Green Party campaigners

Ask most people in the Green Party (let alone anybody outside it) what GPEx (Green Party Executive Committee) does, and you will probably be greeted with blank looks. The role of GPEx is to keep the wheels turning, the staff paid, the finances in order and to provide a solid, well-functioning platform for the national, regional and local parties to work off as they campaign to win elections. Doing this well needs to be our priority.

It’s important to note that GPEx has nothing to do with policy – that is developed through the policy development committee and decided by Conference. GPEx also has no responsibility for either the overall strategy or the well-being of the party; those sit with GPRC (Green Party Regional Council) though GPEx can input to a limited extent.
I was elected to the current GPEx two years ago. At that time we faced a very unstable and frankly rather alarming financial position.

We have made progress in getting the finances back on to a more even keel. Much of the headroom for this has been provide by local parties having to forego capitations for a time, and many things we would like to have invested in have had to be postponed or cancelled. (Among the many things we should have been carrying out is the production of Green World, a constitutional requirement for the Publications Coordinator but currently without any funding and thus ‘on ice’).

The reason for this poor financial position was regrettably simple – a lot of money had to go on legal costs. The consequent lack of investment now means that many of our IT systems are outdated and often hard to use, and our staff pay and conditions lag behind what we would like, despite the heroic efforts the staff team make to move the Party forward.

Despite these obstacles, we have seen the Party take huge strides. The Party stuck closely to the agreed political strategy, held to the long-term view and did not dissipate its efforts at the General Election. Fund-raising concentrated on ensuring that the target constituencies had the resources they needed and the national campaign reflected this focus. As a result, we now have four MPs, and a consequently much louder voice in Parliament. We also know what it takes to win multiple Parliamentary seats! Alongside this considerable achievement we have also increased our number of local councillors to over 860 and are fairly consistently in or close to double figures in national opinion polls.

The need for a stable base for the Party to operate from is, in my view, more critical than it has been for a very long time. That needs some continuity, with GPEx members who are up to speed on the issues and their underlying causes and focused on improving and fixing the essential prerequisites of any electoral success.

So, now is not the time to change! As such, my pledge is not for some new, eye-catching initiative or campaigning for some policy or other. It is rather to continue the dull but essential day-to-day work of trying to repair the damaged finances and improve the internal workings of the Party to allow the higher-profile and more eye-catching work of others to continue and thrive, and our numbers of elected representatives to grow.

Edward Milford is a candidate for the Green Party’s publications coordinator

Image credit: Bristol Green Party