Zack Polanski faces Ellie Chowns at Green party leadership hustings
Andrew Sparrow
Hi, I’m Andrew Sparrow, picking up again from Nadeem Badshah, and blogging from Hoxton Hall in north London, where chairs are being set up into a handsome auditorium for leadership hustings for the Green party of England and Wales. (The Scottish Green party is a separate entitity.) It is due to start at 6.15pm.
There have been quite a few hustings already, and four more are scheduled, but we have not covered the contest much on the Politics Live blog, and we certainly have not reported from a hustings. So tonight it is going to get full attention for two hours.
The Greens are a smallish party, they normally hold leadership contests every two years, often it ends up as a co-leader job share and, because members have much more control over policy and other matters then they do in other parties, the leader or leaders have surprisingly little power. “The primary purpose of the Green party leader is to provide visionary leadership and direction for the party,” is how the party explains it.
But this contest is attracting more interest than most previous Green party leadership elections have. That is partly because the party is stronger than it has ever been before. It has four MPs at Westminster, more than 800 council seats and it is regularly picking up about 10% support in opinion polls.
Where do they go next? That is the other reason why the contest deserves more attention, because the choice facing members is sharper, and spikier, than it normally is in a party with collegiate, herbivore instincts.
On the one side, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns are running on a ‘more of the same [success]’ platform. They are both MPs, Ramsay is a current co-leader and they say they can “can inspire teams, grow trust and deliver results”. They were both meant to be here tonight, but Ramsay can’t be here because of a family reason. And it is a job share; they have not always appeared together at hustings.
And they are up against Zack Polanski who is running on an “eco-populist” platform promising what is crudely seen as out-Faraging Reform UK from the left. He is a skilled social media performer, and is also widely seen as the favourite – although, because the Greens are a small party (around 65,000 members), they are hard to poll, and no one knows for sure.
Key events
Question 3 – antisemitism
The next question is about tackling antisemitism in the Green party.
Polanski, who is Jewish, says it is not enough not being racist. The party has to be actively anti-racist.
Chowns says it is possible to fight antisemitism, but also to oppose the policies of Israel.
Polanski suggests capital would be better off without London City airport, saying it does not help local residents
Polanski says ecological boundaries matters as well as economic ones.
He says London City airport is a good example. There is no need for it to exist, he says.
There is no reason for London City airport. And actually, what would it look like if we made sure that there was a big public space there, we built thousands, if not tens of thousands, of social homes and council homes there to make sure people actually had a place to live.
One in every 12 minutes a private jet takes off, some of them from London City Airport. That is completely the pinnacle of climate injustice. That is very wealthy people in the middle of our city polluting an area that has a lot of people living in poverty, a lot of Black and Asian communities there, all breathing in that terrible air pollution.
Danny Keeling, the chair, seems to approve. He is a councillor in Newham and he says it is the worst borough in the UK for people having to live in temporary accommodation because of a housing shortage.
Question 2 – rent support for small businesses and community organisations
The second question is about what can be done to keep rents down for small businesses and community organisations.
Chowns says as a councillor she worked on this. She was a cabinet member of Herefordshire council, and they worked up a scheme for a three-tier rent system, specifically to help the organisations mentioned by the questioners.
She says, in a Conservative-facing areas, Green policies on supporting small businesses are very popular.
Polanski starts by saying somone will soon need to ask a question on which they disagree.
He refers to the Sparks hub in Bristol as an example of how space can be used to benefit the community.
In London Oxford Street is being pedestrianised.
He says that should be a good thing, but campaigners need to check who gets to have the final say on how the space is used, he says. He says he is concerned about corporations being allowed to restrict what happens in their space.
Chowns says, when she came to parliament, she told people she would be happy if she became knowns as “Mrs Solar Panels”. She says the government has responded, and is investing in this.
Keeling thanks “Mrs Solar Panels”.
It’s “Dr Solar Panels,” she corrects him.
Chowns has a PhD in sustainable economics.
Question 1 – net zero
The first question comes from a member who is also a member of Unite. He asks how the party can show that net zero policies will be good for voters, and that workers in the oil and gas sector won’t lose out.
Polanski picks up on the fact the questioner is a union member. He says he has been endorsed by the president of the Bakers’ Union. He claims this is the first time a trade union has endorsed someone outside the Labour party for decades.
He says the Greens need to campaign for a just transition. And he attacks Reform UK for taking money from the carbon sector. Politicians, like racing drivers, should have to wear uniforms saying who their sponsors are, he says.
