LONDON: Britain's Labour party said Monday it had ended cooperation and power-sharing arrangements with the Greens in 11 English local authorities after the smaller left-wing party adopted a motion defining “Zionism as racism.”

Members of the Greens, which has five MPs in Britain's 650-seat parliament and has enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections, backed the motion at the party's annual conference last month.

The move, which drew a backlash across the political spectrum and from several British Jewish groups, prompted Labour to instruct Green groups it works with locally to disown the motion or face an end to cooperation.

Centre-left Labour -- which holds the power of the UK government in Westminster -- imposed a Sunday deadline for the groups to respond.

It subsequently announced Monday that cooperation and power-sharing would end in 11 local authorities of various sizes, which are typically responsible for services ranging from garbage collections to street lighting.

They include authorities in the cities Sheffield and Coventry, district councils in Warwick and West Oxfordshire, and the borough council of West Devon in southwest England.

The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity under the charismatic leadership of Zack Polanski, attracting voters dissatisfied with the centre-left Labour government's stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

Its motion, passed with 1,022 votes in favor and 813 in early october, stated Zionism would be “treated as any other form of racism.”

It also said the party supports the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine.”

Israel’s foreign ministry declared the resolution “a clear antisemitic text,” with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announcing he was barring Polanski from entering the country.

The furore around the motion followed several other controversies that have engulfed Polanski and have coincided with a drop in support for the party.