Summary
- Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley have been elected joint leaders of the Greens at the party’s annual conference, promising to combat the “fear, inequality and hopelessness” that has arisen since the EU referendum campaign. As Peter Walker reports, Lucas, the Greens’ sole MP, and Bartley, the party’s work and pensions spokesman, won 86% of first-preference votes in a result announced at the start of the conference on Friday in Birmingham. Taking over from Natalie Bennett, who announced in May that she was standing down, it will be the first job-share at the top of a major UK political party. Lucas, who led the party from 2008-12, used her section of a joint acceptance speech to lambast the legacy of Brexit, describing a political landscape where “trust has been shattered and the truth lies buried”. “At what point did it become OK to produce posters so dehumanising, so degrading and so despicable that they are compared to 1930s propaganda – even by a Conservative chancellor of the exchequer?” she said, referring to a Brexit campaign billboard created by the Nigel Farage-helmed unofficial leave campaign.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Neal Lawson says one of the good things about the basic income idea is that it opens up a debate about what is a good society, and how should people be spending their time.
It is important to work out the technical details of this plan, he says.
But the most important thing to do is to build the narrative about this, and speak to people about it as human beings.
He says the basic income scheme should be piloted. He says you could pilot it with just 30 people. The way it would transform people’s lives, by giving them security, would be remarkable, he says.
He says politicians will be the last people who realise why this is such a good idea.
He says he does not believe in silver bullets in politics. But he says this idea is the best equivalent - a policy that could transform people’s lives.
Compass has produced a report on the basis income proposal that you can read here.
At the fringe meeting Neal Lawson says it is time to sell this idea to the country. And it has to be sold on the basis of emotion, not just facts, he says.
The Labour pollster James Morris is taking issue with one line in Caroline Lucas’s speech.
Nonsense from Lucas - Leave campaign was the one about control; our poll showed their voters most motivated by hope https://t.co/WuHvTf2yjC
— James Morris (@JamesDMorris) September 2, 2016
And here is some more Twitter comment on the Lucas/Bartley speech from two Guardian colleagues.
From my Peter Walker
Not the toughest audience, given 86% mandate, but Lucas & Bartley did well. They're fluent & seem able to distinguish message from Labour
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 2, 2016
From Ben Quinn
Is that @paulmasonnews vision of Labour attracting a large chunk of Green voters suddenly a more distant one?https://t.co/0oJuG84No9
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) September 2, 2016
I didn’t like the Lucas/Bartley speech strategy, but the BBC’s Mark Lobel thought it was a success.
Bartley & Lucas both strong speakers - audience appear tolove back and forth speech making - gives them each chance to catch their breath
— Mark Lobel (@marklobel) September 2, 2016
I’m sitting in the Green fringe meeting discussing the party’s plans for a universal basic income. The session was headlined “universal basic income: desirable and feasible?” but from the contributions so far there does not seem to be much support for the idea that it is not desirable. The first speaker was Neal Lawson, head of the pluralistic Labour pressure group Compass, and he praised the Greens for pioneering the idea.
Really lovely speech in favour of a citizens income by @Neal_Compass - it's about believing the best of people #gpconf
— Elisabeth Whitebread (@ElisabethJane) September 2, 2016
There was then a speech from Clive Lord, the 81-year-old leadership contender (he came fourth) who has been promoting the idea for years. And we are now listening to another basic income supporter how has been criticising the Guardian’s coverage of the idea last year. Bad move. My colleague Zoe Williams, who is speaking on a later panel, is in the room.
Now the Green party man is slagging of Guardian and Observer journalists. Like WE'RE THE ENEMY #greenparty
— (((Zoe Williams))) (@zoesqwilliams) September 2, 2016
Yeah, those Telegraph types, who don't believe in climate change. They're actually ok when you get to know them. #greenparty
— (((Zoe Williams))) (@zoesqwilliams) September 2, 2016
But Guardian journalists who didn't correctly read my research on the Basic Citizens Income, they boil my piss. #greenparty
— (((Zoe Williams))) (@zoesqwilliams) September 2, 2016
Green party leadership election results in full
Here are the Green party leadership election results in full.
