Even Greens need leaders

51 comments from readers

jimkillock
12 July 2007 at 09:53

Visit the Yes to Green Leadership campaign at http://www.greenyes.org/

lambethgreen
12 July 2007 at 10:25

Interestingly the no side, including Jenny Jones, who argue that a yes vote will reduce democracy voted against giving the whole party a vote on the matter at conference. They didn't vote against leadership there, they voted against giving the party a vote, rather than just conference.

Given the crucial importance attached to having, or not having it seems only fair to open it up to the rest of the party. As someone who was at conference and was undecided about whether we needed a leader or not I welcomed the motion that would open the debate up to the whole party. I was pretty appalled by the manner and arrogance that some of the 'fundis' acted with at conference and swung to voting yes instantly.

PeterCranie
12 July 2007 at 11:53

Even if the "yes" vote wins in the referendum, which will require a 2/3rd majority, and shows a clear majority in favour, the door has not been closed on an alternative model of leadership.

The Northern Irish Greens, Scots and New Zealand Greens all have co-leaders, and while this might be a substantial change, members will continue to have the opportunity to vote for a co-leader ticket every two years rather than only having the leader / deputy option.

I think you are right in your analysis of our current standing Mark, and the need to get our voice heard in the current political situation. There has been a clear rise in the vote for "others" in most polls and people are unhappy with the mushy centre ground.

While we have doubled the number of councillors we have in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England in four years to 121, and have seen MEPs and Assembly members elected under PR, we have a long way to go to get the attention of non-politicised floating voters.

In defence of the office, improvements are happening but we need to continue to increase our annual income in order to make our communication and efficiency as good as some of the better charities and NGOs.

adamstacey
12 July 2007 at 14:54

For balance, the website of the No campaign is http://www.greenempowerment.org.uk

timturner
12 July 2007 at 18:00

Mark

You've summed up the situation pretty well and been honest in analysing the difference between personalities and policies, but I am puzzled at your apparent decision not to vote Green. It would be more relevant if you judged the Green Party by the effectiveness, honesty and hard work of it's elected members - and of course, by it's policies.

Forget about leaders... The one thing everyone CAN be sure of is that when they do vote Greens into office, they get effective voices and radical policies - not just on climate change but on all the other pressing social and environmental issues facing us.

Tim Turner

greenladywell
12 July 2007 at 19:13

Mark

Disappointed to hear you didn't get any reminders to renew your membership, you really should have done. You can always renew online by direct debit, should you wish ;)

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/join

Cllr Sue Luxton

Lewisham

timturner
12 July 2007 at 20:36

A comment to lambethgreen: I think many of the people at the Spring Conference who voted against the referendum motion were NOT opposed to a referendum but were opposed to the motion itself - and also to the means by which we'd reached the position of it going to a referendum.

Despite the fact that this issue has - for now at least - divided many Green Party activists, the referendum will create a healthy debate in the Party. The important thing to realise is that whether matters like this are decided at Conference or through a Party-wide referendum, they are decided democratically and through open debate - not behind closed doors as so often happens in other parties.

Tim Turner

slightlyiratecouncillor
13 July 2007 at 09:27

Tim Turner's comment to lambethgreen is an extraordinary piece of sophistry. The debate on the motion calling for a referendum exhaustively went through an enormous number of amendments, to arrive at a motion that was a good motion to vote on. The fact is that, with a couple of honourable exceptions (who then abstained on the final vote), those opposed to having a Leader then voted overwhelmingly to deprive those who were not in the Conference chamber of any say in the matter.

In fact, many of those who are opposed to the Leadership referendum tried every trick in the book to stop the wider Green Party membership from having a vote on whether we should have a Leader/Co-Leaders, or not. In one case, this even extended to a deliberate attempt to sabotage the debate by turning off all the microphones. This attempt at sabotage almost succeeded in wrecking the debate.

The 'No Leader' camp do not have a leg to stand on in their protestations of democratic values. They have consistently stood in the way of this matter being handled democratically. They are anti-democratic elitists -- they think they own our Party, and that this somehow legitimates almost anything to prevent a majority from bringing in Leadership. But the Party is much bigger than them, and our true cause and calling is not some Anarchist fantasy of purity -- it is the desire of many many people in the British electorate for us to be successful. Ask ordinary members of the public whether or not we should have a Leader/Co-Leaders, and the response is overwhelmingly in the affirmative. If we care about our public, we will vote Yes.

Those wishing to get involved in the Green Yes to Leadership campaign are invited to the following event, tomorrow: http://www.greenyes.org/meetings.html

virtuoso
13 July 2007 at 10:35

The question of the Green's having a leader is not a purely theoretical matter. The personality that the party would get, if it had a leader is also extremely relevant - especially if she or he is relatively young. That leader's personality would shape the nature of the party for a generation. How much different would the Soviet communist party's future have been without Stalin?

