The prioritisation ballot of motions going forward to the Green Party of England and Wales Conference is now open. It will close at midnight on 27th August. All 65000 members of the Party are entitled to vote in this ballot, regardless of whether they register to take part in the event in Bournemouth or not.
This bizarre sytem has to be the darkest of the dark art which is the Green Party of England and Wales policy making process. Frustratingly, it also happens to be the most significant internal bi-annual political event in the life of the Party.
As with all organisations that pride themselves of being open and democratic but where members invited to excercise their right to vote to make decisions generally pay little attention to prodedures and timelines, any recommendation for preferred motions or candidates from influencial groups, internal factions or trusted individuals is far from ideal. However, this common practice will remain a necessary evil until a fairer and transparent system of accountability is debated, adopted and put in place.
As a duty towards our 10.6 K Green Light visitors and the thousands of GPEW supporters amongts those, we are therefore publishing our un-compromising Top 10 list of Organisational (D) motions and Policy (E) motions in the spirit of our 2025 mission statement and ranked in order of priority.
Because of the arcane counting method used, we recommend that you make the painfully laborious effort to rank all 26 D motions and all 33 E motions. This is because this will give your top 5 motions for each category more weight. If you only rank 5 motions, your top motion will score just 5 points , the second 4 points and so on. But if you rank all motions, your top motion will score 26/33 , the second 25/32 etc…Removing any motion from the ballot will also reduce the score allocated to your top motion by 1 for each motion crossed out. Further detailed guidance on how to drag and drop motions up and down the list is provided with the link to the ballot. Members will have been sent the link to their mail box on 14th August.
Here are The Green Light Top 5 D motions with a brief rationale
D04 – “Constitutional amendment..” – if not approved, the GPEW will fall foul of the Electoral Commission . A must.
D12 – ” Moving forward co-operatively ” – this is how Local Parties could gain control of governance and decision making with a co-operative model of incorporation ( already approved ) and where members of the Executive + Councillors and Local/Regional Officers would get automatic public liablity cover
D16 – ” Eliminate External Influence in GPEW demoracy – this is to stop candidates from shamelessly recruiting during an internal election campaign for their own gain by introducing a 3 months period before new members could vote
D23 – ” A trade union strategy to win ” – As the Labour Party is increasingly alienating some of its key affiliated Trade Unions, the GPEW should seek to organise and mobilise its own trade unions members so as to act more effectively in the trade union movement
D 25 – ” Electoral co-operation with other parties ” – this is probably the most controversial of our recommended list, but we feel that unless a fairer voting system is passed by Parliament before the next General Election, the GPEW cannot take the risk to let the Reform UK/Conservative Party achieve the largest number of MPs with less than 30% of the vote and form a government
And our Top 5 E motions – the titles speak for themselves
E 25 – ” Adapting our Strategy to the Timescales of Planetary Crises”
E22 – ” The GPEW and the Global Climate and Ecological Emergency”
E31 – ” Councillors to apply BDS for Palestine in Councils ”
E 18 – ” A new deal for carers”
E 32 – ” Motion on National Wealth Fund ”
The Green Light 