Green Deputy leader Mothin Ali: people suspended from the Party should seek legal advice

The Deputy Leader of the Green Party has urged members who have been suspended over accusations of antisemitism to seek “serious legal advice”, as well as advising suspended candidates how they can still campaign for the party.

As reported by The Times, Mothin Ali told a meeting of “Greens for Palestine” that he was “very concerned” about the suspensions, even going so far as suggesting a “class action” against the very party he is co-deputy leader of.

Ali told the group that those suspended needed to seek “serious legal advice” and “put the party on notice straight away”.

Among those suspended by the Green Party in recent weeks include a campaigner whose libel claim against a group who had called him a “notorious antisemite” was dismissed by the High Court, as well as one who compared Israel’s actions in the Middle East with Adolf Hitler’s policy of “lebensraum” and said that “’Israel is the biggest threat to the sovereignty of every nation on this planet because they are ‘the chosen people’. Deluded. It’s a cult, it’s just a cult.”

Ali himself has faced criticism for his own past social media posts, including one on 7 October 2023, as Hamas carried out its mass terror attack on Israel, which read: “White supremacist European settler colonialism must end”, as well as including the Arabic for “Al Aqsa Flood”, the name Hamas gave to its attack. Ali later apologised for what he described as the post’s “short sightedness”.

In the recording of his comments to “Greens for Palestine”, Ali appeared to describe how with regards to the Green Party suspending some people, “their attitude at the moment is that if 500 members get upset, it’s not a big deal compared to 226,000. It’s that same Labour attitude of ‘you’ve got nowhere else to go’,”

“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.”

Green Party candidates at that meeting who spoke included Saiqa Ali. Among the posts found to have been shared by Ms Ali were one showing Donald Trump which said “I want you to fight for Israel because I’m owned by Jews”. Another showing dozens of people apparently cited in the Epstein files “with emojis showing their ethnicity” – all of which had the Star of David next to their names – and one (Prince Andrew) with a cross emoji and St George’s flag next to it, with the claim “only one got arrested” and that “either you believe Jews are natural perverts or that this was an Israeli operation”. Ali shared this along with the statement: “Let’s find the Russian connection (there isn’t one) and understand why the only one mentioned has a GB flag. Look at what is staring you in the face.” The many, many other people other different religions also mentioned in the Epstein files were not included in the post. Ali had also written that the government were “overrepresented by Zionist Jews” and that Israel was behind 9-11.

As described by The Times, Ali told the Greens for Palestine meeting that the Green communications team had asked her to put out an apology but she had refused.

“The comms team wanted me to put out an apology and it was like ‘I’m really sorry about what I’ve done’,” she said. “It was so shit, right, and I was like ‘I’m not doing that. I’m sorry I’m not putting my name to that’. I’ll make an apology because there are Jewish people even in the party who might have been upset by it. So I made an apology, but I’m not apologising for that.”

Another candidate who spoke at the “Greens for Palestine” meeting was Ifhat Shaheen, whose social media comments included a response to the conspiracy theory that Israel harvests organs from Palestinians by writing “are they trying to use the organs to help alter DNA of Zionists to claim land, ancestory”?

As reported by The Times, Shaheen called for “people who participated in this [Green party officials involved in suspending her], for them to be suspended or some action be taken against individuals like they’ve done to us.”

Mothin Ali also advised candidates who had been suspended how they could still campaign surreptitiously for the Greens, warning them to “be careful…In terms of campaigning, you are not allowed to use any Green Party logo, attend any campaigning events. So if you are going to campaign, then you campaign with maybe just a blank Green-headed leaflet, a leaflet that has a Green banner with just your name.”

The Green Party told The Times that “The comments were an appeal for people to stay in the party and continue to participate in its internal democracy, seeking legal advice about their individual circumstances, if they wished to.”