Green Party leadership candidates Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer set out their vision for the party's future
This is an exciting as well as an urgent time for the Green Party. From cities like Bristol and Sheffield to rural Suffolk, where Greens are now the only credible opposition to the Conservatives, the party is surging, and we have trebled our number of Councillors in the last few years.
Yet there is much more work to do. To take the party to the next level, we need a leadership team with a clear vision for change, a track record of winning elections, and a commitment to building an inclusive movement.
This is the leadership team that will give us our best shot at winning our next MP and empower elected Greens and activists to drive radical change.
A Green vision for a just transition
Front and centre of the Green message is action on the climate and ecological emergencies. Greens must oppose every road-building project, every airport expansion, every coal mine or oil facility. These carbon-intensive projects, which no other party has the courage to fight, must be replaced with a programme of green investment in the things that people actually need to live sustainably – a Green New Deal on transport, housing and food.
The Green Party is the only party with the big ideas – from a Universal Basic Income to a Green New Deal – that can challenge the unjust status quo. Elected Greens are already leading the way on these policies, taking our challenge to the establishment, the media, and to voters.
But we need more Greens elected, at every level, to really place Green ideas at the top of the political agenda and drive the change that activists and ordinary people are increasingly calling for.
Elected Greens driving change
As co-leaders with a combined experience of over two decades of winning elections, we would support local parties to continue the momentum we have built over the last few years and grow exponentially.
Greens are already surging in local councils, and as co-leaders we would champion the successes of Green-led councils from Lewes to Lancaster, showing that elected Greens are credible and can deliver on a Green vision. And we would help local parties to break through on other councils: by 2025 we aim to have elected 900 councillors in every corner of England and Wales. Our experience as prominent and long-standing councillors for the Green Party – unique among the current leadership candidates – means we know from direct experience how much of a difference our local councillors can make and how a committed leadership team can best support them.
We also need to take the Green Party to the next level. By 2025 our goal is to have won at least a second MP. Having a leadership team with in-depth knowledge of campaigning for parliamentary seats – Carla more than doubled the Green vote share in Bristol West in 2019, gaining the highest number of Green votes in any General Election outside Brighton – gives us our best shot at winning that crucial next MP.
Compassionate politics
Getting Greens elected and supporting a truly progressive movement also means doing politics differently.
As party leaders we would support the fundamental Green principles of inclusion and anti-discrimination. We would work with local parties and liberation groups such as Greens of Colour and LGBTIQA+ Greens to create spaces where activists can learn, engage, and work together to advance the compassionate form of politics that is at the heart of the Green vision.
We will seek to lead by example and, through a programme of genuinely inclusive movement-building, recruit and foster the next generation of activists as well as supporting those activists who are already working so hard.
By putting compassion back into politics, the Green Party can offer voters and activists an alternative to the tired and divisive tribalism of the major parties.
What unites Green Party members – both current and future – is a desire for positive change. It is by building such a movement, inclusive and focused on winning elections, that the Greens can grow exponentially at this crucial time. We need a dynamic, compassionate leadership and an engaged and growing base of activists to take the party to the next level with more elected Greens. With that vision, we can deliver the change that we urgently need.
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