What’s a leader for?

The Green Party has only had a leader for the last four years. Before that, it had two principal speakers (one male, one female), who were the main spokespeople. My knowledge of the change is limited by the fact that I only joined the party shortly after the first leadership election. My understanding is that the change was accompanied by a big discussion about what the role of a party leader would be. This discussion was ended, probably prematurely, after the decision was made, although we did discuss some of these issues during 2010s contested Deputy Leader election.

Leadership of a political party is a combination of several things. The most obvious one is that it provides a focus for the media. It’s certainly been a big part of Caroline Lucas’s leadership. However, the leader is not always the media’s go-to person. Respect’s leader, Salma Yaqoob, gets a lot less media time than George Galloway. The expectation is that Caroline will continue to have a strong media presence after she steps down. The new leader will, presumably, get some share of that media profile, but it’s likely that the press will still prefer Caroline.

The leader’s role within the party is rather less clear. Greens have traditionally been very suspicious of the concept of hierarchical leadership, preferring to be led by the grassroots. Policy is decided by party conference, rather than the leadership. And Caroline Lucas has had very little role to play in the policy process since she became leader. Internal governance and strategy is the role primarily of the executive committee. The leader has a seat on the executive, but the executive is supposed to be “led” by its chair.

Regardless of the technicalities of whether it’s the leader’s responsibility or not, there are voices within the party calling for the leader to provide a new strategic direction for the party. We’ve made some real breakthroughs in the last couple of years – we’ve gained our first seat in Westminster and (minority) control of our first council. But beyond that, it feels like we are, to some degree stagnating. Outside of the West Midlands, we’re not breaking much new ground in council elections. Our national councillor numbers are increasing at a snail’s pace. We are holding our own in a tough political climate. But we really need to be making substantial advances if we are to have much impact. Picking the right leader might prove the key to moving forwards more quickly.

Who might stand?

There are a number of prominent party members who can be expected to do well if they stand for the post. If you’ve been an active member of the party for a while, you’re probably familiar to some degree with all of the people I’m about to mention. If you think my (very quick) summaries of any potential candidates is off, please correct me in the comments.

As I write, nobody has yet put their name forward. But two leading candidates have already ruled themselves out of the race – Jenny Jones (the London Assembly member who came third in the Mayoral elections) and Jason Kitcat (leader of Brighton and Hove Council). Like Caroline, they feel that the leadership role would take valuable time away from what they are doing in their current elected offices. So, apart from those two, who are the serious candidates?

Adrian Ramsay – Deputy Leader of the party, and prospective Parliamentary candidate for Norwich South (our second strongest seat). The presumed front-runner, Adrian is well-liked by pretty much everybody in the party, and the leadership role would give him an added national profile, that would be to our advantage. His main weakness in the contest is that he might have trouble outlining a new strategic direction. Adrian is the sort of person who likes to avoid taking sides in internal party disputes, he’ll try to maintain good relationships with everybody involved. Whilst that makes him a unifying figure, it also means nobody’s expecting him to try to lead the party in a new direction.

Peter Cranie – top of the European list in the North West region in 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he came a couple of thousand votes behind Nick Griffin – a very narrow margin across the region. He’s the only likely candidate to come from the North or West of the country, and is likely to offer quite strong ideas about our future strategy.

Derek Wall – the last Male Principle Speaker of the party. Derek is absolutely loved by Green Left (the ecosocialist wing of the party), though he has relatively little support outside that group. I very much doubt he has much chance of winning but if he does, expect a stronger alignment between the Greens and leftist anti-cuts protest groups.

Darren Johnson – our other London Assembly Member, who is also a local councillor in Lewisham. I doubt he will put himself forward, for much the same reasons as Jenny Jones. Like Derek Wall, he has a relatively narrow section of the party who really like him. Unlike Derek, he also has quite a few members who really don’t like him. If he does stand and win, I expect he would be a more media-focused leader, rather than a strategic one.

Jean Lambert – MEP for London since 1999. With Jenny Jones declining to stand, Jean is the only female party member who I think could be a serious contender. My instinct is that she’s unlikely to stand. A Jean Lambert leadership would be heavily influenced by other European Green Parties, as Jean has been working closely with them for a very long time.

