Working towards a Good Green Constitution

Three years ago the Holistic Review found that Members wanted their Party to be more agile, effective and adaptable. Members felt that the Green Party needed to better enable and actively empower our Members.

The Extraordinary Conference will debate motions solely concerning our GPEW organisation. In particular we will discuss and vote on changes to the Constitution, prior to a new text being put to a referendum of the entire Party.

One Revised Constitution motion is on the Final Agenda as D01.

Motion D01 proposes a Revised Constitution which

·       Delivers the Holistic Review findings

·       Allows the party to incorporate

·       Has been judged workable by the Governance specialist who advises the GPEW Constitution Working Group

The GPEW Constitution Working Group proposed a motion including a constitution, which Standing Orders Committee has ruled out Out of Order on a large number of grounds. This motion is not on the Final Agenda for this Extraordinary Conference and has instead been included as Appendix 2.

As the only political Party that prioritises environmental and social justice, it is vital that we have a renewed organisational structure – and therefore a Revised Constitution – that enables the Green Party to grow, better engage and empower our Members and Councillors, and achieve greater Power to improve the future of People and our Planet.

We are therefore asking you to:

1.     Register for and attend the Extraordinary Conference, including the workshops. Please note that the deadline for registration is 5pm on Wednesday 19 May!

2.     Vote for the ‘friendly’ amendments to the Revised Constitution motion D01 and then the substantive motion as amended. In our view, all nine amendments to the motion itself are friendly, and all those to the proposed constitution are friendly except 8a) and 8b); 12a) to e); 16 and 18.

3.     Think carefully about the potential consequences of supporting efforts to try to overrule GPEW’s Standing Orders Committee (SOC) Report. We expect that some members will try to ensure that the Out of Order Constitution Working Group motion is debated, but this could result in a chaotic situation where Conference debates a Constitution that has already been ruled to be unworkable. You can find more information about the issues with the Out of Order motion here.

4.     Encourage fellow Members to attend the Extraordinary Conference by sharing message on social media

Ann Forsaith – Proposer of motion D01.

Sam Riches & Ewan Jones – Co-Proposers of motion D01