'We're waiting to sweep up their votes': Three days inside the Green Party conference - Middle East Eye

When I sat down with Mothin Ali early on Sunday, he was in an energetic mood.

It was the third and final day of what must have been an arduous Green Party conference for its co-deputy leader, who was dressed in his usual suit and flat cap. 

"It's been a fantastic year," Ali beamed. "We had 400 councillors elected in May, 1,300 councillors in all, a fifth MP in parliament and our membership has quadrupled.

The Greens surged in the polls last year after Polanski was elected leader. They gained further momentum and credibility with a by-election victory in Gorton and Denton in February and then took more votes from Labour in the May local elections than Reform did. 

Polanski is at least partially responsible for Keir Starmer's downfall and Andy Burnham's premiership. On Friday evening the renowned political analyst John Curtice argued as much at a packed fringe event.

The conference in the sunny seaside town of Brighton was full of energy. For many members it was the event of the year: friends roved the conference in groups and went off to restaurants and bars in the evening. They were diverse in age and ethnicity; many wore keffiyehs and Palestine badges. 

But as Curtice pointed out - turning smiles into frowns - the Greens now have their work cut out for them under a new and much more popular prime minister.

Polling shows support for the Greens has plummeted in the past few months.

Andy Burnham has taken steps to address key grievances that led Labour voters to switch to the Greens under Starmer.

So far, the most significant has been the Labour government's sanctions on Israeli settlements.

It is fair to assume these sanctions were partially influenced by the Greens. Polling after the local elections showed around two-thirds of voters who abandoned Labour for the Greens cited Labour's policy on Israel and Gaza as a reason.

Polanski, 43, is clearly keen to maintain the Green Party as a force shaping political discourse on Israel and Palestine. 

Two days before the conference began, he told me the British government should defy Israel's order to close the British Consulate in East Jerusalem. The deadline to close the mission is next week.

"East Jerusalem is illegally occupied Palestinian territory, and Israel has no sovereignty over it," Polanski said.

"Britain's recognition that the occupation is illegal means nothing if, whenever Israel attempts to exercise sovereign control over occupied Palestinian territory, our government simply complies."

The Green Party leader pointed out that the "consulate is also a vital diplomatic link between Britain and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

"If the government means what it says about the occupied Palestinian territories," he argued, "it must put that position into practice."

Polanski returned to the topic of Palestine in his conference speech to cheers and chants of "free, free Palestine".

He called for the government to lift its ban on the direct action group Palestine Action, and referenced the recent Labour Party conference where dozens of protesters were arrested for expressing support for the proscribed group.

"The sight of pensioners being put in handcuffs and bundled into police vans for holding up cardboard signs," Polanski said, "has been a stain and a shame on this country's reputation for far too long."

The issue of Israel's genocide in Gaza and settlements in the occupied West Bank were a major theme throughout the conference, at which there were several (all well-attended) fringe events on Palestine.

At an event in the main auditorium on Saturday, attendees chanted "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and applauded a call for "the end of the state of Israel as we know it" from the South African Jewish politician and writer Andrew Feinstein.

National media coverage of the conference was dominated by a motion to declare Zionism a form of racism, which members voted on and made official party policy on Sunday.

1,022 members voted for the motion while 813 voted against it.

The Greens are now the first major party in the country to recognise Zionism as a form of racism - and to back a single democratic Palestinian state with equal rights for all ethnic and religious groups, rather than a two-state solution. 

The motion dominated internal conversation throughout the conference and proved highly contentious.

Ali told me hours before the vote that he was strongly in favour of the motion, unlike the Green MPs Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, who criticised it.

"As defined in the motion," Ali said, "Zionism is an ethno-nationalist state. Zionism is resulting in ethnic cleansing, in the belief that one group of people is superior to another."

He added: "Now I'm a committed anti-racist. I got involved in politics through the anti-racist and anti-war movement. And since then, I've got a real understanding of what racism looks like, whether it's structural, whether it's personal.

"The belief that one group of people is superior to another, I just can't accept that."

Ali believed the motion would shift political discourse in Britain. "In 2024 the Green Party recognised the genocide that was taking place in Gaza, before any other major political party," he said.

"So we've always led on this subject, we've led on the subject of human rights, regardless of where it is. We're bringing other political parties with us. We're encouraging the debate to happen in society."

Before the start of the conference, it was widely reported that Jewish members of the Green Party who belong to synagogues that identified as Zionist could face internal disciplinary procedures.

