One deadlock and one victory this week for pro-democracy Green Party activists.
The party’s Orwellian disciplinary procedures are in the crosshairs …AGAIN!
Another week in the life of the Green Party, another week of conflict in its ranks over the party’s disciplinary procedures and its more than 20 controversial expulsions and suspensions. But as a long-time party reformer wrote us in an email yesterday: “the tide may be turning…” Uncertain. Watch this proverbial space.
Green Party members in two areas --- Bristol and the North West --- held two Extraordinary General Meetings on 2 October to discuss raging internal organisational disputes. In Bristol, members fought to a stand-off over the expulsion of Councillor Jude English; she is pictured to the left in our cover photo.
The story was different in the North West region. At a large Zoom meet, co-chair of the Green’s most powerful body was recalled and she can no longer hold that post. Melanie Earp is pictured to the right in the cover photo.
We have two reports.
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A Farce in Three Parts
A guest post by a member of the Bristol Green Party
The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) surprised both their opponents and possibly themselves by winning all four of their target seats in this summer’s general election. You would think they would be cock-a-hoop and rallying together to continue their forward momentum.
But, instead, internal factionalism is growing and the number of ‘gender critical’ members being expelled through the party’s much- maligned disciplinary procedures keeps growing as well. As THE LEFT LANE reported last month, ‘Mimicking Labour: more than 20 Green Party activists expelled or suspended in recent months is “without precedent”
Recent events suggest, however, that might be a critical reaction building among the GPEW membership.
I have been a Green Party supporter all my adult life and have mostly voted Green, though for a few years I was in the Labour Party and various left groups. A few months I took the step of becoming a paying GPEW member. And so I recently received an invitation to attend an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of Bristol Green Party on 2 October. Seemingly a special meeting had to be called because those in charge of this branch had refused to allow some matters to be discussed at their regular meetings.
Two items on Bristol Agenda
On the agenda were two motions. The first was to endorse a proposed national review of the legal basis to the party’s disciplinary processes. The party’s executive committee, which includes GPEW co-leader and Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer, had decided in early September such a review was urgently required. (It is noteworthy that this review was never mentioned at the GPEW’s annual conference held three days later.)
The second motion was stronger. It stated that the complaint against former local GPEW councillor Jude English had been vexatious and made a formal complaint about the process of expelling her. It said the local party “had lost all faith” in this process as it does “not seem to fit with natural justice”
There was also an amendment to this motion --- more accurately described as a “wrecking amendment” and totalling more than 1,000 words --- which deleted the entire initial text and replaced it with a much-watered down version. The amendment simply expressed regret at what had occurred, but didn’t call for anything to be done or blame anyone for England’s expulsion.
A “wrecking amendment” is used intentionally by an opponent of a motion to change its wording so it is, in the words of the glossary of the UK Parliament, “made useless, contradictory or unworkable in some way.”
Some background on English’s expulsion
If you don’t know what happened to English, you can read a detailed file here on the ‘Greens in Exile’ website. In late June, the Byline Times did a feature story titled ““Former Green Councillor in Party Target Seat Threatens Legal Action Against Co-Leader Over Expulsion Amid Trans Rights Row”
English, a GPEW councillor for eight years and elected co-chair of Green Party Women in early 2024, was kicked out of Greens shortly before the May local elections. She has threatened to begin legal action against the GPEW.
Before Wednesday’s meeting of the Bristol party, a member of the local party’s management committee had circulated an opinion which stated that to even discuss these matters was, in his opinion, a breach of the party code of conduct and it could get individuals - or the entire local party - suspended for making these matters public or for interfering in the disciplinary process. This stance was repeated in the meeting when arguing for the wrecking amendment.
Even if this intimidation was carried out with genuine concern, surely it cannot have struck only me that a party in which people fear suspension merely for expressing their opinion or discussing problems in party meetings is exactly the reason this EGM was necessary.
Wednesday’s meeting commenced with a challenge to replace the chair on the grounds that she is related by marriage to the mover of the contentious wrecking amendment. She argued any conflict of interest was of no concern whatsoever as she had the experience to ensure she would act in a non-biased way.
This is to fundamentally misunderstand conflict of interest and how to deal with it … and this chairperson is a sitting Bristol city councillor!
Rather than step aside as would have been proper, the chairperson allowed a vote to take place. She narrowly lost and a different chair was elected.
Crisis? What Crisis!
The first motion was narrowly passed. All it said was that the local party supports the national executive asking for a legal review of the party’s disciplinary procedures. That anyone would oppose such a step gives an indication of just how factional the gender and sex issue has become in the Greens. And yet 27 of the about 65 members present voted no to giving support.
A GPEW member made the argument that only a couple of people had been suspended in Bristol so it was not such a big issue. One of those suspended is a councillor of many years standing who has as a result lost her job and will probably be suing the party for considerable damages. And the Bristol suspensions have taken place in a context of dozens of GPEW suspensions nationally as reported in THE LEFT LANE.
It then came to the second motion about the party’s treatment of Jude English. This happened after the wrecking amendment was allowed to be moved despite calls for it to be disallowed.
A GPEW member said that there is nothing in the Green Party constitution saying that an amendment cannot delete an entire motion and replaced with a different text.
As a person involved in progressive politics for some decades, I can only say, if this IS the case, this approach can only cast the Green Party in a bad light. Public meetings and committees from allotment societies to boardrooms are run according to some fairly standard rules that are set down in publications such as Citrine’s ‘ABC of Chairmanship’ or Curry and Syke’s Conduct of Meetings. But perhaps there are better ideas than those based upon two-hundred years or more of democratic practice…
Wrecking amendment narrowly passed
The wrecking amendment was then narrowly passed after several members made appeals to be moderate. There were veiled threats again that the whole branch might get suspended.
