Green Party leaders pressed over decision to admit councillor who compared Zionism to Nazis
Jewish News also alerted to campaign video featuring leader Carla Denyer and councillor who apologised for Oct 7 comments
A Jewish Labour MP has written to the Green Party’s co-leaders over the “very concerning conduct” of a councillor in South London who compared Zionism to Nazism, and who backed a legal move arguing Hamas should be removed from the banned list of terror organisations.
In his letter to Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the MP Peter Prinsley noted how the Green’s deputy leader Zack Polanski had “rolled out the red carpet” to welcome Lewisham councillor HauYu Tam to the party.
Prinsley, a Jewish Labour Movement member, said he was “deeply concerned” to learn of Cllr Tam’s conduct, including a claim she was “extremely proud” of those working on a legal case to remove Hamas from the terror list.
The Labour MP noted JLM’s call for Cllr Tam to be expelled, and also a March 2023 letter warning the Greens have become a refuge for left-wing antisemites.
Directly addressing the Greens leadership, Prinsley writes: “Do you condemn the racist comments made by Councillor Tam?”.
He also calls for the party to “immediately suspend” her for her remarks.
The MP then asks in his letter for the Greens to review both its candidate selection processes and its training on antisemitism.
Jewish News was also alerted to a party-political broadcast released this month by the Green Party which featured a councillor who had previously denied Hamas’s atrocities on October 7.
The clip, featuring its co-leader Carla Denyer, also filmed Mohamed Makawi, a Bristol councillor who apologised after it emerged that he shared a series of social media posts suggesting that Israel was to blame for the massacres.
In November 2023, Makawi shared a post on X which claimed most Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF or during exchanges of fire and that placing the blame all on Hamas was an “American-Zionist lie”.
He also shared claims the “Zionist enemy police” believed the 360-plus people murdered at the Nova dance festival in southern Israel may have been killed by an “Israeli plane”, which the IDF has strongly denied.
The Green Party refused to suspend Makawi at the time he made the remarks and said it had given him “social media training”.
In a statement the Greens stress Makawi had apologised for his actions at the time and said the party “abhors antisemitism.”
The party failed to make some of its expected gains in Thursday’s local elections.
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