Liverpool and leadership…
I have spent the past four days in Liverpool attending the annual conference of the Green Party which was dominated by discussions about the leadership motion that is being put to members in November.
Having signed up to the Green Empowerment campaign which is arguing to retain the status quo of two principal speakers – male and female – I found myself being swayed towards the Yes campaign during the conference.
However, despite some strong arguments in favour of changing the name from principal speakers to leaders/co-leaders, my flirtation with the Yes campaign was short lived for two reasons.
Firstly I feel their argument is too strongly focused on the media and what it requires from the Green Party rather than what the party requires for the future.
The main argument that Sian Berry and others put forward is that the media do not understand the term principal speaker and therefore we should change the name of this role to leader.
This change to leader/co-leader is being put forward as a panacea to the problems the party faces in generating more coverage in the press and the media. (UKIP has a leader but I don’t see that party getting a great deal more coverage than the Greens.)
Secondly I do not believe the motion before members really addresses the issue of leadership within the party.
Undoubtedly the Green Party faces some interesting changes and challenges ahead as it continues to grow and make further gains at local, national and European level.
The issue of leadership will becoming increasingly important, particularly if Caroline Lucas is successful at the next general election and becomes the first Green MP.
As the first Green in Westminster she will be considered the de facto leader of the Greens – to many she already is due to the prominent position she already has both inside and outside the party.
Before that happens the Greens will need to have a clear leadership strategy in place – a strategy that enables and empowers leaders at all levels within the party.
The motion before us may make it easier for the media in the short term but I suspect it will not make it easier for the party… to me this motion is purely window dressing and no more.
I think it’s important that any leader is democratically elected within the party – rather than considered de facto leader because of an external media profile or because they’ve been elected to parliament by one constituency.
It could be quite awkward for Caroline if she is elected in Brighton Pavillion – she would be a high profile face of the party but would be unable to regularise her status as leader. There would be a deficit of accountability – it would be unfair to her and leave her without a proper mandate to provide leadership. It would also be unfair to the grassroots, who would not have the opportunity to endorse her, or to recall her if she proves unsuitable.
I agree with Peter that any leadership figure(s) within the Green Party must be elected democratically by the membership regardless of whether they are known as principal speakers or leaders/co-leaders.
My concern is that I do not believe that the motion really addresses the future issues facing the party and is simply a quick fix.
What happens in the future if Caroline becomes the first Green MP (which I dearly hope she does become) but is not re-elected as leader under the proposed system where she will face re-election by the party every two years?
You can imagine the headlines in the press which loves to build up a leader figure and then knock them down.
Whereas under the current system Caroline was female principal speaker until last year and then last autumn Sian Berry became female principal speaker – I was not aware of any negative stories in the press regarding this change in principal speaker.
In fact the Greens experienced the opposite with some very positive (and well deserved) press coverage about Sian and her growing political profile.
Hi Ian
No system is perfect, but at least as elected ‘leader’ Caroline would be accountable to the party for what she says. As unelected most prominent person, she would not have this accountability.
There was definitely negative press surrounding Keith’s defeat as Principal Speaker by Derek Wall, albeit in Brighton, where he has a high profile. Caroline avoided this because she stepped down.
I didn’t see this negative publicity outside one piece in a Brighton paper, proclaiming a leader would give us less publicity, the very term would be in danger of going to peoples heads and we need to stick with our Green principles.
I certainly think we need to be thinking about strategy and power in a more sophisticated way……sadly I fear we may be seduced by all the dumbed down spin politics, see this months New Internationalist for an excellent critique of the ‘trust me I am a leader syndrome.
Excellent blog by the way, sorry not to have talked to you at conference