The blame game as to who was responsible for what went so disastrously wrong at the Spring 2026 Green Party on-line Conference has not been long in waiting. A petition with a letter addressed to the Green Party Leadership is already in circulation. The letter calls for an “independent investigation into the Conduct of Spring Conference and recommendations to protect our member-led democracy”.
The Green Light can confirm that 0.4% of the membership took part in this on-line Spring Conference. Participants are self-appointed with no mandate and no accountability to anyone. The vote count for the Standing Comittee A1 report as amended was 637 for and 177 against. This can hardly been construed as an exercise in democracy.
For more on the matter, do visit our recent post entitled “one member one vote is an illusion of democracy” here.
What happened at the event on Saturday 28th March 2026 is most likely to have profound ideological and constitutional consequences for our eco-populist Green Party brand. Observers at the Bournemouth Conference which saw a record number of participants who had joined on the back of Zack Polanski’s leadership social media campaign may have not have been aware of a brewing power struggle between the new ” old guard ” and longer serving members. But what has just happened is much more serious. It does feel like what The Green Light team did anticipate would happen three years ago when we published our original mission statement .
Whilst the vast majority of of our younger new members will probably too busy scrolling their phones and not be made immediately aware of the gravity of the fall-out that has just taken place – Local Parties are also notoriously remote from Conference and all governance issues – it is likely that the cohort of members with previous political or trade union experience soon will.
And when they do, long serving members who have survived and resisted the identinarian capture of the Party will be hoping they will become the driving force that will save the Green Party from self- destruction. Alternatively, they might wonder why on earth they joined such a dysfunctonal organisation and leave in drones as quickly as they joined ! We, from The Green Light team with our well-established subscribers and regular visitors from many different shades of green within the Party do sincerely hope they don’t. The stakes are much too high to give up now.
Since the E motion “Zionism is racism” which was at the heart of the acrimonious procedural dispute fell off the agenda at the very last minute of Conference, Greens in Palestine have already vowed to re-submit their motion at the in-person Autumn Conference. Saturday 28th March 2026 is therefore likely to be remembered as the day the divisive game green identinarians had been playing for almost a decade in their capture” of the Green Party was finally up.
With such bitter exchanges and excrutiating procedural dispute surrounding the adoption of the Standing Orders Committee ‘s report which went on from 10am to 15.45pm, it is hardly surprising that new members in particular will have felt frustrated, but also dismayed by a display of such deep discord and not very ‘nice’ personal attack such as that of elected SOC member Ash Routh who accused the co-chair of his own committee of being autocratic and “a liar”.
National press commentarors covering this Spring Conference have focussed on the title of the motion “Zionism is racism” has been perceived as evidence of anti-semitism in the Green Party. The parrallel with the demolition of Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation as an alleged anti-semite should be too close for comfort for the hundreds of Green Party candidates who have been selected for the May local elections.
The fact however is that the title of the motion was a huge detractor because there is no agreed definition of Zionism within the Green Party. On the eve of Conference, anti-zionist contributor to Bright Greens Joshua Alston who candidly shared his views on the matter concluded his piece with the following:
“The issue comes when you try to use that mistake to draw the boundaries of a political community, as E12 does. In action point two of the motion, it states that not only is Zionism, defined as the belief in the creation or continuity of Israel, racism, but that all party bodies should act accordingly, presumably through expulsions and discipline against those that consider themselves Zionists, or hold what the party consider to be Zionist beliefs. In short, it is a ban on Zionists being a member of the party.”
Interestingly enough, Jewish Leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski had expressed similar reservations about the motion prior to being joined by his two deputy leaders Mothin Ali and Rachel Millward – with the inevitable Hannah Spencer MP – at the joyful ‘Hope not Hate’ anti far-right rally and rave in London.
Many active members of the Party actually did make that same choice as the Conference organisers refused to postpone the event. Given how badly prepared they were for such a big online event, may be they will regret not to have stuck to their original plan to hold an in-person conference Up North and in Leeds
What Greens in Palestine which, unlike the new Common Interest Muslim Greens , is an unofficial group were aiming for was not so much to nail down whether zionism is racist, but to overturm the Green Party’s long established Two States and UN backed solution to resolve the tradegy of the Palestinian people left with no state to call their own since 1948 with the Nakba.
As advised by SOC co-chair Martin Hemingway, had E12 been approved, current policy would indeed have been superseded. A couple of members from the more traditional eco-socialist wing of the Party who understood that the party could not hold two contradictory policies did call for more time to allow for a debate.
But the supporters of Greens in Palestine who had joined this conference with the sole purpose of seing E12 approved would have none of it. Many joined the Greens because of the horrors of the genocide in Gaza and Polanski’s promises of support to the Palestinian cause. Concerns about entrism have been raised in a number of Regions and from the Leadership team.
Wth a decade of bullying, de-platforming and “no debate” tactics prominent identinarians in a position of power serving on the Executive and from the former Regional Council who have had an axe to grind for the past few years against SOC and non-believers were seen to throw their weight behind Greens in Palestine. It was to be their way or no way.
Should that same motion be re-submitted at the Autumn Conference in Brighton and assuming Polanski will be re-elected as Leader before then, will he be there on the day and will he take to the stage to speak against that motion ? Now, THAT would be brave.
This is what motion E12 actually called for, as per its synopsis:
‘This motion defines Zionism, recognises its continued harm to Palestinians, and seeks to clarify that the Green Party is opposed to Zionism. It further affirms the right to self-determination and liberation of the Palestinian people and supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine‘.
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