Autumn Conference Debrief
My therapist said on Wednesday that I need to mark my success in passing my motion £15 Minimum Wage. I’m eating a curry and writing this.
I’ve not had a lot of time to unpack what happened at Green Party Autumn Conference because I went to work on the Monday after 5 hours of sleep and basically haven’t stopped moving since.
Friday - the great filibustering failure
Friday for me started with a very sleepy training session on building Volunteer Capacity, the only bit I can remember of is pester them directly with phone calls and actually communicate to them why they’re trudging on doorsteps in the first place.
We then had a pretty jokes welcome speech by Harrogate District Councillor Arnold Warneken, who spent the rest of conference with a pretty cool spaniel, it was water themed.
The Leaders speech mostly covered wealth tax, but I was filming so to be honest the specifics evade me, it didn’t hit me much, because my arms were tired and I was focussing on pointing a camera at them. I can’t remember what the tagline was.
The Young Greens speech made it clear that they’re ecosocialist and proud. Clearly one of the political powerhouses of the party along with the Trade Union Group.
We then went in to the first Plenary, which covers the A section, Reports, if Green Party Conference doesn’t approve the Standing Orders Committee Report, Conference doesn’t proceed and we just do fringes and gossip for three days.
Unlike Previous Conferences the SOC report itself was not controversial, a couple of amendments were made but fairly smooth. The Fast Tracking is where motions deemed uncontroversial, usually A Reports from the Leadership and GPEx and enabling motions, are basically put straight to a vote, no debate, because we have only three days and need to get some stuff done. It only takes 10 people to stop a motion being fast tracked.
However, under the pretext of “scrutiny”, a portion of the transphobic element in the room objected to the A Reports being fast tracked, bearing in mind there are 16 not including the SOC report, it could be enough business to take up most of our three days. While the filibustering didn’t succeed in stopping this being a successful Conference, it did show that transphobes in the Green Party don’t actually care about the Party acheiving anything, they don’t want us to do anything.
After Lunch the final plenary ended with us not having passed the Publications Coordinator Report, which was voted down the next day.
The Friday Evening started with a drinks reception where one could meet candidates in the Green Party’s target seats. Sheffield’s candidate wasn’t invited, lol.
We then marshalled a large number of Young Greens into a curry house and gorged. Good stuff. Then across the road to Amelia Womack’s leaving drinks, at which point I realised I don’t actually like noisy pubs, the pub was closing, and I was tired and wanted to go home and sleep. Back to my sleeping bag floor I did cycle.
Saturday - good stuff starts happening
Saturday started with an early rise to meet fellow Greens on the RMTxASLEF picket line at Harrogate station, made a little impromptu video. Twas good.
I then raced to film the Deputy Leader’s Speech, where Zack Polanski got his first show in the new job. He called on Keir Starmer to Listen to his members on PR, and how good it was to have a gay, Jewish Deputy Leader, can’t disagree with either thing, mostly because Zack’s boyfriend is pretty lovely.
Zack’s a good performer, he’s very engaging if a little earnest, and he needs a better tailored suit because he could show off a little more to be honest. Again, other than the usual “social, environmental, racial justice” line, no concrete tagline has appeared at this point.
We then go on to finish A motions, finish the Publications report, shockingly voted down, really didn’t expect that. And then Conference Fast Tracked some good motions like “E11 - Supporting workers taking strike action” and “E04 - Stating opposition to antiunion and anti-strike laws”, so in a short period a lot actually became apparent, the Green Party stands with workers and trade unions.
With A section finished, we then moved to B, which is B for Boring. Because it was the Land Use Voting Paper, essentially a comprehensive rewrite of our Land Use policy, which is very important but very boring. That’s time I won’t be getting back.
Quick Lunch then run back up to film Anthony Slaughter do the Wales Leader’s speech, mostly Welsh Greens want independence from England, fair, and to make Wales nicer and more self sufficient, also fair. A good performance but not rousing or Micheal Sheen level. Micheal Sheen makes me want to be Welsh.
We then moved into another Plenary Session, which was designated at C and D motions, but we wouldn’t get any D that day, sad.
C Motions are accredited motions, judged by the Policy Development Committee to have undergone a thorough consultation and research process and usually endorsed by a Policy Working Group. However, when it’s the Climate Emergency PWG, nothing is every easy, or simple.
We spent and entire session on their motions C01 and C02, which had amendments made by other members of the CEPWG, because rather than sort it out before hand and then agree that that’s that, they have to disagree and make us decide and waste our valuable plenary time and sanity.
We Passed a new bit of Europe Policy which means we want to reenter the EU, cool.
I spent the Young Greens meeting editing videos, I did not reveal what biscuit I would describe myself as, Stroopwafel.
From there I tried to find a working plug because my laptop died, posted said video, and then arranged pizza dinner with some Bristol Greens plus others. It turns out when you go to dinner you should always book extra places because I booked a table for 5 and 12 people showed up. I don’t know how that happened. Good pizza and then I made an appearance at the pub, then I went home, because I wanted sleeeeeeeep.
Sunday - the end happens
So to be honest I went into Sunday thinking I wouldn’t get my motion heard, I was a bit despondent but it’s a reality that sometimes you don’t win.