Unfortunately, the most likely winner of a leadership race would be Caroline Lucas. She may have impeccable eco-credentials - but on foreign policy she must be termed a "crazy". Having a Green Party leader sharing the same platform as George Galloway on Middle East affairs is a sure turn-off for the electorate. So "no leader" for the Green Party is better than Caroline Lucas, even in electoral terms.

adamstacey
13 July 2007 at 11:06

I cannot let slightlyiratecouncillor's comments pass without response. Accusing the 'No Leader' camp of 'have consistently stood in the way of this matter being handled democratically' - I don't know what on earth (s)he is talking about. The proposal for having a leader is one which has been defeated democratically at many a conference (on one occasion it got a majority but not the two-thirds required). The pro-leader camp keeps bringing it back to conference every six months, and it is they who are prepared to try any means, democratic or not, to get their way.

Having been repeatedly defeated at conference, the pro-leader camp introduced the proposal for a party-wide ballot. It was people on their side who were prepared to twist the rules and principles of fairness to win the debate, while ironically giving speeches about democracy. In the chaos of the debate, the vote took place without a speech against being allowed, after one of the pro-leader camp jumped up and proposed we skip the rest of the debate. The lady waiting to speak against the motion was dragged away from the microphone.

It is easy to see why opposing the referendum is seen as opposing democracy, but I feel I am opposing what appeared to be a way of getting their motion through without a proper debate (including the attempt to have a very quick referendum campaign, partly coinciding with the local council election - a clear attempt to avoid any meaningful discussion) and opposing the creation of a procedure which is wide open to the kind of abuse that we saw in the debate previously mentioned. My anger at their behaviour in this debate was one reason for not trusting that a referendum campaign would be conducted on a level playing field.

The emotive conclusion about how the 'no leader camp' feel that they own the party etc etc is a nonsense. By that standard, the same could be said about the pro-leader side, except that we all have a right to express our opinion and contribute to the debate, as long as we do so in a fair and democratic way.

The pro leader camp often say that 'members of the public always tell us that we should have a leader'. This conclusion is often based on the fact that the pro-leader camp find it difficult to explain to people why we don't. This is not surprising - I find it difficult to convince someone of something I do not believe in myself! Those in the 'no leader' camp find that when we explain it to people they usually like the idea. People are generally fed up of the bigger political parties and they way they act - we should not be trying so hard to be like them. Ours is a unique stance for a political party, and it does need explaining. But the party itself never tries to do so - because we are so split on it ourselves.

atlee
13 July 2007 at 11:24

As some one who votes green but is frustrated at how little impact the green party makes nationally I think Mark Lynas is spot on. The point about remaining leaderless meaning remaining on the margins is so so true. I think the Greens ideas around not having too much personality politics is fine, but while they sit around smugly getting no bloody votes, the planet goes to hell in a handbasket. Do you think the public would have trusted 'non- hierarchical' parties in 1945 ? No, and then we wouldn't have a health service. Wake up greens, it's not about you, it's about the voters.

Mattie
13 July 2007 at 12:16

While not having a leader might sound great ideologically, it means in practice, as atlee rightly points it out, that the Greens continue to make little impact nationally while the planet continues to get trashed. Green parties in other European countries have discovered that, as far as large numbers of the public are concerned, being leaderless also means being rudderless. In this day and age, not having a figurehead that the public can relate to is, to be kind about it, unwise, and the importance of candidate-recognition cannot be underestimated when it comes to the business of getting people elected. After having had a similar stance to the UK party for years, the Irish Green Party finally grasped the nettle on this one and elected a leader in 2001: in the 2002 general election they tripled the number of MPs they had, and following this year’s election they entered government for the first time.

jhpt
13 July 2007 at 15:01

Good point Atlee (and Mattie). While the Greens devote their time and energy to agonising over whether or not to have a leader, the rain forests are burning. Should a car have a steering wheel? Every other political party got past this elementary question on Day 1. If the Greens can't trust one of their own to lead without forming a dictatorship how can they expect anyone to vote for them? Or maybe all they really want to do is sit on the moral high ground cocking a snook at reality.

adamstacey
13 July 2007 at 15:34

To Mattie. I don't agree with your analysis of the evidence that having a leader would get us into the mainstream - but I welcome the fact that you have provided one. Usually in debates, those in favour of a leader just repeat the mantra without ever providing evidence that it will achieve their fantasies.

Meanwhile UKIP have a leader but hardly anyone can name him. The same goes for Plaid Cymru, and they are in parliament. This is a red herring. Experience shows that at times and in places where the party has made itself relevant, it gets coverage. If it is not perceived to be relevant, it will not.

I agree with jhpt that we spend too much time and energy agonising over this. We have debated it so many times and will probably keep doing so until the end of time. I just wish we would do so a bit less often.

Rupert Read
13 July 2007 at 16:39

I hope that readers of this discussion bear in mind the political reality of the situation: please bear in mind that the choice facing the members in the Green Party in the leadership referendum is not between leadership and some ideal possible alternative form of leadership with [say] annual election of the Leader as opposed to annual confirmation in post / recall powers. The choice facing us is between leadership and nothing. If this leadership motion -- which was approved by Conference, as was the motion on having such referenda at the conference before it, despite the cynical attempts of anti-Leader people to stop it every which way (attempts which Adam Stacey's long post above, disingenuously and cynically, fails to mention) -- does not go through, then the effort to get a form of leadership in will be stalled for another decade.

This is a choice between leadership/needed-organisational-reform and nothing/stalling-any-reforms. Please view the choice in its correct light. This is politics. We have to be realistic about it...

