The battle to lead the Green Party in England and Wales has been confirmed as a straight fight between a joint ticket comprising two of the party’s MPs, Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, and the more insurgent offering of Zack Polanski, the deputy leader. A final list of nominations has resulted in a two-way contest for the leadership, while nine candidates are vying for the deputy leader role.
Since 2021, the party has been led by Ramsay and Carla Denyer, two of the Greens’ record haul of four MPs elected to Westminster a year ago. In May, Denyer announced she would not stand again, with Ramsay opting to stand alongside Chowns. The leadership race broadly pits two contrasting styles against each other: the more organised, elections-led approach of the two MPs versus Polanski’s aim to make the Greens a radical, mass-membership “eco-populism” movement.
Polanski, who has been deputy leader since 2022 and serves as a London Assembly member, said the party must meet the challenge of Reform UK, which has a membership about four times the size of the Green Party and won nearly 700 councillors in May’s local elections, against 79 for the Greens. Ramsay and Chowns have dismissed this implicit criticism, pointing to their record in winning rural, Conservative-dominated seats a year ago – Chowns won North Herefordshire from the Tories, while Ramsay took the new seat of Waveney Valley on the Norfolk-Suffolk border – as evidence they can win over new supporters.
The Greens in England and Wales normally hold leadership elections every two years, but there has not been a vote since 2021. Denyer and Ramsay were initially elected for three years, as their election was out of sequence after Siân Berry, now the fourth of the party’s MPs, quit a year after a vote. The contest was then postponed for another year because of the general election. Voting by party members opens on 1 August and runs for the whole month, with results announced on 2 September.
Denyer decided not to run again, saying she wanted to focus on her Bristol Central constituency and campaigns such as net zero and affordable housing. The candidates for the deputy leadership include a number of councillors but are largely unknown outside the party. The hopeful with the highest profile is Mothin Ali, a Leeds councillor who intervened to stop rioters last summer and has received death threats for his vocal support for Gaza.
