Vote of no confidence raised against Green Party chair by Stats for Lefties
The Green Party are conducting their Spring Conference online and issues appear to be aplenty. Specifically, it appears that insecure voting practices are now being employed which has raised concern amongst voters.
In response, Eleanora Folan — of Stats for Lefties — has called for a vote of no confidence in the chair of the Green Party Conference. This concern regarding the security of internal democracy follows a motion raised to rule E12 Zionism is Racism as out of order. If successful, this will prevent the ability to be able to discuss or vote on this crucial motion.
The motion ‘Zionism is racism’ reflects a growing call — from both Palestinian and Jewish members — to confront Zionism as an inherently discriminatory ideology. In the context of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, they argue it is time to name and challenge the system of deep inequality they see at its core.
After all, there is a precedence for this. The UN General Assembly passed resolution 3379 in 1975 which declared Zionism as a form of racism. However, it was later revoked in 1991 after the US became the unchallenged hegemon of the world.
Green Party — ‘Plan B’ not good enough
Nevertheless, voting issues on the centralised system, which appears to either be overloaded by traffic or under sabotage from rogue actors, has stalled the process. Suggesting an alternative ‘Plan B’, according to chair Geraldine Coggins, members instead are asked to vote by ‘raising a hand’ on Zoom.
Concerns soon followed, but Coggins dismissed them and stated that this was indeed secure and to be trusted.
Folan challenged this, tabling a vote of no confidence and arguing that Zoom was not secure enough to reliably determine support for such a landmark motion. This comes as the motion itself has faced sustained attempts to undermine it, with pro-Zionist members both within and outside the Green Party accused of trying to derail its chances.
Folan strongly argued her position:
Chair is attempting to hold an illegitimate and insecure vote on an amendment of great consequence, and I do not believe that the chair is showing neutrality or an unbiased position.
They have repeatedly made clear their preference for certain outcomes and we are now attempting to hold a vote on a materially important amendment by use of raise of hands over an insecure zoom link that anyone can join and does not have to verify that you are a party member, or that you paid to attend conference.
We need a chair who will have the courage to delay votes to ensure that they are secure especially given that … we are currently experiencing a service attack on the voting website.
Not secure whatsoever
After hearing these allegations, we sought to test it ourselves. Sending our magic link to a non-Green Party member, they were able to access the system as claimed by Folan. In fact, they were able to enter their own name and allowed access. This has also been further verified by another Canary journalist.
Therefore, it is undeniable that this vote is not secure via Zoom. Rather than allowing the process to be frustrated due to potentially malign actors, the Green Party should maintain its original plan and keep E12 “Zionism is Racism” on the agenda.
As Lubna Speitan highlighted on the call, Palestinians are being erased by Zionists and those who support them. This motion must absolutely be heard, and tactics to frustrate democracy within the Green Party must be resisted.
Thankfully, the Green Party appears to have repaired issues with the online voting system. Subsequently, during the drafting of this article, members successfully voted with 585 against ruling E12 out of order.
The chair also won her vote of no confidence, with Coggins remaining in her position.
Now, a vote will be seen to bring the motion “Zionism is Racism” up in the order.
In fact, whilst moves were made to prevent E12, a subsequent motion raised to bring this antizionist policy up the agenda to ensure it has sufficient time for members to vote won by a landslide. This reflects the clear majority of Green Party members are supportive of moving forward as an anti-Zionist political party.
Featured image via Left Foot Forward
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Hilarious! At last we are getting to the limit of institutional capture by Zionists pretending to be progressives. Well done Canary for exposing it.
So true. The blizzard of anti- green media attack which will only ramp up now merely exposes who owns these propaganda outlets.
I suspect that a substantial proportion of Green members are Zionists, just as many Labour, Tory and Reform members are. This is not infiltration, but an exposure of the reality of Green parties.
….and I suspect the opposite. Stating something does not make it true despite Israels unrelenting propaganda suggesting it does. The evidence however points to the opposite of what you suspect, that the majority of the population are not Zionist let alone those in the Green Party, maybe the other parties hold a higher number in their memberships. Green Party needs to act quickly to avoid infiltration.
The Jewish Greens group were urging Greens to vote against the motion : “We urge Green Party members to listen to their Jewish comrades within the party, and consider whether this motion is appropriate for the type of party they want to be in.”
Their Policy Officer, Joshua Alston : ” I see Zionism as a settler colonial nationalism rather than racism. Racism is an integral and indivisible part of Zionism, but they are not quite the same thing. While I would agree that Zionism is intrinsically racist, it is not a type of racism. ”
So their argument seems to be: racism is an integral part of Zionism, but Zionists aren’t racist. Get your head around that !
This subject covered, with links to original articles, at :
https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2026/03/28/zionism-is-racism-green-party/
The first day of conference ended five minutes ago, having been extended by the maximum allowance of fifteen minutes. In the last couple of minutes of the day, E12 was introduced, then conference ended, without any for/against speech, without a vote.
During the last half hour or so, conference was plagued by spurious procedural motions of no confidence in the chair (all failed). Each such motion has to be considered and voted on (the rules) so the Zionist supporters in the Party effectively “filibustered” E12 out.
I don’t know if the morning was disrupted by a “denial of service” attack or simply by in-house technical glitches … but had that not happened, it would have been much more difficult to undermine E12.
