Why it's unusual to have a real contest for the Green Party leadership
A brief personal recollection of the last six Green Party leadership contests
With the announcement by Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay of their joint bid for the leadership of the Green Party, we now have a very strong competitor to Zack Polanski’s candidacy. As this week also happened to be my 12th anniversary of joining the Green Party, and as we have plenty of time for this election, I’m going to try to use this opportunity to provide some context for the contest that will take place over the next three and a half months, starting in this article with my recollections of the last six leadership elections.
What does it mean to be a Green Party leader?
We get a lot of complaints about having co-leaders, but for most of the 52-year history of the Green Party and its predecessors, there was no leader role at all. The decision to replace the “Principal Speaker” role was only made in 2007, with the first leadership election taking place the following year, and then every subsequent two years (until 2021 - but we’ll get to that later).
The Greens are by far the least centralised of the major political parties, and so the leadership role is much more circumscribed than in other major parties. The role definition is in part inspired by the Servant Leadership philosophy:
A servant leader shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.
On that basis, the Green Party limits the role of the leader to focus on being (dare I say it?) the principal speaker and also the political strategy lead. This means that, while they are still very influential in debates around the following, they cannot:
Set policy (a responsibility of members at Conference - a leader has one vote like every other member);
Select spokespeople;
Select candidates (a responsibility of the relevant local parties);
Change the constitution, intervene in disciplinary complaints etc.
Other important aspects of the Greens’ leadership roles and contests:
There are always three leaders, which can be either two co-leaders and one deputy, or one leader and two deputies. There are only co-leaders if a candidacy stands as co-leaders (e.g. Ellie and Adrian this year) and wins.
One of the three leadership roles has to be someone who identifies as a woman or non-binary.
The deputy leader role has a different emphasis from the leader role, as it is more focused on building the internal party, involving a lot of travel to local parties and their target campaigns.
Elections within the Green Party always include a “Re-Open Nominations” option (RON), and for any election with more than two candidates (plus RON), use the Single Transferable Vote.
It is relatively easy to stand for leadership, needing just twenty co-proposers.
Campaign spending limits are low, and candidates do not have access to membership lists.
A candidate statement is circulated to all members, and hustings are held (although pre-Covid, these were mainly limited to face-to-face e.g. at Conference, with Zoom becoming the norm from 2020 onwards).
Local and regional parties cannot endorse or promote candidates.
Republicans who like a Coronation
For a party that lionises democracy, particularly in the selection of office holders at all levels, ironically until 2020, the contest for the leadership of the Green Party has not been subject to all that much competition. This was mainly due to the limited (but steadily increasing) numbers of individuals who could gain the level of exposure and experience needed to be a credible leadership candidate, which in turn was due to:
Limited media attention paid to the Greens;
More limited opportunity to campaign using social media;
Difficulty in engaging with members other than face-to-face (the pre-Zoom era!);
Few Greens holding elected positions (e.g. going from <200 councillors to >850 now); and
A much smaller membership (nearly quintupling between 2013 and now).
2014
This was the ultimate coronation, with Natalie Bennett the only candidate for leader, and gaining 94% of the vote on a low 15% turnout.
The deputy leadership role was more contested, Amelia Womack convincingly winning her first term, and the re-standing incumbent (Will Duckworth) was edged out by Shahrar Ali (both Amelia and Shahrar will be recurring characters).
I became active in the party in summer 2014 as Coordinator of Southwark Green Party, around about the time of the 2014 leadership election, and I have to confess that I don’t remember this election at all! But I don’t find that too surprising because the leader role wasn’t contested, I didn’t attend the hustings, and I didn’t then know any of the deputy leadership candidates.
2016
After 4 years as leader, and a tough 2015 General Election campaign that had seen the Green Surge then recede following Labour’s selection of Jeremy Corbyn as leader, Natalie Bennett did not re-stand (but remained very active and was elevated to the Lords in 2019).
Instead, Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley stood as co-leaders, challenged by five other candidates. It was another coronation election, with Caroline and Jonathan getting 87% of the vote on a 30% turnout (double that of 2014), but this was unsurprising given that Caroline had by far the highest profile Green at the time, and the other candidates had very little profile (again I can’t remember anything about any of them.)
With Caroline and Jonathan clear shoo-ins for the leader, this meant that only one deputy leader post would be available. Seven candidates stood, including the two incumbents. As mentioned, the deputy leader role gives incumbents the opportunity (if they take it) to build a reputation for helping local parties with their campaigns. Amelia Womack was a clear and deserved winner, having visited and inspired scores of local parties and campaigns (I worked closely with her when she stood in the 2015 General Election as the candidate for Camberwell and Peckham, achieving one of the party’s best results). While Shahrar could communicate effectively, e.g. I remember his powerful Conference speeches, he seemingly did not build that same level of support across the party, and came third behind the then (and still) long-standing councillor Andrew Cooper.
