As Keir Starmer struggles to keep his crown, another leadership battle is raging. Away from the media spotlight, there is a fight for the future of the Green party between its various official ‘Special Interest Groups’ and its leader, Zack Polanski. What are they fighting about? Why, Palestine and racial politics of course.
On one side, Polanski and his officials are at least trying to appear to be dealing with allegations of anti-Semitism and extremism within the party. On the other, a powerful affiliate group, the Global Majority Greens (GMG), is accusing its leader of creating a ‘hierarchy of racism’, with allegations of anti-Semitism taken more seriously than other complaints. Polanski, it claims, has failed to be truly anti-racist because he has not backed the ethnic-minority Greens who have been suspended over alleged anti-Jewish rhetoric. Most extraordinarily of all, it believes the Greens – yes, the Greens – are too pro-Zionist.
It means, in effect, that the deputy leader of the Green party is accusing his boss of being a fake anti-racist
The GMG boasts that it exists ‘to promote the contribution, experience, opportunities, rights, unity, perspective, culture and history of people from African, Caribbean, Asian, Latin American and others of Global Majority ethnic descent in England and Wales’. It wants Britain to pay slavery reparations and for the party to put anti-racism policies above all else.
Crucially, the group is formally backed by Mothin Ali, who serves both as deputy leader of the party and GMG treasurer. Ali, a devout Muslim who cried ‘Allahu Akbar’ after being elected as a Leeds councillor, has endorsed official reports compiled by the GMG accusing Polanski of a litany of crimes against racial justice. In private WhatsApp groups, documents and Zoom calls leaked to The Spectator, Ali’s disdain for his boss’s conduct is plain.
Included in the leaks is a scathing draft GMG report that will be presented at the Green party AGM later this month. It accuses Polanski and his team of ‘performing anti-racism’ without putting it into practice. The report, which covers the first year of Polanski’s leadership, condemns a ‘serious governance problem inseparable from institutional racism’. Specifically, it criticises the party for suspending members accused of anti-Semitism – even though in most cases the evidence of anti-Semitism is clear-cut.
Among those suspended in recent months include council candidate Saiqa Ali, who called Starmer a ‘Jewish Zionist’ in an English government ‘over-represented with Zionists Jews [sic]… [who] care more for Israel than England’. Another suspended candidate, Sabine Mairey, shared a post saying: ‘Ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s revenge.’ Another, Aziz Rahman Hakimi, shared posts blaming Israel for arson attacks on Jewish volunteer ambulances in Golders Green. Last month, more than 30 local election candidates were accused of making anti-Jewish comments on social media. Almost a dozen were suspended and two were arrested.
Despite all this, the GMG report insists that ethnic-minority members – particularly Muslim members and supporters of Palestinian liberation – have been disproportionately targeted by party disciplinary processes. It claims that ‘media attacks’ before last month’s local elections were ‘concentrated on Global Majority candidates and those who support Palestinian liberation’, feeding what it calls a narrative that ‘demonises migrants and Muslims’.
The report also says the so-called attacks ‘disproportionately affected GMG members especially women from our communities’, describing this as a ‘pattern of gendered racialisation’. GMG claims that within the party ‘anti-Semitism allegations are treated with exceptional urgency’, while anti-Muslim racism, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Roma racism, anti-Black racism, ableism and misogyny are not. It warns that ‘when governance fails, it is disproportionately Global Majority, Muslim and Palestinian solidarity members who bear the consequences’.
The report’s complaints about Zionism are equally pointed. Although it states that ‘anti-Semitism is racism’ and that Jewish members must be safe, it also argues that the Greens have blurred the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. GMG says the party is disciplining members for speech that its own guidance permits, since that guidance ‘states that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism’. This is an ‘incoherence’ that ‘must be resolved’.
Such a report might be unremarkable were it not for the endorsement of Polanski’s own deputy. Leaked minutes of the confirmatory meeting show Ali’s support. It means, in effect, that the deputy leader of the Green party is accusing his boss of being a fake anti-racist who punishes pure-hearted Palestinian activism.
The tensions highlighted by this report are only going to get worse in the coming months. At the Greens’ last party conference, a controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion failed to be heard owing to timing and ‘procedural’ issues. But at this October’s event, it will probably be back on the agenda. The GMG and its members will be itching to test their leader’s true commitment to anti-Zionist politics.
Few of Polanski’s critics from outside Green politics would accuse him of being overactive when it comes to dealing with anti-Semitism in his party. Yet if extremists within GMG either force him to bend to their will or eventually topple him as leader, the Greens could be pulled even further into the left-wing fringes. There are currently no plans formally to trigger such a process, but the GMG report is a warning shot to Polanski: change course or face the consequences.
The Greens control 18 councils and hold 1,346 town hall seats. At a local level there are already signs that their obsession with Palestine and racial politics means they are neglecting the day job. Green-run Bristol Council has seen pothole complaints rise by 700 per cent in nine months. The party is easy to mock or to brush aside as a collection of oddballs, but if it keeps up its momentum in the polls, it could find itself acting as a power broker after the next general election. Much of the public is infuriated by Labour’s infighting, uselessness and out-of-touch zealotry. But what comes next on the left may be even worse.
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