If you want the Green Party to have a decent shot at stopping climate-armageddon, by means of having a Leader/Co-Leaders, then in truth it is now now or never.

revo17
13 July 2007 at 16:58

jhpt said: "Every other political party got past this elementary question on Day 1."

Er no, the Labour Party didn't have a Party Leader until 1983. Before that, it had a Leader of the Parliamentary Party - quite different in terms of actual power within the party.

The record since then has not been so great. As a Party Leader, Tony Blair probably did ensure the lanslide victory in 1997. But who can really say they are proud of the direction the Labour Party's taken since then under Blair?????

adamstacey
13 July 2007 at 17:12

Rupert,

A question was raised during the debate about the security of the proxy vote system. I don't see anything wrong in that. If there was anything else that I missed despite being present then I genuinely missed it - I wasn't being disingenuous or cynical. I'm describing it as I saw it, and I am sure that you are too. I suppose that we are all apt to see the faults of the other side's behaviour more than our own. You may not be aware of some of your side's behaviour behind the scenes. It is true that the general tone of the debate on both sides is pretty aggressive, and it is always unpleasant to be there.

For those reading this who have never been to a Green Party conference, believe me when I say that most of the time it is much more civilised. This is the issue where feelings run high.

virtuoso
13 July 2007 at 22:13

"Who can really say they are proud of the direction the Labour Party's taken since (the lanslide victory in 1997) under Blair?????" asks revo17.

Answer: The British electorate in two more General Elections. Blair even left the House of Commons, as Prime Minister to a standing ovation from all sides of the House.

Revo17 really should get out more and cultivate a wider circle of friends.

Mattie
13 July 2007 at 23:19

adamstacey, thanks for acknowledging that the Irish party offers actual evidence that backs the case for a leader. There are others as well – for example, the New Zealand Green Party adopted co-leaders in the mid-1990s and made it into Parliament in their own right shortly after. In fact, I’m hard pushed to think of any party in modern times (Green or otherwise) that has made significant headway without having had a leader.

Ultimately the issue at stake is credibility in the eyes of the public. The simple fact is that large chunks of voters still won’t bother engaging with the Greens because they don’t take them seriously. I’d rather a leader wasn't necessary, but I’ve long since accepted that there’d be a damn site more chance of having green policies and principles more widely accepted if there was one.

Also, that most people can’t name the UKIP leader isn’t really the point – UKIP are perceived as credible by chunk of right-wingers partly because they look and sound like a ‘real’ party that these people can relate to. Likewise Plaid Cymru look like a serious party (although I think you would actually find reasonably high recognition of Plaid’s leader in Wales). Where the Green Party has had put in lots of hard work at a local level and made itself relevant, in virtually all cases the profile of individuals involved has played a key part in this.

The Greens should stop spending so much time and energy agonising over this issue and just get it over with. In years to come, I’m confident people would look back and wonder what it was everyone had been worried about.

Rupert Read
15 July 2007 at 09:16

Adam; thanks for your post of the 13th, which I find much more reasonable in tone than your earlier post, and therefore much more suitable, coming from a paid Party staffer, who ought to be a servant of the Party, and not a partisan making attacks on some in the Party, on Party time.

What I was referring to, which you seem to have somehow missed when you attended the debate in question, was the systematic effort by some of the leaders of the Anti-Leader campaign to talk out the motion that called for a constitutional change to allow constitutional isses to be settled by a ballot of the wider Party. Since you seem to have missed it, let me set the historical record straight: This was a transparent effort at preventing a vote from taking place on the motion at all, and it led the person chairing the session to repeatedly have to plead for better behaviour from Anti-Leader activists, and to threaten to suspend the debate entirely (ironically, exactly what those activists were trying to achieve). That is the reason why there was a call to move to a vote on the substantive; because otherwise, the anti-democratic filibustering of the anti-Leader leaders would have carried the day.

That is the truth. Most anti-Leader activists have consistently acted anti-democratically on this matter. That is why most of them have no credibility when they pretend to stand up for process, democracy, to be anti-elitists, etc. .

Mattie is right. People will look back with amazement that it took us so long to get a Leader/Co-Leaders. Let's get on with it.

greenladywell
15 July 2007 at 16:09

Hang on a second Rupert! Adam may be employed at party office (and I believe one or two prominent 'yes' campaigners are also paid to work for the national party?), but he is also a member of the party and as such is perfectly entitled to express an opinion on this (in his own time, agreed).

Can both sides of the debate ease up on the spin a bit please and stop confusing subjective opinion with "the truth"? Reminds me of the very behaviour I despise in other political parties . . .

adamstacey
16 July 2007 at 10:53

Hi Rupert and greenladywell,

I marked it as a break on my timesheet :)

Sorry for the tone of my main post. I believe in constructive rather than aggressive discussion. I fell rather short of my own standards there. Got a bit annoyed.

Green Party Office
16 July 2007 at 11:32

Following Mark's reference in his column to the Green Party's failure to chase up his lapsed party membership (as an example of the party's inefficiency), we have contacted him and he is happy for us to point out that he did, in fact, renew his membership when we reminded him in December.

Rupert Read
16 July 2007 at 20:53

Adam; cheers for your latest post.