2018
Caroline Lucas announced she was stepping back as co-leader to concentrate on representing her constituency (a wise move given we ended up with another General Election the next year). Siân Berry then partnered with Jonathan Bartley to run as co-leaders, challenged by Shahrar Ali and one other candidate. Siân had a good profile, especially in London (as a councillor in Camden and having been our candidate for Mayor in 2008 and 2016), and nationally having been Green Party Principal Speaker back in 2006-7. Jonathan had by then been elected as a councillor and leader of the opposition in Lambeth, and had built his profile e.g. through representing the Greens in the 2017 General Election debates. I particularly liked his prescient take on Boris Johnson, and remember how more bizarrely he revealed how he had accidentally killed a pedestrian. Again, this was a clear win for the favourites, getting 75% of the vote on a reduced turnout of 24%.
This again meant there was only one deputy leader role, for which Amelia Womack stood again, and having continued her work with local parties across the country, she beat Andrew Cooper (and the other 2 candidates) with 54% of the vote.
The contest picks up
The combination of two General Elections in a row (2017 and 2019), where the Greens had made little progress nationally, coupled with the widespread adoption of Zoom for hustings (driven by the Covid lockdowns), stronger candidates and some divisive policy issues, meant that leadership elections in the 20s resulted in much more debate and closer contests.
2020
Siân Berry, and Jonathan Bartley stood again as co-leaders, and were challenged again by Shahrar Ali, and also by Rosi Sexton. Shahrar and Rosi took very different approaches to their campaigns.
I recollect that Shahrar focused on a combination of policy and political strategy issues, notably disagreeing with the 2019 General Election Unite to Remain coalition, questioning the relative weighting given to issues like Brexit and the Covid pandemic relative to climate change, and challenging policy passed by Conference on trans rights and the direction of travel of the party on adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism (subsequently adopted by Conference).
These all happened to be issues that Siân and Jonathan had championed between them, and which I had generally supported, e.g. I had voted that we stand aside in my constituency as part of Unite to Remain.
Rosi presented a different challenge, generally backing Green Party policies (including strongly supporting Trans Rights), and hence focused her campaign on how to turn the Greens into a successful election-winning organisation. I believe that focus resulted from her experience as a councillor in Solihull, which back then was one of our most successful areas (Green Party election guru Chris Williams was a councillor there at the time, and the legendary Target to Win manual was written based in part on the experience and techniques they pioneered). Rosi also brought an unusual back story (an ex-Mixed Martial Arts professional fighter with a computer science PhD), who resonated with those of us who wanted to see the Greens become more effective at winning elections - this was still the early days of the Target to Win revolution - but ultimately my assessment was that she did not the necessary skills and experience compared to Siân and Jonathan .
The result was the closest leader election so far, being the first time since 2010 that the winner received less than 50% of the vote in the first round, triggering the transfer of voters’ preferences from eliminated candidates. In the first round, Shahrar came third, just behind Rosi, and was eliminated. In the second round, Siân and Jonathan received 58% of the vote, with Rosi getting 35%. Despite the increased competition, turnout fell again to just 15%. Rosi didn’t stand for any leadership positions again, and unfortunately eventually left the Greens in 2022 following issues with how the national party had addressed allegations of sexual harassment in her local party (update, as of 14-May, Rosi has rejoined - good news!)
Amelia Womack stood for the fourth time for the deputy leader role, and won again with 53% of the vote, beating Cleo Lake into second after the other 3 candidates had been eliminated.
2021 - unexpected leadership by-election
After five years in the role, Jonathan decided to resign as leader in July 2021, ostensibly to make space for a new generation of leaders ahead of the next General Election (he later decided not to re-stand as councillor in Lambeth in 2022, moved out of London, and has not as far as I am aware subsequently been active in the party). This triggered the first (and so far only) leadership by-election. Two weeks later, Siân announced that she would also not stand again:
…citing conflict within the party over transgender rights and claiming it had been a “failure of leadership” on her part that the party was sending “mixed messages”.
This all followed a close vote on self-identification for gender recognition certificates at the 2021 Spring Conference (I voted for the motion), and the issue would play a significant role in the contest that followed.
