Green Party leader Zack Polanski has defended his decision to skip a party conference debate regarding a controversial motion that declared Zionism a form of racism.
During an interview with presenter Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Polanski refuted suggestions that he deliberately avoided the debate, explaining that his absence was due to campaigning in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
The motion, which was ultimately approved by party members, characterized Zionism as an ideology promoting an ethnonationalist Jewish state and threw its support behind a single democratic Palestinian state covering the territory of present-day Israel.