Greenladywell; I can't agree with your post: that sounds like relativism. The fact of the matter was that there _was_ a prolonged filibuster etc. . If you were there, you would know this. I can't speak for slightlyiratecouncillor, but in _my_ posts there hasn't been any spin. Just a straight account as I saw it of the relevant bits of the last two Party Conferences.

Btw, anyone who wants to know more about my own views about leadership, do read my recent newspaper column on the topic: http://oneworldcolumn.org/158.html

atlee
16 July 2007 at 23:13

Many of the above posts are probably bewildering to people not actively involved in the green party. This I suspect is indicative of the problem the party has.

If the membership as a whole is in any way reflective of a wider public it will see sense and vote for this thing. If they don't they prove themselves on the margins of public thinking, and thus irrelevant, thus making Mark Lynas's point surely.

If you put yourself in the possibly but not yet green voters shoes this is a no brainer isn't it?

green digerati
17 July 2007 at 16:49

Yes- this is the 21st century and things are desperate. The Green Party need to live up to the expectations of their voters - thus 'show willing' that they can work within the political framework(s) on offer else they will stick out - like an ugly sore thumb... and cease to appeal. Or to coin another well known catchphrase - "you've got to be in it to win it".

I think that is clear enough. All memebers of the Green Party electorate repeat after me "you've got to be in it to win it".

Admin
18 July 2007 at 14:30

From letters to the editor:

Thanks to Mark Lynas for "Even Greens need Leaders", 12 July. But there is at least one very important argument in favour of the Green Party (like any political Party) having some kind of formal leadership structure that is missing from his piece, and it is this: How can you have accountability if you don't have Leadership?

At present, our Party's 'leadership' is fractured between several different committees. No-one knows where the buck stops. And so no-one seems empowered to do the most basic things, such as lick our central national Party office into really good shape.

Having a Leader or Co-Leaders would deliver us real democratic accountability within the Party, for the first time ever.

And there couldn't be a more important time in history for the Green Party to finally become fully effective.

For more on how this can happen, visit www.greenyes.org

Cllr. Rupert Read

Green Party lead candidate for Eastern Region in the 2009 EuroParl elections

Rupert Read
18 July 2007 at 16:43

P.S. For those of you who are on Facebook, there is a fascinating in-depth debate of the Leadership issue going on now, at http://uea.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2538880044&topic=2964

thegreenmancommeth
19 July 2007 at 09:32

Contributors to this discussion seem to have failed to mention that the type of leadership being considered by the Greens is very different to that adopted by other main parties in the UK. It involves democratic election by the entire party membership, fixed 2-year terms of office, and clearly delimited responsibility. The party's ultimate decision-making body will remain conference, which can now choose to put issues to a membership-wide ballot where appropriate. I think this will still set the Greens apart, while achieving the advantages of having a recognised 'leader'.

AmandaPenfold
19 July 2007 at 12:35

Why we Don’t need a Leader.

Let’s have a look at our present arrangements.

We have an executive group leadership who have power, plus two speakers, one male and one female who are entrusted to convey our message to the mainstream media and have no voting power.

Why do we have this strange arrangement?

The empowerment section of our manifesto states at PB443;

“We seek a society in which people are empowered and involved in making decisions which affect them. We reject the hierarchical structure of leaders and followers and instead advocate participatory politics. For this reason the Green Party itself does not have an individual leader”

This is part of the fundamental core values of the Green Party and the reason this is part of the core values is because of the dangers inherent in a hierarchical, passive, follow-the-leader type of politics.

History is littered with egalitarian movements who were tamed, seduced, domesticated into non-controversial, safe and ultimately useless tools in the fight against oppression. Some were infiltrated and steered away from their original aims, others just imploded by themselves.

What makes you think our erstwhile leaders might be any different?

Lets look at the proposal to change the fundamental values of the Green Party, because it seems the proposers think they know better than our founders.

They want to change part PB443 with the following;

“We seek a society in which people are empowered and involved in making the decisions which affect them. We reject the hierarchical structure of leaders and followers. We advocate participatory and democratic politics, leadership should always be accountable, consensus-driven and moral.”

They also add a section giving these new leaders a vote on the executive.

So lets look at their replacement of PB443.

It starts by rejecting hierarchical structures, presumably in society, but then adds one for the Green Party! So they are saying we can have a leader or co-leader if you like, but we reject the hierarchical structure of leaders and followers. Ok, so which one is it?

It then goes on to say that leadership should always be accountable. No-one could really argue with that, but how?

What safeguards have they said should be put in place to make these “non-hierarchical” Party Leaders accountable?

Elections?

Like Tony Blair’s?

He was elected by his party and proceeded to rip it’s guts out but still managed to cling to power for 10 years before finally being deposed by his “co-leader”! So what had started as a party fighting for the rights of the oppressed working classes, a party standing for equality and redistribution of wealth, became under his leadership, a party of inequality and redistribution of wealth from the poor it was set up to serve, to the rich it was set up to fight.

But, you might say. Our Caroline and Darren aren’t monsters like Tony Blair.

