The faction in the Greens that supported Zack Polanski’s election as leader has called on the party to oppose increases in defence spending.
Greens Organise was founded in September 2024 and is backed by influential figures on the left of the party, such as the newly elected mayor of Hackney, Zoë Garbett. At a meeting on Wednesday evening (22 July), the group adopted a resolution, seen by the New Statesman, that pledges to “oppose the establishment’s military drive”. It calls on the Green Party to “reaffirm its commitment to peace, and opposition to war and rearmament”, and obliges Greens Organise to build closer relationships with anti-war groups such as Stop the War Coalition – the pressure group founded in 2001 and backed by the late Tony Benn and the former Labour (now, Your Party) leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
The resolution also includes a pledge to back a motion at the Green Party conference which, if passed, would commit the Green Party to opposing increases in defence spending and instead call for investment in public services and measures to combat the climate emergency (“welfare and wages, not weapons and war”). The motion, which was proposed on 9 July and has also been seen by the NS, describes “decades of British foreign policy” as being “directed by the United States” which has made “Britain and the world less safe”. It will be voted on at the party’s annual conference in Brighton in early October. It mirrors a similar motion brought at the Trades Union Congress conference in September 2025, which committed the TUC to back “wages not weapons”, overturning the body’s support for increased defence spending.
The move by Greens Organise is part of an ongoing debate within the party over its defence policy. Currently, the Green Party does not explicitly oppose increases in defence spending. Instead, its position has a broader definition of threat (to include issues such as the climate emergency) and focuses on nuclear disarmament. In a statement on 30 June, the party’s parliamentary leader Ellie Chowns said: “The Green Party recognises the need for the UK to properly invest in our safety, defence and security. Britain is made safer when defence spending is responsible, ethical and rooted in tackling the real security challenges of our time.”
Other Green factions are jostling ahead of the conference to moderate the party’s stance on defence. As the Times reported on 8 July, one group has drawn up a motion that, if passed, would see the party drop its opposition to drones and anti-ballistic missiles. The motion is intended to reshape the Greens’ defence policy around “non-offensive defence”, as a way of winning public trust. It was met with pushback from members on the left of the party, including the former Corbynite Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who – as the NS revealed – defected to the Green Party last year. Russell-Moyle is reported to have described the motion as “extremely worrying”.
Others on the left of the party have accused Polanski and the party’s leadership of trying to “evade the question” of defence. A source from that faction called on the Green leadership to “take a more consistent, clear and principled stance opposing the militarist drive”. The source pointed to polling by Ipsos which suggests that 55 per cent of the public believe military spending should remain the same as it currently is or be reduced. Barney Iley, the Green Party member proposing the “welfare not warfare” motion, agreed. He added that he hopes it will push the Green Party leadership to “defend working-class living standards and oppose this drive to war”.
Defence exposes a fault line at the core of the party’s coalition, between long-time moderates and newer, more radical members. There are just over two months before delegates arrive in Brighton for the Green Party’s biggest conference yet. When they do, we can expect a thorny and complicated battle over the party’s approach to defence.
[Further reading: In defence of Gary Stevenson]
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