My guide to the Green Party leadership, GPEx and House of Lords elections 2020

My guide to the Green Party leadership, GPEx and House of Lords elections 2020

So it has been a very long time since I have made a post on this blog. I'm not likely to return to regular writings here, but I did want to write about this year's elections that are being held internally in the Green Party. In my 10 years of Green Party membership I have never seen a GPEx (Green Party Executive) election where every single post up for election has been contested by multiple candidates. There have been many ups and downs for the party in my 10 years in the party, but it seems to be as though the number of core activists has been growing and we are now at a point where many more members with experience are putting themselves forward for these positions. As well as GPEx elections, we also have the elections for leader and deputy leader, and we have our selection for our prefered choices for the House of Lords and electing members of the Policy Development Committee.

Members will be able to vote from August 3rd to August 31st. Make sure you've joined the party by 31st July in order to get a vote. Join the party here: https://join.greenparty.org.uk/

I will be giving an endorsement here to every candidate for whom I am enthusiastically giving a preference vote for. For some positions I will know exactly who will be getting every one of my preferences, for other positions I haven't made my mind up just yet. For some candidates I know already that I will not be giving them any preference, but I will not be discussing here why I disapprove of their candidacy.

How am I deciding who I vote for? Well, I view these positions similar to how you could view cabinet positions in government. Whilst we do need people with really relevant skills and experiences, we also need people with the right politics in these positions. GPEx is one of the two most important decision making bodies in the party along with the Regional Council (GPRC). Decisions within GPEx help decide things like choosing our head office staff like the CEO, deciding what our Party Political Broadcasts look like at election time, and for example GPEx was heavily involved in negotiating going into an electoral pact with the Lib-Dems and Plaid Cymru last year. So as well as looking out for experience and skills, I am looking for candidates with the right politics. We need candidates who will stand up for the rights of minorities, including people of colour, LGBTIQA+ people but especially transgender people, disabled people. I would like to see candidates who would have stricter lines and more consultation with members before discussing electoral pacts such as 2019's "Unite to Remain" pact with the Lib-Dems and Plaid Cymru.

On a personal note I will also be interested in candidates who support animal rights and veganism as that is one of the most important policy areas for me personally. I also think representation is hugely important. We need representation from minority groups and oppressed groups to ensure we are inclusive and bringing their viewpoints on board. I also favour representation from geographic areas outside of London and the South East.

Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

I'll dive straight into the first position and some could argue the most important position, our leader. We have 3 candidates to select from here, and I have been particularly impressed with 2 of them. I have not decided my first preference for this role yet. I will not be giving a 3rd preference to anyone except Re-Open Nominations (RON).

It's worth noting that our leadership rules mandate 3 people be elected to the leadership team. If a 2 person job-share get elected as co-leaders, it will mean we can only have 1 deputy leader (as is the current situation). If we only elect 1 person as leader, this will mean we have to elect 2 people of different genders for deputy leader.

• Jonathan Bartley & Siân Berry - The current outgoing co-leaders. Jonathan Bartley has been a co-leader since 2016 (originally with Caroline Lucas). Sian Berry has been co-leader since 2018. Sian is a London Assembly Member sitting since 2016. She has a long history of roles in the party, being Principle Speaker in 2006, London Mayoral candidate in 2008, 2016 and in 2021, and she has been a councillor in Camden since 2014. Jonathan has been active in Lambeth and in London since joining in 2010. He has been candidate for several roles such as the London Assembly and General Election. In 2018 he was elected as councillor in Lambeth. Both these candidates have a lot of experience and have both played large roles in expanding the party's profile. They're also quite progressive and have openly spoken in favour of trans rights.
• Rosi Sexton - Rosi or Rosemary Sexton is a Green Party councillor in Solihull getting elected in 2019. Rosi is quite a new figure in the party, joining in 2015. I've been very impressed with her campaign so far. Her campaign slogan is: "Serious about Inclusivity. Serious about Credibility. Serious about Success". She used to live here in Manchester, having studied at the University of Manchester. What's interesting about her history is, as well as having various degrees in mathematics, she has also had a successful career in Mixed Martial Arts, at one point being a UFC fighter. She has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Ju-Jitsu and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. Born in France but raised in England, she describes her ethnicity as half Malaysian Chinese, half English. If she was elected leader she would be the first ever non-white female leader of any major UK political party. Rosi also seems to be on the progressive side of the party and has openly tweeted in support of trans rights. Check out her campaign website here (make sure to watch her video): https://www.rosi4leader.green/
  

