‘Let’s get back to tackling public toilets,' Derbyshire Dales Green Party leader after ‘Zionism is racism’ controversy

The Labour Party’s National Executive Committee has ordered its local council groups that have some form of power-sharing agreements with the Green Party, including in the Derbyshire Dales, to sever those bonds over their commitment not to reject their own national party’s ‘Zionism is racism’ motion.

This has led to the scrapping of 11 such agreements between local council groups across England.

In the Derbyshire Dales, and for the past three years since May 2023, the district council has been run by a Liberal Democrat-led “progressive alliance” – not a formal coalition – which includes the Labour and Green Party groups, as well as one non-aligned councillor.

Labour’s national executive had told its local groups to ask each local Green group whether they would reject the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion, in order to retain a power-sharing agreement.

In the Derbyshire Dales, the Green Party group did not announce a formal rejection of the motion, so the national Labour executive has ordered the cessation of their alliance.

This leaves the Liberal Democrats, Greens and a non-aligned councillor in minority-control of the district council with 15 members out of 34, with remaining groups having 17.

On the district council, the Lib Dems have 12 councillors, followed by the Conservatives with nine, Labour with six, Green Party with four, Derbyshire First with two and one non-aligned councillor.

However, as the local Labour and Green Party leaders – who had been co-deputy leaders of the authority – made clear, this may affect very little on the ground due to the existing committee system in which every councillor already has equal voting power, with no cabinet decisions from leading members.

The motion, approved by the Green Party conference in October by a vote of 1,022 to 813, formally established them as the “anti-Zionist” party, it said, stressing this should not be “equated to antisemitism” and “reasserts the party’s commitment to Palestinian liberation and self-determination and a single new democratic state for historic Palestine”.

Labour has called the policy “divisive” with Prime Minister Andy Burnham saying he condemned it “unequivocally”, labelling it “antisemitic”.

Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour Party chair, said: “Any local power sharing arrangement cannot come at the expense of upholding the moral obligation we have to stand up for everyone in our communities and the values we share.

“Labour has been clear from the start that the ‘Zionism is Racism’ policy crosses a line and we cannot work with any party that supports it – at any level of government.

“Labour continues to oppose this divisive policy and calls on the Green Party to do the right thing and rescind it.”

The dictionary definition of Zionism is a Jewish national movement with the goal of creating a Jewish national state in Palestine. Antisemitism is the prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people.

Councillor Neil Buttle, Dales Green Group leader, said: “We run a committee system and every decision has to be ratified by individual members in a politically proportionate way, so I am not quite sure what difference it will make. You know how we work.

“This is a decision made by Labour’s national executive committee and they looked at it over the weekend. I know some councils are continuing because the Green members said ‘yeah, we don’t agree’.

“That is not our position. We have essentially said that none of us would have voted for it but that we are not going to go against Green policy, because we are absolutely against genocide.

“I think Labour are trying to make it look like we are split on this and I don’t think we are really.

“It has never been raised with me when I am knocking on the doors. It is normally about bins and public toilets, and I agree with them, the public toilets situation needs tackling.

“We need to do better and we can never do well enough.”

Earlier in October the Derbyshire Dales Green Party had responded to a letter from Dales Labour Group leader Councillor Simon Ripton saying: “Whilst none of us were present at the Green Party’s recent conference, and none of us would have supported the motion, we reject the suggestion that the motion, or the Green Party, is antisemitic.

“The Labour Party’s position deliberately and wrongly conflates Zionism with Judaism. To assume that all Jews are Zionists is itself antisemitic and ignores the many thousands of Jews who reject Zionism as an ideology."

When approached for comment, Cllr Ripton, who is expected to no longer be a deputy leader, with their group not allowed to be aligned with the Greens, who remain in partnership with the Lib Dems, said he was not aware of the national Labour decision to cease all power sharing.

He said: “We do have an alliance and not a coalition and we are both minority partners, in that, as you know.

“For what it is worth, because we do not have a formal coalition and Derbyshire Dales has a committee system, effectively all the work is done on a cross-party basis anyway, sitting on committees with Lib Dems, Greens, Independents and Greens so it is quite different to a cabinet coalition where Labour is the larger party supported by a minority Green Party.”