A quest for a bike pump made me miss the GPTU fringe, but by all accounts it was a good chance to see great women trade unionist Councillors doing good shit and taking names. I mostly snoozed through the Leader’s Q&A
Then I set up camera for Amelia Womack’s leaving speech, which was a brilliant way to end an 8 year tenure as Deputy Leader, she’s definitely made the job what it is. Props.
We then moved into a Plenary marked as “Remaining D Motions” where we actually covered the last C motion, then the first D motion and one E motion.
Passing D01, “Reforming the Party’s Annual General Meeting”, is a big win, it removes the A Reports from the physical conference, so that we can spend our time that we pay for doing things like debating and passing policy and constitutional amendments, fundamentally it means we can go into GPEW hyperspeed.
Lunch was followed by gossip and chat. Standard. I don’t need to attend the daily fringe on how to make PR happen, it’s been said one too many times.
The last and closing Plenary of the Weekend was Designated Remaining E motions and Late and Emergency Motions, we covered D02, which stormed through and doubled the membership of the Disciplinary Committee, expanding the capacity of the DC to help clear its backlog of complaints.
Then came. my motion. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shitting bricks and really excited because I’d given myself RSI in my thumbs spamming people’s DMs to get this motion on the Agenda and then to the top of said Agenda. And I really wanted to deliver a speech that, well a proper political speech, not the usual technocratic speech that you see at our conferences, I wanted to give the hope I want to be given.
The motion was amended, but what was left of the full amendment was just a short sentence about developing a framework of National Insurance Contributions relief for SMEs so I said it was friendly and it passed, fine.
The wildest of things happened the debate on the motion as amended, a person rose and said it meant young people getting £15 as well, but they weren’t worth as much, which is the most openly ageist argument I wasn’t expecting. I’d prepared myself for a lot of comments about funding and public sector payroll effects etc, not that basic bitch argument.
The motion then passed, which was great. I honestly thought I’d feel a greater sense of achievement than I actually did in the moment but honestly it felt a bit surreal/weird to have everyone rise to their feet clapping me. Thanks if you did that.
I’ve covered with my therapist that I have issues receiving praise for things I do? So I’m sorry if you congratulated me and I seemed a bit odd about it. I’m working on it.
We then passed D03 which means the Wales GP Leader gets paid, a fundamentally good thing.
We then managed to squeeze in a motion that commits the Green Party to repatriating looted and stolen artefacts, like the Benin Bronzes. I don’t know whether it means the abolition of the British Museum but I feel like that would be a probably outcome and you know what, fair. One day I’ll take a train to Athens to see the Parthenon Marbles.
We then passed two Late Motions, one giving solidarity with Drag Queen Story Time, probably the most controversial motion of the weekend, which from the outside seems bizarre but honestly I tried to ignore most of the debate.
Second was requesting affiliation to the campaign Enough is Enough, I didn’t vote on it I was editing in my corner of the room, honestly I’m not really fussed either way. It did pass fairly unanimously.
And we finished with a speech from representatives of the Ugandan Green Party, which I didn’t know was coming so ran over quickly to point a camera at them.
With that Conference was closed. We got on our trains and went home. I was refused boarding at Leeds because of not enough bike hangars so I got back to Hove around 0015 Monday morning. Good weekend.
Main takeaways
The Leadership now speaks at Conference. GPEW Leadership is always a bit passive. The tradition evolved out of glorified spokespeople but Conference showed that actually this Leadership team is coordinated on motions and knows when to throw their weight around and show some soft power. It’s a pity we haven’t seen this before, because we could have used real political leadership before now in GPEW, but it’s good nonetheless. Leading from the front is always good hopefully we could see more of it on the issues of the day.
Transphobes are outnumbered, they didn’t get a single win this Conference, none of their motions were heard, because the membership has its head screwed on straight, but doubtless because of the modifier system they’ll be heard at Spring, but we shouldn’t shy away from that. We’ll hear their ridiculous motions, and throw them out, because we’re not a transphobic or homophobic party.
The Green Party Trade Union group is a powerful force. I’m nicking this from Chris Jarvis sorry not sorry. But it’s true. Trade Unionists in the party have been the driving force of the most current and popular policy in the party. And all 5 motions supported by the group were voted through. That’s a real success and shows just how powerful avowedly leftwing people are in the party, for anyone hesitant about joining.
The room for further progress has opened. Removal of the party’s AGM from Conference will allow us to refit the constitution, and pass more than 6 policies a year. It could allow us the room for a bit of spectacle. We’ll see what happens in Spring but we I hope we’ll see some real progress take shape.
We didn’t hear the Dolphins motion. Makes me sad.
We still don’t really make a proper spectacle, it’s very plain, the speeches are livestreamed from a phone to facebook. We really just don’t seem to have invested in our communications infrastructure very much in the past 2 years.
No major incidents occurred, I wasn’t screamed at about HS2, but that did happen to a mate, and if you’re thinking about doing it again, don’t.
Honestly I left feeling quite good, progress and therefore good vibes kinda increased exponentially as Conference time moved on, like we all needed to stretch some muscles and get into the swing of things.
As normal thanks to the Conference Committee who make things go Brrr, and the staff team who help make it happen. Fairly good gig.
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*Correction, I shouldn’t have referred to the Young Greens as a “new political powerhouse”, because they were already one.