Deputy Leader of the Green Party

Next up is deputy leader. And wow, we have an excellent range of candidates running for this position. I have heard of all but one of these candidates and I would vote for all of them. I personally nominated Nick Humberstone and Amelia Womack but there are other candidates I would have nominated had I found out that they were running before close of nominations. In no order:

• Amelia Womack - I have endorsed Amelia Womack at every deputy leadership election she has ever stood in, being our deputy leader since 2014. I first networked with her when we were both Young Greens standing in the European Parliament elections in 2014. I've watched her career as she's grown in confidence and skills over the years. She's stood in general elections and in Welsh Assembly elections. Every now and then she posts photos on her social media of the train tickets she has collected in her travels as deputy leader and it's staggering how far she's travelled. She's always been approachable and made herself available whenever she can. A true progressive, on the left of the party and a proud supporter of trans rights. I suspect that she is the strong favourite for deputy leader as she has the highest profile of all of them.
   
  
• Tom Pashby - I met Tom Pashby a few years ago at a Young Greens convention and then again at Green Party conferences. Tom is a non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns. Tom has had lots of experience in the party, previous being on the Young Greens national executive, GPEx as internal communications coordinator, and has stood in 2 general elections. Tom would be a breath of fresh air. Openly left-wing, openly opposed to electoral pacts, openly supports trans rights. I think it is so important to have trans/gender non-conforming representation and Tom is the only trans or non-binary person standing in the leadership election. Tom is also a vegan, which is important to me and will help sell the party to the vegan and animal rights community, who often don't think we are taking these issues seriously because our leaders aren't usually vegan. Watch their campaign video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYLjkngG1wo
  
• Nick Humberstone - Nick is a fairly new member joining in 2017, but he has worked for the party as staff and also has been chair of the Structures and Procedures Committee for the Young Greens for the past 2 years. The main reason I support and nominated Nick is for his support of animal rights. He is a vegan and an advocate for animal rights, emphasising the link between animal agriculture and climate change. To my knowledge Nick is the only candidate I am aware of in any of these elections that has mentioned animals or animal agriculture in their platform for this election. As a vegan and (on and off) animal rights activist myself, I find it so much easier to get other vegans and animal advocates on board when we have vegans as part of our leadership. I've lost count of the amount of times vegans have told me about Caroline Lucas not being vegan and therefore we're not taking animal rights or the link between animal agriculture and climate change seriously. As with most of the candidates I am supporting, Nick is on the left of the party, is a socialist, and he openly supports trans rights. Nick is doing Zoom chats every Saturday I believe from 11am to midday where you can ask him anything you like about his campaign. You can find the link to the Zoom meetings and check out Nick's campaign on his website here: https://www.nickhumberstone.com/
  
• Cleo Lake - Cleo has been a party member since 2015 and just one year later in 2016 she was elected as a councillor in Bristol. From 2018 to 2019 she was the lord mayor for Bristol. In 2019 she was second on the South West England list for the European Parliament elections. As a black woman, a large part of her platform is tackling racism and race-related inequality. Cleo has a background in arts, which is also evident in her activism, something that is quite often forgotten about. If she was elected as deputy leader, she would be the first woman of colour in the leadership team.
  

Chair of the Green Party Executive

Quite an important role on GPEx is the chair. To be honest, there is only one of the candidates for chair that I have heard of that I know I can support. I have nominated Ashley Routh & Benjamin Smith, but I have also heard good things about Adrian Spurrell who is mostly unknown to me.

• Ashley Routh & Benjamin Smith - Ashley Routh and Benjamin Smith are standing for chair as a job-share. Benjamin is the former deputy leader for Wales Green Party and Ashley is a party campaigner from Sheffield. Both are progressive, on the left of the party and in particular they campaign in favour of trans rights. One particular thing I like about their platform is they want to see a reduction of emails sent from the national party, something I support after getting sometimes daily and even multiple emails a day from the national party.
  