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley: 13,570
David Malone: 956
David Williams: 527
Clive Lord: 173
Martie George Warin: 133
Simon Ashley Cross: 108
The Lucas/Bartley speech - Snap verdict
The Lucas/Bartley speech - Snap verdict: There may well be a case for a job share leadership, but it will be a long time before job share speeches catch on. Caroline Lucas and her co-leader Jonathan Bartley delivered their first leaders’ speech in tandem - with one delivering one passage, before handing over to the other - and as a result it sounded a bit a school show and tell. The writing was strong, Lucas and Bartley are both confident speakers, but this format meant the speech never really built up any rhetorical momentum.
That aside, and turning to the content, it was fine. It did not say anything particularly surprising, but Lucas and Bartley delivered a robust critique of the conduct of the EU referendum, and of inequality, and they presented a solid, progressive vision. There was relatively little environmentalism in it, but much more on the case for political reform, even if they were vague on what a progressive alliance with Labour might look like. The Greens seem quite serious about collaborating with Labour because, although Lucas and Bartley were damning about the Tories, they said virtually nothing critical of Labour, apart from Bartley’s sharp opening joke - “we stand here, more united as party with two leaders than others are with one” - which may well be the line from the speech most likely to be remembered.
Lucas is now winding up.
Conference, it’s been said that “We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision”.
We write history by resisting the climate crisis. By resisting the cruelty unleashed by the unbridled capitalism of May and Cameron and those who came before them. And by standing up for the majority currently locked out of politics and denied a voice.
In this unprecedented post-truth, post referendum world, our resistance is more important than ever. The distinctive Green Party message matters more than ever.
Our party is forging a new model of 21st century citizenship. A common purpose, rich with the renewal that’s possible when we have leadership shared with tens of thousands of members.
A shared vision that can – and will - change everything.
Conference, let’s seize this moment.
Let’s be the natural home for all those who want a fair, equal and Green Britain.
Conference, let’s write history by moving forwards together.
Lucas and Bartley are now getting a standing ovation.
Bartley says he and Lucas are committed to exploring potential for progressive alliances.
Bartley says he and Lucas are committed to exploring the potential for progressive alliances.
Every vote needs to count. So we are resolute in wanting to explore the potential for progressive alliances with other parties that will deliver fair votes. That will deliver more elected Greens than ever before.
We are the party of ideas and this is a big one. So we need to have a proper conversation. Starting here at conference and continuing in our local parties, and in our communities.
Over a million people voted Green at the last general election. They deserve to have their views represented in parliament.
We owe it to them to be more ambitious than achieving just 1 MP - however formidable she is!
A progressive alliance can mean different things in different constituencies. But it will not be top down and it will be up to you.
This doesn’t mean letting go of what makes us distinct. We remain resolute in our opposition to Trident, to fracking, to airport expansion – at Gatwick, Heathrow or anywhere else. Resolute in our determination to make every home a warm one. Every wage a living one. And everyone’s future more secure.
And our message to others who share a belief in a progressive modern Britain is this. Old tribal loyalties are dying and voters can no longer be taken for granted.
The era of two party politics is over. It’s the voting system that is still stuck in the past.
Bartley is speaking now, and he says Britain needs a new political settlement.
We can do this with a new political settlement that will crack open the system and pave the way for a radical new relationship between the regions and the centre.
Conference, there have been decisive times in our nation’s history when the momentum for major changes in the contract between our government and the governed has been unstoppable. We are at such a moment today.
The cry to ‘take back control’ was a raw and angry one. It was a reaction to the way power and moneyhave drifted to the centre.
Greens value, know and understand the power of the local, the power of place and we can be at the forefront of rebalancing democracy.
