UK Greens Elect First Leader in Party’s History
On Friday, the UK Green Party named their first leader in since the party’s formal inception in 1985. Caroline Lucas was elected leader following a ballot of the party’s members on Friday in London.
Until now the Green party has always had what they call “principal speakers,” that act as spokespeople for the party, rather than any structure of formal leadership. In the party’s formative 1970’s, founders were suspicious of such hierarchies, and for that reason did without them.
Under party rules, Lucas will only be allowed to serve a maximum of 10 years. Quite fascinatingly, party rules also state that the deputy leader’s post must go to a person of a different gender, which in this case will be Adrian Ramsay, who supported Lucas for leader. Councillor Ramsay heads the Green opposition group on Norwich Council.
In her first speech to the party’s annual conference, Lucas took to the stage today and called for a windfall tax on energy profits that will ignite a “Green New Deal” to help people deal with the credit crunch and rising energy prices. Lucas also pledged to revive faith in political leadership, saying:
“Do we want leadership like Labour? The clunking fist. The centralisation. The rooting out of any local or national democracy. Do we want leadership like the Tories? The PR professional. The marketing man? We have to show that politics doesn’t have to be that way.”
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