Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): I wrote previously in Our Kingdom of the need for the Green Party to embrace Leadership, under the pressure of the climate emergency. Last week, the Party did indeed come out overwhelmingly in favour of adopting a formal leadership model, for the first time ever. By 73% to 27%, the Green Party members instituted a new system, whereby we will elect next Autumn a Leader and Deputy (or Co-Leaders). This means, thank goodness, that when it comes to the next General Election and the '09 European Elections, we will be able to compete on an equal footing with the other Parties. Our Leader will be able to take on the LibDem Leader or the UKIP Leader in debate. When the media cover what the Leaders of the political parties are doing on Polling Day, it won't only be Nick Griffin, Gordon Brown and David Cameron who get a look-in: our Green Party Leader will be up there on the airwaves and in the headlines too.
But this progressive decision that the Party has just made does NOT mean that we will from now on be aping the grey Parties. Not at all: our model of leadership will be different. The possibility of the Party electing two people as Co-Leaders if it wishes to is one indicator of this. The Green Party Conference remaining sovereign over decision-making is another. And thirdly: if our Leader betrays the Party or makes serious mistakes, the procedures in place to challenge or remove them are far more robust than is the case in any other British political Party.
The coming crisis will necessitate inspirational leadership, of the kind that the Green Party's leading figure(s) will now be empowered to offer to the public. Stopping catastrophic climate change is the biggest challenge this country - and human civilization itself - has ever faced. If you need to do something very big very fast, you had better be organised to do it. You had better have a Leader. The fact that the Green Party has now decided to get itself one gives me more hope than I've had for quite a while.