Lucas says the Greens are committed to equality, and that they will do more to promote diversity in the party.
We are pleased to pledge our commitment to announce to increasing diversity and equalities within our own party.
And we have asked Tooting member Esther Obiri Darko to advise and help us.
Together we can do much better and build a party that reflects modern Britain, by working with each and every one of you to make that a reality.
Lucas demands “green ownership”.
Green ownership is about having a stake in what matters, because how else are people supposed to care?
It means democratising the economy, with banks to serve the people not the other way round.
Corporate taxation back under control, and financial structures that answer to you, not to the City of London and its shareholders.
We need an economy of, by and for the people.
Bartley accuses Tories of “weaponising” welfare
Bartley says the Greens will defend the welfare state.
For those for whom the ground is always shifting, the British welfare state, set up in momentous times, is a lifeline. In these equally momentous times, we want to reclaim our welfare system from the clutches of those using it to attack and threaten those in need.
In just a few generations, instead of being something to be celebrated and cherished, it has become something to be dismantled and destroyed.
But the welfare state is about the kind of world we want to live in. A contract we strike with one another, to stand together when the going gets tough. It’s based on collective agreement and consent.
And conference, as the government weaponises welfare in pursuit of a corrupt and morally bankrupt ideology, we say loudly and clearly, we do not consent.
- Bartley accuses Tories of “weaponising” welfare.
Bartley says the Green plan for a universal basic income is now being considered by Labour.
They used to laugh when we talked about this idea, but our party – and, to be fair, some members more than others - persisted. And now, as with so many of our policies, and thanks to your work, on councils, in the media, in your communities, the ground has shifted.
Bartley is speaking now, and he turns to inequality.
We need a radical redistribution of both wealth and power.
When I was younger, we were promised that one day everything would change. New technology would mean we would all be richer, and work fewer hours.
But today’s economy has not delivered security or wellbeing.
Baking a bigger pie so a few more crumbs will fall from the table, doesn’t work.
Modern capitalism has delivered excesses that are not just divisive, but morally unacceptable.
Only a great realignment can narrow the inequalities gap that is fracturing Britain.
Inequality is a criminal and cynical loss of human potential.
Lucas proposes 'blue new deal' for people in coastal communities.
Lucas proposes a “blue new deal” for people in coastal communities.
Instead, imagine a new plan that will meet our obligations to future generations.
A plan that will create jobs in every part of the country.
Imagine modernising the UK infrastructure so Britain’s future can be energy lean and time rich.
Local communities, empowered to take control of their own energy futures. The security of an affordable – and solar panel clad - roof over everyone’s head.
And imagine not just our ground breaking Green New Deal, but a ‘Blue New Deal’ for the 11 million people who live in coastal communities like my constituency of Brighton Pavilion.
The first Green led council in Britain helped secure one of the country’s biggest off shore wind farms.
Imagine Britain as a world leader in renewable technology, investing in green power.
Lucas says fossil fuels must remain 'firmly and safely in the ground'
Lucas calls for a green industrial strategy.
My parents grew up during the Second World War. They were part of a generation that came together to stand up for what they believed in.
We urgently need that unity of purpose and spirit once again, as we rise to face the greatest threat to our security today – the accelerating climate crisis.
And the Greens must tackle climate change, she says.
A year which is now on record as the hottest ever and where half the Arctic Sea ice has disappeared, demands immediate investment in a green and prosperous energy future.
And conference that also means a solid commitment to leaving fossil fuels where they belong – firmly and safely in the ground.
This gets the loudest round of applause so far.
- Lucas says fossil fuels must remain “firmly and safely in the ground”.
Bartley says EU referendum exposed how we live in 'an age of insecurity'
Bartley says the EU referendum exposed “an age of insecurity marked by vast inequalities of opportunity and aspiration.”
A world where globalisation, centralisation and new technologies leave so many behind.