Keith Taylor – took over as MEP for the South East when Caroline was elected MP in 2010. Keith is another person I think unlikely to stand. Since he took over his current role, he’s always struck me as being focused primarily on doing the job well. He’s doing a lot of good work in Brussels, and probably wouldn’t want to take over two jobs from Caroline in as many years.

Dark Horse Candidates – whilst I’ve mentioned the people who are obvious contenders, should they be interested, there is always the possibility of an unexpected candidate. I’ve come across a couple of blogs suggesting that Oxford-based member Adam Ramsay (no relation to Adrian) might be a good choice, and it’s always possible that some of our more prominent local councillors might stand (Alex Phillips from Hove is sometimes talked about as a rising star in the party and her area). Alternatively, there might be somebody who is not that well-known. This kind of candidate is going to have to outline a strong strategic direction for the party that moves us forward faster than we are currently going.

RON – lastly, there is one “candidate” who is guaranteed to be on the ballot. RON (Re-Open Nominations) is always an option in internal party elections. To my knowledge, RON has never come close to winning any Green Party internal election, but in any discussion of who will get the job, it is wise to acknowledge that we do have the option of voting for none of the above.

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Political campaigning should always present a positive case for your candidate or party, rather than rely on attacking the opposition. And it should always be focused on the election in hand. If parties run their local election campaigns on national issues, then they are sending the message that what happens in local government doesn’t matter. If we, the electorate, buy into that message, then we don’t deserve hard-working councillors who act as public servants. Instead, we’ll get what we do deserve – councillors who do whatever their party’s head office tells them, regardless of the needs of the area. Or we’ll get councillors who do absolutely nothing, and are there only because we want to give whoever is in government a bloody nose.

In case you think I’m just ranting for the sake of it, here’s a quick summary at the election broadcasts so far for the English local elections (I don’t have time to look at London, Scotland, or Wales) by party:

Labour are attacking the Tories on the NHS, saying that a vote for them is a vote to protect it. This claim is complete nonsense. These elections are for local councillors, who have absolutely no power over the NHS. And there’s not even a hint of positive vision. “Labour values” (whatever that means) are mentioned, but nobody says what they are. There’s no alternative vision being offered. And there’s also no recognition that there are options outside the big two parties.

The Tories are attacking Labour for high salaries given to council executives, and for high levels of council tax. These are at least local issues. However, in addition to being negative, they are clearly only telling partial truths. They say that Conservative run councils will have lower council tax. But they don’t mention that this is because Conservative councils tend to be in rich areas with fewer social needs (and, hence, council spending). Or that Conservative and Liberal Democrat councils are being spared the worst of the cuts being made to local government budgets by central government. And, like Labour, they come across as ignorant of the fact that we are now living in a multi-party democracy, rather than a two-party one.

The Lib Dems, who used to understand that local elections are about local issues, are talking exclusively about the things they claim they have achieved in the coalition. They mention tax cuts for most people, tax rises for the super-rich (but wasn’t the top rate of tax cut in the budget?), and a pension rise. The problem here is that no matter how much or little they have achieved in government, it has no relevance to what their council candidates will do if elected. Council elections should be about issues that can be dealt with by councils. And this broadcast simply isn’t.

UKIP basically attack both Labour and the Tories for the first half of their broadcast. But they do at least go on to talk about local councils, and how they hope to improve things if elected. They say that UKIP-controlled Ramsey Town Council has put some more police on the street (which is something I thought would be beyond the control of a town council – which has very little actual power) and made the place cleaner. It’s not much, but it is at least the kind of thing that’s relevant to the kind of election that is actually happening.

There is, however, one election broadcast which is entirely positive, and is also focused on local issues, rather than Parliamentary ones. The Green Party’s election broadcast focuses entirely on the positive things we hope to achieve on local councils. We’re using the same broadcast for our English, Welsh, and London election broadcasts. And we’re also continuing our tradition of giving you something which is innovative in the way it puts the message across. Here it is. Enjoy:

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A couple of weeks ago, the council held their vote on the annual budget. The Greens had proposed a 3.5% Council Tax rise – which would have left the council £5.4 million better off over a two year period – as a way to significantly reduce the impact of cuts being imposed by central government. Labour and the Tories put in an amendment that removed this money from the budget. Up to this point, there’s no real controversy. The Greens are opposed to the principle of implementing massive cuts to public services, whilst the other two parties are in favour of the principle. The voting up to this point simply showed the local parties being in step with their national policies.

