Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay

The Green Party of England and Wales leadership election is well and truly underway. There are already two tickets standing for the top job, with both having now held formal campaign launches.

It was Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay’s turn on May 20. Rather than taking the form of a rally, the pair instead held a lengthy Q&A session with party members. Over the course of an hour, the pair fielded questions on a number of issues including their political background, their priorities should they win the leadership election and their vision for the future of the Green Party.

The event was hosted by one of the pair’s backers – Kai Taylor, the Green Party group leader on Knowsley Council.

Throughout the event, Chowns and Ramsay made clear that they are focussed on ramping up the party’s electoral success through its ‘Target to Win’ model of campaigning. This model is centred around heavily concentrating the majority of the party’s resources into a small number of seats (whether council or parliamentary) to maximise the likelihood of getting people elected in them, rather than risking coming second in a much wider number of seats.

When pressed at the launch how many parliamentary seats the Greens would be looking to win at the next general election, Ramsay said that there were “potentially dozens of seats that could be winnable next time around”.

Chowns went on to say that while this was theoretically possible, she added that “you can’t click your fingers and flip a switch and make that happen”, going on to emphasise their view that this required continuing that ‘Target to Win’ approach.

They also emphasised their belief that to achieve that kind of success could only be achieved through what Ramsay described as “winning support from people who don’t normally vote for you”, and reaching beyond the party’s “core base”.

In what was a a thinly veiled critique of their rival Zack Polanski’s campaign, Ramsay said that the Greens wouldn’t be able to expand their electoral success “by saying the right things, just by appealing to those who already support us”.

Alongside this, the pair sought to reinforce their core campaign messages that the next party leader needs to be in parliament as this would add ‘credibility’ to the leadership. In response to a question on whether Chowns and Ramsay were the ‘safe’ choice for members, Chowns rejected this outright, telling the meeting that “We are absolutely clear about the need for transformational change and in our country”, before adding that “we want our party to be credible and trusted”.

Attendee numbers were not publicly available at the event, but organisers say that over 150 people attended the launch.

Voting in the Green Party leadership election doesn’t open until August, with the results announced in September.