Where a shocking one in three working families are just a month’s pay packet away from losing their homes.
Where Sports Direct, Uber and Deliveroo are getting rich off workers who aren’t even guaranteed the minimum wage.
Where turning up for a training session with Byron Burger is a fast track to deportation.
Friends, Britain is crying out for real opposition and the Green Party must be it.
Green policies are about giving people control of their lives, Lucas says.
Green politics is about giving people real control – and that means looking forwards not backwards.
Taking control of our democracy
Taking control of our railways so they are owned by the public.
Taking control of the NHS, and keeping it firmly out of private hands
Taking control of our energy systems, our banking system, our schools, and our communities.
They belong to all of us and the politics of hope will give all of us control.
In Lambeth in South London, where Jonathan comes from, Greens have been battling a Labour council that is ignoring local people. It’s closing libraries and destroying people’s homes and communities.
One older resident, Barbara, came to the Green Party, and told us that the Council planned to bulldoze her sheltered housing.
Well, we Greens helped the residents save their homes. They elected a Green councillor. And Barbara has joined the Green party.
Lucas says the leaders of the Brexit campaign lied.
The leaders of the Brexit campaign lied about money for the NHS. They lied about immigration. They lied about a post referendum plan. And they lied about giving people back control.
And then they ran away.
Bartley says the Greens must listen to the concerns of people in places like Stoke, Yorkshire and Humberside and South Wales, where deindustralisation has left “high and dry”.
We must listen to concerns about housing, about health, about crime.
And yes to people’s fears about immigration too. A fear stoked up by those using it as a convenient scapegoat or distraction.
And let’s be clear, here and now – it’s the government who are the blame. Free movement is not to blame for low wages. Migrants are not to blame for stretched public services. Our neighbours are not to blame if we cannot get a school place, a job or a home.
Bartley is speaking now. He turns to PR.
One of the reasons people feel disaffected is because our democracy is broken. This country has a completely dysfunctional electoral system where – outside a handful of marginal swing seats – your views, your voice – and your vote – count for nothing.
Conference if we’re to set about healing the deep divisions, which this referendum has laid bare, then we urgently need to build a more representative, inclusive democracy. And Conference, that can only be brought about by reforming our antiquated, outdated, redundant electoral system.
Lucas says Greens want a second referendum on final Brexit deal
Lucas says Theresa May may say that Brexit means Brexit, but people do not know what that means.
We cannot accept a deal that doesn’t offer hope and security to both those who voted to Leave and those who voted to Remain.
Whether it’s the environmental protections, workers’ rights, a culture of peace and free movement that the EU has delivered - all these must be at the heart of any future outside Europe.
We have to turn the defeat of the referendum into a gain for real democracy, based on truthful debate.
We stand by our guarantee to give people a voice.
That’s why our Party says, loudly and proudly, we the people should continue to have our say. And once the principles of any new deal have been set out, we want them put to a second referendum.
- Lucas says Greens want a second referendum on final Brexit deal.
Lucas says she is proud the Greens fought a “uniquely positive and wholehearted” campaign.
But I will never forget the heartbreak in the early hours of the 24 June, when the results of the referendum started to come through.
That sense of utter devastation – it felt to me like the death of something, that whilst flawed, was still infinitely precious.
So much could be lost, but I have one immediate fear about what might happen next.
Lucas says she is particularly concerned about the fate of EU nationals living in the UK.
It’s for the people from other EU nations who have built their lives here in good faith.
People whom the government is now cynically using as bargaining chips as it tries to negotiate its way out of a mess of its own making.
So conference, we give a guarantee today, to the EU nationals who have made their home here: You are as much a part of Britain’s future as we are. You help make our country great and we will continue to fight for your right to stay.
Lucas is speaking now. She turns to the EU referendum.
A divided country scarred in so many places by fear, inequality and hopelessness.
Trust has been shattered and the truth lies buried.
