Recall Petition Maria Donnellan — CEC Representative, Cymru

Your Party

RECALL PETITION

Maria Donnellan — CEC Representative, Cymru

1. The Conduct in Question

In a message to the WhatsApp group ‘Main Debate’, part of the member-led Your Party Exchange network, CEC representative for Cymru Maria Donnellan characterised Zionism as “the Jewish people’s national movement for self-determination in their historic homeland” — in direct response to a member discussion about the Green Party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion. A screenshot of the full message can be seen at the bottom of the page.

Maria went on to describe the debate around that motion as having “descended into chaos”, dismissing and downplaying the documented, organised disruption by Zionist factions within and beyond the Green Party, and warned that understanding Zionism as an inherently racist ideology is an “absolutist position” with a “divisive nature.”

She further argued that resolution to the conflict must come from “the peoples directly involved” through “negotiation and consent, not imposed by western political parties.” This framing, which presents occupier and occupied as equivalent parties at a negotiating table, is not, in our view, a neutral position. We consider it to reflect a liberal Zionist perspective that risks excusing or legitimising the ongoing displacement and oppression of Palestinians by treating the oppressed and their oppressors as political equals.

2. Breach of Your Party’s Political Statement and Constitution

Your Party’s Political Statement — adopted democratically by members and enshrined in Clause 2 of the Constitution — is explicit: the party “opposes the global system of imperial domination and colonisation, and supports movements for national liberation and self-determination.” It commits the party to opposing “all forms of prejudice, oppression, discrimination and scapegoating.”

Furthermore, Your Party’s Organisational Strategy, as amended at the November 2025 conference, explicitly names “the struggles for the liberation of Palestine” as a core commitment of the party. Maria’s characterisation of Zionism as a legitimate movement for self-determination, and her framing of Palestinian liberation politics as divisive and absolutist appears, in our view, to be in direct contradiction with these founding commitments.

A CEC member is not a private individual expressing a personal view in a members’ forum. She is a mandated collective leader of this party. Her public positions carry institutional weight and send a message about what this party stands for. That message, in this instance, is one we firmly reject.

3. Historical and Scholarly Truth: Zionism Is Settler Colonialism

Maria’s framing presents as neutral what the overwhelming weight of historical scholarship has systematically dismantled. This is not a matter of two equally valid interpretations. We do not accept that this is a matter of equally valid interpretations. In our view, the weight of historical scholarship points clearly in one direction.

From its origins, political Zionism operated on the logic of European colonialism: that the existing Arab population of Palestine was not a people whose presence constituted a claim to the land. As historians including Rashid Khalidi, Ilan Pappé, Nur Masalha, Edward Said and Maxime Rodinson have established through decades of scholarship — and as the declassification of “israeli” state archives in the 1980s confirmed beyond reasonable dispute — the Nakba has been widely documented by historians as a process that cannot be understood as a mere accident of war. The forced displacement of over 800,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 was the structural heart of a settler-colonial project that sought to make the colonised vanish both physically and symbolically.

What is happening in Gaza today cannot be separated from this historical context, and reflects patterns that many scholars have identified as inherent to the development of Zionism as a political project. To describe opposition to that project as “absolutist” ,as Maria did, is, in our view, to call for moderation in the face of what many—including international observers—have described as genocidal conditions. We reject that framing.

4. Al-Thawabet: The Palestinian National Constants

The Palestinian national movement has its own answer to what is and is not negotiable, established democratically by the Palestinian National Council long before any western political party attempted to frame the question. Al-Thawabet — the constants, the red lines of Palestinian liberation — are unambiguous: the right of return for all refugees of the Nakba and its ongoing continuation; full Palestinian sovereignty over historic Palestine from the river to the sea; and Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. These are widely understood within the Palestinian national movement as non-negotiable positions.

Maria’s argument that resolution must come through negotiation and consent between “the peoples directly involved” is a direct repudiation of Al-Thawabet. It places the comfort of a western political party above the stated, democratically expressed national constants of the Palestinian people. Any genuine solidarity with Palestine must begin by centring and honouring those constants, not filtering them through a liberal diplomatic framework that the Palestinian national movement itself has consistently rejected since Oslo.

5. The Constitutional Basis for Recall

Article 3.b.xi of Your Party’s Constitution states:

“CEC members may be recalled if more than 40% of all members in the relevant selectorate sign an official recall petition.”

Maria Donnellan’s public statements constitute, in our view, a fundamental breach of her mandate as a representative of a party committed to anti-racism, anti-oppression and Palestinian liberation. This recall petition is initiated on those grounds, and we invite every member in Cymru to read her words, judge them against our party’s founding principles, and sign if they agree.

