Westminster council has passed a motion declaring that “Zionism is not racism” and calling for a review of its equality policies, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the town hall on Wednesday night.

The motion affirms Jewish people’s right to self-determination and explicitly rejects the Green Party’s position on Zionism. Chief executive Stuart Love has been asked to review the council’s “equality, diversity and community cohesion training and policies” to ensure they do not treat Jewish residents’ support for Jewish self-determination as racism.

Outside the full council meeting, dozens of demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, banged drums and chanted “long live the resistance”. Counter-protesters held Israeli flags and a banner branding the Green Party “racist” on the town hall steps.

Conservative councillor Hannah Galley said support from both parties in the chamber made this only their second joint motion since 2018. She described witnessing growing intolerance, intimidation and hatred towards Jewish people during her two years representing Abbey Road, a ward with a large Jewish community.

Galley argued that Zionism meant Jewish self-determination in an ancestral homeland and was closely bound to many Jewish people’s religious, cultural and historical identities. For some, she said, Israel offered an escape route because of their historical insecurity elsewhere. She called the racism label a “warped argument”, arguing that Israel was uniquely singled out for having its right to self-determination characterised as illegitimate or racist.

The Green Party policy rests on a different definition. Its conference motion describes Zionism as an ideology supporting “an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population” and states that “Zionism is racism”. Westminster’s resolution identifies the policy as having been adopted at the party’s October 2026 conference.

The disagreement concerns what Zionism denotes: Galley’s argument centres on Jewish identity, security and self-determination; the Green policy centres on what it characterises as exclusion or domination of non-Jewish people.

The Green position is also disputed within the party. Former co-leader Adrian Ramsay and its first MP, Caroline Lucas, condemned the policy. Ramsay urged local parties to renounce it, putting him at odds with current leader Zack Polanski.

Westminster’s decision takes that dispute into the council’s own procedures. What changes, if any, will follow the review of training and policies remains unresolved.