Green Party member to Adrian Ramsay MP – Stop fracturing our party!

Letter to Adrian Ramsay MP

From Jacob Ecclestone

October 21, 2026

Dear Adrian,

I am writing to you as a member of the Green Party, as one of your constituents, as someone who has spoken out against racial oppression since the 1970s and as someone who supported your campaign for the leadership of the Green Party last year.

For nearly three weeks our party has been the target of sharp criticism by other political parties and the mass media because of the conference decision on 4 October to designate Zionism as a form of racism. Some of these attacks have bordered on the hysterical. That is depressing but rather typical. Politicians traditionally use any stick which comes to hand, and our mainstream media is now so debased that the Israel lobby merely has to say “jump”. All of that I understand and can cope with.

What I am deeply troubled by – and the reason for this letter – is your willingness to stoke public hostility to the conference decision.

You have been interviewed at least four times recently for broadcasts on national television news programmes by the BBC and Channel 4. These interviews did not come about by accident or because someone in the newsroom thought it would be a good idea to get the views of a rural constituency MP on the genocide taking place in Israel. They came about for only one reason: you were willing to condemn a decision taken by your own party members equating Zionism with racism.

This week you have even given the Guardian an “exclusive” statement in which you call on Green councillors to maintain power-sharing with Labour in local government even if that requires them to repudiate the conference decision. I think you were wrong to do that.

I have no problem with people expressing different points of view on political issues. Indeed, I wish more people would pay attention to politics and think about the rights and wrongs of what is happening in the world. But the Green Party prides itself on high levels of membership involvement, and if democracy means anything it is that decisions taken by a majority should be respected and observed. Those wishing to change policy should do so by debate and discussion within the party. Using the mass media and doing so within a few hours leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

There has been much scornful comment about how the vote at conference represented the views of only a tiny fraction of Green Party members. That may be true, but no-one has yet presented any evidence to support the assertion that the vote at conference is not a true reflection of the views of Green Party members generally. As far as I am aware, the decision at conference was taken in accord with all the agreed procedural rules.

I repeat: I have no objection to people disagreeing about policies and arguing over the wording of motions. That is all part of a healthy political process. But Members of Parliament publicly inciting opposition to a policy agreed only hours earlier is a betrayal of the democratic process. It threatens to fracture the Green Party.

I hope that is not your intention.

I want to make two suggestions. First, that you set out in writing with care, clarity and precision what it is in the new policy that you are opposed to. Having listened to the four television interviews you gave, listened to what you told Green Party members at the constituency meeting in Diss on 7 October and having read Peter Walker’s report on your statement to the Guardian, I am still at a loss to know the detailed reasons you object to the motion and the cause of your evident anger.

Since you have spoken so publicly on this issue, I think you owe Green Party members in your constituency a written explanation of your reasons so that we can study what you write along with the text of the motion agreed at conference. Unless this is done, the issue may rumble on until you face re-election.

My second suggestion is this: since you are neither the Green Party Westminster Leader nor the Green Party’s spokesperson on foreign affairs it is – to say the least – unwise for you to speak publicly on an issue with such deep historical roots and involving such a level of pain and suffering unless you have at least some understanding of why Zionism has become a manifestation of racism.

As I am sure you know, there are already enough books on this conflict to fill several libraries. However, if you were willing to read only one short paper to gain a better understanding of the political and cultural struggle between Zionists and Palestinians, I urge you to download a pamphlet entitled “Is this the Way? A Call to Jews” written in 1947 by the eminent Jewish legal scholar, Dr. Walter Zander. It was published by Gollancz in London. It is an extraordinarily moving, sensitive and perceptive analysis of what had been going wrong in Palestine for more than 50 years and why it should not continue.

Earlier this year – following the start of the US/Israeli war on Iran – the Pew Research Centre carried out a poll across 36 countries in different parts of the world to find out what ordinary people felt about Israel. In the UK the result showed that 42 per cent of those polled held a “very unfavourable” view of Israel and a further 27 per cent held a “somewhat unfavourable” view. Similar opinions were held across the world simply because people could see a genocide being carried out.

At this moment in our history, I do not think it is either morally right or politically wise for you or other Green Party MPs to be using your positions as Members of Parliament to attack and undermine a clear policy decision which has been agreed by party members in an open and democratic process.