What did cause controversy, however, was that all but one Green councillor decided to vote for the budget as amended (i.e. without the extra money), and that the Greens decided to stay in office to administer the budget, rather than handing over power to a Tory-Labour coalition. Because these actions were seen as Green councillors supporting a cuts budget, a number of prominent and long-standing Green Party members have resigned in protest. I’m told that this issue dominated the party’s spring conference (I didn’t make it this time, but some of what I’ve heard isn’t pretty).

I can see and sympathise with both points of view. The Brighton and Hove Greens want to protect the people of their city from the impact of the cuts, and believe that a Green administration would do so better than a Labour-Tory coalition. I’m told that the relevant trade unions asked them to stay on for just this reason. The budget doesn’t contain their major proposal, but does contain almost everything else they put in.

The party members who object, however, view this as a case of the party becoming indistinguishable from the big three parties when it comes to the crunch. Some view it as the party’s elected representatives selling out for a taste of power. Others think that the B&H Green Party naively walked into a trap set by the other parties. Either way, their decisions make it more difficult to claim that we as a party take a different approach to the cuts – which will continue to be the defining issue in UK local government for the next few years. There’s a good case to be made that the right thing for the Green councillors to do would have been to abstain or vote against the amended budget, and also a case to be made that as the amended budget was essentially a Labour/Tory budget, they should have been made responsible for implementing it.

The root of this disagreement lies in one of the inherent tensions within politics. Usually getting your agenda through requires some degree of compromise. Whether it’s party policy, election promises, or enacting policy at any level of government, sometimes you’ll have to water down proposals in order to get them through or sacrifice some policies in order to get others through. Like it or not, this is how politics works once you’re on the inside (single issue lobby groups usually don’t have this problem). The question is this: how far do you have to go down this route before you’ve sold out and betrayed your principles?

The Irish Green Party is a good example of being clearly on the wrong side of this line. In the 2007-2011 Dail, they propped up a right-wing party’s austerity budget, achieved nothing of substance as a result, offered empty assurances to their members, and were completely wiped out in the 2011 election. Their compromises achieved nothing, cost them all their seats, and may well lead to the dissolution of the party.

The Brighton and Hove budget proposals were clearly on the right side of the line. Even if they had been able to get everything through, the scale of the cuts to the money they get from central government means that some jobs and services would have gone. By law, if a council sets a deficit budget, the local finance officer (a civil servant) takes over to set a balanced budget – and is under no obligation to take the views of the public into account (whilst the Greens did as much as possible to engage the public in the budget-setting process). Therefore some compromises did take place, but their proposed budget was about as close to Green principles as it could have been in the circumstances.

The Brighton and Hove Green group’s reluctant support for, and willingness to administer, the amended budget falls in the grey area where it’s not clear whether the compromise was worth it. It has certainly damaged the national party’s reputation amongst left-wingers who hope that the Greens will get the chance to articulate a genuinely left-wing politics on the national stage (something that Labour hasn’t really done since the 1980s). It also highlights the danger of the Greens going down the New Labour route – putting the pursuit of political power above holding to the principles that we are supposed to be fighting for. Unlike those who have resigned, I don’t think we’ve done that yet – but this controversy does serve as a warning that we are capable of doing so.

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I won’t talk about the training sessions I went to, but there were some interesting fringes about things like cuts, road safety (by the 20′s Plenty campaign), and the suggestions in the book Prosperity without Growth – which outlines a roadmap to a happier society without the need for continual economic growth (and all the pointless consumerism that it entails).

There was also a very good panel session on the issue of political plurality, featuring Neal Lawson (head of left-wing Labour pressure group Compass, which recently voted to allow people who belong to parties other than labour full membership), and Richard Grayson (a dissident Lib Dem, who raised concerns about the Orange Book faction that is currently leading his party a couple of years before the coalition agreement). What came out of this is that there is quite a lot of potential for those on the political left to work together.

Policy Changes

One of the big things about conference is voting through changes to our party’s policy and structures. The big thing this time was the complete revision of our long-time science and technology policy. Members should give a big thank you to Caroline Allen for her hard work and perseverance on getting this through.

