Hackney mayor Zoë Garbett, who won the borough for the Greens in a historic first in May, did not vote on her party’s controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion at its conference last weekend because she was campaigning for Zack Polanski to win the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
A spokesperson from her office said, however: “If Zionism is defined as a political ideology supporting the creation and continuation of a specific ethnonationalist state in historic Palestine, born from colonial actions and enabled through ethnic cleansing, then it is racist.”
A Hackney Green source, however, said Garbett was privately “really frustrated” the debate was sapping time and energy away from local matters. “She genuinely just wants to focus on running the council well,” they said.
Garbett, who was elected as councillor for Dalston in 2022, is “not ideological”, the local member added.
“Regardless of what she believes about Zionism, I don’t think she would support the motion because it devotes energy to something definitional. She is much more ‘build bridges, not walls’.”
In Hackney, the issue of Israel-Palestine will soon rear its head again due to the Greens’ manifesto commitment to de-twin the borough from Haifa in Israel.
Haifa
A majority of Hackney councillors in July agreed in principle to “the formal termination” of the borough’s twinning agreement with the Israeli port city, subject to a consultation before any final decision.
Garbett said maintaining the link was “fundamentally at odds” with Hackney’s anti-racist values after UN Commission of Inquiry reports concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
The consultation closes on Wednesday (14 October). The initial deadline of 7 October was pushed back after the Jewish Leadership Council called it “crass and shockingly insensitive”, as it fell on the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. Garbett later apologised to the mayor of Haifa, Yona Yahav, for what she called a “serious mistake”.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Friday (9 October) published an open letter to Garbett, urging her to follow through on the de-twinning. The PSC cited discussions with Palestinian colleagues in Haifa who they said were hesitant to even respond to the review due to fear of “legal and social repercussions” from within the Israeli state.
However, a Hackney Green insider feels the party has “opened a can of worms” by floating the policy too soon. He said the timing lay with council officers “technocratically” scheduling it within the administration’s first 100 days because it was financially cost-free.
“We’re paying a price. The question is: was it worth it?” he said.
Defeat
Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, leader of Camden Council, won the seat vacated by Starmer with 45 per cent of the vote, 12 points ahead of the Greens’ 33 per cent.
The Green party admitted it would not win a little more than half an hour before the result was declared in the early hours of Friday. The party hailed its 22-point increase on the last general election as a cause for celebration.
Before the result, Camden Green councillor Hamza Chowdhury, who challenged Polanski for the nomination, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that, whatever the outcome, his leader would be vindicated.
“If he loses, he should wake up in the morning, put some sunglasses on, put the camera on, and tell Sky News: ‘We did it’. Because this is a Labour safe seat,” Cllr Chowdhury said.
While the count was underway at Camden Council’s headquarters, scores of Green party activists were supping pints of San Miguel in a Mornington Crescent pub as they watched the result unfold. Few were surprised, and the result has unleashed the party’s frustrations over how the campaign was fought.
Strategy
A Hackney Green councillor who was out canvassing for Polanski said: “We could have maybe got 2,000 more votes if we’d been more savvy,” accusing Abdi-Wali of having “no policies”.
A different Green councillor said most members had always seen victory as “impossible”.
“I think people are frustrated, not with Zack, but over whether it was the right idea to run in the first place,” he said.
Speculation over whether Polanski would stand mounted quickly after Starmer resigned as an MP in September. The contest was widely viewed as a signal of whether the Greens still posed a significant challenge to Labour after their surge in support at the local elections in May.
Grassroots
However, one member said Polanski’s thinking had become too “Whitehall-coded”. He added: “I don’t really get the argument that the media would have called him a coward. Who cares? Zack could have said he needed to be out there supporting the six Green councils we won in London to deliver their priorities, ahead of the London Mayoral elections.” The Greens won outright control of three London councils in May: Hackney, Lewisham and Waltham Forest.
Throughout the campaign, several Green supporters the LDRS spoke to lamented the party’s strategy for being too “top-down” and focused on Polanski instead of harnessing grassroots energy.
At an election hustings on Tuesday, activists said their leader’s profile as a “change” candidate had been lost, while another councillor and a dyed-in-the-wool Green activist were both critical of the messaging.
“There’s nothing about local issues. We needed to be holding Labour to account for their record here in Camden,” the activist said. The councillor echoed this, arguing that the party should have been more aggressive in its fight with Abdi-Wali, particularly on issues like Gaza and housing.
Good vibes
The post-mortem began soon after the result, with senior party figures questioning the wisdom of passing the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion days before polling.
One Green member said “liberal Zionist” Jewish voters in Camden were unlikely to back the Greens even before the motion. However, the LDRS has heard from Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat sources that many Tory and Lib Dem residents voted tactically for Labour to keep Polanski out.
The activist said the result signalled that Polanski had to draw a line under the “niche and toxic” issue. They said: “On the doorstep, ‘Zionism is racism’ is not on their radar at all. The issue is: Is this party good vibes?”
