2025 Prioritisation Ballot
Hello, It is I, Alexander, and around 3 people have asked me whether I’m writing advice for the Prioritisation Ballot again, and having been literally dragged into doing it, here I am.
The Prioritisation Ballot, now known as PB, is how Green members decide what is debated at our Autumn Conference, the supreme decision making body in the party.
There are a stupid amount of motions on the ballot, an increasing amount, and there is less time than ever due to the hiatus of Spring Conference and the increasing number of vacuous speeches, that cut Plenary times down more than ever. If you see a speech cutting into plenary time, play them out like the Oscars, I don’t care whether it’s the Leader, SOC should sack up, and play them off, they never usually say anything substantive anyway.
What motions will actually be heard though?
A motions, Reports, are mostly heard at the AGM, but the SOC report must be heard at Conference, if it doesn’t pass, Conference doesn’t happen. This will take all of Friday. I don’t care what the timetable says, it will take all of Friday. I suggest preparing yourself for this. It is nails on chalkboard stuff.
B motions, Voting Papers, wholesale rewrites of Chapters of the PfSS, and C motions, Accredited Policy Motions, select motions which have been through an observable process of consultation, all of them must be heard. This is significantly boring. PWGs aren’t known for spicy prose.
The remaining time is left to D motions, Organisational motions, changes to the party itself, and E motions, Unaccredited policy motions, not worse than C motions, just written by people who have jobs, lives, and aren’t in PWGs. This is the interesting and contentious stuff, this is the meat, this is what you turn up to Conference for.
In 2024, Conference heard 1 D motion, and 3 E motions. Consider your expectations calibrated.
So going into this ranking, I’m thinking about what I want in my Top 3. Some C motions will be accredited, so they will be heard anyway, GPEx can prioritise motions considered vital to the functioning of the Party, usually a D motion. So, Top 3. That’s the goal.
I have categorised the D and E motions into some Broad Categories, the biggest of which is Boring. Seriously guys, stop complaining about the media not turning up when your goal is to put Plenary to sleep.
As ever, this is a long one, apologies.
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These are motions I want to hear, now, either for the functioning of the party or because I believe it will drive the party in a new direction policy wise.
D02 Change the Governance Structures of the Party - Vital shit. The party has been trying to reform its governance structures, or how the fucking thing operates, for coming on 15 years, it needs to happen. If you want a party capable of being more agile, being more representative, ranking this No1.
D21 Inviting the Staff Union to report to the AGM - Greens like to see themselves as really lovely nice people, but our party isn’t the best place to work. We should hear directly from the staff, about the treatment, or the metric ton of abuse, they get. I want to hear from the staff themselves, so I know how I want the party to change.
D13 Allow two women to be co-leaders or deputy leaders - This is a smaller change that I’ve wanted to see for a while. The Leadership Gender balance rules were, as I understand it, a compromise, and they aren’t perfect. We have had situations where gender, not popularity, have or could have, decided the outcome of the election.
E17 Abolish Landlords - I know, I know, this is my motion, I am biased. But also, it’s the only interesting E motion. It speaks beyond the party and conference, it will start a debate about housing policy, and it will make for an interesting debate over populist policy. I am personally looking forward to it.
E23 Reforming Trans Healthcare - We’ve spent a lot of time talking about Trans people in the Party, and I was on the fence about where to rank this, ultimately there isn’t a lot of interesting policy going and that’s what put this in the Top 3. It would have been a slam dunk if there was a policy statement section, calling out and condemning Labour in it, but it’s just amendments to the PfSS. Motions can do both. But it’s a good time to affirm our commitment to trans rights, and make it clear we actually oppose restrictions to trans healthcare.
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With ranking stuff like this, I will inevitably piss people off because you really care about stuff that I don’t think is of strategic importance to the party, or immediately important. Sorry not sorry. But yes, there is some stuff I think is good, or fine, and I agree with, but I am not totally insistent it happens this instant. That’s fine, we have different priorities, that’s why this process exists. This stuff will be high, but not top 3.
