Tony Blair piles pressure on Andy Burnham to rule out a deal with the Greens as ex-PM warns Zack Polanski’s party has ‘crossed a line’ with ‘Zionism is racism’ vote

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1d ago

By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT 11:37 07 Oct 2026, updated 11:39 07 Oct 2026

Tony Blair has piled pressure on Andy Burnham to rule out a Labour deal with the Green Party in the wake of its anti-Semitism row.

The former Labour prime minister urged his own party to not be ‘tempted’ by a Labour-Green alliance to ‘unite the British Left’.

Sir Tony said the Greens’ passing of a policy motion to declare ‘Zionism is racism’ at their conference last weekend had crossed ‘a dangerous line’.

The resolution backed by Green members in Brighton had ‘effectively denounced the State of Israel’s right to exist’, the ex-premier added.

A storm of criticism in the wake of Sunday’s vote has seen Zack Polanski’s Greens dubbed ‘an extremist party’ and the motion branded an ‘attack’ on British Jews.

Amid the furious backlash, the Greens have been reported to both the police and the UK’s equalities watchdog over events at their South Coast conference.

If Mr Burnham were to soon call a general election, current polling suggests the result could be a hung Parliament with the Prime Minister relying on the support of other parties – such as the Liberal Democrats or Greens – to keep Labour in power.

But, in an article for US website The Free Press, Sir Tony warned Mr Burnham and Labour that the Greens’ conference motion was ‘a signal event’.

‘This weekend, the Green Party of England and Wales crossed a line. A dangerous line. One that it is unacceptable to cross,’ Sir Tony wrote.

‘It passed a resolution which effectively denounced the State of Israel’s right to exist.

‘By a vote of 1,022 to 813, the party passed a motion entitled ‘Zionism Is Racism,’ which commits the party to a single Palestinian state covering all of historic Palestine – which is to say, to a world in which Israel, the state which contains the largest population of Jews on Earth, does not exist.’

He added: ‘Since at least two-thirds of British Jews call themselves Zionists, the party has, in effect, branded the majority of the country’s Jews racists, while declaring that doing so cannot be anti-Semitic.

‘If you care about the future of Britain, as I do, and if you care about the future of the peoples that live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as I do, this is a signal event.’

In a message to his own party, Sir Tony went on: ‘There are those in my party, Labour, who might be tempted by the so-called progressive Red-Green coalition – an alliance between Labour and the Greens to unite the British Left.

‘But this vote should serve as a warning of the dangers such an alliance would bring.’

The ex-premier said that people around the world would be ‘rightly appalled’ by the devastation of the Gaza war.

‘We can debate the Middle East: its politics, its challenges, and its solutions. That is healthy,’ he added.

‘But this vote – overt anti-Jewish discrimination from what is now a mainstream British party – is a warning sign.

‘It reveals something rotten. It is the duty of all of us to put it right.’

In response to Sir Tony’s article, a Green Party spokesperson said: ‘We won’t take lectures from a man who took this country into a catastrophic illegal war in Iraq that was justified by fabricated intelligence.’

Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson has branded the Greens’ conference motion as ‘shameful’ and ‘fundamentally wrong’.

‘This vote underlines how important it was that we changed the Labour Party from top to bottom and ripped out the scourge of anti-Semitism from within the party,’ she said in a statement issued on Sunday.

‘The Labour Party and the Labour Government will continue working every day to ensure our Jewish communities are safe, feel safe and have their rights upheld, as well as making sure we rid our society of anti-Semitism once and for all.’

Downing Street said the PM and the Government would continue to support Israel’s right to exist and to pursue a two-state solution in the Middle East.

Mr Polanski skipped Sunday’s vote in order to focus on his by-election campaign in Holborn and St Pancras, where he is hoping to be elected the next local MP this week.

He did not directly address the row for more than 24 hours but, in a statement issued on Monday night, the Green leader – who is Jewish – later said his party would ‘not accept any exclusion’ of people based on religion.

‘As leader I will not accept any exclusion, or refusal to engage with anyone, because of the religious or communal body they are part of,’ Mr Polanski added.

‘I take seriously my responsibility to make sure everyone feels safe and welcome in our party.

‘Under my leadership, no one will be made unwelcome because of their background, their faith or where they worship.’

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