Green Party backlash as members push to end support for Ukraine as leading activist behind amendment says President Zelenskyy is a ‘sacrificial partner’ in ‘NATO’s war’
The Green Party is facing internal turmoil after more than a dozen members and activists tabled an amendment to strip a conference motion of its call to increase military aid to Ukraine, replacing it with language urging a negotiated settlement and a "departure from militarised responses." The amendment, put forward by activist Ashley Tubb, describes the conflict as "NATO's war" and casts Ukraine as a "sacrificial partner" exploited by both NATO and Russia, prompting sharp condemnation from politicians across the political spectrum who accused the party of echoing Kremlin talking points.
The amendment has secured backing from 14 Green members, including national council member Paul Ingram and five former party candidates, and is due to be debated at the party's annual conference in Brighton. Tubb also claimed President Zelenskyy had bowed to "massive pressure from NATO members" in supporting the war effort. Conservative figure Dame Priti Patel branded the Green Party "a danger to national security," while Labour MPs Luke Akehurst and Phil Brickell called the move "morally bankrupt" and "grotesque," arguing it undermines the military support keeping Ukrainians safe. A Green Party spokesman said the party's policy is decided democratically by its members.
- Green activists table amendment to cut Ukraine military aid support
- Amendment calls Ukraine a "sacrificial partner" in "NATO's war"
- Tory and Labour figures condemn move as echoing Kremlin narratives
New here? Start with this
No Green Party in the UK is not the party in government, but is a national political party that campaigns mainly on environmental issues alongside broader progressive policies. Its annual conference is where members debate and vote on party policy, and its foreign policy positions have historically leaned towards scepticism of military intervention and Western armed forces expenditure.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most mainstream British political parties have backed sending weapons and other military aid to Ukraine, viewing this as support for a country defending itself against an unprovoked attack. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leads Ukraine and has repeatedly appealed to Western allies, including the UK, for continued military and financial backing. NATO is the military alliance of the UK, the US and other Western nations, which has coordinated support for Ukraine without deploying its own troops directly into the fighting.
This matters because a debate within a UK political party about whether to keep backing Ukraine touches on a wider, ongoing argument in British and Western politics about how far countries should go in arming Ukraine, and whether the conflict should be seen chiefly as Russian aggression or also as a product of wider geopolitical tensions involving NATO. How mainstream parties respond to dissenting views on this issue is often seen as a marker of the strength of political consensus on the war.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of the amendment argue it reflects long-held Green principles of anti-militarism and conflict resolution through diplomacy rather than arms. They contend that continually increasing military aid risks prolonging a devastating war of attrition with no clear path to victory, and that pursuing a negotiated settlement could end the suffering sooner and save lives on both sides. They also point to NATO's post-Cold War expansion as a legitimate factor in the conflict's origins worth acknowledging honestly, and argue that a grassroots party built on member democracy should be free to debate and adopt such positions through its ordinary conference process, however uncomfortable others find them.
The case against
Critics counter that Ukraine is the victim of an unprovoked invasion and holds the sovereign right to defend itself and decide its own future, including if and when to negotiate. They argue that withdrawing military support now, without Ukraine's consent, would reward aggression, weaken deterrence against future invasions, and pressure Kyiv into a settlement dictated by Moscow rather than one it freely chooses. They also object to framing the war primarily as 'NATO's war', seeing this as erasing Ukrainian agency and suffering, and warn that a party in a NATO member state distancing itself from an ally under attack risks emboldening authoritarian aggression elsewhere.