Well apparently Tony Blair wasn’t actually a monster. Believe it or not he started off radical, intent on fighting for the good of the people. But he was a leader and like so many leaders in all types of parties, in all countries of the world, he lost touch with his base. Leaders become removed. Their elevated status and busy workload, plus watching their backs for media sniper-fire removes them from us, the people. They become immune from criticism as a defence mechanism and they lose faith. They get scared, think we cannot understand their vision. They think we need to be told what to do, what to think, that they are the only ones with the answers and the biggest crime of all, they start to believe they are indispensable.

The people who were forward thinking enough to write down our fundamental core principles had studied this phenomenon. They knew what had happened to leader after leader before, and what would happen to leader after leader into the future.

Very few people can resist the leader disease of megalomania. It takes a rare and special person to do this.

Do we want to risk our future on the chance that our flawed and very human “leaders” are able to be the one in a billion, like Ghandi or Jesus, or are we going to realize that the burden of party leader will always be too much for any one person to bear, especially in a party thet is seeking revolutionary change?

I’d like to ask the pro-Party Leader campaign, why they think this aspect of our core fundamental principles is wrong, when it is finally being realized by academics, politicians, mass media and the public that the Green Party were actually right all along?

Why, just as our ideas and fundamental principles are being proved to have always been correct, are our own high profile activists trying to dismantle them?

Who is this going to benefit?

The few who manage to climb the greasy pole? Not many women with kids or working class then.

The other politicians in the grey parties who will be able to say “see, they aren’t any higher or mighter than us, they also suffer from the sins of greed and pride”?

The businesses we will need to court to fund our top down communications to a remote and disengaged public?

So the usual winners then?

But we will all suffer. If we don’t accept that our core fundamental values are exactly that, and core to our very existence, we will become the same soulless political shells as all the others and the important job of saving the planet will get sidelined as we squabble for power and privilege.

So if the Green Party is so perfect why aren’t we winning any seats?

The Green Party is far from perfect, but the solid ethical and moral base we have at present is a better place to start than the gutless parties some of our members feel the need to emulate.

We should have a visible shadow cabinet. An accessible executive. More high profile leaders with a training programme to help them rise to the challenge of elected office.

Lack of proportional representation won’t change, just because we change the structure of the party, so trying to compete on the media led drive for the cult of personality won’t make it any easier to get into Parliament.

What we can do though, is start to build a party of mass support by evangelizing, educating people, reaching out to tenants and residents associations, getting active in a union and in our communities, talking to the kids in our local youth club, asking local schools if we can give a presentation in citizenship classes, networking on facebook, Hi5 Bebo etc and being welcoming to new faces.

The mass media may be a quick way to reach huge amounts of people, but we get cut, misquoted, attacked by a corporate media who want to sell a story, not communicate our message. We need to make use of the friendlier local media and use e-lists to increase awareness that can be signed up to on our national website. We need lateral thinking, putting our collective heads together and reconnection with our base, not cutting off of the very roots that we need to sustain us by promoting one or two voices, brains, source of ideas at the expense of the hundreds we have at present.

PeterCranie
19 July 2007 at 13:48

I think a lot of what Amanda says about ethics, core values, accessibility and collective effort are shared by the Yes Campaign members and supporters.

However, we simply don't feel that using the title "leader" by which we elect two members who can vote on the Executive, rather than two non-voting speakers will take away what is unique and powerful about the party.

It is a very emotive subject for many people in the party, but in my view insisting on the status quo is elitist and exclusive approach. We can't go on shouting from the sidelines that the world should change to suit us because we are right, and everyone else is wrong.

If we are going to ask people to make changes in their attitudes and lifestyles, shouldn't we at least be able to consider brave changes in our own?

AmandaPenfold
19 July 2007 at 15:03

This is not just a matter of a title, it's more than that. They will be looked at as figureheads and as such will be regarded as weak if they have no power to lead. There will then be pressure to change further, to give more power to these 'leaders' to comply with the media imposed 'pragmatists'.

It would be extremely naive to think that this is where the leadership takeover would end. What would happen to dissenting voices who disagreed with our Party Leaders? They would have to be silenced to preserve party unity, thus reducing the democracy of the party further. Open your eyes and see what has happened to other parties and revolutionary throughout history.

We need empowerment and global individual co-operation to takle the global catastrophe we are facing.

The pro campaign have no faith in the public. They don't think we can keep up. They think they need to be the vanguards in our fight against global catastrophe.

No, we all need to wake up and get active. We need more activists and leaders, not less.

We need to re-engage the disenfranchised voters, not by modeling ourselves on the very parties who turned the public off of politics in the first place, but by talking to them in their own language.

We have the policies to do this, we don't need to water our policies down, as yet, because at present we are not beholden to any big businesses. That will change if we accept the competition on the terms laid down by the other parties and the media, because we will have no choice but to recruit big business in order to py for a comparable campaign.

We will waste money, activists time and resources trying to play catch-up to their rules. and we may win a battle or two, but we will lose the war.

We will have taken our eye off the ball.

Instead of fighting for change, it will be us that is changed, and by the time we finally get into a position of real power, we will have had to jettison so many policies to get there, that we will be the Grey/Greenish Party, just like all the others.

So we will have lost everything, and so will the planet.

gregp
19 July 2007 at 15:44

In order to see what the green party will look like with leaders one can look at our brother and sister green parties around the world which have adopted or always had leadership structures. There is absolutely no evidence that leadership in any of these parties has turned it into a grey party with no principles except power.

