why the new leadership must address the party’s democractic deficit

Following its Autumn 2024 Conference in Manchester, the Green Party of England and Wales held its Annual General Meeting on 9 November. The number of participants to that online event fluctuated with a peak of 418. This was less than 0.8% of the membership.

The highest number of votes recorded was 334 for the Leadership Team Report. The Treasurer’s report was passed with 227 votes for and 52 against. The Regional Council Report was approved with 234 votes for and 108 against. The Disciplinary Committee Report – eagerly awaited by Greens in Exile and their growing number of supporters – was simply not put to a vote. Together with a troubling Minority report, both documents were meant to be re-submitted at the Spring 2025 Conference. That was cancelled….

Whilst successive Leaders of the GPEW keep boasting that the Party is highly democratic because decisions are made on a ‘one member one vote’ basis, the plain truth is that year in, year out, only a tiny – and diminishing – number of members actually make all the decisions regarding policies and internal elections for key roles for the governance of the Party.

If the democratic deficit wasn’t bad enough, what makes any boast of democratic credentials from Party Leaders, Spokespeoples and MPs utterly delusional is that Conference attendees who therefore determine policies and elect members of the Executive Committee are self-appointed. They are also at liberty to vote as they wish on the day or simply do not bothered to attend Plenary Sessions, nor do they take part in those internal elections.

Furthermore, a substantial number of (self-appointed) conference attendees are either detached from any Local Party because there are none for them to join where they live, or because they chose not to be connected to any local party so that they can focuss on promoting their Special Interest Group (SIG ).

This may perhaps explain why and how the Party has been so profoundly and easily ‘captured’ by identinarians and gender zealots as reported in this Green Light blog since its launch in February 2023. The “Supreme Body” of the Party which continues to be disconnected from the grass roots has in effect been run and controlled by a few hundred activists who care more about promoting Identity Politics than our fundamental green values of tolerance, openess, respect for difference voices and our environmental/ecological mission.

The way key Party decisions are made at Conference lacks transparency. And those who do make those decisions are in not accountable to any Local Party without which there actually would be no Green Party ! This is wrong and something has to be done to address such a fundamental flaw in the way the Party is structured and how it conducts its business.

With the chaos created from almost two decades of such enduring democratic deficit, not only are we also seeing Conference business allowed to be overrun and huge chunks of good policy motions systematically ‘falling off the agenda’, but established policies are now actually overturned from one conference to the next.

Had it not been, for example, for a direct and a timely intervention by Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle speaking against an amendment to C05 motion at the last Autumn Conference in Manchester, the 2024 Election Manifesto which played such an important part in the election of four Green MPs could have been retrospectively…unratified !

(Autumn Conference motions and Reports can be found here).

In other words, whilst the adoption or opposition to any motion has become as unpredictable as the number of attendees at any one Plenary Sessions, the way the vote goes can also be dependant on the geographical location of Conference.

Disappointingly, the opportunity offered to members to register online for all Plenary Sessions and be able to take part in voting on reports and motions does not appear to have made much of a difference to the quality of the debate or the number of members taking part in voting. Such provision has however addressed some issues with accessibility, but it will need much more resources to be invested in the digital team.

How long can the Green Party survive with such dysfunctional democracy coupled with the existing dominant and flawed identity ideology is hard to tell as it has otherwise turned into a relatively successful electoral campaign organisation.

But now caught between the threat of bankruptcy with potential fresh court cases under the Equality Act ( where “sex” has clearly been defined as meaning “biological” by the recent Supreme Court ruling ) with a deeply dysfunctional democracy and a decision making body disconnected from its grass roots, the future for our Party looks dangerously precarious.

Your comments are welcome : TheGreenLightBLog@protonmail.com