Campaigns Co-ordinator

There is going to be a common theme here where because of the broad scope of candidates that have come forward, there are quite a few for most positions that I've just not heard of. The Campaigns Co-ordinator coordinates all of our non-electoral campaigning. It is really important to show that we are supporting campaigns out there be that Black Lives Matter, anti-fracking, renationalising railways, bringing in Universal Basic Income, or the many different campaigns out there that are happening that we support with our policies. It is so important that non-electoral campaigning supports and backs up our electoral attempts at bringing in our policies.

• Hannah Graham - Hannah is most likely to be my number one preference for Campaigns Co-ordinator. She was co-chair for the Young Greens, she has stood for the party for Parliament and she is on the list for the London Assembly. She has done a lot of non-electoral campaigning through her job with World Association of Girl Guides and Scouts. She is progressive, on the left of the party and is supportive of trans rights.
  
• Daniel Laycock - a name that is quite new to me, but someone who has impressed me. His program for the post includes supporting Universal Basic Income, LGBTQIA+ rights including trans rights, a Green New Deal, green economic and transport infrastructure, electoral reform and clean energy.
  

Elections Co-ordinator

I believe the Elections Co-ordinator role to be one of the most important ones. We need to get our election strategy right. There have been many times that national election strategy has made problems for local parties. While conferences can instruct our national election team to follow certain rules, in general ordinary members don't get much of a say in deciding our national strategy. I'm not even that opposed to this, so long as we have the right people in place making these decisions. For example, I do not think it would be a good idea for the membership to vote on our national target constituencies. Thankfully, we have some very good and experienced candidates who fully support and understand target to win (TTW), our strategy for getting councillors elected. I nominated as job share for the role both Kai Taylor & Claire Stephenson as well as Laurie Needham & Joe Levy, but they are not the only candidates I support.

• Kai Taylor & Claire Stephenson - I'll be honest here, I'm not that familiar with Claire but I am a big fan of Kai. Kai is a councillor in Knowsley where he has grown that local party from being one of those local parties that struggles to get a full slate of paper candidates to one where they are in control of two town councils and have multiple borough councillors and being the second largest party by both vote share and councillors in the council. When elected as borough councillor in 2017 Kai was the youngest Green Party councillor in the country. Being from a borough that typically has poor results for the Green Party, but is suited for TTW campaigns I feel Kai would be well placed to direct the party's election strategy. Far too long we have focussed on urban lower middle class areas with an independant and hippie vibe. It may have worked for us in Brighton Pavillion during the height of Labour unpopularity, but selecting working class areas that have been abandoned by Labour or even some middle class seats taken for granted by the Tories has to be given consideration when choosing where to put our limited resources. I'm sure Kai's experience will be very valuable here. Self-declared as a socialist, Kai is on the left of the party and fully supportive of trans rights.
  
• Laurie Needham & Joe Levy - Joe and Laurie both have a lot of elections experience within the Green Party. Joe has stood for several years as a local council candidate in Exeter, helping the local party to gain it's first councillor. He stood twice as general election candidate in Exeter, increasing the vote in 2019 to a record Green vote for the constituency of 8.6%. He is on the progressive side of the party and fully supportive of trans rights. Laurie is a councillor in Charnwood, having taken the seat from the Conservatives after not having put forward a candidate at the previous election 4 years earlier. Laurie also stood as a general election candidate in Charnwood. Laurie is also a progressive candidate and supportive of trans rights. Both Laurie and Joe have attended the party's Campaign School, the program the party has for training people up on how to run Target To Win campaigns. Together, they have lots of experience working in wildly different seats, from urban Labour seats to rural Tory seats.
  
• Louis Williams - I've known Louis for a few years through Young Greens events and conferences. I first became aware of Louis's election work through last year's target constituency work in Bristol West, where we came second and achieved just below 25% of the vote. I personally am not convinced that Bristol West is the right target seat for us, for various reasons, so that is an enormous achievement. Louis has an impressive CV with running the West of England mayoral campaign, passing Campaign School and being elections coordinator for the South West regional for 2 years achieving more gains than ever before. There are very few unpaid volunteers I know in the party who work harder on elections than Louis, often leaving home first thing in the morning to catch a train to support a campaign in another part of the region early on a Saturday morning. As with most of the people I've supporting in these elections, Louis is on the left of the party and supportive of trans rights.
  

