My thoughts on recent Green Party internal elections

Readers, I am pleased to tell you that the top four candidates in the Green Party's list for the London Assembly elections of 2016 are: Sian Berry (councillor in Highgate ward, Camden, and also our candidate for Mayor of London), Caroline Russell (councillor in Highbury East ward, Islington), Jonathan Bartley (Green Party pensions spokesperson), and Noel Lynch (who has previously been an Assembly Member, from 2003-2004). I am particularly pleased that we are first of the major parties to announce our Assembly List and our Mayoral candidate (since the respective Mayor of London candidates from Labour, the Liberal Democrats,the Conservatives and UKIP have not been formally declared yet, and nor have their London Assembly lists been finalised), since a green agenda will be particularly important for London's future.

However, with a surprisingly low turnout in this internal election and recent GPEx elections (where sadly I did not win the Local Party Support Coordinator post) it is clear that we all need to be switched on, and we need to take steps to raise participation rates and awareness of why these elections are important and what they will mean for us, in order for us to keep the Green flag flying across Britain and to ensure we are reaching out to as many people as possible (all humans can benefit from Green politics, after all).

Alan.

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