D04 Constitutional amendments requested by Electoral Commission - Likely to be prioritised by GPEx.
D11 EDI Accreditations and Memberships - I don’t disagree it just isn’t my top priority.
D20 Allowing All Special Interest Groups to Propose Motions - ditto.
D26 Under 18's pricing to attend conference - Seems like something GPEx could just do without a motion.
D10 Amending The ‘5-Term’ Clause in the Green Party Constitution - Should be part of a larger motion.
E14 Improving Trans Policy On Non-Binary Identities - Seems like minor changes that should be able to be done elsewhere, not Conference.
E18 A New Deal for Carers - Seems like good work? But I’m not a carer, and I don’t know. Honestly I think Care is a subject that should receive more attention, but I don’t think it’s a subject that’s going to excite anybody. A bit like climate change in that regard.
E21 Electrify the East West Railway line as soon as possible - We had a train conference in 2024, which I decided not to go to and got major fomo. That being said, I don’t think this is a massive issue which needs to be heard here, like a lot of motions, it seems like there should be a minor policy forum to decide on this stuff, maybe we should reform some governance structures eh?
E27 Abolish London City Airport: Reclaim the Land for Homes and Hope - The title is a mouthful, and why is Conference deciding on all this regional stuff? London has an AGM for this.
E28 Expanding UBI payments to Under 18's without parental support - I don’t disagree but this is so incredibly niche.
E31 Councillors to apply BDS for Palestine in councils - There seem to be 2 of these motions with only slightly different focuses? Why is that? Talking about Gaza is always good though, it will be ranking high.
E33 GPEW to Act in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people - This seems leveraged more on calls to the government, so will go below E31.
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This is the bulk of motions, the comments will be brief. Not gonna lie, this is most likely going to be the entirety of the C motions, so don’t rank them highly. This is also going to be most of the climate stuff, but because in their great wisdom, our PWGs don’t understand the need to appeal beyond themselves and their dusty tome ridden houses, these motions aren’t actually going to be remembered. The D motions here are proposed by committees mostly?
D01 Approve EIEWG guidance
D03 Framework of Ethics and Conduct
D06 Revised Standing Orders for the Conduct of the Annual General Meeting (SOCAGM)
D07 Amend Standing Orders for Party Discipline
E01 Creating a Natural Habitat Network
E02 Climate Strategy
E03 Climate Planetary Boundaries
E05 End the badger cull - Who thinks we aren’t against a badger cull?
E06 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Targets
E07 Net Zero Governance
E08 Agriculture and Climate
E10 Motion to Amend Peace, Security and Defence Policy
E11 Call for Part 2 of the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill to be withdrawn
E12 Stop all outside balloon releases - I don’t know what to say.
E13 Supporting the UK’s creatives in the digitally enabled economy
E22 The GPEW and the Global Climate and Ecological Emergency
E25 Adapting Our Strategy To The Timescales Of Planetary Crises
E29 An Evolution of Peace, Security & Defence Policy - Actually I don’t want to hear about fucking NATO
E32 Motion on National Wealth Fund - Carla could write this letter to a minister herself?
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Stuff I won’t be prioritising for various reasons, which I will try and go into.
D05 Review of local party share of membership subscriptions - GPEx should actually pay local party capitations, and explore the idea of making the party appear interesting? They should explore mass donations and expand our appeal rather than focussing on singular large donations. If they want to explore cutting capitations, then they should clearly explain what they’re going to offer in return.
D12 Moving forward co-operatively - I don’t think we should become a Co-Op. I don’t think we need more reviews. Rank D02, not this.
D14 Ensure Diversity of Candidates for Internal Elections - An autoRON. I think that the only result of this will be to hold up elections, rather than actually diversify candidates. Also, sometimes, you can’t control who stands for stuff, that’s life.
D15 Extraordinary Conference for Remaining Conference Business - We should have either Spring or a longer Autumn Conference.
D16 Eliminate External Influence in GPEW Democracy - I think bringing in more people is good. Membership organising is the way to stop stuff you don’t like.
