Polanski defies calls to quit as Green leader after by-election loss and Zionism row

Zack Polanski has said he will stay on as leader of the Green Party in England and Wales despite losing the Holborn and St Pancras by-election and facing growing criticism over a party conference motion that declared Zionism is racism.

Labour held the seat, which was vacated by Keir Starmer. Its candidate, Sagal Abdiwali, won 12,292 votes, a 45% share. Polanski came second with 8,928 votes, about a third of the total. Labour's majority was 3,364, but there was a 13% swing to the Greens. The Conservatives came third, Reform fourth and the Liberal Democrats fifth. George Galloway's Workers Party took 314 votes. Abdiwali, a Camden council leader who arrived in the UK as a refugee from Somalia in the 1990s, became the first British Somali woman to be an MP. Andy Burnham's Labour described the result as a comfortable win and a vindication of his leadership.

For the Greens, the result was mixed. The party said it was its second-best by-election result ever and that its vote had tripled. But analysis suggested its gains came largely from a pro-Palestinian independent candidate who had stood in 2024 and then endorsed and campaigned for the Greens. The Greens were not making significant inroads into Labour's vote. One analysis said Green support among people who voted Labour in 2024 had fallen from about 25% in March to 8%. Polanski's decision to run in a safe Labour seat was described as a gamble that backfired.

The by-election was overshadowed by the Green Party conference in Brighton, which passed a motion declaring Zionism is racism and calling for a single democratic Palestinian state in all historic Palestine, including modern-day Israel. The motion passed by 1,022 votes to 813, with about 1,800 members voting out of a membership of around 220,000. Polanski missed the vote so he could campaign in Holborn and St Pancras. He had wanted the motion amended. After the vote, he said he would have voted against it unamended because he disagreed with parts of it, including the demand for a one-state solution. He later said he would have supported the motion as amended and agreed with its substance, but not with the Green Party deciding the future of the region.

In a BBC Radio 4 Today interview, Polanski refused to say whether he believed Israel had a right to exist. Pressed by Nick Robinson, he said everyone deserved a safe home and that Israelis and Palestinians should have equal rights in a democracy. He said Israel was currently a one-state apartheid state and that no state had the right to oppress another people or commit apartheid or genocide. He cited 75,000 Palestinians killed in recent years, 1,500 killed since the so-called ceasefire, and more child amputees than in modern history. He also said he grew up in a Zionist household but had changed his views. Critics accused him of dodging the question.

Reaction inside the party was divided. Former leader Caroline Lucas said Polanski had shown a failure of leadership by not being at the vote and by not making his position clear. She later clarified that she was not calling on him to resign, but said the jury was out on whether he would show the leadership she wanted. The chair of Jewish Greens, Vivian Lichtenstein, said he should apologise or resign. Joshua Alston, a former Jewish Greens policy officer, resigned his post so he could speak out, calling Polanski's response poor leadership and cowardly. Green MP Ellie Chowns said she would have liked him to be clearer before the vote. Former co-leader Jonathan Bartley said there was a toxicity around the party. One senior figure described the situation as untenable. Deputy leader Rachel Millward defended Polanski, saying the result was not bad and that the party needed to modernise its structures and policy-making. She said she had voted against the motion.

The row has also prompted a debate about how the Greens make policy. The Westminster leader, Ellie Chowns, said it was not working if significant and damaging policy could be made by a vote of just 0.4% of members. Caroline Lucas said the party's constitution was written decades ago and warned about entrism, claiming an unknown number of people had been encouraged to join to push the motion through. Polanski's supporters pointed to rising membership and the increased vote. Critics said the party's identity was shifting away from climate and the environment towards international and social issues.

Polanski has said he can carry on and that his future will be decided by members at the next leadership election next summer. He said he was more than ready to continue. The result gave Labour a boost under Andy Burnham, while the Greens remain divided over their leadership, their policy process and their direction. Polanski is safe from an immediate challenge, but he is not in full control of his party.