Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay are running to be co-leaders of the Greens. Image: Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay
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The Green Party is riding high, with the 2024 general election seeing it win more seats in parliament than ever. But it is now in a battle for its soul.
On one side of the Greens’ leadership race is zeitgeisty media performer and current deputy leader Zack Polanski, the “eco-populist” who wants to take a leaf out of Nigel Farage’s book and mobilise people’s anger.
Facing him down are the current co-leader Adrian Ramsay and North Herefordshire MP Ellie Chowns, who warn that “polarising” populism risks throwing away the progress made in the election. They are incrementalists, cautious of alienating the Greens’ traditional voter base.
At stake is whether the Greens can become a formidable force as two-party politics recedes.
“We’ve got such an opportunity as a party to break through to the next level, to build on the incredible successes we’ve had in recent years,” Chowns tells the Big Issue. “And to do that, we need to build on the lessons we’ve learned. We have shown how we can win elections in all parts of the country, in places that were previously thought of as unwinnable.”
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Chowns has a track record of winning over right-leaning voters. Last year, she achieved what the Green Party called “one of the biggest electoral upsets in British political history”, defeating Conservative Bill Wiggin – who had held the seat for 13 years – to become MP for North Herefordshire. Chowns and Ramsay are two of the first five Green MPs ever.
Off the back of this success, I ask, could there be a Green prime minister in the UK’s future? Chowns laughs. “I very much hope so, absolutely. I wouldn’t want to put a complete timescale on it. The Greens are a political party whose time absolutely has come. In fact, it’s overdue.”
For Chowns, politics is a “team game” and “it isn’t about who’s at the very top”. She wants to see a political system “in which people are much more focused about working together, working collaboratively and cooperatively, seeking the common ground, getting away from the pantomime of argy-bargy politics”. That explains the co-leadership model, too.
“I think we can see Green cabinet members very soon, and the way that we win them is by winning more Green MPs,” Chowns says.
Does Chowns see herself as the person who could lead the Greens to win a majority and could she be the first Green prime minister? After all, it is likely to be years until the next general election – and Farage has certainly made his ambitions clear, despite Reform only having five MPs.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with personal ambition,” she stresses. “I’ve literally never sat down and thought I want to be prime minister. My effort is all about public service. It’s all about wanting to build the Green Party as a whole – to build Green politics as a whole.”
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Chowns, who is the only one of the four Green MPs who has not previously been leader, claims that “standing for leadership of the party is also nothing about personal ambition”.
Current Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski has launched a bid to take the top job. Image: Greg Barradale/Big Issue
Polanski is a London Assembly member and has been deputy leader of the Greens since 2022, but he’s not an MP – the Greens model means that their leader does not have to have a seat in Westminster. That doesn’t mean he won’t ever run to be an MP, but it makes him the “anti-Westminster” option at a time when trust in politics is low. But Chowns believes this gives her and Ramsay an advantage.
“Parliament is where the political weather is made,” she says. “It is where the big stories break. It is where the prime minister or a cabinet member will announce something, and you are literally there, challenging them, questioning them in the moment. So for us not to have our leadership there would be a mistake.”
Polanski is believed to be the frontrunner in the race. He’s captured attention online and in the media for his promises to mobilise the masses, and there’s clearly an appetite for his approach to the party. But Chowns feels that his more radical approach could put off both the traditional core of Green supporters and the wider public.
“It’s too narrow a focus. That language, that style of campaigning and rhetoric, I think, does only appeal to a narrow section of the population. And I also think that there is a risk in populism. Populism is at its core, a polarising political narrative, and so I don’t think that that’s the most effective way,” Chowns says.
She notes that most populist leaders around the world tend to be right-wing and tend to be men – pointing to Farage, Trump and Putin – although their politics is wildly different to Polanski’s. “I don’t think that that is a model of politics that serves people well. And I don’t think it’s a model of politics that would serve the Green Party well.”
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Chowns says she “naturally gravitates much more to the style of politics of someone like Jacinda Ardern”, the former prime minister of New Zealand who characterised her politics as empathy-led.
Chowns spent years working for charities including Christian Aid and Friends of the Earth and on peace projects in Uganda. She was also briefly arrested in 2019 alongside Extinction Rebellion protesters.
In policy, Polanski and Chowns are united on many points – they have argued for taxing the rich, solidarity with Gaza, for proportional representation in votes, and for the climate to be at the centre of the political agenda – but it’s the stark difference in approach to achieving these aims which sets them apart and has led some to suggest there is an identity crisis within the heart of the Greens.
There is another potential threat to the Greens too – Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have announced plans for a new left-wing party which could put the Greens at risk of losing votes.
YouGov polling shows that the greatest willingness to consider voting for this party comes among those who backed the Greens at the last election, with 58% of them saying that they would be open to backing a new left-wing party led by Corbyn.
“I don’t worry about threats,” Chowns says. “There’s space in politics for people to do all sorts of things, and there are lots of areas where Jeremy and Zarah and myself and the other Green MPs have voted in very similar ways in parliament. There’s a lot of areas of common ground. At the same time, to anybody who’s kind of looking for a fresh voice in politics, looking for somewhere to put their vote, I would say: ‘Come to the Green Party.’
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“We’re an established political force. We are standing up for taxing wealth inequality, equally outspoken on the genocide in Gaza, equally outspoken on protecting those who are marginalised and disenfranchised. And we’ve always been really powerful on a couple of things that I haven’t seen Jeremy and Zarah be strong on – namely on climate action and on a proportional voting system.”
Asked why she thinks Corbyn and Sultana did not join the Greens, if they have so much common ground, Chowns says: “I really don’t know. As far as I’m aware, they didn’t reach out. Whether it’s about individual political desires, I don’t know.”
Jeremy Corbyn has said he would work with the Greens but has ruled out an alliance, saying that “they are not a socialist organisation and they seem to be in an eternal riven debate between trying to appeal to a sort of semi-Conservative voting suburban electorate as opposed to a committed environmentally conscious electorate”.
Chowns says she would be open to working with a Corbyn-Sultana party – “if it ever gets launched and if it ever gets named,” she quips – but that “it’s far too early to talk about any formal alliances”.
“If we’re talking about an alliance between progressive parties who want to oppose a horrendous right-wing Reform government, if that is what we are faced with at or after the next election, then that would have to be a much broader form of cooperation across the full spectrum of those who stand in opposition to Reform,” Chowns adds.
Around half (52%) of people who would consider voting Greens believe the party should focus on being a general left-wing party, dealing with wider social and economic issues, according to YouGov polling. By comparison, a third think it should be an environmentalist party mostly focused on climate policy.
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“My personal belief is that the core of the Green Party is our Green identity. We’ve always been very clear that environmentalism isn’t separate from anything else. We’ve always been super clear that environmental, social and economic justice are totally interlinked, totally inseparable,” Chowns says.
“So to me, a generic left party that doesn’t recognise the fundamental reality of the climate crisis and the nature crisis is completely missing the point.”
Green members still have two weeks to grapple with the party’s ideological reckoning and cast their votes for a new leader – a decision which could impact the future of British politics. For now, the battle for the soul of the Green Party continues.
