No Leaders?

Greens don’t like to put all their eggs into one basket. Take Les Verts in France: if anybody exercises power in their party at all, it is those (at least) nine rivalling factions which most of time effectively neutralize each other activities, thereby jeopardizing all the decision-making capacity of all those uniquely brilliant and creative French Greens. No wonder that at last Spring’s presidential election the official Green candidate barely passed the 1,5 % mark – and that this is still the subject of ferocious polemics among the above-mentioned factions…

Greens tend to react allergically -if not anarchically- everywhere, of course, to any attempt of concentrating power in too few, or even in just two hands. Quite rightly so, keeping in mind Europe’s 2Oth century history. 

But the most surprising case study to this regard is currently provided to all the rest of us Europeans by of the Greens of England and Wales: they are even more galvanized and polarized by the leadership question then the French.

“One world, one chance” was the official theme of the Green Party Autumn Conference in Liverpool. “One leader?” would in fact have been a more appropriate title. Because that was, and still is, the question most passionately debated among the party’s approx. 7.000 members. In November, they’ll hold an internal referendum to decide whether they want to continue with their present system, which is anti-hierarchical to an extent probably not seen anywhere else in Europe:

The English and Welsh Greens two so-called “principal speakers” whose duty is restricted to mainly serve their party rhetorically, but who have no voting rights on a party board of rather anonymous but relatively powerful “grey mice” whose decisions the “principal speakers” have to sell to the public.

This assures nobody ever dominates the scene, not visibly at least. Which is fine for the more traditionally-minded grass-root-Greens: we are not going now to become a party like all the others in Britain, another party of a leader maximo, with the rest of us just followers, are we? We have a long-standing commitment to non-hierarchical structures, to participatory politics. We don’t want to change our philosophy of debating ends rather than means, because in politics the latter always tend to replace the ends.

But this is a philosophy of “leaderlessness” and of “structurelessness” totally out today’s media-dominated world, argue the advocates of the referendum for “real leadership” and “proper accountability”, which they want to secure by having elected one or max. two leaders visibly in charge for at least two years. Because public opinion in post-Kremlin mediocracies does not really take notice, or pleasure in, invisible collective leadership, they say: we all need to know who’s in charge, who’s to be held accountable, and whose telephone number we have to ring up to know what the Greens of England and Wales really stand for.

It looks like this second stand might find a majority among the rank and file, especially among the younger ones. But it remains to be seen whether this majority will turn out to be larger than the two thirds which are required for a turn-around like this.

But to the observer from outside, not all is uncertain about this party so deeply divided in the run-up to the November referendum on the eternal leadership question. Whatever its result, it could and should bring about a clearer perception and visibility of Green priorities in England and Wales. A consensus solution could consist in cautiously moving towards a system of a co-leadership with limited powers but full accountability and visibility. This is just routine in the Green/EFA group in the European Parliament as well as in the European Green Party and in many of its member parties. So dear Greens of England and Wales, think twice before adapting to what other parties do, but if you opt for it, follow Europe’s best practices not England’s largest parties!

And you don’t necessarily need to change everything, only to discover that in fact you don’t have that much of a leadership problem after all: because if you ask around who is most credited as virtual party leader right now, the name of Green MEP Caroline Lucas is by far the most whispered-about…

Last not least, a compliment by this continental observer:

The quality of your debate is testimony to the persisting ethical and intellectual liveliness of the Green Party of England and Wales.

gs