And at what point did it become OK to produce posters so dehumanising, so degrading and so despicable that they are compared to 1930s propaganda – even by a Conservative chancellor of the Exchequer?
Our political class – so gravely out of touch that they are surprised when years of scapegoating migrants for our social and economic ills come home to roost.
Bartley says the Greens did well in the West Midlands in May. They have 27 councillors on 11 councils.
Bartley says he is particularly pleased to be in Birmingham.
The city that was the home of the Cadbury family. Important to me personally, and I am sure for Caroline too. And not just because of our love of chocolate!
The Cadburys were part of a social revolution. A revolution that began with one of my own ancestors, the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry.
Working together, the Quakers brought radical change. They set up the town of Bournville, just a few miles from here. They showed the world how decent housing and a green environment were vital to everyone’s wellbeing.
Lucas and Bartley address conference
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley are addressing the conference.
Bartley starts.
We are incredibly proud to be the first leaders of a political party in this country to be job sharing. Demonstrating both the power of working together and the importance of striking a healthy balance between work and family and other commitments.
We stand here, more united as Party with two leaders than others are with one.
That gets a big round of applause.
Natalie Bennett is speaking now. She says she has had a wonderful four years as leader.
She will give a proper speech tomorrow, she says, so she won’t “hog the microphone now”.
But the party will move on to “much, much more”, she says.
Amelia Womack and Jonathan Bartley thank the members. And Caroline Lucas thanks Natalie Bennett, the outgoing leader. She gets a large round of applause and a standing ovation.
Lucas says, under Bennett, the Green party has “reached more people than ever before”.
Lucas and Bartley elected co-leaders with 86% of first-preference votes
Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley have been elected co-leaders with 86% of the first preference votes.
Mallender says Amelia Womack has been re-elected deputy leader.
Richard Mallender, chair of the Green party executive, is announcing the leadership results.
Six times as many people voted as in 2012, he says.
Here is the Green’s Adam Ramsay on Natalie Bennett, who is in her last five minutes or so as party leader.
As she stands down as @TheGreenParty leader, worth remembering @natalieben's mantra: "the future of politics won't be the same as the past".
— Adam Ramsay (@AdamRamsay) September 2, 2016
...she's been pretty bloody right so far.
— Adam Ramsay (@AdamRamsay) September 2, 2016
This is from the BBC’s Peter Henley.
Haven't ever seen this many people (or cameras) at a Green Party Conference pic.twitter.com/DwVdfSn8IQ
— Peter Henley (@BBCPeterH) September 2, 2016
And this is from my colleague Peter Walker.
Scene at the Greens' conference, where we're about to get news of the new party leader (or leaders). pic.twitter.com/883FPGeIyC
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 2, 2016
At the conference the doors of the main hall have just been opened and members are filing in. There are seats for about 1,000 people and one of the organisers has just said she expects them all be be filled.
On the subject of progressive alliances, the Green House thinktank has produced this pamphlet (pdf) looking at how a pact could work.
In an article on the subject today for Left Foot Forward, the Green MP Molly Scott Cato and the activist and Green House chair Rupert Read argue that one reason Germany is successful industrially is because it has PR.
Now look across the water. The most striking example of a country that has benefited from Greens in power is Germany, which, of course, has a proportional representation electoral system.
Its industries are successful because Greens in government encouraged them to move into the new era of low carbon energy production before other European countries. Germany has turned its back on the dying nuclear age and is rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. Germany is the economy in Europe that is benefiting most from the energy transition that dangerous climate change requires of us all. It is Greens in government who enabled this process.
Natalie Bennett, the outgoing Green leader, has been tweeting from the conference.
