
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


The Green Party has tabled a motion at Spring Conference seeking to make the party anti-Zionist, triggering a major political debate in UK politics. Right, so the Green Party has accepted a motion for its Spring Conference saying that Zionism is racism. It’s in the system. It’s got a number. It’s on the agenda. And that’s the bit people weren’t expecting, because this is the argument that’s supposed to stay outside. You can shout about it, march about it, argue about it online - just not put it through the rules. That’s how this has worked for years. And now it hasn’t. Because the moment it goes through procedure, the safety net goes. You can’t say it’s settled anymore. You can’t say it’s unsayable. All you can say is it shouldn’t be there. And that’s not an argument. That’s panic. Because once it’s inside the rules, you either deal with it - or you admit you never had an answer in the first place. Right, so the Green Party of England and Wales has tabled Motion A105 for its Spring Conference. It has been accepted into conference procedure and so is now set for debate. It states plainly that Zionism is racism and commits the party to an explicitly anti-Zionist position. That sentence alone would have been treated as unutterable inside British party politics for more than three decades, not because it was disproven, not because it was illegal, but because it was kept out by design. The fact it now exists as a procedural object means that design has failed, in no small part due to more than 2 years of Israeli genocide in Gaza and the old excuses, because that is what they were, no longer wash.
By Damien WilleyThe Green Party has tabled a motion at Spring Conference seeking to make the party anti-Zionist, triggering a major political debate in UK politics. Right, so the Green Party has accepted a motion for its Spring Conference saying that Zionism is racism. It’s in the system. It’s got a number. It’s on the agenda. And that’s the bit people weren’t expecting, because this is the argument that’s supposed to stay outside. You can shout about it, march about it, argue about it online - just not put it through the rules. That’s how this has worked for years. And now it hasn’t. Because the moment it goes through procedure, the safety net goes. You can’t say it’s settled anymore. You can’t say it’s unsayable. All you can say is it shouldn’t be there. And that’s not an argument. That’s panic. Because once it’s inside the rules, you either deal with it - or you admit you never had an answer in the first place. Right, so the Green Party of England and Wales has tabled Motion A105 for its Spring Conference. It has been accepted into conference procedure and so is now set for debate. It states plainly that Zionism is racism and commits the party to an explicitly anti-Zionist position. That sentence alone would have been treated as unutterable inside British party politics for more than three decades, not because it was disproven, not because it was illegal, but because it was kept out by design. The fact it now exists as a procedural object means that design has failed, in no small part due to more than 2 years of Israeli genocide in Gaza and the old excuses, because that is what they were, no longer wash.