Fighting Green Party antisemitism and bigotry from the inside

In April 2024, a group of longstanding Jewish members of the Green Party, including former and current councillors, submitted a dossier to the party’s leadership, outlining significant concerns relating to the movement’s direction of political travel.

The dossier noted a number of concerning statements and actions by prominent Green Party politicians. It also highlighted an apparent shift in party policy in language and statements about Israel which contradicted the party’s own rules.

“There is grave concern that the GPEW [Green Party of England and Wales] is going in a direction that is no longer balanced and is resonating with people who really aren’t Green. This is leading to the feeling that, with growing evidence of newer members with problematic views about Jews, the GPEW is becoming an unsafe place for Jews,” the document concluded.

“We sincerely hope that our deep and legitimate concerns will be listened to and steps taken to return the GPEW to its founding principles, which it is currently not displaying, towards its own Jewish members and the Jewish population of England and Wales.”

The dossier was sent on to a variety of senior people within the Green Party. While the compilers received a few responses, there was no discernible action taken as a result of their dossier.

Eighteen months later, the Green Party was under new management.

Elise Benjamin was one of those who had compiled the report and had put her name to it. She is currently working on a new report – of Green Party candidates at the recent local election who have been found to have made antisemitic comments on social media. Many of these have been sent to her by fellow Green Party members who are horrified by what they have seen.

How many? I ask.

“Over 40.”

Last year, the direction of the Green Party became undeniable. Its wild swing to the far-left, alongside a sharp rise in membership, had led to a surge in antisemitism. In response, a group of Green Party members, Jewish and non-Jewish, came together, initially corresponding via Whatsapp. They have since formed a new organisation – not officially affiliated to the party, but comprised exclusively of party members, called “Greens Against Antisemitism”.

Although there is some overlap, it is not the same group as “Jewish Greens”, which is an official affiliate. Benjamin used to be on the Jewish Greens steering committee, but is no longer involved – though she speaks positively of its leadership. But this group is dedicated explicitly to fighting the burgeoning antisemitism in the party.

GAA has already submitted various complaints to the party regarding the conduct of certain members, whom it is believed have clearly and repeatedly breached party rules. The group believes chances are high that such members will therefore be subject to sanction, including suspension and possible expulsion.

Some such individuals, though far from all of them, are part of the recent wave of joiners – the Green’s membership has trebled in the last year, now numbering approximately 230,000. The party’s leadership, including Zack Polanski himself, regularly points to that membership surge as evidence of its close identification with the zeitgeist. They seem far less keen on identifying or addressing the problems this has caused.

The problems, however, are obvious. For example, while vetting at a membership level is something which few, if any political parties possess, the Greens fielded candidates at the local elections who had in some cases joined the party only weeks previously.

“We used to be very hot on this,” Benjamin says. “We generally would not have candidates unless they had been members for a while. But the core issue is vetting. I know, for example, my local party, and I wasn’t involved at all, vet every candidate, even the paper candidates.”

However, “that clearly didn’t happen everywhere”. Longstanding party members, she suggests, “were so excited about all these new people who were really interested, they didn’t think to check.”

She notes that it’s not just about antisemitism, which is true. A property firm owned by one candidate, for example, was fined for environmental vandalism after illegally burning building site waste to save money. In another case, Benjamin highlights, “there was a candidate who was exposed; she was fined last year for mistreating a pet and banned from owning a pet for five years. No one checked.”

The party has a heavily decentralised officer structure with most staff working remotely, and its complaints process relies on volunteers. A party disciplinary panel does not sit other than on days that nominated members of a panel are available, which in practice can be difficult to organise.

Benjamin says that “a proposal to increase the number of people on that committee so that it’s easier to find time dates and times, didn’t get heard at the conference, which was a real shame”.

There is another process, however – an emergency one, which involves members of the Green’s national council.

“They can suspend and can expel, but obviously they need to be very, very clear on their grounds, because the party doesn’t want to face legal action”, she says.

“So the suspensions are an immediate, no-fault suspension, the person who is suspended is then contacted and given a right of reply, after which they decide whether to continue with the suspension, dispense with it, or expel.”

It was this type of suspension or expulsion with the Green party’s Deputy leader, Mothin Ali, took exception to when he addressed a “Greens for Palestine” meeting in April. As reported by The Times, he encouraged legal action against his own party over dismissal of local election candidates accused of antisemitism, saying “what we need to do is we need to get some serious legal advice. We need to make sure that we are putting the party on notice straight away, and we need to start with some class action. Because it won’t be the end. They’re coming after more and more people.”

