Politics
• Analysis
Green Party extremists row: Ellie Chowns warns against 'capture by extremists and racists'
Green MP Ellie Chowns, the party's leader in the House of Commons, said on Saturday she wants the Greens not to be vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists, speaking after the conference motion that treated Zionism as racism.
By Haut Monde Post
• October 10, 2026
• 3 Min Read
Ellie Chowns, the Green Party's leader in the House of Commons, said on Saturday that she wants the party not to be "vulnerable to capture by extremists and racists", amid the fallout from last week's conference vote that treated Zionism as a form of racism.
What Chowns said
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Chowns said she does not know whether extremists and racists are in the party, but that her priority is policy that reflects the membership as a whole.
I don't know if there are extremists and racists in my party
She paired that warning with a second concern: that the contested policy does not speak for the party or the wider public. "I don't think that policy, 'Zionism is racism', represents the large majority of Green party members," she said, adding that it does not represent the country either.
Why she says the process failed
Chowns framed her remarks around how the policy came to pass rather than the subject of the debate alone. The motion, which set out to treat Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, as any other form of racism and backed a single Palestinian state over a two-state solution, was adopted at the annual conference.
She pointed to the arithmetic of the result:
- •The motion passed with just over 1,000 votes
- •That is approximately 0.4% of the total Green Party membership
- •Chowns said the vote produced "significant and damaging policy" and showed the party's policy-making processes were not working
On that basis, she argued, the outcome cannot be treated as representative of what most members want.
Her view of Polanski and the party's direction
Chowns, who lost a co-leadership run against Zack Polanski in 2025, described his lack of leadership over the motion as disappointing but said he could unite the party.
She also set out where she wants the party's energy to go: contesting and criticising the horrific actions of the Israeli government, rather than fighting over contested terms.
What happens next
For all the pressure on him, Polanski has insisted he intended to remain as Green leader, despite calls to stand down that include one from the chair of the Jewish Greens. Green Party leadership elections are normally held every two years, meaning the next contest would be in the summer of 2027.
