Sheffield’s Labour and Green councillors will keep running the city council together. Labour dropped plans to go it alone after a last-minute deal over the Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” motion.

Only two days earlier, council leader Fran Belbin had said Labour would form a minority administration. She said trust in the Greens was “completely broken”.

Deal struck at Town Hall

Wednesday’s full council meeting was pushed back an hour while the two parties held private talks.

When it began, Cllr Belbin told councillors the arrangement would continue. She said the Greens had issued a new statement the night before, accepting that not all Zionists are racists and that people have the right to self-determination.

She said a joint statement setting out how the parties will work together would follow in the coming days.

Around 50 protesters gathered outside the Town Hall during the meeting.

Sheffield Greens have not publicly withdrawn support for the national party’s motion. Sheffield Labour is expected to need approval from the party’s National Executive Committee to continue the arrangement.

Sheffield Labour Cllr Minesh Parekh said: “The overnight news from the US is a reminder of what can be achieved when the left works together.

I’m pleased there is an agreement for both parties to continue working together. Retaining our administration respects the principle that decisions about local government should be made locally and gives Sheffield the stability it needs.”

How the row began

The dispute started on 4 October, when the Green Party of England and Wales passed a motion at its Brighton conference declaring Zionism a form of racism. It passed by 1,022 votes to 813.

Four of the party’s five MPs publicly rejected the motion. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, condemned it as antisemitic.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham then ruled out any national coalition with the Greens while the policy stands.

On 15 October, Labour told its council groups in power-sharing deals with the Greens to end them unless local Greens rejected the motion. Sheffield was one of 18 councils named.

Coun Belbin called the motion “shameful and antisemitic” and wrote to Green group leader Coun Angela Argenzio asking her to reject it.

Coun Argenzio refused. She said Sheffield’s Green councillors do not conflate Zionism with Judaism, or anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and warned that Labour would own the consequences of destabilising the council.

Labour singled out three Green councillors who had publicly backed the motion: Maroof Raouf, Alexi Dimond and Mustafa Ahmed. Coun Raouf co-chairs the planning committee and Coun Dimond chairs the transport committee.

Labour and the Greens have run the council together since May’s local elections, when the Liberal Democrats left the previous three-party administration. No party has a majority on the 84-seat council.

The Liberal Democrats, who had said they would vote with Labour to remove the Greens from leadership, accused Labour of a U-turn.

Lib Dem group leader Coun Martin Smith called it “a shameful abandonment of principle by Labour”, adding that Sheffield deserved better than a “political circus”. His group also tabled a motion to remove Coun Raouf and Coun Dimond as committee chairs.

Reform UK, which had welcomed the prospect of the split, criticised the deal.

Before the agreement, the Green group had accused Labour of acting on “top-down demands from London” and said its door remained open to talks.

What happens next

The joint statement from Labour and the Greens is expected in the coming days. Labour’s national leadership has not yet said whether it will allow the Sheffield arrangement to continue.

360 Wire has contacted Sheffield Labour and Sheffield Green Party for comment.