Ex-Green leader urges councillors to reject Zionism motion to keep council power

Adrian Ramsay, one of the Green Party's five MPs, has urged Green councillors to reject the party's newly adopted "Zionism is racism" motion if doing so helps them stay in power in local government, The Guardian reported.

Ramsay co-led the Green Party in England and Wales for four years before Zack Polanski took over as leader. He opposed the motion before the vote at the party conference in early October.

The conference adopted a motion defining Zionism as racism and calling for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel. The decision applies to the party as a whole, but many Greens sit in power-sharing administrations on local councils, where day-to-day decisions cover bins, housing and planning.

Labour ordered its local parties that share council power with the Greens to terminate those deals if the local Greens did not disown the motion. Green council groups in Lewes, Warwick, Rother and Havant have rejected the motion. The Green group in Southwark disowned the policy to maintain a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Polanski has said he will not try to overturn the motion but wants to amend it to remove the call for a single Palestinian state. He has said the motion will stand for at least two years under party rules.

The motion has drawn criticism outside the party. Andy Burnham said the decision to back a declaration that Zionism is racism was "a completely wrong decision", The Guardian reported. Israel condemned the party for passing the motion, The Guardian reported.

Ramsay has said he was "deeply upset" by the vote and that the motion describing Zionism as racism "doesn't reflect long-standing Green principles", New Statesman reported. He has also said he has "no intention" of leaving the party over the issue, Politics.co.uk reported.