As pointed out in the original dossier, in the wake of 7 October 2023, Mothin Ali said “indigenous people have the right to fight back” and called for an end to “white supremacist European settler colonialism”. He subsequently claimed he had not been referring to Hamas’s actions, but to principles “enshrined in international law”.

Later in 2023, Ali said in a TikTok video that Rabbi Zechariah Deutsch, who was based in Leeds but who had answered an IDF call-up as a reservist post-7 October, “went from England to Israel to kill women and children”. Addressing the University of Leeds, where Deutsch worked as a chaplain, Ali said: “You should be protecting students from this kind of animal, because if he’s willing to kill people over there, how do you know he’s not going to kill your students over here?” (There is nothing to suggest that Rabbi Deutsch ever fired a weapon in anger).

The chaplain was subjected to an extended campaign of harassment in which his life and the lives of his family were threatened repeatedly; ultimately driving him into hiding. After Ali was elected Deputy leader of the Greens, Deutsch said: “Mothin Ali’s actions personally caused harm and distress to my family. His social media posts had a really significant impact on the Leeds community… A man who wants to be a public figure should not incite division and cause harm.” When asked about this last year, Ali said: “I think anyone who participates in a genocide is a danger and should be investigated by the police.”

The dossier also described Ali’s actions in connection to the 2024 Rochdale by-election, when the Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, was found to have told a meeting that Israel had allowed the 7 October 2023 attack to happen in order to “green light” its invasion of Gaza. Labour disassociated itself from Azhar Ali. As per the dossier, Mothin Ali published a video about the Rochdale by-election in which “he refers to Labour taking several days to take action against their candidate and that they only took action after the ‘Zionist lobby’ became involved.”

One of the compilers of the dossier said they thought that “the party need to look very seriously whether he should be a candidate at all”.

No action was taken. A year and a half later, Mothin Ali became co-deputy leader of the party.

But Benjamin and others are determined to stay and fight. As she says “If there’s a bully at your school, it’s not for you to leave, it’s to try and get them to leave”.

One process which they aim to resurrect was “the triage process which was used for the general election” in 2024 with regards to screening for antisemitism.

“The party set up a triage group, which included an officer from Jewish Greens, to vet candidates.

“They were the initial people who would deal with any potential candidate problems. They would decide whether or not the candidate should be deselected. When it was too late to deselect, all such candidates were sent on antisemitism training. We need something like that, because the current processes take too long. When there are people who Jewish members actually feel very threatened by, it [a process] has to be done quickly.”

Another key flashpoint is likely to be the party’s autumn conference. At its last conference, in Spring, a group attempted to bring a motion equating Zionism with racism. The conference ran out of time and so the motion was not heard, but there is every indication that it will re-submitted for the gathering in Brighton in early October, where it will be higher up on the agenda because it has already appeared on the agenda of an earlier conference.

Benjamin describes how a group of Jewish and non-Jewish members had “sent an email to the chief executive of the party and to the elected chair of the national executive, just before the conference, outlining every single breach of policy – constitution, process, philosophical basis, the Equality Act, everything. Saying this motion should not have even been allowed to reach the conference floor, and this is the damage it will do.

“We’re still waiting for the promised detailed response.”

While Greens Against Antisemitism is still in its early stages, it hopes to work in tandem with Jewish Greens.

“I think the role for Greens Against Antisemitism is more about somewhere where non-Jewish members can more directly support Jewish members, and I think that’s where it’s separate from Jewish Greens”, Benjamin says.

“Jewish Greens is very much about training and policy. Our role would be to call out [antisemitism] and add to the training, but to actually reach out to the wider membership to help them understand better… the hope is that we can do it as a collaboration. We have people who have years of experience of the national party structures and processes, which is really, really helpful.”

Despite everything, she thinks there is still hope.

“We are getting lots of people contact us,” she says

“It’s becoming increasingly obvious that lots of ordinary members who’ve been around a long time are uncomfortable with the direction of the party on this. Some are beginning to speak out, some are asking questions so they can learn more, so they can be good allies and advocates. I’m seeing a trend, not just within the Greens, of younger people in their early to mid 20s who clearly don’t like the way that discussions around Israel-Palestine have turned into antisemitism. That’s a really good sign.”