This was also the first time since 2016 that at least one incumbent co-leader was not standing for re-election, with the candidates being:
Carla Denyer (then a councillor in Bristol, and had been the candidate for the target seat of Bristol West in 2019) and Adrian Ramsay (deputy leader 2008-12, but had been less active in the party subsequently);
Amelia Womack (aiming to make the step up from deputy leader) and Tam Omond (a founding member of XR);
Shahrar Ali (again);
Two other candidacies that together got less than 5% of the vote (so I won’t be covering them any further):
Martin Hemingway and Tina Rothery;
Ashley Gunstock: making his second run for the leadership, having stood in the first ever leadership election back in 2008 (I feel his candidacy illustrates why it should need more than 20 co-proposers to get nominated).
Carla and Adrian picked up the baton from Rosi on building the Green Party’s ability to win elections (Adrian was one of the authors of the original Target to Win manual). The were together generally supportive of Green Party policy, but took different emphasises on what they individually championed - e.g. Carla was more vocal on trans rights, but Adrian never contradicted their joint position.
Amelia and Tam also focused more on broadening the groups supporting the Greens as the route to getting more Greens elected, pitching the combination of Amelia’s deep knowledge and proven party leadership with Tam’s movement organisation and media experience. They were of course very strong on trans rights.
By this stage, Shahrar was basically remixing his previous campaigns’ messages, still claiming that the current leadership was at fault and claiming not to be transphobic, but clashing with other leadership candidates over that issue.
For me, this was by far the toughest leadership election. I had worked closely with Amelia back in 2015, and knew how deep her commitment was to the party. I was, however, already bought into the need to get Target to Win embedded into the party, which was the approach being championed by Carla and Adrian, and wasn’t convinced that we would successfully tap into e.g. XR sympathisers (as I understood Tam’s proposed approach). I also felt that Tam seemed less engaged with the party (and they did leave the party c. 6 months after this), and less credible as a party leader than Carla, Adrian or Amelia. On balance, I therefore went with Carla and Adrian.
Turnout picked up to 22%, with the result being the closest so far, with the first round putting Shahrar in third on 21%, Amelia and Tam on 30%, and Carla and Adrian on 43%. The second round transferred preferences from the eliminated candidates resulted in Carla and Adrian picking up many more votes to get 62%, with Amelia and Tam on 38%
2022
This was the regular contest, but because of the previous year’s leadership by-election, it was for the deputy leadership only. After 8 years of unstinting commitment to the deputy leader role, and after her defeat in the 2021 leadership election, we sadly said goodbye to Amelia.
With the field open, four candidates stepped up, including Shahrar Ali (his sixth candidacy), Nick Humberstone, London Assembly Member Zack Polanski and Tyrone Scott, an activist in Hackney who at that time had just missed out on election as a councillor. With all the candidates based in London, it was the least geographically diverse leadership election we’ve had.
Zack won, with Tyrone a close second after the elimination of Shahrar and Nick in the first round. Zack had demonstrated again the campaigning skills that had helped him win third place in the Green Party’s London Assembly List, and hence get elected to the London Assembly. Shahrar’s approach was, I felt, particularly unsuited to the role of deputy leader, as I didn’t think he had demonstrated any real commitment to the hard work of leafleting and canvassing needed to get Greens elected (he blocked me on Twitter during the campaign for asking him to demonstrate that commitment).
2024 - the year without a contest
With the possibility of a snap election at any time, and definitely an election no later than Jan-25, Conference voted to extend the terms of the incumbents so that the leadership election would not clash with an election (imagine we had stuck to the timetable - we’d only have had nominations close 4 days before the General Election!)
Conclusions
We have never had a truly divisive election - even 2021 was relatively clear cut in the second round. As such the party has never had to deal with two very highly organised and driven campaigns, so the 2025 election will be a first. While overall, this is very much a good thing, we need to ensure that throughout the contest, we continue to treat all members (candidates and their supporters) with respect and on the basis that everyone is acting in good faith. Both sides need to be prepared to win magnanimously and lose gracefully, ready to bring the party quickly together so that we can focus our energies on winning hundreds of new councillors in the 2026 elections.
What happens next?
We won’t know the definitive list of candidates until nominations close on 30-Jun, but I expect all the serious contenders for both leadership roles to have announced before nominations open on 02-Jun. (But we do know is that it will be the first contest since 2012 not to feature Shahrar Ali).
In my next articles on these elections, I will set out what I believe we need to see from our leadership candidates, and how the campaigns are progressing. I will also cover the less glamorous, but with the Greens’ governance model, still important, contests for the Green Party Executive roles.
In the meantime, while it is rightly impossible to forget how dangerous the threat is from Reform and how timid and craven Labour has been in government, I hope all candidates also keep this at the forefront of their campaigns⬇️
Note
The official role descriptions have not been released at the time of publishing, so for the leader role, I’ve used this earlier version.
In response to this article, Adam Ramsay has posted some background on the 2012 contest: