The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which was founded in 1760, voted overwhelmingly, 118-1, to label the Green Party racist following the Green Party’s adoption of a resolution declaring that Zionism is racism and calling for one Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

“By adopting an anti-Semitic platform, the Green Party of England and Wales has become a racist party. We will treat it accordingly,” said Phil Rosenberg, president of the board, in a statement.

“No political party has the right to tell Jews that a central part of our identity – rooted in thousands of years of history, faith and peoplehood – is racist,” he added. “The Green Party’s policy brands much of our community, including our synagogues and communal organisations, with that slur. It gives prejudice against Jews a political licence.”

“The Green Party’s leadership must now take responsibility for reversing this policy and confronting the anti-Semitism it has legitimised,” he declared.

The board’s motion called on other political parties not to cut deals with the Green Party unless it rejected its antisemitic policy on Zionism; otherwise, they would be “failing to take anti-Semitism with the requisite seriousness.”

“We recognise and commend those within the party who have opposed it, including Jewish members whose warnings were disregarded. They deserve to be heard and supported,” Rosenberg said.

“We call on democratic parties and wider civil society to apply the same standards to anti-Jewish racism that they would to any other form of racism,” he added.

The Green Party responded with a note of defiance.

“We reject the Board of Deputies’ characterisation of this motion and our party, which will not stop us from speaking out against the genocide in Gaza and pushing for stronger sanctions against the Israeli government and its leaders,” the party said in a statement.