My review of the Autumn 2018 Green Party conference

The Green Party conference of 2018, held in Bristol (tied with Brighton & Hove and Solihull for highest Green councillor numbers; each has 11 Green councillors), was certainly one of the most important I have known, and contentious at times.

From time to time, British political parties have had notable conferences where policy and/or organisation are substantially overhauled to one extent or another. For example, Labour has had the 1981 Wembley Conference, which for a time gave the trade unions extensive powers especially regarding selections of MPs, and was a key factor behind the formation of the SDP later that year. By contrast, their 1995 special conference in Durham which rewrote (some say essentially abolished) the famous Clause IV. In 1991, the Green Party underwent significant organisational changes giving it its current executive body, which this year was the subject of a Holistic Review that was heard at this conference: http://greenholisticreview.co.uk/how-do-the-holistic-review-recommendations-make-us-more-democratic

Overall, here are my summarised thoughts about the conference:

Good points:

1. The Holistic Review was passed and it saw off attempts to undermine it.

2. Conference turnout was the best since the 2015 Liverpool conference.

3. Jonathan Bartley and Sian Berry, Green Party co-leaders, made excellent headlines with their innovative Free Time Index idea, especially at a time when people are overworked due to needing to be switched on outside official office hours, whatever they might be for a particular position. Their four day working week vision also gave the Bristol conference good publicity.

4. A crucial motion recognising animal sentience was also passed.

Not so good points:

1. Conference felt very crowded at times due to the high turnout.

2. The amount of time spent on the Holistic Review meant many interesting policy proposals never got heard.

3. The conference should have been longer given the importance of the Holistic Review-three days in my personal opinion was not quite enough.

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