Labour has confirmed that it will end 11 power-sharing agreements with the Greens on local councils across the country after Zack Polanski’s party passed a motion declaring Zionism to be a form of racism.
The two parties have collaborated at a council level in several areas where neither of them could form their own majority administration since last May’s local elections.
However, in a decision on Monday, Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) instructed Labour councillors to withdraw from such coalitions where their Green counterparts had refused to disavow the policy, which was passed at the Green Party Conference last month.
“Labour has been clear from the start that the ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy crosses a line, and we cannot work with any party that supports it – at any level of government,” said Labour Party Chairwoman Bridget Phillipson.
The decision means that the following councils will see the power-sharing deals end:
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Arun District Council
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Derbyshire Dales District Council
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Havant Borough Council
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Lewes District Council
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Runnymede Borough Council (though Labour said its cooperation with the Greens had already ended)
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Sheffield City Council
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Stafford Borough Council
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Warwick District Council
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Wealden District Council
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West Devon Borough Council
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West Suffolk Council
However, the agreements will remain in place in Broadland, Monmouthshire, North Somerset, Rother, West Oxfordshire and West Sussex, where Green councillors have, according to Labour, sufficiently distanced themselves from the policy.
On Coventry City Council, where there was no formal arrangement in place, no formal arrangement will be made in future, Labour added.
The conference motion has prompted backlash from Jewish Greens and politicians from across the political spectrum.
For instance, over the weekend Drew Creek, the Mayor of Newquay and leader of the Cornwall Greens, announced he would defect to Labour, saying: “The motion passed at the Green Party’s national conference this month, and the direction the party has taken since, is something I cannot support or stand behind.”
But Polanski has confirmed that he will not seek to overturn the policy, adding that, while the motion was “imperfect,” he shared the view that Zionism is “underpinned by racist ideology”.
Instead, he said he would seek to amend it at the next opportunity, which will be in 2027 under party rules, to say “that Israelis and Palestinians should decide that future for themselves” rather than its current position of advocating for a single Palestinian state.
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