As for the yes campaign having no faith in the public Amanda, I find that a confusing statement and don't see how leadership means that I have no faith in the public! The greens in many ways have been the vanguard of the fight so far. It was the Green Party that brought questions of climate change to political prominence in the late 80s. I think members should be proud of that history. But being proud of that history doesn't mean that we aren't trying to engage and activate the public. It is clear however that the current structure has not engaged these voters, given the fact that we have less councillors than some parties have MPs.

As for more activity, yes I think we all agree on this point. But at the moment the party isn't producing much from this activity. We need to change some of the ways we work in order to achieve as much as possible over the next few years.

AmandaPenfold
19 July 2007 at 16:10

It is not leadership that is the problem, it is the Party Leader phenomenon that is the problem.

In Scotland the Green Party co-convenors are seen as leaders, but they are actually convenors, a very different thing.

New Zealand and Northern Ireland have co-leaders, not a single Party Leader, and Italy, Spain and Belgium have Presidents who preside over, rather than lead.

Australia has a Convenor (who convenes) and the Finns have a Chairperson.

The only ones who have single leaders are Canada and Eire, so where are all these Green Parties with a successful Party Leader for us to follow?

See http://www.southwarkpct.nhs.uk/news_view.php?PID=0000000077&... for source

AmandaPenfold
19 July 2007 at 16:13

Woops, see thsi one for the source!

http://www.greenleadership.org.uk/

I'll blame that mistake on my daughter for distracting me with the grumbling of her belly.

I'd better get off and feed my starving kids!

Amanda

gregp
19 July 2007 at 18:03

Unfortunately I don't have access to my data on your points about successful party leaders to hand but will post up about that in a day or two. however you completely ignore the fact that the motion allows for co-leaders or a leader and deputy leader.Therefore approximately half the parties you list (some of which are very successful and none of which are terrible sellouts) have a leadership structure that could come about given this motion.

AmandaPenfold
19 July 2007 at 22:44

Ok, so if you are happy with accepting co-leaders instead of a leader and deputy, then why don't we just have a motion giving the speakers a vote on the executive.

Why would we have to call them leaders?

Leaders, by definition need followers. And Leaders attract certain expectations that you supposedly don't want to attribute to ours, such as deciding party policy instead of the members, silencing critics in the name of party unity, ability to make decisions outside of conference without party approval.

Leaders who do not have these abilities will be annihilated by the corporate media as being weak, and leaders who do have these ability will be pressured by big business, lobbyists and the security services to remove their radical agenda. More than one leader makes this knobbling difficult, having many leaders makes it more difficult still.

AmandaPenfold
20 July 2007 at 13:24

Sat Jul 07, 2007 11:43 pm Reply with quote

Today's (Saturday's) Irish Times reported that the Green leadership not only insisted on telling Green councillors which FF senate candidates to vote for, but demanded to be able to see their ballot papers to make sure the councillors voted as instructed. Understandably the councillors told the leadership to f*** off.

All senate ballots are, like all other ballots electoral ballots, strictly confidential and legally no-one has the right to see a ballot paper to make sure people voted as instructed to. That was how landlords in Ireland won election to Irish seats in Westminster. It was something Daniel O'Connell fought against, and was finally abolished in these islands in 1872 by Gladstone.

Haughey famously broke his own party rules in the 1980s, which required secret ballots, insisting on open votes so that he could see who opposed him. (He also gambled, correctly, that being forced to go public would frighten waverers from opposing him.)

If Bertie Ahern, Enda Kenny, Pat Rabbitte, Mary Harney or Gerry Adams demanded to see their councillors' senate ballot votes to ensure the votes were cast the way they demanded, there would be an outcry within their parties, the media would make a major issue of it, and there would be calls for heads to roll over at act seen as against every principle of democracy.

If the Greens were in opposition they would be sitting on the high moral ground condemning whoever proposed such a "Stalinist" and "anti-democratic" interference with the democratic process.

Policies may change their stances on issues. But for the leadership of a party that used to be informal that there was not a leader, to demand a right to vet councillors' votes to ensure they vote for the right FF senate candidates, is such a u-turn it is astonishing.

What on earth has happened to the Greens when some at a senior level seem to want to model their standards of behaviour on Haughey? Shocked

Taken from

http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=24165

Amanda

AmandaPenfold
20 July 2007 at 13:27

Hmmn, so is this evidence of the urges inherent in leadership that push for unity of the party message over democracy that the "Yes" campaign reckon couldn't happen to us, cos we are all so lovely and Green?

nick
22 July 2007 at 03:30

I joined the Green Party, partly because of its anti -authoritarian ethos. I have never come across our lack of a leader being an obstacle to anyone voting Green.

If we have a referendum on this issue then why not on a plethora of other issues, such as scapping proxy votes at conference, or our policy vis a vis the EU etc.

I think if we make the mistake of going for a leader it would demoralise a majority of activists.

I certainly don't need leading!

nick
22 July 2007 at 03:35

I do however not understand why the Principle Speakers don't have a vote on the executive!

Admin
24 July 2007 at 11:51

From letters to the editor:

Whilst respecting much of Mark Lynas’s work, he surely can’t have fallen for the “green-washing” of the mainstream political parties, when Labour, Lib Dem and Tory activists join the Green Party in opposing airport expansion, out of town superstores and economic growth at all costs policies, then he might have a point here.

