Much has been said about the prospect of Caroline Lucas, Amelia Womack or Shahrar Ali running for the leadership of the Green Party of England & Wales. But it looks like there will be competition in what could become quite an interesting race – assuming, that is, Caroline doesn’t stand…

Jennifer Nadel, London Green Party co-chair – and potential leadership contender. Credit: GPEW

A source close to both Lambeth Greens’ Jonathan Bartley and London Green Party co-chair Jennifer Nadel has told me it is ‘very likely’ that they will stand together ­­– as a leadership team, which is permitted under the Greens’ rules but has as-yet been relatively un-utilised.

The London Green Party source said of her: “Jennifer is very keen on a message about ending the cruel atmosphere of politics – taking a compassionate approach that unites rather than divides us, finding a new way for us the party to speak our own unique message in a crowded political field, and would look to ensure that all parts of the party from the local to the national are working in unity.”

But it’s not just this one close source that suggests it’s likely. A quick look at Nadel’s Twitter account shows similar hinting that we’ve seen from other potential candidates, including RTing a request for her to stand.

It looks like Ladbrokes received a tip-off (or at least several large bets) too, in another tweet shared by Nadel:

I’ve interviewed Jon Bartley in the past (see here) and quite a bit is known about him as a campaigner. But Jennifer Nadel’s profile in the party has received little attention. So let’s take a closer look.

The Bio

Like Bennett, Jennifer Nadel is a journalist, reporting for BBC, Channel Four News and ITV. She qualified as a barrister and was ITN’s Home Affairs Editor from 1994-1999. She describes herself as the daughter of a refugee, a writer, journalist and activist based in London, and has been published fairly extensively: Nadel’s first non-fiction book about domestic violence –  Sara Thornton: The Story of a Woman Who Killed, was was subsequently adapted into a film, Killing Me Softly, which first aired on BBC1 in the late ‘90s.

Her first novel, Pretty Thing, was published in 2015, and she’s currently co-authoring her next book – a manifesto for women – with the actress Gillian Anderson, and it will be published in March 2017. She’d better get working on a leadership manifesto in the meantime…

As well writing, Nadel is a campaigner outside of the Greens, as a Trustee of the charity INQUEST which supports families whose relatives have died in custody, and in 2008 co-founded WE CAN, a group of mothers and young people who campaigned for political action to address climate change in the run up to the Summit in Copenhagen in 2009.

When it comes to the Greens, Nadel is a long-standing member, first joining the party in the 1980s. She is currently Co-Coordinator of London Green Party and has previously held a number of internal positions for the party, including being the London representative on the Green Party Regional Council, Political Education Officer for the London Green Party, and Co-Media Officer for the London Green Party. She also stood as the parliamentary candidate in Westminster North during the 2015 general election and was the 2016 London Assembly constituency candidate for West Central, London.

For someone with a relatively low profile in the party – certainly outside London – it seems she has a great deal of experience in the ‘real world’ – including, crucially, the media: something which will be essential now that we’ve arguably gone past the ‘party building’ stage of leadership which Bennett worked so hard on. Either way, it seems Nadel is one to watch.

Nominations open on the 1st June, and we’ll be covering the whole race. Now we wait and see if these rumours are true and whether Bartley and Nadel get their nomination papers in.