Green Party leadership candidates announced

Including joint candidates, there are six candidates standing to be the next Leader of the Green Party.  

Natalie Bennett has announced she is not standing for re-election after two two-year terms at the helm.

Running alongside the election for the new leader are the party’s Deputy Leadership elections and elections for half of the Party's national executive committee (GPEx) including for its chair.

The new Leadership team will be unveiled at the Green Party’s Autumn conference in Birmingham in early September. 

The verified candidates standing for (co-)Leader are:

Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas (job share)

Clive Lord

David Malone

Martie Warin

David Williams

Existing Deputy Leaders Shahrar Ali and Amelia Womack both re-stand and are joined by five other verified candidates:

Shahrar Ali

Kat Boettge

Alan Borgars

Andrew Cooper

Störm Poorun

Daniella Radice

Amelia Womack

With nominations now announced, the hotly-anticipated campaign period now kicks-off. Hustings will be held throughout the period. Campaigning draws to close on 24 July, with balloting beginning on 25 July and closing on 25 August.

All paid-up members of the Green Party are eligible to vote in the elections. The Green Party has experienced a membership surge in the past ten days, having added over 2,500 new members.

A Green Party spokesperson commented:

“The Green Party’s membership and supporters are the lifeblood of the Party. Members are at the heart of all of the Party’s decision-making, from Conference and beyond, and these are their elections, elections in which they will decide who comprises the Leadership team for the next two years.” 

Speaking on her decision not to re-stand, Natalie said:

“It's been a privilege and an honour to have the title ‘leader of the Green Party’, but every member of the Green Party is a leader, helping to lead the way towards a society in which we live within our environmental limits while ensuring no one fears hunger or want.”

The party has elections every two years for Leader and Deputy Leader roles. This will be the fifth election since the party decided to switch from having principal speakers to having a leader and two deputy leaders, or co-leaders and one deputy leader.

Not many people know this....but there's another party leadership contest starting on Friday!

Amidst the raging publicity over the Conservative and Labour leadership contests readers can be forgiven for not registering that the Green Party leadership and deputy leadership contests are about to start.

Nominations close tomorrow at noon and the campaign commences on Friday until July 24th followed by a month of balloting.

Half of the Green Party Executive positions will also be contested.

Results will be announced at the Green Party autumn contest which assumes greater importance in the light of a possible Autumn General Election.

There has been an increase in Green Party membership applications in London since the Referendum result.

A small victory for democracy in the Brent Labour Group?

In an exclusive story today the Brent and Kilburn times LINK reports that an attempt by Muhammed Butt to give the leader of the Labour group the power to appoint his/her own deputy, rather than have an open election for the post by the whole group of councillor, has been thwarted.

The regional London Labour Party has ruled that there should be a contest after protests from senior Labour councillors.

The current deputy is Cllr Michael Pavey.

The Labour Group's Annual General Meeting is on May 14th where constitutionally Muhammed Butt could be challenged for the leadership.

Councillors' allowances to be increased at next Council meeting plus who will Labour appoint as Tory leader?

There will be a Full Brent Council meeting on September 8th, only the second since the elections in May.  The first proved controversial with constitutional changes voted through and then later backbench concern about what had been agreed - especially the reduction in Scrutiny committees.

The meeting was noteworthy also for the public split in the Conservative opposition with the three Tories in Brondesbury Park declaring independence from those in Kenton.

That issue will rear its head again when the Council (56 Labour, 6 Tories and one Lib Dem) vote to decide which of the two Tory factions should be the Principal Opposition Group for the purposes of allowances. Perhaps Central Office will mediate before they expose themselves to ridicule.

Fiona Ledden's paper on allowances that will be put before the Council includes increases in allowances but Ledden claims that they remain some of the lowest in London and below those recommended by an independent review.

The recommendations (previous allowance in brackets) include:

The basic allowance for all 63 councillors £10,000  (£7,974)

Additional Allowances

Following the replacement of the Executive by the smaller Cabinet, the two allowances saved will be shared amongst the Cabinet members £18,711 (£14,969)

The Leader of the Council £38,964 (£35,222)

Deputy Leader £28, 397 (£24,655)

Chief Whip majority party £5,473 (no change)

Two additional Deputy whips for the majority party are proposed £2,113 where their majority exceeds 50%.   Previously there were whip allowances of £5,473 for the other two parties. They appear to have been abolished.

Group leader of the Principal Opposition  £12,658 (no change but no deputy principal oppositon group leader allowance.)

Principal Opposition  Group Allowance £2,113 (n/a)

There are a number of other allowances, many of which remain unchanged,  that can be found on the Council website HERE

There are clearly debatable issues such as the additional whips for the Labour group but as someone who has been  a trade unionist since the age of 16 I am not going to fulminate against these proposals. It is right that people should get the rate for the job and carried out properly these are very responsible positions.

However, as an electorate we know that there is varying performance by councillors in terms of the effectiveness of their casework, including basic tasks such as responding to correspondence and attending surgeries, as well as issues around Cabinet and Committee members making sure they have read and understood the relevant papers thoroughly.

Furthermore there have been problems around attendance records at Council meetings in the past and we deserve our councillors' full-time commitment to their job.

Most workers go through appraisal procedures and teachers are now subjected to performance related pay. Perhaps councillors should be accountable to an annual ward citizens' panel between elections to ensure that they are giving value for money?

That is why the Recall proposal of the Make Willesden Green Campaign in the local elections, which the Green Party alone of the parties contesting the election supported, was so important. 

Above views and any responses to comments are in a personal capacity. The Brent Green Party has not yet discussed these proposals. 

Brent scrutiny proposals elaborated

I have received further details of the way Scrutiny is intended to operate under the new Brent Council arrangements from a reliable source. They seem to go beyond what is actually in the papers going to Full Council on Wednesday.

There will be 8 members of the Scrutiny Committee withs its work programme co-ordinated by a single Chair. The Chair will be empowered to form sub-committees and task groups to examine particular policy areas and developments.

The Chair will be able to invite any member of the Council, apart from the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, and who are not in the Cabinet,  and 'notable citizens' outside the Council to sit on the sub-committees and task groups.

The seven other members of the Scrutiny Committee will serve as chairs of the sub-committees and task groups as well as contributing to the main Scrutiny Committee.

The claim is that this will give more members of the Council and the public an opportunity to get involved in scrutiny.

The Scrutiny committees will take place on a monthly basis rather than the present quarterly  meetings and the full committee will meet the week after Cabinet meetings.

I also understand that there are proposals for the creation of deputy cabinet positions so as to involve more of the large Labour group in policy making.

On the face of it this clarification (or is it a revision?), seems to go some way to addressing concerns about the lack of scrutiny in an 'almost one party' Council but  the proposals still look rather vague and the method of choosing committee members unclear. It will be the detail, and the people on the committee/s, that will have to convince the sceptics.

My choice for the Green Party leadership: Romayne and Will

Campaigning is hotting up for the Green Party leadership. In this video my personal choices for Leader and Deputy, Romayne Phoenix and Will Duckworth explain their policies.