Green Party Leadership Election

You probably wouldn't know it from the media coverage at the moment, but the Green Party is having a leadership election at the moment, Whilst the Tories are united around their new leader as they continue to cut our public services to the bone and push more people into poverty and the Labour party is continuing its downward spiral into chaos as a Parliamentary Labour Party clearly out of touch with its membership continues to try and overthrow Jeremy Corbyn, the Greens are getting on with the small matter of electing a new leadership team and executive. Our well known former leader Natalie Bennett isn't standing again, meaning that the race should be wide open. Whilst Natalie has been in my view a fantastic leader; she has truly brought us onto the national stage and made us a force that is growing stronger all the time, I believe that she has made the right decision in not standing again. She can only be congratulated for her achievements, but it is time for someone to communicate the ideas she helped bring onto the national stage in an effective manner, and to make us not just visible but also credible.

The Green Party needs an effective speaker, someone who is not afraid of standing up for our policies, and is able to effectively defend them despite potential ridicule from the media and mainstream parties. And we need someone who is able to recognise that the environment is something we need to fight for, but so is social and economic justice. We need a leader that has practical ideas for how to implement our policies. It is for those reasons that I am supporting David Malone. Whilst I think regardless of who wins this leadership election the Greens will emerge stronger than ever before, David Malone is the one who truly understands the enormity of the task ahead. Unlike some of the more idealistic ones among us, he recognises that until we bring finance and economics back under democratic control we simply cannot implement Green policies successfully. He has also shown himself to be a competent speaker and debater, with his appearances at the Green Party hustings all highlighting his communication skills. He has also shown that he actually understands what he is talking about, with a clear ability to debate effectively, and has written a book "the Debt Generation" and helped produce a number of documentaries on a variety of issues, not just to do with politics. His acceptance of the EU referendum result and belief that we should not rerun the referendum simply because many Greens were unhappy with the result is also encouraging. Regardless of people's views on the result, and I am the first to accept that there were lies on all sides of the campaign, we must not simply decide the people were wrong and should be forced to keep voting until they make the right decision. Democracy must be held above all else.

Many outside and inside the party feel that the candidacy of Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley is almost guaranteed to win, but I have some reservations about this. Caroline Lucas is a former leader of the party, and she decided to step down to promote fresh blood into the party. She has now seemingly changed her mind and decided to stand as part of a job-share. Unfortunately it seems clear to me that it will be Lucas and not Bartley that is the face of this potential leadership, and goes directly against the idea that we should be diversifying the party and bringing new voices into prominent positions. We risk becoming a party with just one face, and whilst I have immense respect for Caroline Lucas as an MP, I feel that her focus should be on her fantastic parliamentary work whilst David Malone can provide a solid leadership for the party. As for Bartley, I feel that he could be a potential leader if he stood on a ticket by himself, but even then Malone comes across as a better candidate.

As for deputy leadership candidates, I think that all are more than capable of providing an effective leadership team regardless of the leader/co-leaders. However I have voted for Amelia Womack as my first preference due to her solidly left-wing and strong environmental views, her ability to engage people, trade unions and organisations, and her competency during the last two years as a deputy leader. With David Malone as leader, Amelia Womack and another as deputies, I believe the Green Party has huge potential to put together a successful leadership team and emerge stronger than ever as a united party in these tumultuous times. Regardless of the result, I wish the best of luck to all candidates and am convinced the Greens will continue to build from the grassroots up and expand to become a serious player in UK politics.