Green Party Opens Investigation Into Member Behind Controversial Zionism Motion

The Green Party has confirmed it has launched an internal investigation into Lubna Speitan, the party member who authored a contentious conference motion describing Zionism as a form of racism, after court records revealed she had been listed as a "close friend" of a man later imprisoned for supporting al-Qaeda.

A party spokesperson stated that where members express views inconsistent with the party's values, internal processes exist to investigate such matters, and confirmed that an investigation is now underway. The spokesperson also noted that Speitan holds no party positions beyond her ordinary membership status.

The controversy stems from a motion Speitan, a British-Palestinian artist, proposed at the Green Party conference. The motion defined Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state" and called for "a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine." Party members approved the motion by a margin of 1,022 votes to 813, a result that immediately drew sharp criticism from opposition parties and several Jewish organizations, which characterized it as an attack on the Jewish community.

Under Green Party rules, motions endorsed by members automatically become official party policy, though they are not guaranteed to appear in the party's election manifesto. The decision exposed divisions within the party's parliamentary ranks, with four of the five Green MPs opposing the measure.

Adrian Ramsay, a former party leader and the Green MP for Waveney Valley, publicly voiced his disagreement, calling the motion an "unhelpful distraction" and "wrong in principle." He argued that the Green Party has consistently championed the right to self-determination, and that principle must extend to all peoples without exception.

When questioned on BBC Radio 5 Live about whether he might consider leaving the party over the issue, Ramsay said he was "not ruling anything in or out at this stage." He added that, just days after the motion passed, his priority was to consult carefully with colleagues, including Jewish Green members, fellow MPs, and others in leadership roles, to determine how best to steer the party back on course.

The investigation into Speitan intensified following a report by the Jewish Chronicle, which brought to light a 2015 letter in which she offered to serve as a defence witness in the trial of Minh Quang Pham. According to US prosecutors, Pham had been directed by al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki to detonate explosives in the arrivals area of Heathrow Airport after undergoing several months of training in Yemen under Awlaki's guidance.

Pham ultimately pleaded guilty to supporting al-Qaeda and was sentenced to 40 years in a US prison. He denied planning a suicide attack. In court documents from 2015, Speitan was identified as a "close friend" who could offer "critical testimony regarding Pham's mental state." A subsequent letter she sent to the US District Judge described Pham as one of the "few people I regard with such high respect and esteem."

In that letter, Speitan suggested that if the judge had "truly knew the Minh [Pham] that I and others grew to love and respect," the case might have been "probably had the whole case dismissed." While she conceded that Pham "may have had and developed some behavioural issues," she went on to describe him as "one of the kindest, honest, most sincere, trustworthy and respectful people I have ever known."

It is important to note that the court documents contain no suggestion that Speitan was aware of Pham's criminal activities at the time they knew each other. The revelation nonetheless prompted the Green Party to act. Following the emergence of the letter on Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson initially said the party had internal processes to investigate members whose views conflict with its values. By Wednesday, the party issued an updated statement confirming that "an investigation is under way."

Before the Green Party publicly confirmed its investigation to the BBC, Speitan addressed the matter in a post on Instagram. She stated that she rejected "all defamatory and nonsense claims made about me," and dismissed "all attempts to decontextualise past statements I have made." She framed the scrutiny as "a classic distraction," insisting, "I am not the conversation." She added: "Racism is. Zionism is. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is. Let's talk about that."

Her remarks reference a broader international debate. In June, a United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Israel has consistently rejected such allegations, maintaining that its actions in Gaza amount to self-defence and do not constitute genocide.

The controversy has also drawn attention to earlier related developments. The motion's passage followed a separate decision that banned filmmaker Roman Polanski from Israel, tied to the party's declaration that "Zionism is racism." The Green Party now finds itself navigating internal tensions over foreign policy, free expression, and party discipline, with the investigation into Speitan representing the latest flashpoint in a widening debate over the boundaries of acceptable discourse within the party.