Roll on the Autumn conference.
… for clarity, during the afternoon, E12 had been promoted to E03 by an overwhelming majority, in the hope that the anti-democratic tactics (that eventually succeeded) would fail.
The last no confidence was tabled immediately after the vote for the previous no confidence. It was so obviously a stalling tactic and I am really disappointed. I was online all day and voted on all motions but E12 then E3 was a really important one
I dared to believe the greens would be different but sadly they are not. I am extremely disappointed but not surprised. How many more leaders are going to use Palestinian suffering for votes and then throw them under the bus as Susan Abulhawa said. Free Palestine 🇵🇸
I was there all day and this is an accurate description of what happened. I am a new Green Party member and I was deeply impressed with all the Chairs who professionally handled a slew of spurious no confidence votes and other disruptive tactics. I was much less impressed with a tiny minority whose only goal was to undermine the will of the vast majority of the Party.
The chair asked with only a few minutes left what would happen if we started the debate without enough time to finish it. One of the members of the SOC said very clearly that the debate would have to continue. Lubna made her proposal and then the chair said he had to stop the debate. Zac Polanski needs to tell us who told the chair to stop and why. We need answers on this.
Really disappointed that obvious filibustering was allowed to disrupt and undermine the entire process, pathetic. There should not be a cut off point, everything has to be heard and voted on to stop this interference.
This article is somewhat misleading. To be fair, I believe the chair was doing her best in trying circumstances, and was only repeating the information given to her by the technical team. According to an article by Skwawkbox, the voting system was subject to something called a DDOS attack, so was temporarily unusable. It seems the back-up plan was to use the show of hands, in the case of a voting system failure. Fortunately, the situation was resolved and voting could proceed.
Unfortunately, a large part of the morning session was lost due to these issues. More time was lost in (possibly vexatious) procedural votes being called, including a total of 5 votes of no confidence in the chair. In the end, the controversial “zionism is racism” motion was reached with a matter of minutes remaining in the conference – just long enough for Lubna to speak to the motion, which she did, beautifully and emotionally.
It was an extremely frustrating day and left me, for one, enraged at what appeared to me a concerted effort to circumvent the democratic process in order to prevent this one motion even being discussed and, in the process, numerous other motions as well.
Interesting to see that the people using procedural wrecking tactics for Zionism are the very same ‘trans rights’ activists who wreck any sex-realist or women’s rights motions.
One said we should discuss trans Olympic ban instead.
The weaknesses of green party procedure have been laid bare and must now be addressed.
Cat, re. trans rights, etc, is IS being discussed by Greens – but ignored by The Canary.
See:
https://thegreenlight.blog/2026/03/26/e-34-motion-to-end-gender-based-blanket-ban-in-sport-on-its-way-to-become-green-party-policy/
and
https://thegreenlight.blog/2026/03/08/why-the-green-partys-definition-of-transphobia-is-illegal/
Not convinced this motion is a positive step for green party & could do significant harm to potentially increasing support
Zionism is a term used and understood in multiple ways in uk so any policy has to have very clear definitions about what is meant
I also think this
– risks division at a time when uk needs greens to be united + clear on policy (which uk public is terrible at engaging with or understanding + media misrepresentation)
– Risks feeding media and other parties attacking greens as antisemitic
– Is not necessary if the aim is to criticise Israeli actions over illegal settlements, attacking other nations or behaviour regarding Palestine/Gaza
– Risks alienating potential voters who care about Gaza, or do not support Israeli actions but are concerned about antisemitism
Also concerning to see members response to even mildest criticism of the motion.
Not agreeing with this motion does not automatically make person a supporter of Israel, or a zionist or out to sabotage green party…
The conference event (Sat 28 Mar) was a very long day and by far the worst aspect of it was the failure to vote on Motion A105 (on zionism is racism).
In my opinion, the direct causes of that failure were:
a) the IT failure of the online voting mechanism and the massive delay to resolve it, and
b) what appeared to me (and I am not the only one) to be deliberate acts by pro-Israelis who attended the conference, to delay its progress and so scupper Motion A105 from being heard and voted upon. It’s possible these pro-Israelis also had a hand in causing the IT failure.
I expect many of the hundreds who were at this conference, came for the principal or sole reason to vote on Motion A105, so they are likely to be very disappointed, as I am with what happened.
Next steps
There has to be a serious, thorough and independent investigation of the events on Saturday, with proper remedial action so they are never repeated. What happened did not meet the minimum standard of conduct at a conference of a major political party. It was a display of incompetence and of sabotage.
Plan B (voting) was not pursued even though one of the IT people said raising hands was not a risk. Not having a satisfactory plan B or having one but not implementing it when it was obviously needed, are serious management failures.
Those who called for a vote of no confidene (or who interrupted progress with other objections, and the people who seconded or in some other way supported them), must each be investigated to establish whether they were acting in good faith and being fair and reasonable in holding up progress, or were they deliberately wasting conference time? If the latter, then they must be removed from the party.
Members should be allowed to vote online on the missed Motions during a period of time, say 6 weeks from 28 Mar. That would prevent another sabotage on the day of the Conference.
Were the names visible of the people who repeatedly put votes of no confidence in the chair?
0.4% of members taking part and self-apppointed, accountable to no one but themselves. Democractic? hum…