D17 Conflict of Interests – Joint Membership of SOC and GPRC - Membership of multiple committees is normal, if there’s a conflict of interest, people should recuse themselves. There’s an obvious ulterior motive here.
D18 GPRC to defer to conference in its use of disciplinary powers - Membership of GPEW isn’t a right, GPRC actually suspending and expelling people isn’t bad. You don’t get infinite chances. Also, when is Molly going to apologise for the 90k?
D19 Protect Green Party finances and ensure best value in legal advice - I think this is the wrong place to put this, GPEx should make these decisions, or we should vote for a new GPEx.
D22 Higher Threshold for Co-Proposals - I don’t think it will achieve the aim. Either more plenaries or a limit on motions.
D23 A trade union strategy to win - I don’t think this will achieve its aims, I think trade unions should be independent, funding specific candidates on a case by case basis. We should, and in many cases, are, engaging with trade unions, I don’t think this will do that.
D25 Electoral co-operation with other parties - Two things, this is massively jumping the gun, trying to get us to jump into electoral alliances with parties that don’t exist, and it’s badly written. The “New Left Party” is going to be a massive mess while it’s being established, we have no idea what it’s going to look like until at least the end of 2026. The fixation on May 2026 seems weird? It’s no more momentous than any other local elections. We should let the new party establish itself, and assess it then. This is also Zarah Sultana’s opinion. The second point is that I don’t believe in an electoral alliance, I am in the camp of informal non aggression, we should exchange lists of target seats and tell our activists to only campaign in our target seats, and then get on with it. I don’t think standing down candidates is at all useful to anyone, including leftwing independents. So no, this is the worst time to be making these decisions.
D27 End the weaponisation of antisemitism, reject IHRA & JDA definitions - This actually is the worst. The proposers seem to think they’re in the Labour Party, they are not. They’ve no provided any evidence of “weaponisation” of antisemitism, at all. They don’t seem to understand the point of the Antisemitism Guidance document, which is to contain multiple definitions, contextualise them, with more examples and work from Jewish Greens, and provide guidances to the DC members deciding on cases. We didn’t adopt a singular or multiple definitions, we adopted a document. If you want it rewritten, that’s one thing, but purging it, leaving us without any antisemitism guidance, is dangerous. Also, assigning responsibility, not to the Jewish Greens, but the Racism PWG, seems an odd choice.
E15 Make 'big-business' refund in-work benefits claimed by staff - Personally I think it’s the wrong direction to take.
E16 Adopt a ‘Mansion Tax’ - I think this needs more work.
E24 Leave NATO - I don’t want to continue talking about NATO, and our compromise agnosticism position is fine as far as I’m concerned.
E26 Evidence Responsive Technology Approach - A stealth motion trying to get us to drop opposition to nuclear power. A bad way to approach policy.
E34 To replace the House of Lords with a Citizens Assembly - I don’t agree with sortition.
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D09 Adopting the Anti-Racism Platform as the Green Party’s Operational Framework for Structural Reform - I think this should be referred back, and brought to a future conference. The platform itself is incredibly vague, lacking any specific goals, timetables or responsibilities. The motion itself doesn’t change anything, it only calls for changes, which isn’t how the party actually works.
D24 Formally Investigate Our Compliance With Disability Confident - I literally don’t know what’s going on with this. More context required.
E19 Domestic Abuse as a Workplace Safety Issue (Protecting Public Sector Workers) - There’s legs to this, I think it needs more work.
E20 ‘Care Experience’ as a protected characteristic - I don’t know whether the full ramifications of this have been considered.
E30 GPEW support for peacebuilding in Israel and Palestine - Really don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t know whether the framing is correct for the current moment.
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You don’t need to prioritise these, enabling motions are directions to Policy Working groups to write or rewrite chapters of the PfSS. They will most likely be fast tracked.
E04 Revision of the Pollution chapter of Policies for a Sustainable Society
E09 Enabling An Anti-Racism Policy Platform