External Communication Co-ordinator

For External Co-ordinator I genuinely have't made my mind up as of writing this. Both candidates have a lot of experience and I have a huge amount of respect for them both. Molly Scott Cato is standing for the House of Lords list which does influence my vote somewhat, but I'm still mostly undecided.

International Co-ordinator

The International Co-ordinator co-ordinate our work with both other Green Parties around the world, and with the wider global green movement. We have 4 separate candidates for this role but I have to confess I've only heard of one of them, Alice Hubbard & Sam Murray who I nominated. Please do your research for this role as there are some Greens of Colour who have put their name forward, who may be suitable for the role that I'm not familiar with. It's worth noting that different International Co-ordinator have had a different focusses. Some have tried to strengthen links with other members of the European Green Party. Some have looked to movements in the Americas or Africa, for example.

• Alice Hubbard & Sam Murray - Alice is the current International Co-ordinator and Sam has sat on the International Committee for the last 4 years and sits on the Executive Committee for the Federation of Young European Greens. They both have lots of experience relevant for the role. They are endorsed by former Green Party MEP Jean Lambert. Again, they are both progressive and support trans rights.
  

Management Co-ordinator

I’m not entirely sure of the exact job description for the role of Management Co-ordinator, but I assume it involves co-ordinating the management of the party. So this would involve working with the CEO and other staff members and maybe some working with GPRC. I also imagine this would involve being active in major national infrastructure decisions for example if the party was to move it’s headquarters. For this role I am endorsing both candidates.

• Richard Bearman - When I first joined the Green Party back in 2010, we had fewer than 100 councillors (currently at about 382).  I was always amazed if I ever got to meet one of those councillors. At the time, the second largest group of Green councillors in the country was in Norwich. Imagine my excitement when I got to meet Richard when he came to Manchester to attend a GPRC meeting which I attended as an observer. I warmed to him immediately. I am incredibly happy he was one of the first Green councillors I got to meet. He has an enormous wealth of experience in the party, co-ordinating Norwich Green Party through 4 of it’s most productive years, co-ordinated Eastern regional party, been a county councillor for 8 years, GPRC rep for 4 years and is currently a target-to-win co-ordinator in Norwich. Plenty of transferable skills useful for the role of Management Co-ordinator.
  
• Matthew Browne & Florence Pollock - Florence and Matt both have only been in the part for 4 years each, but they have done a lot in that time. Florence has been chair of the Young Greens Senate and also London Young Greens as well as being deputy chair of the Disciplinary Committee. She also has important skills from her day job in HR. Matt was a staff member for the party for 2 years as the party’s policy and governance manager which effectively acted as secretary for GPEx as part of that role. They are both on the left of the party, want to bring in more diversity and fully supportive of trans rights. You can view their campaign website here: https://www.florencematt4gpex.com/
  

Policy Development Co-ordinator

Policy Development Co-ordinator is an important role that involves working with the policy committee to both identify ways to improve the policy making processes, but also to help identify where policy is lacking or needs major changes. This also involves working with the various policy groups on big changes to specific policy chapters or just to give advice. It is not for the policy development co-ordinator to set the policy agenda or to make the policy changes they wish to see. For this role I’ve heard of half of the candidates, and I am happy to be voting for them.

• Vix Lowthion - Vix rose to prominence in the party when standing for the Isle of Wight constituency in 2015, she polled an impressive 13.4% and came in third (previously achieving 1.3% and coming in 7th place), above both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In 2017 she fought for Isle of Wight to become a target constituency and her vote here rose to 17.3% in what was for the party a general election where huge amounts of our 2015 support went to Corbyn’s Labour. To achieve roughly 4% rise was very impressive indeed. She has been national spokesperson for Education, promoting our education policies nationally. When it comes to policy preferences, I would say she generally promotes progressive policies. She does support out policies on trans rights.
  
• Liam McClelland - Liam is a former co-chair of Young Greens. He has specifically done a lot of work on our drugs policy. If you read his statement on the members website he has a lot of interesting ideas for what he would do for the role and how to change various aspects of the policy work, including a skills audit of the policy development committee and improving learning platforms by utilising access the party has at the YouTube Space in London (a studio run by YouTube that YouTubers above a certain subscriber count or view count can have I think free access to make high quality videos) and also using YouTube Space to run PolicyFest online if needed. Liam is on the left of the party, very into inclusivity and supports LGBTIQA+ rights.
  

