At the Green Party conference in Brighton on October 2, 2026, delegates debated several radical motions that could fundamentally alter the party's platform . These include using public funds to assist illegal workers in resisting Home Office raids and a controversial motion regarding the definition of Zionism.
Hackney Council's push to fund resistance against Home Office raids
Hackney Council is considering using pubblic funds to launch an information campaign designed to help undocumented workers resist immigration enforcement. As reported by the source, the Green-led council is poised to use taxpayer money to inform workers of their legal rights and methods for resisting Home Office raids. Seema Syeda of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants confirmed at the Brighton conference that the charity is collaborating with Hackney Council on this potential public information initiative.
This move by Hackney Council represents a significant escalation in the tension between local Green-led authorities and national immigration enforcement. While Nadia Barton Ahmad proposed a motion to support migrant businesses earlier in the conference, it was initially defeated by Labour councillors. However , Ahmad suggested that the upcoming local elections in May could provide a different political landscape for such radical measures to gain traction.
The Zionism motion and the warnings from Caroline Lucas
A motion declaring Zionism as a form of racism has sparked intense internal conflict and criticism from the party's own former leadership. The proposed motion defines Zionism as support for an ethnonationalist Jewish State and argues it should be treated as any other form of racism. Former Green MP Caroline Lucas warned on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that such a stance could be highly divisive and might make Jewish people feel unwelcome within the party .
The controversy surrounding the Zionism motion is deepened by the support the motion received from the group Friends of Al-Aqsa, whose founder, Ismail Patel, has previously expressed views that the source describes as Hamas-sympathetic. Former co-leader Adrian Ramsay also voiced concerns, stating that adopting a policy that fails to support the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to statehood would be a mistake. This internal friction highlights a struggle between the party's radical wings and its established leadership, who seek to maintain the 2024 manifesto's position of equal rights for both groups.
A proposal to hide convictions from DBS checks after five years
The Green Party is also considering a radical shift in criminal justice policy that would allow certain convictions to be hidden from Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.. Under the proposed plan, individuals with prison sentences of fewer than two years or suspended sentences for crimes such as theft,assault, or drug possession could have their records wiped after five years.
This proposal to modify DBS checks has drawn sharp condemnation from political opponents, including Shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns, who characterized the Greens as "criminal apologists." While the party maintains that any member can submit such motions, they do not become official party policy until they are formally debated and voted upon at a conference.
Who will decide if these motions become official policy?
It remains unclear whether these radical proposals will successfully pass a formal vote to become official party policy. Additionally, the party has not yet clarified how it will reconcile these stances with its 2024 manifesto or how the upcoming May local elections will influence the final outcome of these debates. The source also leaves open the question of how much influence outside groups, such as Friends of Al-Aqsa, will continue to exert over the party's internal debates.
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