I met Lubna Speitan, a British Palestinian and the lead author of the motion, on Saturday. She rubbished those claims, explaining that the motion is an "E-Motion," meaning it concerned external matters and had no bearing on internal processes. 

"We've made explicitly clear in the motion that not all Jews are Zionist and not all Zionists are Jewish," she said.

The motion was endorsed by prominent Holocaust survivor and activist Stephen Kapos, who said he believed that "Zionism both as an ideology and practice is harmful and has no legitimacy and must be rejected."

But the Jewish Greens group didn't take an official stance on the motion, saying its own members were divided on the issue.

Polanski, who is Jewish himself, said last month the motion needed to be amended to say "very clearly and explicitly that this motion safeguards Jewish people.

"And what it means by that is if someone stands against the occupation, stands against apartheid, stands against the genocide, but happens to be a member of a synagogue that calls itself a Zionist synagogue, they should not be treated any differently within the Green Party."

Ali told me on Sunday morning he agreed with this.

"It's absolutely right that E-Motions don't affect internal disciplinary procedures. But if Jewish members feel like they need an additional level of reassurance, then I think they're right to ask for that.

"All members should feel safe in this party. Not that the motion should make them feel unsafe, but if they want an additional level of reassurance, I welcome that."

The amendment, however, was defeated in a vote by members. Polanski and Ali are clearly not entirely in tune with what a significant number of Green activists believe.

Party spokespeople would not say whether Polanski would support the motion without amendments.

After the vote, the five Green MPs published a joint statement saying: "We will never tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment".

They avoided either welcoming or denouncing the vote, saying that "there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people."

One Green member and campaigner told me he agreed with the motion "in principle," but was unsure whether it was politically intelligent. Another member said "it won't help us on the doorsteps” to talk about ideologies and definitions.

A fierce protest erupted on the narrow street outside the Green Party conference venue in Brighton on Saturday, with dozens of pro-Israel demonstrators shouting at Green Party members as they entered the conference.

The protesters could be heard chanting "terrorist supporters off our streets" as others sang "there's no Palestine, there is no Palestine."

Some held up signs saying: "Stand up to racist Greens," "Anti Zionism = terrorism" and "More trees less Hamas". Numerous others waved Israeli flags.

A few waved a Union Jack and one man, who said he was an Indian Jew, waved a combined Israeli and Indian flag. When I politely asked him why, he accused me of being Pakistani (I am not). Eventually he explained that India and Israel are close allies in numerous ways.

Another protester, a middle-aged white man, claimed the Green Party was antisemitic.

He described Polanski as a "self-hating Jew," a derogatory term often used to disparage Jewish critics of the Israeli government.

"I'm not a Jew, I'm a Christian," he added. "I'm a Christian. We did the Holocaust." Now, he said, Jewish people were being persecuted "by Islam".

A woman who said she was French danced enthusiastically and described the Green Party as supporters of Hamas.

A group of counter-protesters, most of them Green Party members, held their own demonstration nearby.

The two sides were separated by police officers, and both were peaceful with neither side seriously confronting the other.

Some of the counter-protestors waved Palestinian flags and chanted anti-genocide slogans, while a group could be seen holding a banner reading "Jews against Zionism".

A young counter-protester named Ori, who said he was Jewish, told MEE: "We're here to support the ‘Zionism is Racism' motion. I think it will be a good thing for there to be a mainstream political party in parliament that says Zionism is racism, and that can hopefully lead to sanctions against Israel."

The conference wasn't all about controversy.

For his speech to members on Saturday, Ali danced onto the stage accompanied by a man playing a dhol (South Asian drum), to audience cheers. He embraced Rachel Millward, his co-deputy leader. 

Artificial intelligence was a prominent theme at the conference. In her speech, Millward warned that “our new oligarchical overlords would lock us into separate digital worlds flooded with AI slop and misinformation.

"A 24/7 diet of distraction and lies, hyper-scale data centres that guzzle energy to make a mockery of climate progress," she said.

'You don't have to become your neighbour. You don't have to worship like them. You don't have to vote like them. ...But you do have to recognise their equal right to exist and to belong'

It was a distinctly Green message: "We don't want your post-human reality. We want this world, the soil between our toes, the trees that give us shelter and shade, the food we grow with our own hands that tastes of the ground it comes from."

Ali's speech also focused on youth unemployment and the party's plan to end it. But he also addressed issues of polarisation and division.

"The question is whether we can build a country confident enough to live with difference, to protect everyone's equal right to belong and to make diversity work for us all," Ali said, making the argument for a "live and let live" multiculturalism.