For those of you who aren’t members, or don’t go to conference, I’ll explain the process for you. Once a policy motion gets to conference, it gets fairly thoroughly dissected in a workshop which any member can vote on. Because this is a revision of an entire section of our policy, it basically got three workshops to itself. In the workshop, any contentious issues are worked out, and a straw poll is taken on each motion and amendment to give conference a feel for how those with particular interest and/or expertise feel about the motion. When the motion comes to the conference floor for the main debate, somebody from the workshop (in this particular case it was me) reports on the discussion – noting the main points of contention (if any) for each motion/amendment, and the straw poll vote, before further debate, leading to a vote on whether to accept or reject each motion/amendment (or, in some cases, to refer them back to be redrafted.

The general changes are that we’ve cut a lot of waffle, cut a lot of existing stuff about setting up various commissions to monitor science, and removed a whole lot of policies that gave the impression that we are anti-science. Specific changes include:

• An increase in public sector science funding to at least 1% of GDP (the current level is 0.5%, the US and other EU countries spend 0.8%
• Ensure that funding looks at the long-term as well as the short term (there are currently many projects that get funding to set up, but not to keep running)
• Limit the role of politicians in deciding what gets funded to the strategic level (e.g. funding more climate science and less military projects)
• Reforming libel laws to ensure scientists can publish without threat of legal action
• Making sure that all research funded by government and/or performed by universities is published or at least can be found out by the public
• Opposing patent rights on genes and living organisms
• Clarifying our stance on genetic modification – we are in favour of research in this area (except when it raises animal welfare issues), but not of releasing GMOs into the environment until there is much more evidence about the impact of such activity. (see my previous post on Genetic Modification for more on this one)

We passed policy statements opposing cuts to public services, insisting that Parliament, rather than the Prime Minister, should be responsible for declarations of war, opposing the current HS2 High Speed Rail scheme, and highlighting the need for welfare reform that benefits the poorest.

Other motions included support for student actions against the cuts, a call for a windfall tax on bank profits, support for Norfolk County Council’s initiative to set up its own Energy Services Company (a local Green Party idea that will reduce carbon emissions and generate income for the council – thus reducing the impact of the cuts), support for the Save our Buses campaign, an expression of concern over plans to drill for shale oil in the UK, opposing to cuts in legal aid, and supporting the little-reported protests for democracy in Gabon.

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The first one covered several amendments to the party policy. We threw out a proposed policy update on monetary reform, adopted a proposal on prisoners rights (saying that prisoners should have the vote – which is something that should be happening under European law, and proposing changes that would make prison work better for women). We referred a motion on high speed rail back to the proposers, basically because of the way it was worded. We approved a motion in support of co-operative home ownership, and we finished with an update to our equality and diversity policy. This was very contentious, and our policy now unfortunately includes a commitment that opt-outs from equality and discrimination laws by religious organisations will not be allowed. This has the somewhat ludicrous implication that religious groups will not be able to discriminate on the grounds of religion – so, for example, a mosque would not be able to require their imam to be a Muslim.

We then moved on to emergency motions, backing a campaign to keep Royal Mail public, dealing with the issue of feed-in tarrifs which discriminate against renewables, and condemning a repeated TV broadcast in Greece which was, basically, advocating rape. We threw out a motion about meat-free Mondays on procedural grounds (the wording meant that it was not valid as an emergency motion), and passed a motion condemning Metgate.

There was nothing that jumped out and said “go to me” out of the next bunch of sessions, so I had some lunch, and ended up chatting to some of the Young Greens. I followed lunch with a session on the economy of economics, where the speaker was outlining his views on how economics developed, and why current economics is at odds with preserving the environment. In the end, he concluded that the fundamental problem was the concept of ownership, and that we needed to stop thinking conceptually and start thinking instinctively instead. I was less than convinced, but may try to think through his ideas (possibly in a future blog post).

Following this, we had a plenary session on organisational and other motions. There were a couple of fairly trivial organisational motions. We then voted that, although we want to see proportional representation, we will back the yes to AV campaign if the coming referendum is a straight choice between First Past the Post and AV. We referred a motion to create a Green Party Shadow Cabinet back to the proposers, to enable further consultation about what would be a radical change to the way we do things, and then ran out of time.