I share his frustration at the often arcane operation of the Green Party machine, but when compared to the control- freakery and spin of mainstream politics I am more comfortable being in a party where there is genuine debate on policy and tactics.

The leadership question comes up regularly at conference, and is regularly defeated; it is a managerial solution, when we need political solutions. Green Party councillors which there are now a record 110 need more support from the party and should be more accountable to conference and to their local parties. Green Parties across Europe have differing structures some with a leader and a deputy, some with co-leaders and we have principle speakers, I have found no evidence that any one of these structures makes a great deal of difference.

When the German Green’s adapted leaders they drifted so far to the right as to be barely recognisable from the radical movement from which it came, supporting Thatcher style cuts and privatisation as well as the bombing of Serbian Civilians, as if that could save the people of Kosovo. They are now somewhere to the right of the SPD and deservedly got less votes than the new “Left” party.

The Green Parties road to oblivion would to become a slightly greener, more radical version of the Lib Dems, who themselves must be aware of the pitfalls of a the attention focused on a leader.

Nick Foster

Reading Green Party

PeterCranie
24 July 2007 at 12:08

If you have got this far down the comments, you can probably cope with a bit of minutae!

The last vote at Conference split 60-40 in favour of a motion to rename "Principal Speakers" as "Co-leaders". This wasn't a 2/3rds majority, which is required for any constitutional change, so in that sense it was defeated.

Here in the NW Green Party, we had an internal ballot in 2003 to decide whether or not to use the title, "Leader, North West Green Party" for our No 1 Euro candidate. Members voted 78% in favour and 22% against.

Conference voted by a majority to put this question to all our members, so that we can have view that fairly reflects not just vocal activists, like ourselves, but the democratic wishes of the party. I share Nick's rejection of the neo-liberal policies of the three parties named, and I'm sure we both agree that our internal democracy is what will continue to set us apart from them, whatever the result of this ballot.

Jonathan Dixon
24 July 2007 at 15:50

In response to Peter Cranie's information re. the 60-40 vote at Conference:

This was not, strictly speaking, a vote on the floor of Conference itself. It was the result of a card vote, which was called by supporters of the 'Yes' camp when it was obvious that the vote on the floor was not going to go their way. They'd brought a load of proxy votes from non-attending members with them - the opposers of the motion had not come prepared in this way. No count of the original vote was taken.

This procedure happened right at the end of Conference, on a Sunday when many members had actually left. Why was such an 'important' issue left so late? Because it had failed to be prioritised by Party members beforehand, who had decided that it was more important to discuss open source software and who was responsible for the Party's magazine, 'Green World'.

The previous time that any motion including the word 'Leader' had been debated, as far as I remember, it had received less than a dozen votes in favour.

Charlie Graham
24 July 2007 at 17:20

Hi

actually, the public and media perception (and to many Green Party members)

of anyone elected as a Leader, will result in precisely the same perception

as the leaders of other parties and corporations are. This is regardless of

however or by whatever means we dress up the post as internally accountable.

It is also a term that, I believe, will be counter-productive in asserting

our devolution of decision making and power to local districts. Local

Parties will be increasing disenfranchised, as voters and sponsors

increasingly identify local groups with the actions, personality and

competence of a national leader. There will also be a subtle (or not so)

change in psychology of the individual elected as 'leader'. Ask previous

leaders!

One may be unhappy with the term 'Principal Speaker', but it does at least

portray the function as one of expressing the wishes of a democratic body.

The term 'Leader' does not do this, but implies a role we ( the public voter

in general ) have been socially conditioned to accept as leading, with a

hierarchical organisational structure, following. After all, "democracy"

evolved precisely because leaders are essentially tyrannical in nature and

to empower the "people" ( read 'poor' ) over a privileged elite.

A leader is an 'I want', not an 'I need'.

We should be the change we wish to see. We do not need a leader with

executive powers. We need a speaker who is asked to speak on our behalf at

a national level.

Best wishes

Charlie

(SW Region Coordinator)

taghioff.info
02 August 2007 at 11:11

Dear Greens

You guys really need to think about outcomes and not get too hung up on process right now.

We have ten years to bring about change to reduce the likelihood of massive starvation and displacement to the world's poorest.

That is a for more important moral imperative, right now, than complex discussions of how to institute democracy. That currently stands as a 2000 year experiment with little sign of ever being fully resolved.

In short, my feeling is: get on with it, get out there and win, because we all need green politics now.

Right now.

ToddisGod
20 August 2007 at 22:21

The reason the vast majority of people dont vote green has nothing to do with whether they have a leader or not and everything to do with the fact that green ideology is a load of reactionary bollocks...