"You don't have to become your neighbour. You don't have to worship like them. You don't have to vote like them. You don't even have to agree with them.

"But you do have to recognise their equal right to exist and to belong."

He added: "Live and let live doesn't mean retreating into our separate corners. Britain has to have a conversation with itself. We have to speak to people we disagree with.

"We have to listen seriously to genuine concerns about immigration, housing, public services and security. And we need to distinguish between legitimate political arguments and the denigration of whole communities."

Polanski's own speech had focused on everyday issues faced by working people. 

It was suffused with pro-family, pro-home ownership rhetoric: "Young families are being forced to choose between moving out of the cities of the places they love, or giving up on their dreams of having a family altogether," he lamented.

Polanski argued that "building the life we want for ourselves and our kids starts with having a home of our own," saying more Green councils would mean "more homes being built, more people getting their foot on the housing ladder for the very first time, more families having that incredible feeling of putting a key in the door for the first time of their very first home."

He urged the Labour government to "put in place a three-year emergency brake on private rents." So far, Labour has ruled out rent controls.

The Green Party leader was shuttled out of the conference shortly after delivering his speech to return to London to campaign: he is the party's parliamentary candidate in a by-election in London's Holborn and St Pancras in less than a week.

This was also a hot topic among members over the weekend. A significant number had been campaigning in the seat over the past few weeks and were planning to do so in the next few days. 

Very few people said they were confident Polanski will win. All agreed it was a tall order to overturn a historic Labour majority during Burnham’s honeymoon period. Ali told me he was "quietly optimistic". 

Away from the main auditorium, many members spent the weekend in small rooms around the venue discussing local political strategy.

At an event about winning over Muslim voters - attended mainly by non-Muslim members - Green councillor and campaigner Asma Alam explained how she had helped Hannah Spencer win election in Gorton and Denton in February. 

This involved engagement with local Muslims and community groups, visits to mosques and even campaign videos in foreign languages. 

The Greens have been accused by their political opponents of "sectarianism" over their explicit attempts to court Muslim voters.

But what Green campaigners described here sounded more like conventional electioneering: attempting to understand voters and their concerns and to seriously engage with them.

Chris Williams, a campaigner in Leicester, discussed his experience in helping Aasiya Bora become a councillor earlier this year. 

"You often hear rumors like, 'oh, that mosque committee is endorsing Labour', or another is voting Green," Williams said.

But when people come out of the mosque, "some are saying 'no, I'm sticking with Labour', some are saying 'no, I'm going with the independent', some are saying 'no, I'm going with you'."

"The evidence that we got was that people are making their own minds up," he said.

"When you're talking to Muslim voters, and also voters who are affiliated to other religious communities, you're not talking about a bloc vote. You're talking about individual minds."

If Polanski, who sits on the London Assembly but has never been an MP, fails to beat Labour in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, it will strike a massive blow to his party's image among voters - and therefore to its potential future success.

A loss could also damage Polanski's stature within the party itself.

The "Zionism is Racism" motion makes it clear that the leader is not always driving the party's agenda. This is because of its proudly democratic nature: in no other major party can ordinary members decide official policy through voting at the annual conference.

This is also what energises Green members and makes so many of them heavily engaged in local politics: a sense that this is their party and they get a strong say and what it does and stands for.

It is highly possible, of course, that Polanski emerges from the by-election in a strong position in the party. 

If Holborn and St Pancras is a close challenge and Polanski comes within a few thousand votes of beating Labour, Green members will likely see this as heartening: even in difficult conditions, in a historic Labour seat and with a new prime minister, the Greens can give Labour a run for their money.

But if Polanski actually wins, it will prove the Greens still have enormous momentum. It will send Labour the message that this volatile period isn't over and even their London seats are not safe. 

With Polanski as an MP, the Greens could assert themselves as a powerful bloc in parliament influencing day-to-day political discourse.

"Vote Green and watch Labour move," Polanski declared in his leader’s speech.

"Through our sustained pressure - and our historic wins - we have held the worst instincts of the Labour government in check. And we have started to move them in the right direction."

Ali told me on Sunday: "We had a new leadership elected a year ago, and look what we’ve managed to achieve.

"That’s just the start," he said confidently. "What we can continue to do is make sure that we’re holding the government to account."

Ali added that if the Greens "are continuously providing better alternatives, the Labour government is going to have to take notice.

"And if they don't, then we're waiting to sweep up their votes."