The race to lead the Green Party is almost over. In just over a week’s time the winner of this torturous contest will be revealed: either the current deputy leader, Zack Polanski, or the co-leadership of MPs Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay. But, beyond the change in personnel, this has already been a doubly unusual contest for the party. First, the election has garnered more media coverage than previous contests, due to the party’s increased parliamentary presence and the ideological cleavage between the candidates. But second, this election has helped to expose a greater fault line among members about what the Green Party should be – and where it should go next.
Polanski, who announced his surprise leadership bid shortly after the local elections in May, has run on a platform of “eco-populism”, arguing that the Greens should be a leftist mirror to Nigel Farage’s insurgent right-wing force, Reform UK. He has also expressed an interest in aligning the Greens with Your Party, the burgeoning left-wing movement currently being developed by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. Chowns and Ramsay, on the other hand, believe the party must maintain its “distinct identity”, occupying ground closer to the centre in order to win over a wide range of voters. They have leant heavily on their status as MPs and knowledge of “how to win elections” as demonstrations of their suitability as co-leaders.
The current front-runner is Polanski. A recent poll by Focal Data found that 38 per cent of Brits would vote for him to lead the Greens if they had a vote in the election, as opposed to the 20 per cent who said they would back Chowns and Ramsay. (This was even higher among Green voters, of whom 49 per cent said they would back Polanski to Chowns and Ramsay’s 33 per cent.) But Polanski’s rapid rise to popularity has unsettled party grandees. Anecdotal evidence from local branches has suggested an uptick in new members owing to Polanski’s decision to run. And, as a result, a recent anonymous briefing in the Guardian described Polanski’s leadership bid as an entryist “hostile takeover” of the party – an accusation that Polanski’s allies deny.
Catherine Rowett, a former Green Party MEP (who worked alongside Chowns in the European Parliament but is backing Polanski) described the accusations as “bizarre”. She pointed to the fact that Polanski is already an elected member of the Greens’ senior leadership team as deputy leader. “One would expect that person to put themselves forward for the leadership role,” Rowett said. She described attempts to “discredit Zack” as “uncharacteristic of the Green party”.
Steve Jackson, a member of Greens Organise – the eco-socialist group of which Jeremy Corbyn’s former media advisor, Matt Zarb-Cousin is a founding member – agreed. “I think it’s revealing of a relatively small part of the party… They’re not interested in growing the party. They think new members should shut up, not express opinions.” Jackson explained that, to his mind, calls for the Green Party to move further to the left – for it to take more of a popular, socialist stance – are not new. “Really this tradition has been there for a long time. If you look at Zack’s campaign and the people who are backing it, they’re people who have been councillors for 20 years, the people who got Caroline Lucas elected.”
Jackson believes briefings of a “hostile takeover” have come from those around Ramsay and Chowns, an accusation the pair’s campaign has firmly denied. “We certainly wouldn’t use language like that,” a campaign insider said, “but we can understand how some in the party might feel that way.” They pointed to the “hostility” which Chowns and Ramsay have come up against on social media, adding: “We have no reason to think this has been encouraged by Zack but coming from people – sometimes anonymous accounts – who say they’ve joined the Green Party to vote for him and will leave if he’s not elected.”
Clearly the stakes of the election have exposed a division within the party: one which is unlikely to disappear after the campaign. Should Polanski win (as he is currently projected to), the party could be in for more frequent clashes between its new national leader and its MPs in Westminster. Another leadership challenge could quickly be on the horizon. This is because, for years, the Green Party has had compulsory leadership elections. And as things stand, procedural changes which have remained in place since the pandemic mean that whoever wins on 2 September will only secure the position for a year.
Insiders are keen to point out that all involved – Polanski, Ramsay, and Chowns – recognise the absurdity of this situation and are unlikely to want another leadership contest in 12 months’ time. At the party’s annual conference in October, members could vote to return to the previous two-year cycle. But this is the stance all interested parties are taking before they have heard the result. It is easy to see how this could all have changed by next Wednesday.
This is a sliding doors moment for the Green Party. Whoever leads the party forward into next year’s local and regional elections will shape not only the character of the future Green party, but the future of the British left.
[See also: The truth about the “hostile takeover” of the Green Party]
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