Can promise there'll be plenty of support offered for our #NHS #juniordoctors throughout #gpconf. https://t.co/l69DsPly94
— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) September 2, 2016
Policy of @TheGreenParty - start formal education at least a year later. #gpconf https://t.co/QqnSJf2B0Q
— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) September 2, 2016
Before #gpconf I chatted to @ashcowburn from @Independent - looking forward and back https://t.co/V92Sqp6Ktr
— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) September 2, 2016
A Green 'progressive alliance' with Labour ? - 4 options
This evening, at 6.30pm, there will be a panel discussion on progressive alliances, with speakers including Neal Lawson from the pluralist Labour group Compass. Like most small parties the Greens are very strong supporters of proportional representation (for obvious reasons - it took more than 1m votes to elect just one Green MP) . But there is no prospect of PR for Westminster arriving anytime soon and so currently there is an active debate in the party about how the Greens could cooperate electorally with Labour and other parties on the left. Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley have made this an issue in their leadership campaign (their slogan is “the power of working together”) and Lucas is the joint editor, with the Labour MP Nisa Nandy and the Lib Dem activist Chris Bowers of a new book called The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics which features essays about how progressive politicians from different parties might work together.
There are various ideas floating around about how Labour and the Greens could work together. Here are four options.
1 - A proper pact - or an alliance called Plaform
The new book, The Alternative, does not make any firm proposals for Labour/Green cooperation. But in their conclusion Lucas and her co-authors quote at length a proposal from the Guardian journalist Stephen Moss, who wrote a long feature last summer looking at the possibility of building a new party of the left. He floated the idea of an alliance called Platform, featuring four partners: a socialist Labour, a social democrat Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens. He suggested they could agree a set of common values and policies, and then in any seat put up the candidate (ie, Socialist Platform) most likely to win. The others could stand aside, or just put up paper candidates.
2 - A progressive kitemark
Lucas, Nandy and Bowers also float another idea in The Alternative - a progressive kitemark. They write:
Another [idea] might be for the progressives to establish a ‘progressive kite mark’ to which candidates at the 2020 election (and even earlier elections) could sign up to demonstrate to their electorate a commitment to a core set of priorities, which would include red lines for all the parties involved. This kind of pre-election identification could also help to prepare the ground for post-election cooperation without any formal agreement needing to happen before the election.
Interestingly Paddy Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, is currently promoting a similar idea.
3 - Informal “non-compete” agreement
The most basic form of cooperation involves parties coming to an understanding, privately, they they won’t try very hard in each other’s target seats at an election. Labour and the Lib Dems operated on this basis in 1997.
4 - Formal “non-compete” agreements in certain areas
Adam Ramsay, the Open Democracy co-editor and Green activist, floated this in an article on the case for a progressive alliance earlier this summer.
On the nature of an electoral pact, there is a spectrum of options ... My preference is something in the middle.
Specifically, political activist and electoral statistics geek Elliot Folan conveniently outlined what such a deal might look like a number of months ago. They highlighted a list of seats in which it might be sensible for Labour to stand down for the Greens and vice versa, without going the whole hog and withdrawing candidates en mass. How many each party stood aside in would have to be the result of a tricky negotiation between respective central and national parties, and I think Greens should be willing to ask for quite a lot: after all, it would be Labour who would get to be in government. Ultimately, for Greens, such a deal could offer a serious chance to elect two or three more MPs. Let’s be honest: that’s unlikely otherwise.
There is, though, one rather significant problem with all these proposals, and that is that the Labour leadership has shown very little interest in any form of alliance with the Greens.
Lucas said last month that her office had been told by Jeremy Corbyn’s office that he had “not shut the door” on the idea of talking about a cross-party electoral alliance. But Corbyn himself has said during the Labour leadership contest that he does not favour a progressive alliance. At one hustings meeting he said that Labour was “different from any other party” and growing very quickly on its own. He may like Lucas personally (many Labour MPs do) but, with Labour currently hoovering up the Greens’ voters, he has little incentive to form some pact with them.
Updated
There has been some controversy about Caroline Lucas’s decision to stand again for the leadership. This is what Matt Townsend, a Green activist, wrote in an article for Open Democracy in June.