Following this, I went to two consecutive meetings about election strategy. One was three councillors sharing their stories of how they got elected, and answering questions. The other was the second half of feeding back what worked and didn’t from Brighton Pavilion. As a result, I now have a complete collection of Caroline Lucas’s campaign leaflets (or, rather, of the ones where they had any left over).

We then went in to the third plenary of the day, dealing with policy again. We passed a motion that asked the policy committee to look again at our agriculture policy, which is rather out of date, passed a couple of amendments to our education policy, whilst throwing out a couple of other parts of that proposal, passed a motion protecting private tenants, and another to impose a container charge on imported containers that go by road (except to destinations close to the port) rather than by rail, as a mechanism to encourage our policy of moving goods by rail or canal rather than by road. It was pointed out that, at the moment, the taxation on such containers vastly favours those going by road.

After this, I went to a session on the opportunities and problems that come with a growing party membership. And then went to a discussion about how the party can better engage with faith groups, which I really enjoyed. It’s certainly something we need to improve as a party, and this session came up with a few ideas. It also gave me the chance to meet a few other Christians (albeit all of very different theological persuasions to myself) within the party. Anyway, hello to anybody who’s reading this because I mentioned my blog in that session.

I ended the day having a great chat over a drink with somebody else from the regional party who was at the final session, before heading home. Anyway, it was a more relaxed day, despite also being more eventful, and I’m still really enjoying conference. I also have a lot of stuff I need to process and apply to my local party as a result of the conference, and I’ve still got the final day to go.

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After this, we had a fantastic speech from the party’s Deputy Leader Adrian Ramsey (whose local party picked up yet another council seat the night before conference began). This was followed by a hustings for the membership of the Green Party’s Executive Committee, although I sneaked out halfway through so I had enough time to eat some lunch. After lunch, I went to a session on learning the lessons from Brighton Pavilion’s successful General Election campaign, which was extremely useful, and there was a lot of stuff that I’ll be looking to implement for our local party’s next local elections.

I followed this, by going to a debate about our party’s stance on the Alternative Vote referendum. The party position is that we want a fairer, and more proportional voting system, which AV isn’t. We have two camps within the party on this question. One is saying that, if Caroline Lucas’s amendment to the bill ensure that genuine Proportional Representation is on the table fails, we should back AV as being at least a marginal improvement on First Past the Post. The other camp is saying that AV is as bad, and that we should take no stance. There will be a proper vote at a plenary session on this issue later in the conference.

After that, I went to the launch of Derek Wall‘s new book The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics, where it was endorsed by two very different figures from Latin American politics. I look forward to reading it, when conference is over. This was followed by another plenary. This time we were voting on changes to our long-term party policy. In 50 minutes, we got through two motions – one on making banking more sustainable, and the other restating our long-term commitment to reforming the economy to be a steady state economy, rather than one that depends on economic growth.

I finished the day with a double-length session on building a more diverse and inclusive Green Party. I didn’t get as much out of this as I hoped, partly because I was tired at the end of a long day (it was 6 by that point), partly because I was expecting a rather different session to what I got, and possibly partly because I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for many of the workshop exercises.

Anyway, apart from having problems engaging with the final session, I had a very enjoyable second day, and feel like I now know how it all works.

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Caroline Lucas was really good, highlighting some of our successes, some of our ideas, and making the case why disaffected voters from each of the big three parties might want to consider us. She was followed by the leader of the Welsh party, who basically made a case for why cuts would hit Wales (and other similar regions) hard, and why the Greens are the best placed to oppose them. He also did a bit in Welsh.

After that, we had a Plenary session, which is basically where we discuss motions brought to conference and vote for them. This one was a fairly trivial one about accepting a report, and finished early – which appears to have been quite an achievement. It was followed by hustings for the position of Party Leader (the options being Caroline Lucas and Re-Open Nominations) and Deputy Leader (Adrian Ramsey, Derek Wall, and Re-Open Nominations). I went in to the hustings leaning towards voting for Adrian, but came out absolutely on the fence about who would be best.

