Monday, November 02, 2026
The public angst of the Green Party
The paper says that Ramsay, who has been critical of the handling of the row over a “Zionism is racism” motion passed at the Green party conference, said there were a “small number” of individuals who used “divisive” tactics to influence the party’s agenda:
“I think there’s a real crossroads point for the party at the moment,” he told the BBC. “And one option is to dig in … but I think that there’s a risk it brings with it a quite divisive approach to politics, which you’ve seen from small groups of people on the hard left of politics who go around different parties to try to influence how those parties are run.”
He said there were some new members who had joined the Greens after the failure of other leftwing movements, such as George Galloway’s party or Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party, who had their roots in hard left organising.
“There is also a small number of people who have joined, perhaps from the very hard left of politics, who might be more at home in the SWP or with George Galloway or with Your Party. [They] not only want to adopt some very hardline positions on certain issues, but have a very different culture to how they go about it,” he said.
He said those members were “seeking to change the direction of the party” and he said that needed the leadership to reassert the core values and ways of working of the Green party, which was “much more about consensus building, much less about highly fractional, highly tribal politics, and of course about the environment”.
Flaws in the party’s internal democracy meant small groups could have an outsized influence he said. “It was 0.4% of members who voted for this [the Zionism is racism motion] and I don’t think that’s reflective of party members as a whole, it’s certainly not reflective of those I speak to,” he said, adding there should be a ballot or survey of the wider membership.
Ramsay, the MP for Waveney Valley, welcomed the growth in membership of the Green party and said he was not calling for Zack Polanski to stand down as leader over the handling of the row.
He also said he was not intending to quit the party himself. “I’ve got no intention of going anywhere. What I want to see happen is this issue be clearly addressed,” he said.
But it was critical the party disavowed the Zionism motion sooner than the two-year cycle which party rules allow for, he said, and that the party changed its internal rules to give the wider membership more control over policy, rather than the small numbers who attend the party’s annual conference.
Whether Ramsey gets his way is looking doubtful, with all the signs being that the elements he is referring to are digging themselves in, and there is no sign that his party as a whole is prepared to take action. This is evident from the quote by a spokesperson for Greens Organise, the grassroots group that backed Polanski’s leadership, who said:
“Adrian Ramsay put forward his case for the future of the Green party a year ago, and lost – by a landslide 84%. Over 150,000 members have joined the party under Zack’s leadership, and helped bring the party unprecedented electoral success."
“They deserve representatives who focus their energy on fighting for the radical solutions to the crises our country face.”
This could run and run.
