Brighton council considers barring Greens from venue over Zionism motion

Polanski rejects council characterisation; Greens defend motion

The leader of Brighton & Hove City Council said she was considering refusing to allow the Green Party of England and Wales to hire the Brighton Centre for future events, after the party passed a motion at its October conference declaring Zionism was racism.

Bella Sankey, who leads the Labour-run council, told the BBC she was “deeply concerned at the prospect of the Green Party returning to Brighton for future conferences.” She described the motion as “divisive, discriminatory and wrong” and said it was not compatible with Brighton & Hove’s commitments to be a welcoming and inclusive city.

Zionism, according to the BBC’s report, is the belief in the right to a Jewish homeland.

In a statement, Sankey said the motion had “dangerously” conflated the right of Jewish self-determination with the actions of the Israeli government, a position she said risked “the safety of Jewish members and Jewish people more broadly.” She accused the Green Party’s leadership of a “dereliction of duty” and said the Brighton Centre, as a publicly owned venue, “should never be a place where people feel excluded due to their religion or beliefs.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, rejected the council’s framing. He said he would “not accept any exclusion, or refusal to engage with anyone, because of the religious or communal body they are part of.” Polanski also said antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli state “are, and must always be, completely distinct — blurring the line between the two is not only wrong but antisemitic, and makes Jewish people less safe.”

“It’s our role as a movement for justice to protect both the rights of Palestinians and our Jewish communities here in the UK,” Polanski added.

Green Party sources rejected Sankey’s characterisation of the motion, according to the BBC.

Brighton & Hove City Council owns and operates the Brighton Centre, which has hosted party political conferences for decades. The venue hosted both the Green Party’s and the Liberal Democrats’ autumn conferences this year. Labour has also previously held its annual conference at the venue.

In 2017, the council’s then-leader Warren Morgan, a Labour member, threatened to ban his own party from holding its conference at the Brighton Centre over concerns that antisemitic views had been aired at the gathering.