On 13/03/2024 we wrote to all the elected Green Party councillors to make them aware of our concerns. You can read the text of our letter below:
Dear Councillor,
Thank you enormously for the hard work you are doing to mitigate climate catastrophe and biodiversity collapse.
While your efforts are necessarily concentrated locally, we are writing to alert you to serious problems at the national level of the GPEW.
Did you know?
- Green Party Membership is declining and has decreased by over 4,000* in the last year.
- The Party is in financial crisis resulting in the ending of capitations to local parties, staff redundancies, and reduced capacity to win votes in a crucial election year.
- We are facing a democratic deficit with few candidates for internal elections, high turnover and many roles unfilled on governance bodies, resulting in a lack of expertise and an open door for factional takeover.
- Policy decided at Conference is often supported by less than 300 members.
More and more GPEW members believe this is resulting in creeping corruption e.g.
- Green Party Women, the largest special interest group, with over 4,600** members and supporters has been unjustly ‘disaffiliated’, amounting to a political attack on their right to self-organise and speak freely.
- Alison Teal, highly respected Sheffield Councillor, tree campaigner and PPC, has been on a ‘no fault suspension’, without a hearing, for 15 months.
- The complaints system is being used to suspend or expel long-standing members, including three former co-chairs of Green Party Women, who respectfully express their lawful opinions regarding women’s issues.
- Policies are voted for by minuscule numbers at conference and prioritised ahead of environmental concerns. For example a late motion for DragQueenStoryTime was undemocratically advanced meaning that urgent green energy policies were pushed off the conference agenda.
- Three highly respected members of Green Party Seniors suspended for facilitating an internal discussion group.
- Policies are added by the back door. For example, the new and, we believe, unlawful ‘Queerphobia’ guidance was adopted by GPRC without debate and Councillors are now required to defend it on the doorstep.
As local members, working hard to elect Greens, you have a right to expect appointed office-holders to run the Party in accordance with its stated green ethos. Unfortunately, this can no longer be guaranteed and the Party is in great peril.
Can you help? Please can you:
- Keep informed by following our links and raise any concerns nationally?
- Ask your local Party to circulate this email to your local membership?
- Encourage members committed to principles of ‘good Green governance’ to stand for national governance bodies?
- Encourage local members to take an interest in internal democracy. Ask them to attend hustings, and VOTE!
- Write to our party bodies GPEx and GPRC if you share our concerns?
For the sake of our beautiful natural world, we urgently need our beloved Green Party to be in good shape for the coming General Election, but we will not succeed while our own governance is corrupted.
With best Green wishes and on behalf of many concerned GPEW members,