The announcement by Caroline about returning as leader, I believe, has meant that most who were considering running campaigns now won’t put their name forward. I am sure there will be some competition, but the general expectation is of a coronation rather than a real contest. Caroline is the Green Party’s only national household name politician. Unless something amazing happens, there is a risk the contest has already been killed off ...
[Bartley] is relatively unknown within the Green Party outside London. By being on a joint ticket with Caroline, he could become a co-leader of the party without any mandate of his own. He could ride in to the role on her coattails instead of earning his place through an open and fair contest which would have enabled him to become better known, test how the party feels about him and build up his profile ...
It’s easy to see how the Lucas-Bartley campaign can be justified. Two experienced media-savvy politicians, based in London and the South East, working together, for the good of the party – the end justifies the means. But does it really? Or maybe this kind of top-down decision-making by a party establishment just removes opportunities and ends fairness.
In a Left Foot Forward article in June Josiah Mortimer acknowledged that some members were unhappy about Lucas standing on a joint ticket with Bartley, but he defended their decision to put themselves forward.
The Greens haven’t done co-leadership since scrapping principal speakers around 2008. It’s an exciting democratic model that’s worth drawing the best elements from – and it’s clear that the two candidates’ qualities complement each other: Caroline – high profile, Jon – highly organised.
This is from Archie Thomas, the Green party’s press manager.
1,200 due to attend #GPConf in #Birmingham - approx. 40% are first-timers.
— Archie Thomas (@Archie_Thomas) September 2, 2016
Peter and I have arrived at the conference. It’s in the University of Birmingham’s Great Hall, and very smart it is too.
Made it to #gpconf
— Colin Boyle (@colin_boyle_) September 2, 2016
It's not quite as sunny as Bournemouth was last year. pic.twitter.com/8uxDTloUnR
Peter was taken with the reception at Birmingham University station.
Woman directing people to Greens' conference from the station is standing next to her bike & holding knitting. Wouldn't get that at Ukip
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 2, 2016
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s preview story about the conference.
Here is some more Green party conference background reading.
Green leadership election candidates
The Greens have not just been electing a new leader (or leaders). They have been holding a deputy leadership election too, and elections for various other party posts. There is a full list of the party posts and candidates here.
And here are short profiles of the leadership election candidates.
Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas (job share)
For many people Lucas is the Green party. A former MEP, and the only Green MP (she has represented Brighton Pavilion since 2010), she led the party from 2008 until 2012 and, even after she stepped down (she said she wanted others in the party to have a chance to raise their profile), she found it hard not to overshadow her successor, Natalie Bennett. An excellent media performer and accomplished parliamentarian, she is one of the few people in the party one could easily imagine serving in cabinet.
Bartley, from Lambeth in south London, is the party’s work and pensions spokesman. A former researcher for the Conservative party in the 1990s, he is the founder of a Christian thinktank, Ekklesia, and he has been active in the Green party for some years, standing as a candidate in London elections. He has a disabled son (and achieved prominence in the 2010 general election when he challenged David Cameron on camera over Tory policies on inclusive education) and he cites being a parent as one reason why he is applying for the leadership as a job share.
Lucas and Bartely want to form a new “progressive alliance”. Lucas told the Guardian earlier this summer: “I really think there is an appetite out there now for a less tribal politics ... There is a sense, which we felt very strongly with the job share idea itself, that more ideas, the more plural your politics, the more likely they will be effective, and reach more people”.
The Lucas/Bartley website is here.
Clive Lord
Clive Lord is virtually a founder member of the Green party, having joined in March 1973, five months after it was set up. Aged 81 (although “remarkably fit for my age”, he says in his election statement), he says he is only standing because his preferred candidate, Andrew Cooper, did not put himself forward. Cooper is standing for the deputy leadership and Lord says that, if elected, he would hope Cooper could do much of the work.
