Adrian Goldberg talks to Ellie Chowns, the MP for North Herefordshire who wants to lead the Green Party in partnership with Adrian Ramsay. The pair are up for election against Zack Polanski who we interviewed in a recent podcast and who is advocating for a form of ‘eco populism’.
In what seems like a veiled rebuke to her rival, Chowns rejects populism in all its guises, saying “the Green Party always has taken a different approach.
“We don't win votes by making ridiculous promises, by sloganeering, by picking on groups of people and making them scapegoats.
“We recognise that we've actually got to transform our political system, and we've always been a party that's spoken truth to power, that's put forward policies based on evidence, and that's won over voters by listening and responding to what voters really want.”
The Greens have four MPs, and gained 79 councillors in the most recent local elections in England, but Reform won 677. How can the Greens achieve that kind of spectacular breakthrough?
Chowns is clear that it won’t be achieved by imitating the style of Reform UK leader: “I don't aspire to ape Nigel Farage in any respect, not in content and not in style, and I don't think that's a reasonable aspiration for anybody to have.
“You don't win against Trump by out-Trumping him. You don't win against Farage by out-Faraging him. We're not going to out shout reform, but we can outshine them.”
She also goes in the attack against Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, calling for the scrapping of the UK’s nuclear warheads.
Chowns describes them as “weapons that can never be used,” and argues that the money “could be so much better spent.”
To improve social services, she says Greens should be “out and proud” about advocating for higher taxes.
“Tax is how we club together to deliver educational opportunity for every child. Taxes are how we club together to ensure that everyone, when they're taken sick, has got the care that they need.”
Listen to more episodes of the Byline Podcast here.
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