In their report to the 2026 Annual General Meeting, the Standing Order Committee stated: “SOC would like to take the opportunity to reiterate the need for a space on the Party website for reporting of committee minutes as required by the Constitution” and “SOC have asked for this repeatedly and the request was in our report to the 2025 AGM”. They added: “The matter has been raised in questions on reports and this must be considered as a matter of urgency “.
In a comment to the Executive Committee report, Tony Firkins from the Policy Development Committee said: “when we had Green Spaces, local parties had a place within the Green Party firewall to hold their files” and asked ” when will the Green party provide such a function for local parties again, where is advice on what alternatives are commended ?”. He added ” I presume this is the remit of the Green Party Executive Local Party Support officer”.
The Local Party Support Officer and Oxford Councillor Rosie Rawle is serving her third term in office: localpartysupport@greenparty.org.uk.
Green Spaces was not just a safe place for local parties to hold their files. It was also a space where members had access to agendas and minutes of the Executive, the Council and all statutory bodies of the party as well as Common Interest Groups. It was a key means of communication between ordinary members who could create topics for discussions. Green Spaces was abruptly terminated three years ago with much loss of data. There has not been any alternative made available to members since.
Something is fundamentally wrong when ordinary members learn more about deeply troubling internal governance issues from anonymous “Senior Members” and ” Officials” and what is being proposed about those from the Guardian.
Whoever briefed journalist Peter Walker also stands corrected on a number of points. Reporting on the two annual conferences made up of self-appointees – which is correct – he says :”some Greens believe the system risks empowering organised fringe activists who make the effort to travel to the events”.
This is not new, nor News. The vast majority of long serving members have known for decades that the Party’s policy decision making is utterly undemocratic. Most are all too aware that this is what has been causing such distortion in our policy making process and so much damage in the management of our instruments of governance such as the Complaints procedure, as reported here.
Many postings on this Green Light blog have sought to ‘illuminate’ the negative impact of our “members -led” policy making on the well-being the Party where a tiny % of unaccountable self-appointees fringe activists fill the vacumn and run the show.
Our last posting on the matter is found here. Our scrutiny of the 2025 Bournemouth Conference can be found here . And our analysis of the 2026 Spring event can be found here.
Senior Political Correspondent for the Guardian Peter Walker is grossly misinformed about another option to a delegates conference when he reports : “allowing online voting to keep one-member democracy could be a solution”. Online voting has been in operation since 2022 following a ballot of members on a number of options as proposed by the Reform Conference Voting working group. It is hard to believe that whoever briefed Walker was unaware of the up and running online voting facility…
But since we now know that online participation (when the software is actually robust enough to let people speak or vote!) has not increased the number of conference participants at hybrid events by more than a couple of hundreds, the way forward with 223000 members has to be a delegates model or possibly the use of Sortition.
However, no Leader, “Senior Greens” or “Green Official” from the Executive or National Council will ever be in a position to deliver such fundamental changes to the constitution without Conference approval.
And here lies the conundrum. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Enthusiastic Zactivist who have been flocking to Conferences are unlikely to approve a motion which will deny them the chance to take part in such annual events in future. ‘Guided’ by disingenuous arguments for the status quo from toxic identity politics influencers or members of “the new old guard”, they will block the move by holding their voting cards on cue.
The only way forward to break this doom loop cannot be left to Green Seniors, Party Officials, or Leaders’ briefings to journalists, nor indeed to conference itself.
Fit-for-purpose long term solutions for the fastest growing unincorporated association and political party in the UK to be transformed into a democratic organisation where the Green Party principle of local party autonomy is respected cannot and must not be left to Senior Greens having chats with journalist. Such existential organisational matters have to be the object of a BIG CONVERSATION at grass roots level within all 350 Local Parties and Common Interest Groups.
The role of elected members of the Executive, and the Local Party Support Officer in particular, has never been more important at this historic moment in the history of the GPEW. They must deliver an exciting new Green Spaces for ordinary members and kick start that major consultation; not after the 2026 Autumn Brighton Conference, not next year, but now.
With an estimated £6m in the bank and a projected £250,000 grant to be allocated to regional and local parties combined, previous rationalisation that there is not enough money is no longer tenable.
Local Parties are the life blood and back bone to the Party. Ordinary members have the right to be safely informed of all processes. They must be able to communicate with each other and debate freely all internal matters. They should be empowered to create their own topics too. A relaunch of Green Spaces must now take priority on everything else.
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