Lord wants the Green party to get back to focusing on how to save the planet. Sustainability requires “de-growth”, he argues. He says he once proposed “a recession can be fun” as a slogan, but that fortunately “wiser (?) counsels prevailed”.
Here is Lord’s website.
David Malone
Malone is a filmmaker who makes documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 and who also writes about finance and economics. He published a book about the financial crash, The Debt Generation, and his pitch for the leadership is that the party should focus more on economics. “It seems to me that one of the defining facts of our times is that around the world the established political parties have surrendered to the idea that economics and finance no longer need to be under democratic control,” he says. “This is wrong and dangerous.”
Here is Malone’s website.
Martie Warin
Aged 27, Warin is the youngest candidate. A musician and parish councillor from County Durham, he describes himself as an ecosocialist and says “socialism is the philosophy of caring, capitalism, the philosophy of the greedy, ecosocialism is the philosophy of caring for the future”. A member of the GMB, he also says that “it is about time the Green party tried harder to forge robust alliances with trade unions, as the values that we hold dear and the values of the trade unions go hand in hand.”
Simon Cross
A Green party campaigner for many years, and a general election candidate in Rochford and Southend East in 2015, Cross has said that he wants the party to “rehabilitate progressive taxation” and that this requires two things: “raising taxes fairly and explaining them honestly”.
David Williams
Williams spent 20 years as a Labour councillor and stood for parliament for the party three times. But he left the party in 2003, “not simply because they had launched the Iraq war but because they had adopted the philosophy and policies of Thatcherism”. Since then he has been leader of the Green group on Oxford city council and he is currently leader of the Green group on Oxfordshire county council.
He says that he is a great supporter of Lucas, but that he is standing because he does not want to see the party have a “coronation”. He says the Greens are “a political party not an environmental pressure group” and that, if elected leader, he would tour the country building up the party.
Here is William’s website.
One of the defining stories in British politics since 2010 has been the rise of insurgency parties. Ukip went from a party attracting under 1m votes (3.1%) in the general election six years ago to one getting 3.9m votes (12.6%) in 2015. The SNP transformed itself from a party that was seen as lucky to form a minority administration in Edinburgh to one that is now the unchallenged party of government in Scotland, with almost all the countries’ MPs. And, in a less dramatic way, the same trended boosted the Greens. In 2010 they got just 286,000 votes (1%). Last year they were up to 1.2m (3.8%.) and their leader, Natalie Bennett, achieved prominence because she was included in the TV debates.
But since then the Green party has collided with an obstacle - called Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s purist, anti-capitalist, green-tinged radicalism overlaps to a considerable degree with the Green party’s policy platform. It is not just that Corbyn has an allotment; at the general election the Greens’ flagship policy proposal was for a citizen’s income , and Corbyn and his team are now actively considering whether Labour should adopt the idea. As a result the Greens start their autumn conference today in Birmingham facing the challenge of how to compete or coexist with a Corbynite Labour party that seems to be stealing their USP.
They also have to choose a new leader, although in truth they have already done so because the voting is over. The result will be announced at 2pm. Caroline Lucas, the former leader and only Green MP, is standing along with Jonathan Bartley as a job share and, although there are five other candidates, Lucas and Bartley are the overwhelming favourites to be elected. Almost 15,000 members votes in the contest (a turnout of 34%) but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that this is only the second most important leadership election for Green party voters this summer. After last year’s Labour leadership election a YouGov analysis concluded that 40,000 of those voting in the contest were people who had voted Green in 2015. Overwhelmingly they were voting for Corbyn. It is likely that this year there are more Green voters from 2015 taking party in Labour’s leadership contest than in the Greens’.
I’m on a Virgin train to Birmingham at the moment (with a seat) and I will be covering the opening of the conference, as well as any other Green-related developments. After the results of the leadership election are announced, the new leaders, or leaders, will address the conference. There will also be a debate about the universal basic income proposal.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m @AndrewSparrow.
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