Labour gives Green council partners seven days to distance themselves from conference motion
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Labour has given local Green Party groups in council power-sharing arrangements seven days to reject a conference motion describing Zionism as racism and urge their national leaders to reconsider it. Labour says it will end any arrangement where the Greens do not provide that assurance, escalating its response to the motion.
Labour is in coalition with the Greens in Sheffield, Lewes and Warwick, and includes them in broader coalitions in more than ten other areas. The review follows Prime Minister Andy Burnham ruling out a national partnership with the Greens over the motion, which Labour has called anti-Semitic. The motion was backed at the Greens’ conference in Brighton on 4 October.
- Green council partners have seven days to respond.
- Labour says it may end power-sharing deals.
- The review follows the Greens’ conference vote.
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Labour and the Green Party are separate political parties in the UK. In some councils, where no party governs alone, parties agree to share power and work together on local decisions such as services and budgets.
The dispute concerns a Green Party conference motion linking Zionism with racism. Zionism is a movement supporting a Jewish homeland in Israel; the term and its meaning are contested, and the motion has prompted objections from Labour. Local council partnerships can be affected by disagreements between parties, even when those disagreements concern national party policy.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Labour can argue that local partnerships depend on shared commitments to oppose antisemitism, and that the motion’s wording risks denying Jewish people the same right to national self-determination afforded to others. Asking councillors to clarify their position gives local groups a chance to show that the partnership remains compatible with those commitments.
The case against
Green councillors can argue that ending local arrangements over a national conference motion risks punishing local representatives for a decision they may not have made, and can weaken cooperation on services and local priorities. They may also see the demand to reject the phrase as an attempt to constrain legitimate criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy, rather than a fair test of their opposition to antisemitism.
Full account
Labour has given Green groups in councils where the parties share power seven days to distance themselves from a motion passed at the Green Party conference which described Zionism as racism. If local Greens do not provide the requested assurances, Labour says it will end the arrangements.
The move follows Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s statement in Parliament that Labour could not enter a national partnership with a party holding the position adopted in the motion. He condemned it as antisemitic. Labour subsequently asked local parties in joint administrations with the Greens to review their agreements and seek a clear rejection of the motion, along with a call for the Green Party’s national leadership to reconsider it.
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said the party expected its local partners to uphold the same standards Labour had sought to establish within its own ranks. She said agreements would end if Green groups could not give the requested assurances. Labour said the ultimatum affects 17 councils in England and one in Wales; one report also named Sheffield, Lewes and Warwick among councils where Labour and the Greens govern together.
The Green Party called Labour’s intervention undemocratic and disappointing. Its spokesperson argued that criticism of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism and accused Labour of interfering in local parties’ decisions. The reports place the dispute against wider criticism of the conference motion, including from former Green leader Caroline Lucas, who described it as dangerous and divisive.
Where outlets differ
The first report describes Labour as conducting a review across local government and lists Sheffield, Lewes and Warwick as direct coalition arrangements, with broader coalitions in more than ten other areas. The second gives the party’s total as 17 councils in England and one in Wales, without naming those councils.
The second report says Labour has told councils to terminate their pacts unless local Greens condemn the motion within seven days. The first frames the requirement as obtaining assurances that local groups reject the stance and urge the national leadership to reconsider it.
The first report focuses on Labour’s review and the consequences for council coalitions, while the second includes the Greens’ response and criticism from Caroline Lucas. Both report Burnham’s opposition to a national partnership, but the second notes that the extension of his position to local government had initially been unclear.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “Labour poised to sacrifice power-sharing council deals with Greens if local parties don’t reject ‘Zionism is racism’ stance within a week”.