Green Party investigation into Lubna Speitan's Zionism motion

Green Party Investigation Targets Motion Backer

Green Party investigation is now under way into Lubna Speitan after US court documents surfaced listing her as a "close friend" of Minh Quang Pham, a man later jailed for supporting al-Qaeda. Speitan was the member behind a controversial conference motion that described Zionism as a form of racism. The probe moved fast. By Wednesday it was official.

How the Zionism Motion Passed

Speitan, a British-Palestinian artist, proposed the motion defining Zionism as an ideology supporting "an ethnonationalist Jewish state". Delegates approved it by 1,022 votes to 813. The text also called for a "single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine". Under Green Party rules, motions backed by members become official party policy. Manifesto inclusion? Not guaranteed.

• 1,022 to 813: the conference vote on the Zionism motion
• Four out of five Green MPs opposed the text
• 40 years: Pham's US prison sentence for supporting al-Qaeda

1,022 members backed the text, yet the internal reaction was far from unified. Four out of five Green Party MPs voted against it. Opposition parties and some Jewish groups labelled it an "attack on the Jewish community". That split has now collided with the investigation.

Speitan Pushes Back

Before the party publicly confirmed the investigation, Speitan addressed the row on Instagram. "I reject all defamatory and nonsense claims made about me," she wrote. "I reject all attempts to decontextualise past statements I have made." Her message was blunt.

"This is a classic distraction. I am not the conversation. Racism is. Zionism is. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is. Let's talk about that."

Her framing references a UN commission of inquiry which said in June that Israel had deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Israel has repeatedly denied genocide and says its actions are justified as self-defence.

Court Documents Expose a 2015 Friendship

The Green Party investigation followed a Jewish Chronicle report on Tuesday detailing a 2015 letter from Speitan offering to testify as a defence witness in the trial of Minh Quang Pham. She gave evidence on behalf of a British national accused of plotting a suicide attack at Heathrow Airport. US prosecutors said Pham had been directed by al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki to detonate explosives in Heathrow's arrivals area after spending several months in Yemen being trained by him. Pham was jailed for 40 years. He pleaded guilty to supporting al-Qaeda. He denied planning a suicide attack.

In US court documents from 2015, Speitan was listed as a "close friend" who could provide "critical testimony regarding Pham's mental state". In a later letter to the US District Judge, she called Pham one of the "few people I regard with such high respect and esteem". She wrote that if the judge "truly knew the Minh [Pham] that I and others grew to love and respect", they might have "probably had the whole case dismissed". She acknowledged he "may have had and developed some behavioural issues". Her praise was effusive.

But nothing in the documents suggests Speitan knew of Pham's criminal activities at the time she knew him. That distinction matters.

MPs Warn of Deep Divisions

Adrian Ramsay, a former party leader and Green MP for Waveney Valley, called the motion an "unhelpful distraction" and "wrong in principle". He made clear why.

"The Green Party has always supported the right to self-determination and that has to apply to all peoples."

Asked on BBC Radio 5 Live whether he would consider leaving the party, Ramsay told Matt Chorley he was "not ruling anything in or out at this stage". He said he was "talking carefully with colleagues to reflect both with Jewish Greens but also with Green MPs and other people in leading roles in the party to look at how best can we get things back on track".

What the Probe Means Now

On Tuesday afternoon, after the letter emerged, a party spokesperson pointed to internal processes for members whose expressed views clash with party values. By Wednesday, the party released an updated statement confirming "an investigation is under way".

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The Green Party investigation leaves Speitan with no formal role beyond membership. The spokesperson said: "Lubna Speitan holds no party positions other than being a member." What happens next? The party has not said.

• Lubna Speitan: motion proposer, now under investigation
• Minh Quang Pham: jailed for 40 years for supporting al-Qaeda
• Adrian Ramsay: former leader who called the motion "wrong in principle"

The Green Party investigation now hangs over a party already divided over the motion. Whether it closes the rift or widens it remains to be seen.