Before writing this letter I watched a clip of Benjamin Netanyahu making an election speech to the people of Israel this week and declaring: “We will have to live by our sword for many years”.

I doubt it. Day by day, the reality of Israel’s situation becomes clearer through the fog of censorship. Israel is in an existential crisis of its own making and survives only so long as it is supported by the elitist governments of America, Britain and Europe. The hysteria surrounding the Green Party decision to equate Zionism with racism is driven in part, I believe, by the growing realisation that the very existence of Israel is now in doubt.

It would be sad if the Green Party here in Britain was itself to be broken by the inherent racism of a state engaged in the process of committing suicide.

Yours,

Jacob Ecclestone

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Green party must avoid being taken over by hard left, says former leader

By Jessica Elgot, The Guardian,

Adrian Ramsay says some new members would be ‘more at home’ in Your Party or Socialist Workers party

The former Green party leader Adrian Ramsay has said the party must fix its internal democracy to avoid a takeover by the hard left, saying that some new members “might be more at home” in Your Party or the Socialist Workers party.

Ramsay, who has been critical of the handling of the row over a “Zionism is racism” motion passed at the Green party conference, said there were a “small number” of individuals who used “divisive” tactics to influence the party’s agenda.

“I think there’s a real crossroads point for the party at the moment,” he told the BBC. “And one option is to dig in … but I think that there’s a risk it brings with it a quite divisive approach to politics, which you’ve seen from small groups of people on the hard left of politics who go around different parties to try to influence how those parties are run.”

He said there were some new members who had joined the Greens after the failure of other leftwing movements, such as George Galloway’s party or Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party, who had their roots in hard left organising.

“There is also a small number of people who have joined, perhaps from the very hard left of politics, who might be more at home in the SWP or with George Galloway or with Your Party. [They] not only want to adopt some very hardline positions on certain issues, but have a very different culture to how they go about it,” he said.

He said those members were “seeking to change the direction of the party” and he said that needed the leadership to reassert the core values and ways of working of the Green party, which was “much more about consensus building, much less about highly fractional, highly tribal politics, and of course about the environment”.

Flaws in the party’s internal democracy meant small groups could have an outsized influence he said. “It was 0.4% of members who voted for this [the Zionism is racism motion] and I don’t think that’s reflective of party members as a whole, it’s certainly not reflective of those I speak to,” he said, adding there should be a ballot or survey of the wider membership.

Ramsay, the MP for Waveney Valley, welcomed the growth in membership of the Green party and said he was not calling for Zack Polanski to stand down as leader over the handling of the row.

He also said he was not intending to quit the party himself. “I’ve got no intention of going anywhere. What I want to see happen is this issue be clearly addressed,” he said.

But it was critical the party disavowed the Zionism motion sooner than the two-year cycle which party rules allow for, he said, and that the party changed its internal rules to give the wider membership more control over policy, rather than the small numbers who attend the party’s annual conference.

A spokesperson for Greens Organise – the grassroots group that backed Polanski’s leadership – said: “Adrian Ramsay put forward his case for the future of the Green party a year ago, and lost – by a landslide 84%. Over 150,000 members have joined the party under Zack’s leadership, and helped bring the party unprecedented electoral success.

“They deserve representatives who focus their energy on fighting for the radical solutions to the crises our country face.”

Ramsay said it was also clear the party needed to refocus on its core missions around climate and nature, as well as the cost of living crisis. “I think that will unite our members. I think it will ensure we still have a wide appeal as a party,” Ramsay told the BBC Newscast podcast.

Asked if he viewed Zionism as racist, he said: “No … I’ve made clear my position on the motion, as lots of other Greens have done.” He said the situation in Gaza was “appalling” but that the motion was contradictory to the Green party manifesto from 2024.

“We support equal rights for both Palestinians and Israelis, and Greens have always supported self-determination for all people.”

He said he had told Polanski directly he should have been present for the debate and vote, despite fighting a byelection in Holborn and St Pancras. “I do think he should have been there and he should have expressed his view clearly,” he said.

Ramsay said the party “need to find a way for this motion to be changed or rescinded sooner than the two years that Zack is talking about … changing the fact that a policy can’t be reviewed until two years is up.”