Publications Co-ordinator

The Publications Co-ordinator overseas a range of publications and media that the party puts out. Now pretty much an internal online only publication, Green World magazine is the main publication that the party produces for general consumption for members. As well as working with the team that produces Green World, the Publications Co-ordinator helps with website publications, publications on the members’ website and the branding of the party. The role involves working with External Coms, Internal Coms, Campaigns Co-ordinators and the party’s media teams.There is only one candidate for this role which I know of and am supporting.

• Jack Lenox - I know of Jack through his work in Cumbria, standing twice as a candidate for Parliament in Copeland. Last year he was co-opted onto GPEx to serve 6 months as Internal Communications Co-ordinator. He has a lot of experience working with digital systems such as WordPress which he helped to set up for the Green Party. Jack has a lot of plans, if elected, for making more publication accessible, such as putting more TTW tools online and to bring back print editions of Green World.
  

Trade Union Liaison Officer

The Trade Union Liaison Officer (TULO) role is one that is of great importance to me. I am a union rep for USDAW. Every union I have ever been a member of has hammered on to me about supporting the Labour Party. Unions are an essential part of the wider green movement. For long term success in achieving our green aims, we need the unions on board, and we need to support what they are doing as well. This involves lots of networking, building up our presence in unions. Supporting strikes and working with local trades councils. So having a good TULO officer is vital. I nominated Matthew Hull and Paul Valentine for the role as a job share, and I also nominated Kefense Dennis.

• Matthew Hull & Paul Valentine - Paul has been the Trade Union Liaison Officer on GPex for the last 2 years and I would be happy to re-elect him. He stands for both Green values and the values of the trade union movement. Matthew who I do not know as well, has been treasurer of the Young Greens and co-chair of London Young Greens. They are both active in their respective unions with Paul being Young Members Councillor for Equity, chair of his PCS branch and a member of USDAW, and Matthew being a rep for Unite. They plan to create a database of union membership and activity within the party, encourage union membership within the party and try to train people on union activity as well as working to bring the Green Party closer to unions. These candidates are on the left of the party and supportive of trans rights.
  
• Kefenste Dennis - Kefenste is a new name to me but his activity in the party includes being a regional officer for Greens of Colour, standing for Parliament twice as well as for the European Parliament. He is also the membership officer for Birmingham Green Party. He wants the party to branch out beyond the “white middle class hippie” image and he would be well placed to help achieve that. It is important to show diversity but also that we can be the natural home for the working class, which is important when we are talking about the largest working-class movement, trade unions. Kefenste signed up to all 8 pledges that LGBTIQA+ Greens have asked all the candidates.
  

House of Lords

How members of the House of Lords are selected is a complicated process that I do not fully understand. All we need to understand is that sometimes parties get asked to provide a list of who they would like to represent them in the House of Lords and sometimes the Green Party gets asked. Usually it is a very quick process that if we do not reply fairly urgently, we may miss our opportunity. This is the reason why we are selecting a list now. In the past it has caused issues because we haven’t had time to fully conduct an election process for this. Whilst I will be giving my second and third preferences to Molly Scott-Cato and then Andrew Cooper, the only candidate which gets my full endorsement for this role is Amelia Womack.

• Amelia Womack - For me it has to be Amelia Womack. She is the most progressive of the candidates IMHO. As I’ve said in my endorsement for her as Deputy Leader, I’ve been a big fan of hers since 2014 when I first came across her. An excellent speaker and debater I’m sure she would make an excellent representative for the Green Party in the House of Lords.
  

Policy Development Committee

As well as electing Leader(s), Deputy Leader(s), 9 other members of GPEx and the list for House of Lords we are also electing members to the Policy Development Committee. The convenor of this group is the Policy Development Co-ordinator on GPEx. There are 5 other members of this committee elected by the membership. 11 people have put their names forward for the committee. Having heard of less than half of the candidates and not able to find their statements on the members’ website I do not think it would fair for me to make recommendations. If the statements get published anywhere I may update this section but for now there’s not a lot to go on.

Members will be able to vote from August 3rd to August 31st. Make sure you've joined the party by 31st July in order to get a vote. Join the party here: https://join.greenparty.org.uk/