The rest of the day I went to fringe events (a term which covers a very wide range of things). So I went to one by the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which touched on a whole range of issues about international relations and the monetary and economic system, rather than just third world debt (which is still as much of an issue as it was back in the 90s when we made it big news). I also went to an introduction to conference session, to ensure I understood everything that was going on. Plus an event organised by the Young Greens about the effect of the cuts on younger people. Like the debt meeting, this one covered a wide range of issues – about the effect cuts will have on public services for various vulnerable groups, and about the way the system has given younger people today a much rougher deal than their parents and grandparents had.

We finished the day with the announcement of the leader and deputy leader ballots, and to nobody’s surprise, Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsey were re-elected to the posts.

So, overall, it was a rather enjoyable first day. I now understand how it works, and am looking forward to the rest of it. The one thing that struck me, though, was that there aren’t any real timetabled breaks. There’s 10 minutes between sessions, with no mealtime breaks in the timetable. If you want to eat, you either have to do so quickly, or you have to miss something.

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Nationally, the big three parties all lost. Labour lost a lot of seats, the Lib Dem surge lost them seats, and the Tories frittered away what had been a massive poll lead, and didn’t get enough seats for a majority. The only parties who won in terms of the voting were us Greens, getting our first MP, the Northern Ireland Alliance Party, who also got their first MP, and Plaid Cymru, who picked up a seat.

In the local elections, Labour were the big winners.The big three parties all benefited from the locals being held alongside the general, and Labour was the party which, as a result, gained seats. In fact, in some wards in London, this led to paper candidates tripling their vote, and shooting past parties who campaigned hard to double theirs.

For some good analysis of the national picture, take a look at Jim Jepps’ blog

Anyway, we now have a Lib-Con coalition. On the upside there are some signs that the deal has reigned in some of the Tories’ pro-rich policies, and we’ve got nice-looking things like the new Freedom Bill, which will revoke most, if not all, of Labour’s attacks on civil liberties. On the downside, are the savage cuts they’ll be making to public services. If you’re a Lib Dem member or voter who is unhappy about this new alliance, The Greens will happily offer you a new political home.

One more piece of post-election analysis that’s worth pointing to is from The Jubilee Centre, who reminds Christians why we’ve no need to panic about how bad the new government might turn out,
and that we still have a duty to pray for the the new government.

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Firstly, there’s the Vote for Policies site, which allows you to find out which party reflects your views on a range of policy issues. The Green Party is the most popular party on this measure (at 26.47% as I write this), so it’s a shame that the actual election result is very unlikely to reflect that.

Then there’s the Green Party’s make your own election video, based on our party election broadcast:

If you’re a Christian wondering whether or not you should bother with the election, then here’s 10 reasons for Christians to vote and a whole host of resources aimed at Catholics explaining why bother to vote.

There are a whole host of websites offering summaries and analysis of the different parties’ policies on various issues. However, I really don’t have the time to try to compile a useful list of them, so you’ll just have to go hunting.

And, finally, something amusing I stumbled across this morning is that, according to this article, the Tories apparently think that promising to give us “the power to plant trees” gives them some kind of credibility on environmental issues.

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In fact, even the Tories’ core activists appear to be having doubts. There are quite a few Tory activists who want to see Nigel Farage take Tom Bercow’s seat in Buckingham (see, for example, the comments here). Apparently they think that he’s “too new Labour” which, given that new Labour is virtually indistinguishable from the Tories in policy terms, doesn’t bode well for David Cameron’s future.

Labour are, likewise, in disarray – knowing that they are on course to lose the next General Election, and fighting each other, rather than fighting to change their collective fortune.

This means that smaller parties like the Greens, have a massive opportunity for breakthrough. Green membership is growing, our share of the vote went up by more than anybody else’s in the European Elections – and did so across the country, and we managed to quadruple our share of the vote in the Norwich North By-Election. In fact, we are more popular amongst those thinking of switching their vote than the Tories.

The best example of how much difference having highly motivated activists on the ground makes is Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign. The most important factor in his win over John McCain was the massive emphasis he placed on having activists on the ground. Every other aspect of his campaign was built around his ground game.

If we can get those who voted for us to become members and activists, , if we can equip them to be effective campaigners in towns and cities across the country, and if we can direct their efforts to the wards and constituencies where they will have the greatest effect, then we have a good chance of becoming and remaining a major player in British politics and getting much of our policy agenda enacted.

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