The extremism of some in the Green party is increasingly being compared to Labour in Jeremy Corbyn’s time. But there is a critical difference. Most of the haters in Corbyn Labour were ordinary activists. In the Greens, they are likely to become holders of public office with real power.
Earlier this week, we brought you Ifhat Shaheen, a Green council candidate in the highly-winnable ward of Stoke Newington, who defended the October 7th attacks, suggested that Israel is harvesting organs from Palestinians ‘to help alter [the] DNA of Zionists to claim land,’ and asked whether ‘Zionist funding’ was behind the racist Tommy Robinson marches.
Today we reveal the views of Saiqa Ali, a Green council candidate in Streatham St Leonards, the party’s strongest ward on Lambeth council, south London, where all three of the councillors are currently Green.
On 23 September 2024, Ali’s Instagram account posted a picture of a masked fighter, holding a rifle and a string of bullets and wearing what appears to be a Hamas headband. ‘Long live the Resistance,’ writes Ali. ‘Free Palestine!’
If it is a Hamas headband, this post is likely to be a criminal offence under the 2000 Terrorism Act, which makes it illegal to express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation; to invite support for it, even if it’s only moral support or approval; or to publish an image of an item of clothing that arouses reasonable suspicion that the person depicted is a member of a proscribed organisation.
In some ways, however, this image is relatively restrained compared with others on Ali’s account. On 21 July 2024, the account posted a picture of the Earth wrapped round with and crushed by a giant, fang-toothed serpent with the Star of David printed on its skin. Ali’s caption: ‘It’s time to cut the head of this snake.’
On 1 May 2024, Ali posted a picture of the notorious Mear One street mural, depicting stereotypical Jewish bankers playing a game of Monopoly on the backs of naked, bent-over people. There was a major controversy in 2018 after it was revealed that Corbyn had posted a comment on social media objecting to the removal of the mural, which was scrubbed off a London building in 2012 after complaints. Corbyn apologised, saying: ‘I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on, the contents of which are deeply disturbing and anti-semitic.’ Can Ali have been ignorant of all this? Her post, six years later, is captioned: ‘Keep posting, keep protesting.’
On 26 August 2025, Ali posted: ‘England has a government overrepresented with Zionists Jews.’ Among these, she appears to count Keir Starmer, saying that he is a ‘Jewish Zionist.’ In June that year, she opined: ‘The Israeli survivors of the Holocaust are systematically repeating the sins of the Nazis. Mass starvation is cheaper than gas chambers, but no less evil.’ Another post, with a picture of another stereotypical Jew, says: ‘Don’t you know the rules? We went through the Holocaust, and now we get to kill everyone, forever!!’ Donald Trump is ‘owned by Jews’, according to an image she posted in November 2024.
On the subject of 7 October, she posted an image saying the situation demands that ‘Palestinians resist, by any and all means. Last October, some of them did precisely that.’ Other posts on her account make clear that Israel’s complete obliteration is her goal. Last month, during Iran’s bombing of US bases in the Gulf, she said: ‘Don’t ask why Iran is bombing enemy bases in Arab countries. Ask why enemy bases exist in Arab countries.’ On Facebook, Ali says that 9/11 was a ‘false flag attack’ created by Israel, and that Israel may also have killed Charlie Kirk.
After The Spectator contacted Ali and the Green party for comment, her Instagram account was set to private.
Ali, as both her Green candidate biography and her extremist Instagram account biography say, is also founder and chief executive of a charity, Swan London, which has received National Lottery funding. Swan provides soup kitchens at two mosques and works in Gaza, where it provides emergency aid, a field hospital and health clinic.
Ali posts of her hostility to the West, which she says killed 30 million people colonising Africa. ‘Just in case you wonder why the West support the genocide on Palestinian people: it’s in the blood to kill, but they call themselves civilised,’ the image she reposts says.
Happily, however, she did feel able in 2021 to accept a decoration called the British Empire Medal. In 2023, she appears to have been a guest in Westminster Abbey at King Charles’s Coronation. I’d like to hope that this was exceptionally devious: the British state discrediting its declared enemies with establishment baubles. Alas, I know it was merely exceptionally naive.
It’s not clear how Ali meets the residency or workplace requirements to stand in Lambeth: her nomination papers give a home address in a different borough, Croydon, and her charity’s office also appears to be there. But if (as is highly likely) she is elected, and if (as is highly possible) the Greens win the council, she will be helping control services for 300,000 people, including 1,300 Jews.
If I was a Jewish resident of Lambeth, I wouldn’t just be worried about Saiqa Ali. I think I’d be frightened.
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