Politics1 min read

Green party must avoid being taken over by hard left, says former leader

By · Via The Guardian Politics · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Adrian Ramsay has urged the leadership to protect core environmental values against divisive tribal politics, arguing that existing conference rules permit tiny factions to exert disproportionate power. He emphasized that the controversial motion won the support of only 0.4% of total party members and actively clashes with the 2024 manifesto. Ramsay has called on the party to bypass its standard two-year policy timeline to promptly rescind or amend the decision. Meanwhile, the grassroots faction Greens Organise dismissed his critique, noting Ramsay lost his vision vote by an 84% margin and defending the current leadership's record of recruiting over 150,000 new members.

Key points

  • Ramsay called for an immediate membership-wide ballot to bypass the typical two-year poli…: Ramsay called for an immediate membership-wide ballot to bypass the typical two-year policy amendment cycle.
  • The former leader stated that the controversial motion directly contradicts the party's o…: The former leader stated that the controversial motion directly contradicts the party's official 2024 general election manifesto.
  • Ramsay affirmed he is neither resigning from the party nor seeking Zack Polanski's resign…: Ramsay affirmed he is neither resigning from the party nor seeking Zack Polanski's resignation from the leadership.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

The former Green party leader Adrian Ramsay has said the party must fix its internal democracy to avoid a takeover by the hard left, saying that some new members “might be more at home” in Your Party or the Socialist Workers party.

Ramsay, who has been critical of the handling of the row over a “Zionism is racism” motion passed at the Green party conference, said there were a “small number” of individuals who used “divisive” tactics to influence the party’s agenda.

“I think there’s a real crossroads point for the party at the moment,” he told the BBC. “And one option is to dig in … but I think that there’s a risk it brings with it a quite divisive approach to politics, which you’ve seen from small groups of people on the hard left of politics who go around different parties to try to influence how those parties are run.”

He said there were some new members who had joined the Greens after the failure of other leftwing movements, such as George Galloway’s party or Jeremy Corbyn’s Your…

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