Lucy Dale
23 August 2007 at 15:56

I’m astonished to read that Mark Lynas is willing to run with any of the mainstream parties that are seen to be “tackling” climate change. Now forgive me if I am sounding naïve, but I thought that climate change was caused by excessive CO2 emissions. And I thought that CO2 emissions were linked to the burning of fossil fuels and the emission of other greenhouse gases. Now, as far as my understanding of history goes, the excessive burning of fossil fuels is inextricably linked to a very particular historical period dominated by a paradigm one might term industrial-capitalist political economy. This has been a ruthlessly expansionist, energy-hungry, exploitative period – currently in a neoliberal phase - that has dominated our planet for over 200 years. All the three main (grey) political parties – the Tories, New Labour (and old labour too) as well as the LibDems are fundamentally wedded to this underlying paradigm – indeed they have benefited and continue to benefit from it (as admittedly have in the short-term all of us in the industrial north at the expense of the majority world and our ecosystem). These parties are fundamentally incapable of dealing with the root causes of climate change. They may be able to tinker at the edges, engage in a bit of greenwash, add a few red herrings of carbon off-setting, they may even be able to bring in measures such as energy efficiency and some degree of commitment to renewables. But they are not in any shape or form envisioning the kind of truly sustainable and just society that the Green Party aspires to (see Manifesto for a Sustainable Society), including making fundamental changes to the way we live, the way we interact, the way we produce, the way we consume.

As a supporter of the “No” camp within this internal Green Party debate (and I strongly echo the points made by Amanda Penfold above) for me another important distinguishing feature of the Green Party is the way it does politics. Its manifesto has been built - and continuously evolves - through the democratic, participation of the members - 30 years of democratic debate and collaborative hard work. One of the core Green Party principles is the recognition that it is embedded in a much wider green movement and that official political channels (elections to councils and parliaments) is merely one manifestation of the work that the party is engaged in. It is therefore of the greatest importance, that we remain connected to the grassroots and focus on our bottom-up, participatory, non-hierarchical style. This is also the reason why for decades a “Leader” has been eschewed. Now, this unfortunate, dichotomous and potentially dividing referendum has been agreed upon and shall be had, and whether or not the “Yes” or “No” camp wins, let us please for a minute take our attention away from our navels and look around us at the political reality. Whether or not we have a leader/co-leaders, we will still be faced with a political system that lacks true participation and democracy and is fundamentally tied to the modern paradigm. We need to keep our eye on the bigger battles of, for example, campaigning for electoral reform (in the short-term) and more importantly of supporting and contributing to the global movement of social and ecological justice that seeks and actively builds alternatives to the statist/corporate organisation of society. If people like Mark Lynas, who claim to be part of a green movement, still give credence to the old-style politics and cannot find it in themselves to support the only party that has policies that tackle the root causes of climate change, then we are in much more trouble than I thought.

robinthedruid
23 August 2007 at 21:42

My support for the Yes campaign is clear and unequivocal. Lets be clear about this, the various arguments concerned with the notion of 'personality politics' is a load of hogwash. There has always been a certain amount of 'personality issues' surrounding the principal speakers, and I should know since I, at a particular point in time, acted as election agent for one of them. There was considerable personality issues surrounding that person then as probably there is now, so this just goes to prove that 'personality' will always be an important aspect of the party's public face whether it continues with the principal speakers or elects a leader. But what is even more important is the urgency of the task that we now face. As has been noted previously, we do not have much longer to 'faff around' before the current climate change situation goes into freefall. Runaway global warming will be with us before we can blink if we do not act swiftly. This means that the party's policies have to be delivered efficiently, quickly and with a strong voice. The present system of principal speakers is not dynamic enough to meet the demands of the task ahead of us. It is far too woolly, too weak, and potentially carries with it connotations of an obsolete and widely derided 'hippy' idealism that has held the party back for far too long. It is of course justifiable to raise important criticisms of leadership patterns observed in the grey political parties, and so we should indeed build into a leadership structure systems that will prevent the dogmatic and dictatorial politics of Blair, Brown, Cameron etc but to avoid leadership as a whole makes no sense whatsoever and in fact will ensure that the Green Party is confined to the margins of politics in the way in which it has been so far. Therefore it should now be obvious that in order to deliver the policies that need to be implemented, and quickly, the Green Party needs to move swiftly and determinedly into the very heart of British politics. Only a party with a leader can achieve that.

Lucy Dale
24 August 2007 at 20:48

The above comments are understandable but I believe are a politically naive fantasy. Having a leader will not suddenly propel the Green Party into the heart of British politics. Let's face the political realities - the electoral system of first past the post leads to a two party system - even the LibDems don't stand a chance of getting into power. The Green Party only gets about 4%of the national vote and has only a small membership. This is not because we don't have a leader, but because we have a radical philosophy and radical policies to go with it, because we believe in the need for radical transformation of society. Evidently, the majority of the population does not go along with that, however self-evident you may think these policies are. However little time you think there is to change the world in the face of climate change there are no shortcuts and the means NEVER justifies the end. We cannot afford to water down our policies in order to appeal to the average (on the whole fairly conservative) British voter. We need more than ever to stick to our principles and policies and politicise and grow the wider green movement. Working through the political system alone will not reverse climate change or bring about a truly sustainable and socially just society.

Peter Cranie
29 November 2007 at 16:25

This statement from Darren Johnson, on behalf of the Green Yes campaign, in advance of the referendum result, said:

“Turnout has been very high by Green Party standards, perhaps well over 40%, which shows the interest our members have had in the future direction of the Party.

Win or lose, we will respect the verdict of the members.

We thank the supporters of the No Campaign for their help in organising and attending meetings and for providing a stimulating debate.”