resolution was adopted at the Board’s October plenary meeting, following the Green Party’s recent decision at its annual conference to adopt a policy branding Zionism as racism.

Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg commented: “Today, representatives of Jewish communities across Britain have delivered a clear verdict. By adopting an antisemitic platform, the Green Party of England and Wales has become a racist party. We will treat it accordingly.

“No political party has the right to tell Jews that a central part of our identity—rooted in thousands of years of history, faith, and peoplehood—is racist. The Green Party’s policy brands much of our community, including our synagogues and communal organisations, with that slur. It gives prejudice against Jews a political licence.

“The Green Party’s leadership must now take responsibility for reversing this policy and confronting the antisemitism it has legitimised. We recognise and commend those within the party who opposed it, including Jewish members whose warnings were disregarded. They deserve to be heard and supported.

“We call on democratic parties and wider civil society to apply the same standards to anti-Jewish racism that they would to any other form of racism.”

The motion described the Greens’ call for a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine” as meaning “the erasure of the State of Israel in its entirety”.

It called on other parties to repudiate political alliances with the Greens “unless in the case of local government the Green Party local leadership have given assurances of their rejection of the antisemitic platform and their support for overturning it”.

The Board would “deem any political party which breaks that firewall in any way to be enabling racism,” it said.

Motion proposer Ashley Hirst added: “I have inherited three thousand years of stories, language, memory, and daily practice that tie me to Zion, and I’m proud British Jews have said clearly that a party which declares that this is racist is itself a racist party.”

“The Board will implement the resolution in its dealings with the Green Party of England and Wales and continue to challenge antisemitism wherever it appears in political and public life.”

This decision reflects the profound concern across the Jewish community at a policy which brands a central element of Jewish identity as racist.

The resolution now calls on the Greens “to rescind the policy and until it does, to confirm in writing that no member will be subject to its anti-racism procedures because of their Jewish identity or affiliation to a Jewish community institution”.