The mover of the motion supporting Jude English then said he might as well withdraw it as it had been entirely gutted of its original content. But a few people objected. They said the motion was now in the hands of the meeting and that he could hardly have the right to withdraw a text that now contained not a word that he had written himself.
No wonder I asked that my article here be headed “A farce in three parts.”
After a few minutes someone said that they were terribly tired and that if they couldn’t go to bed it would be an ‘accessibility issue’. The chair decided to go with this and closed the meeting without a vote either on the motion or concluding the meeting’s business. Those that would have supported the motion were advised to all submit individual complaints to the party.
In some ways, it is surprising that such a meeting ever got held in Bristol or that it was so finely balanced. Bristol is, after all, the epicentre of leftie hyperbole that has fuelled the factional in-fighting, the largest branch in the country and that of Denyer (not present at this meeting though).
The Greens now control Bristol City council and have 34 councillors so I had expected there to be considerably more people than the sixty or so in attendance.
The party seems to be split with those that think there is nothing wrong and that they should double-down on the exclusion of anyone that opposes them. Some are hoping that things will blow over if they keep their heads down. An increasing number recognise this is a serious crisis and that something must be done to reform the party.
Denyer and the other GPEW co-leader Adrian Ramsay were contacted at 7:45 a.m. today for comment before publication. We got no reply.
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A poster of four Green MPs at the recent Manchester conference. Left to right: Sian Berry, Carla Denyer, Adrian Ramsay, and Ellie Chowns.
An Extraordinary General Meeting “attended by so many is unprecedented.” GP member
By Alan Story
A huge turn-out at a special regional Green Party meeting has achieved what could not be done at the recent party annual conference: the co-chair of the party’s most powerful committee has been forced from her post.
Until Wednesday, Manchester solicitor Melanie Earp was co-chair of the almost- unchallengeable party body called the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC). She was a member of the GPRC because she had been chosen as the GPRC rep for the North West region of the Green Party.
But on Wednesday, 74% of the members at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of about 200 members from the region voted to ditch Earp as its rep. (The second GPRC rep was also recalled.) Hence, as Earp is no longer a GPRC member, she cannot be its co-chair.
The word “unprecedented” was how one GP member described the interest and attendance” at the online session. Added recently expelled Green and former deputy leader Shahrar Ali in a tweet: this is an “unprecedented deployment of internal democracy to hold corruption to account. #TakebackGreenParty.” Recalling a GPRC rep is very rare, a long-time party member told me.
Members in the North West became displeased, according to the successfully-passed motion, how Earp and the other GPRC rep had exhibited a conflict of interest in dealings with two regional party officials. Acting on behalf of the entire NW regional committee, two NW regional party officials had asked “constitutional questions” of “clarification” of Earp who also sits on the party’s supreme constitutional body, the Standing Orders Committee (SOC). Earp then allegedly filled a complaint against the two officials.
In the complaint-happy world of the Green Party, even this was a bit of a one-off.
Think of Melanie Earp as Judge Earp
Confused? Think of Earp as Judge Earp of the GP and its SOC. Two people asked Judge Earp a judicial question when she was wearing her Judge Earp hat. Presumably Judge Earp did not like the question so she brought in the GP police – that is, the GP disciplinary committee --- and the two local officials were suspended without investigation or a chance to give their side of the story. This happened 29 August.
Wearing her GPRC hat, Earp also co-chaired the powerful GPRC that supervises the disciplinary committee’s work and is in charge of running the GP between its annual conferences.
Still confused? Think of Earp as an MP sitting in Starmer’s cabinet who is also a Supreme Court judge and who called in the Met to lock up a political rival without even the need for a trial. Perhaps a slight exaggeration…but not much.
“Melanie has a potential conflict of interest in this matter because she is a member of (the) Standing Orders Committee”, said the motion passed on 2 October.
Earp, who has also ran a few years as a Green candidate for mayor of Great Manchester, may have been kicked off the GPRC, but she remains a member of the SOC. As reported in THE LEFT LANE on 4 October Ashley Routh of Sheffield remains on both the GPRC and the SOC. The SOC regularly rules on the constitutionality of GPRC actions.
SOC continually faces potential conflicts of interest. Both Earp and Routh, for example, are strong opponents of a gender-critical approach to sex and gender issues. In recent months, more than 20 gender-critical GP activists have been expelled or suspended by the GP disciplinary committee that is supervised by the GPRC and regulated by the SOC.
“An inappropriate concentration of power and influence.”
More and more GP members are cottoning onto this conflict and 13 of them submitted a motion, listed as motion D14, for debate at the party’s conference in Manchester a month ago. The SOC and GPRC are “two of the most powerful “bodies in the GP, the motion said, and “for anyone to be members of both bodies risks conflicts of interest and an inappropriate concentration of power and influence.”
In the same vein, imagine the stink if Starmer remained as Director of Public Prosecution, was appointed to the Supreme Court and was also PM.
Conference motion D14 called for the practice to cease.
The SOC and GPRC did allow motion D14 to be included in the final agenda for the Manchester conference and I just re-read it. But somehow D14 motion never made it onto the floor of the conference. “Not a priority” I was told at the time.
Yes, the North West region took a small step Wednesday evening to # TakebackGreen Party. There remain many steps still to tread.
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