Chowns also attacks Reform UK. She says they are whipping up fears about net zero.
We’re seeing those costs already flooding, overheating, excess heat deaths. We are seeing that already. The thing we’ve got to do as Greens is connect those stories and explain how it is that green policies [work].
For example, home isulation. Everyone wants to live in a warm home. Nobody wants to live in a home that leaks heat where their bills are going up while the heat is literally going out the chimney and the windows.
But the government has missed opportunity after opportunity … Previous governments have actively refused to take the role that they should have done to support home insulation. We need a nationwide home insulation programme to get everybody’s home up to scratch.
Polanski says leadership contest not about strategy or policy, but who is best communicator
Polanski goes next.
He starts by saying he agrees with Chowns. He says journalists try to suggest there is animosity in the contest. He says he does not accept that; it is an election, they are campaigning, but at the end they will come together.
He talks about his campaigning as a member of the London assembly – on issues like homelessness, accessible transport for the disabled, the quality of social housing, the record of Labour councils. He has backed people on picket lines.
He says people assume London is rich, but there is a lot of poverty.
What I’m really talking about here is the deep inequality that’s happening all across England and Wales, but it’s really prominent in our city.
People think London is a very wealthy place, and there are certainly places that have huge wealth in London ..
And we know as a party that we want to tax multi-millionaires and billionaires, because it is corporations who are destroying our environment, destroying our democracy, and destroying our communities.
Polanski says the Greens agree on strategy and policy.
But the election is about communication, he says. He says that is people should think about when they start voting on Friday.
The central question that is with you tonight is, who do you want communicating for you?
Who do you want on that debate stage, taking it to the prime minister?
Who do you want on the media and who do you want going up and down this country at rallies, in community halls, in faith organisations and community centres, saying it is time for a bold party of environmental, social, racial and economic justice.
Chowns gets to go first with an opening statement.
She starts by saying the venue is amazing (and it is lovely).
She says there have been differences of tone in the contest. But it is important to remember what unites them, she says.
She says her strap line, with Adrian Ramsay, is “together we win”. That is the point. She would not be an MP if it had not been for the 450 people who helped her campaign. She says at least one person in the room, from north London, went to North Herefordshire to campaign for her.
Only in recent years have they learned how to win parliamentary and council seats. That has happened under the leadership of Ramsay and Carla Denyer (who is stepped down as co-leader.) And she mentions Zack Polanski’s contribution too, as deputy leader.
She talks about Green campaigning in parliament:
Who is it in parliament that’s standing up, calling for taxing wealth fairly? Who is it in parliament that’s standing up, calling out our country’s complicity and genocide in Gaza? Who is it in parliament who’s been there at the forefront of the campaigns to reverse the universal credit and Pip bill, to reverse the winter fuel cuts, to campaign for social housing targets – a particular campaign of mine – to fix social care, to have the real climate action that we so desperately need to tackle the climate crisis.
On all of those things. Greens have been at the centre of these debates in parliament, holding government to account in connecting the frustration indeed.
She says that is the leadership she and Ramsay offer.
We’re starting.
Danny Keeling, coordinator of the London Green party, is chairing.
He introduces Zack Polanski and Ellie Chowns.
The hustings will start at 6.30pm, we’ve now been told.
Key developments in Green party leadership contest so far
Here are some of the main stories or articles from the Green party leadership contest so far.
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Adam Ramsay, a journalist and Green party member (not related to Adrian), explains in a Guardian article what he thinks the contest is about, and why he prefers Polanksi.
Some longstanding members, Corbynites joining to “back Zack” is scary. Some fear Polanski’s mooted ecopopulism, worrying it will attract people who “aren’t really Green”. Much of this fear isn’t about policy difference, but culture. Older fundi-types who liked Corbyn’s socialism but feared that the movement behind his leadership was a “cult of personality” now have similar worries about Polanski. Chowns and Ramsay, on the other hand, exude the kind of gentle, conflict-averse, consensual leadership style that the fundis used to advocate (sitting uncomfortably with their hyper-realo insistence on the centrality of Westminster). In other words, the Green party division isn’t really so much about left and centre as it is about differing ideas about political power and how to wield it.
For me, Polanski takes the realo acceptance of the need for charismatic leadership and blends it with the fundis’ belief in extraparliamentary organising and social movements.
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Ramsay and Chowns tell the Guardian that Polanski’s “eco-populism” would prove polarising, divisive and likely to put off more moderate voters.