Welsh Greens' former deputy quits over Zionism motion and calls for a split

A deputy leader of the Wales Green Party has resigned from the party, after members at the Green Party of England and Wales conference passed a motion declaring that "Zionism is racism".

In a video posted on social media on Tuesday 6 October, Phil Davies, who had been a member for seven years and became one of the Welsh party's deputy leaders in 2024, said the motion had been "merely the final nail in the coffin" for him.

The motion

The motion, passed at the party's autumn conference at the weekend, described Zionism as a racist ideology and called for "a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine". It was criticised by Jewish groups, by other parties and by most of the Greens' own MPs. The party leader, Zack Polanski, did not vote on it, but was barred from entering Israel after the policy was confirmed.

"Achieves nothing"

Mr Davies said the Greens had always supported Palestinian rights, but that the motion "achieves nothing materially to help people in Palestine". He said committing the party to a single-state solution went against its principle of grassroots democracy.

"It feels very imperialistic to me for us in the UK to be telling people in the middle east what their futures should look like," he said. "Much in the same way that as a proud Welshman I wouldn't want people in England telling me what Wales' future should look like."

"The token Welshman"

He also complained that the Welsh party was not treated with enough respect by the wider party. "I have often felt like the token Welshman moaning at various points," he said. "It is firmly my position that we must split from GPEW and stand on our own two feet as a Welsh party."

He criticised what he called the party's "lack of long-term strategy for gaining power", saying it rushed into elections and by-elections "without any long term planning". He said he had "nothing but respect" for the Greens' elected Senedd members and councillors in Wales.

A testing week for Polanski

The row comes at a difficult moment for Mr Polanski, who is standing in this Thursday's by-election in Holborn and St Pancras, the London seat left vacant when the former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stood down as an MP in September.

The Greens have grown rapidly, winning votes from Labour among younger and left-leaning voters, and now have five MPs. But the conference vote has exposed divisions over the party's direction and its approach to the Middle East, with critics warning that the wording risks alienating Jewish voters and supporters.

How the Greens are organised

The Green Party of England and Wales is a single party covering both nations, with the Wales Green Party operating as a semi-autonomous part of it. The Scottish Greens and the Green Party in Northern Ireland are separate parties. Calls for the Welsh party to become fully independent have surfaced before, and Mr Davies's departure is likely to add to that debate ahead of future Senedd campaigns.

Mr Davies apologised to close friends in the party for leaving, saying: "I can no longer personally stay within the party whilst it remains within a GPEW context."