6. Party Constraints

In the absence of a functioning democratic mechanism within Your Party to enact a recall ballot, this petition stands as the first act of collective accountability. It is a line drawn by members who refuse to see our founding principles diluted, deferred, or reinterpreted beyond recognition.

This statement has been formally submitted via email to members of the CEC officers group, relevant interested parties, and all Cymru proto-branches with public-facing contact details, to ensure it is on record and cannot be ignored.

We call on all comrades who stand for Palestinian liberation to share this statement, organise, and make their position unmistakably clear. The right to hold our representatives accountable is not conditional on administrative convenience. It is fundamental.

This is not a procedural matter. It is a political one.

Zionism has no place in our movement. Not in theory, not in practice, not in leadership.

Maria Donnellan has placed herself in direct contradiction with the principles she was elected to uphold.

She should step down.creenshot of a WhatsApp message in a group called “Main Debate,” posted by Maria (CEC Cymru). Message reads: “Personally, I think the recent Green Party motion had serious flaws — and we need to be prepared for similar problems and contested debates to grow in Your Party. It is not for Zara (or any single figure or faction) to unilaterally decide our policy. The Green Party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion (debated at their Spring Conference) — sought to label Zionism — the Jewish people’s national movement for self-determination in their historic homeland — as inherently racist, while endorsing a single democratic Palestinian state across all of historic Palestine and supporting Palestinian ‘resistance and liberation by all available means.’ Critics rightly highlighted how this selectively denies Jewish self-determination, revives outdated tropes, risks discriminating against Jewish members who support Israel’s existence, and conflicts with international law principles and the party’s own prior policies. The debate descended into chaos, with procedural disputes and emergency counter-motions, underscoring the divisive nature of such absolutist positions. Our position should instead be rooted in the universal right of self-determination: it must be for the peoples directly involved — Israelis and Palestinians — to decide their future through negotiation and consent, not imposed by western political parties. Hopefully, groups like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) can provide valuable guidance on Palestinian perspectives and ground realities, but any final policy must draw from broader input to ensure balance, feasibility, and genuine commitment to peace with justice for both peoples. We need to debate this openly and democratically in Your Party, learning from the Greens’ experience rather than repeating it.”Verification Notice

This petition is an initial organising step to demonstrate member concern and support for a recall process. Due to the absence of a formal, integrated verification system within the party, signatures collected here cannot independently confirm membership status or selectorate eligibility.

We call on the party to enable a formal, verifiable recall mechanism so that the constitutional threshold can be properly assessed.

Petition by
Gravatar
Finlay Crawford
Cardiff, United Kingdom

To: Your Party
From: [Your Name]

To the Officers Group and relevant CEC members,

Please accept this email as the formal submission of a recall petition concerning Maria Donnellan in her role as CEC representative for Cymru, initiated under Article 3.b.xi of the party constitution.

Attached below is the full text of the petition as circulated to members.

This petition has also been distributed to Cymru proto-branches, relevant interested parties, and party contacts with public-facing email addresses, in order to ensure transparency and to allow members within the relevant selectorate to review and respond.

While this petition is being circulated publicly to maximise member awareness, we recognise that—without an integrated verification mechanism—it is not currently possible to conclusively validate that all signatories are members within the relevant Cymru selectorate.

This is a direct consequence of the party’s current lack of functional infrastructure to administer recall processes as provided for under Article 3.b.xi.

Accordingly, this petition should be understood as an initial and necessary step: both to demonstrate clear member concern and to prompt the implementation of a formal, verifiable recall mechanism within the party’s existing digital systems.

Given that the party already operates on a platform with the technical capacity to administer member verification and ballots, we request clarification as to how and when this functionality will be enabled for recall processes, so that the constitutional threshold of 40% of the relevant selectorate can be properly and transparently assessed.

We request:

Confirmation of receipt of this submission
Clarification on the appropriate procedural steps required to validate signatures and progress to a formal recall ballot
Confirmation of how the 40% selectorate threshold is to be calculated and administered

A constitutional right that cannot be exercised in practice is not meaningful. We therefore expect this issue to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

This is a matter of internal democratic accountability. Members initiating this petition do so on the basis that Maria Donnellan’s public statements appear, in our view, to be in contradiction with the party’s political statement and its stated commitments, including those relating to anti-racism, anti-oppression, and Palestinian liberation.

We expect that members in Cymru are able to exercise their constitutional right to hold their elected representative accountable through a clear, fair, and timely process.

We look forward to your response.

In solidarity.