Until recently, the Green Party was on the fringe of British politics. Between 2010 and 2024, it had just one member of parliament. In the July 2024 election, which saw the implosion of the Conservatives and Labour’s rise to power under Keir Starmer, it managed to secure just four seats in parliament.

But the party’s fortunes began to change rapidly in the Starmer era. With the Conservatives and the Labour government now reduced to the mid-to-high teens in the polls, the economy on its knees, and anti-establishment sentiment growing across the political spectrum, the Greens have begun to emerge as a political force capable of challenging Nigel Farage’s Reform at the next general election. They are now polling at about 17 percent, level with the Conservatives and one point ahead of the governing Labour Party. They also won their first parliamentary by-election at Gorton and Denton, taking 40.6 percent of the vote. Membership has risen from 65,000 in July 2025 to about 220,000 today.

This shift is in no small part due to the party’s unapologetic support for Palestinians. Indeed, many leftists and progressives frustrated with the Labour Party’s support for and whitewashing of Israeli crimes in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine have voiced their support for the Green Party after Zack Polanski, a non-Zionist Jew who has unequivocally described Israeli actions in Gaza as a “genocide”, was elected leader in October 2025.

Polanski’s vocal support for Palestine and his consistent condemnation of Israeli crimes and excesses undoubtedly contributed to the party’s surge in support. But it has also triggered an anti-Semitism smear campaign almost identical to the one that eventually saw Jeremy Corbyn and his leftist, pro-Palestine supporters ousted from the Labour Party. How the Green leader responds will determine not only the future of his party, but potentially the direction of British politics.

The anti-Semitism smear campaign against the Greens began in earnest after the party’s by-election victory in Gorton and Denton, where 30 percent of the population is Muslim and the Greens put Gaza at the forefront of their campaign. The victory shocked the British establishment and forced many to accept that the Greens had become a genuine contender for power.

As a result, just as was the case with Corbyn’s Labour, Polanski’s Greens were immediately........

© Al Jazeera