A photo of Green Party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay

Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer were elected co-leaders of the Green Party of England and Wales in 2021. Facing off against a number of other candidates, they were elected on a specific platform of pledges, promises and commitments.

With Denyer not seeking re-election in this year’s leadership election, and with Ramsay now trying to be elected co-leader alongside Ellie Chowns, we’ve taken a look at the commitments they made in 2021 and to what extent they’ve been fulfilled.

Electoral success

In their leadership bid, Ramsay and Denyer made various commitments around what they would deliver electorally. Helpfully, they set themselves deadlines of 2025 by which to achieve them.

The pair said that they would be working deliver at least two Green MPs by 2025.  So far, so good. Under Ramsay and Denyer’s leadership, the Greens in fact won four seats in the 2024 general election.

However, they also made other commitments. “We aim to have elected 900 councillors in every corner of England and Wales”, they said at the time.

While they may have overachieved in parliamentary elections, they fell short in local council elections. There are now 850 Green Party Councillors in England and Wales. Close, but no cigar. Nonetheless, during Denyer and Ramsay’s time as co-leaders, the Greens have nearly doubled their number of councillors – no mean feat.

Political narrative

Alongside the numbers Denyer and Ramsay put on their electoral strategy, they also made a number of other pledges in their leadership campaign. Some of these were about shifting the political narrative in the UK.

In an article for Left Foot Forward, Denyer and Ramsay said they were “running for Green Party co-leaders to take back the Green New Deal from Labour.” In the piece, they argued that they would seek to cement the Greens’ place as the party of climate justice.

Obviously, this is much harder to measure than the quantifiable electoral commitments. Nevertheless, it’s fairly clear that the climate radicalism Labour were at least partially known for under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is no longer associated with the party. The degree to which that’s been caused by Denyer and Ramsay is obviously extremely disputable.

Disciplinary processes

“We need to properly resource our party’s disciplinary committee so everyone has confidence in the process. We want to end the long delays in decision making and to provide adequate training and resourcing to those volunteering in these incredibly important roles.” That’s what Ramsay and Denyer wrote in Pink News during the leadership election.

As with the last pledge, this one is a little harder to measure. How do you say whether ‘everyone has confidence’ in the party’s disciplinary process? What does a ‘properly resourced’ disciplinary committee look like?

Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear they haven’t been as successful in this area than in others. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that far from everyone has complete faith in the party’s disciplinary processes. Plenty of people who have interacted with it would certainly disagree.  On that count, they’ve almost definitely failed.

Trans rights and transphobia

That Pink News article was primarily focussed on how to tackle transphobia in the Green Party. In that article, the pair said: “Currently the UK is in the grip of too many bitter culture wars and the Green Party is sadly not immune. Trans people now face bigotry and vilification in their everyday lives. Misinformation and false fears stoked on social media, in our political parties and in the press are so harmful and divisive.

“When the narrative is dominated by those forces the consequences are clear. People get sucked into believing the worst about trans people. The lies, the half truths and the misrepresented demands.”

Later in the piece, they said: “People get sucked into believing the worst about trans people. The lies, the half truths and the misrepresented demands.

“Our goal is a movement free from racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, ageism, antisemitism or any kind of discrimination. A party that makes the most of everyone’s talents, respects lived experience and stands together for human rights and the environment.”

To what extent have they delivered on this?

The culture war over trans people’s lives certainly hasn’t abated across the country. Has it abated within the Green Party? That’s a little more tricky to dissect. Certainly, the party is spending a lot less time at conferences arguing about it, and the issue isn’t dominating in the way it once did. But did Ramsay and Denyer build a movement ‘free from from racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, ageism, or any kind of discrimination’?

It’s hard to make the case that they did. And plenty of trans members (the primary subject of their article), would tell you that the Greens have not by any means got to grip on how to handle transphobia within the party.

Image credit: Public Domain