Polanski says he will not overturn Green Party's 'Zionism is racism' motion

Zack Polanski has said he will not overturn a motion passed by Green Party members that declared Zionism a form of racism.

The Green leader told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that, while he would like to make amendments, it would be party policy until 2028.

The motion, passed at the party's conference earlier this month, described Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population".

It divided the party and sparked a major backlash from MPs, Jewish campaigners, the government and the European Green movement, with the equality watchdog writing to the party for more information on it.

The fallout from the motion overshadowed the final days of Polanski's campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, in which he came second to Labour, and threatened his leadership.

He came under criticism for not voting on the motion which was passed by 1,022 votes to 813 - a small fraction of the party's 230,000 members - in Brighton earlier this month.

The motion also asserted the party's backing for "a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine", a full arms embargo on Israel and a commitment to Palestinian liberation.

Asked if he would now step in as leader to overturn it, Polanski said: "I'm not going to try to overturn it.

"At the first available opportunity, I do want to amend it - I want to move away from one state, towards saying that Israelis and Palestinians should decide that future for themselves."

He said this would not be until 2028 as "you can't [amend it] within the rules, so when you vote on something in our party conference that's then policy for two years".

Kuenssberg asked if he would therefore change the rules as leader, but Polanski said: "I think if members have made a decision, then I respect the democratic will of our members."

Former Green Party co-leader and current MP Adrian Ramsay responded by calling for action to be taken sooner.

"I don't think it's tenable for us to continue the next two years with this policy that's been adopted given the huge political distraction that it's been for our councillors across the country," he told the BBC News Channel.

"One way forward could be to have a ballot of all party members to establish very clearly where does the party as a whole stand - my view is we would see a different answer."

Polanski had previously said he would not have voted for the motion without two amendments.

The first of these would have avoided "determining there was a single democratic state", and the other would have specified that the motion should not be used to discipline Jewish Green members who attend synagogues that consider themselves Zionist.

Both of these amendments were voted down by members at the party's conference.

Green MPs, including Ellie Chowns, have called for the party's member-led decision-making procedures to be reviewed given how few people took part in the vote.

Asked if he thought Zionism was racist, Polanski said he did not think this was controversial, adding: "I think what's controversial is that 75,000 Palestinians have been murdered in the last few years."

Kuenssberg asked Polanski if he accepted that for many Jewish people, Zionism was the right to have a safe place to live, or homeland.

"I think that's what people think it means, but actually in practical application - which is what we're talking about here - that homeland has come to the cost of the Palestinian people," Polanski, who is Jewish, said.

"I want equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians - the practical application of Zionism has not resulted in that."

When questioned if he thought Israel had a right to exist, he said he did not think "any state has a right to exist under international law".

And asked if he would apologise for his handling of the row, as the Jewish Greens chair Vivien Lichtenstein has asked him to do, Polanski said: "I'm not sorry at all."

In response, Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, accused Polanski of being "all over the place" on the issue.

"Let us remember that, as of now, the Green Party's platform erases Jewish identity and experience, calls for Israel's elimination, and tells the vast majority of Jews, who overwhelmingly believe in the right of Israel to exist, that they are not welcome in the party," Rosenberg added.

Polanski has said no Jewish Green members will be excluded based on their faith or background - and that being Jewish and supporting Israel are "two separate things".

His latest comments come after a fortnight of criticism from across the political spectrum over the motion.

Labour has said it will end power-sharing agreements with the Greens on local councils, unless its councillors disown the motion while Prime Minister Andy Burnham called it "antisemitic".Polanski said it was up to Green councillors to do what they saw fit.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.