Overview
- The Green Party’s Health Policy Working Group has launched an internal consultation this week asking whether parental consent for irreversible surgical procedures should be limited to medical necessity and whether non‑therapeutic male circumcision should require the child’s informed consent.
- The party has stressed that working‑group consultations are not party policy and that any change would need approval by delegates at the Green Party conference in the autumn.
- Senior Jewish and Muslim figures, including the Jewish Leadership Council, have said the idea would infringe religious freedom and damage communities for whom bris milah is a central rite.
- Commentators and community papers say adopting the policy could cost the Greens support among Muslim voters and create electoral problems in areas with sizable Orthodox Jewish populations such as Hackney.
- The consultation revives earlier controversies inside the Greens and in Europe over circumcision rights and is likely to return to the party agenda for formal debate at the autumn conference.