Flagship London council to pass 'Zionism is not racism' motion

Résumé détaillé

Labour and Conservative members at Westminster town hall teamed up to draft the motion in response to Green Party controversy

A flagship London council is set to pass a motion declaring that “Zionism is not racism” following the controversial position taken by the Green Party.

Labour and Conservative members at Westminster City Council teamed up to draft the proposal, which states: “Support for the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is not racist”.

Councillors will ask town hall chief executive, Stuart Love, to review the local authority’s “equality, diversity and community cohesion training and policies” to ensure that they “do not treat Jewish residents’ support for Jewish self-determination as a form of racism”.

The motion, due to be debated at full council on Wednesday night, adds: “Criticism of the policies and actions of the Israeli Government is legitimate and is not antisemitic.

“But declaring Zionism to be racism goes far beyond such criticism: it brands most British Jews as racists because of a part of their identity, and risks leaving Jewish residents feeling unwelcome in public life.

“The Green Party’s position is incompatible with the council’s duty to foster good relations between communities.”

The Green motion, which was passed at the party’s conference last month, described Zionism as an ideology supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population”.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the party about the statement, asking to “assess its practical implications and potential impact”.

Labour threatened to stop cooperating with the Greens at almost a dozen local authorities across England following the new policy, which Prime Minister Andy Burnham branded “antisemitic”.

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