Greens begin voting in leadership battle between ‘eco-populist' and ‘proven' MPs
Mr Ramsay, a current co-leader of the party, and Ms Chowns have said that the Greens should 'double down' on the 'proven techniques' that saw them quadruple their representation in Westminster last year.
But Mr Polanski has urged the party to be 'bold', pushing an 'eco-populist' stance and seeking to emulate Nigel Farage's success in creating headlines and catapulting his Reform UK to the top of the opinion polls.
Mr Ramsay and Ms Chowns have accused Mr Polanski of using 'polarising' language that only appealed to a 'narrow segment' of voters.
On Wednesday, Ms Chowns said: 'To win under first-past-the-post, we have to connect with a wide range of voters.'
Mr Polanski said: 'They say I'm polarising but can't name a single example.
'So let me give them one, it's the 99% versus the 1%. If you're not Shell or a billionaire, I'm on your side.'
Voting will continue until August 30, and the results will be announced on September 2. Anyone who had joined the party by midnight on Thursday is eligible to vote.
Mr Polanski's campaign has encouraged people to join the Greens ahead of the vote, leading to accusations of 'entryism' from some of his opponents – accusations he has denied.
A Green Party spokesperson said: 'This is an exciting time for a party that has grown its membership, increased its MPs to four and continued its long growth in local government.
'Since nominations opened, the contest has engaged party members and the wider public through a series of in-person and online hustings, and media appearances.
'Now, paid-up party members will be electing a leadership team to take the party to a new level, offering real hope and real change as the old, failed two-party system fragments.'
Unlike other parties, the Greens hold leadership elections every two years.
This year's contest was to have been held in 2024, after Mr Ramsay and his co-leader Carla Denyer were elected for an extraordinary three-year term in 2021, but the poll was delayed in order to avoid a clash with the general election.
Ms Denyer decided not to stand for re-election in May this year.
Green members will also vote in a deputy leadership election this month, choosing either one or two candidates from a list of nine, depending on whether a single leader or joint leaders are elected.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Calls for clarity over whether UK police can release suspects' ethnicity and immigration status
Yvette Cooper is facing demands for clarity over the information that police forces are permitted to release to the public after claims of a 'cover-up' by the authorities over the immigration status of men accused of raping a child. The Warwickshire police and crime commissioner, Philip Seccombe, called for fresh national guidance after police were accused by Reform UK of failing to confirm that two Afghan men being prosecuted for the alleged attack on a 12-year-old girl were asylum seekers. There is increasing pressure on prosecutors and the police to release details about the ethnicity and immigration status of people facing a criminal charge. Cooper, the home secretary, said on Tuesday that the guidance should change to permit police to release the ethnicity or immigration status of criminal suspects but added that she was waiting for a review to be concluded by the Law Commission. Seccombe said: 'Like all forces, Warwickshire police finds itself in a difficult position of trying to carefully balance the legal safeguards which protect the integrity of the judicial process, while maintaining public order and simultaneously ensuring that public confidence is maintained through transparency and honesty. 'Currently police forces are in an invidious position when deciding what can and should be disclosed in sensitive cases, given that the national guidance is silent on both the ethnicity and immigration status of suspects. 'It is very easy to criticise and suggest that the balance of disclosure hasn't been correct, but it is much harder to take these decisions on the ground.' The alleged rape, said to have happened on 22 July, has become the centre of a political storm after the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, on Monday amplified claims of a police cover-up. On Tuesday the leader of Reform-led Warwickshire county council said police were refusing to confirm details of the two suspects charged after the alleged attack in Nuneaton. George Finch, the youngest council leader in England, alleged within days that Ahmad Mulakhil and Mohammad Kabir – the two men charged in the case – were asylum seekers, but police forces do not routinely release the immigration status of suspects. In a letter to Cooper, Finch claimed the police risked 'disorder breaking out on the streets' of the county. Cooper said on Tuesday that 'we do want to see greater transparency' from police forces and she wanted national guidance to change in relation to the release of information about suspects. Mulakhil has been charged with two counts of rape, while Kabir has been charged with kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting of the rape of a girl aged under 13. Both men are in custody and due to appear at Warwick crown court on 26 August. Warwickshire county council's chief executive briefed Finch confidentially about the immigration status of the two men, according to a letter by the force's chief constable, Alex Franklin-Smith. Franklin-Smith said he confirmed to Finch last Thursday that this information was accurate but that 'we wouldn't be releasing immigration status at point of charge as we follow national guidance'. The police chief said he had asked the Home Office to confirm the full immigration status of the two men, given that Finch had released some details publicly. He added: 'I am confident that Warwickshire police has treated this investigation seriously from the outset, working tirelessly to identify, locate, arrest and charge those suspected of being responsible for this awful crime as quickly as possible.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'As the home secretary said yesterday, it has been widely reported that this case involves two Afghan individuals who are in the asylum system, some of which information has already been confirmed in open court. 'The home secretary has made clear that there is a strong public interest in maximum transparency wherever that is possible. 'That is why the Home Office and College of Policing are working together to strengthen and clarify the guidance around how and when information is released.'
Sky News
5 hours ago
- Sky News
Fact-checking Farage: Are foreigners more likely than Britons to commit sexual offences?
Reform UK is leading in the polls and the party's leader, Nigel Farage, has launched a "Britain is lawless" campaign, building on last year's "Britain is broken" slogan. Mr Farage has made statements linking sexual offences and immigration. "An Afghan male has a 22 times more likely chance of being convicted of rape than somebody born in this country," he said during the campaign launch on Monday. He also said that "40% of sexual assaults in London over the course of the last five years have been committed by those born overseas". We analysed the data - and this is what we found Our analysis, informed by advice given to us by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office, and Oxford University's Migration Observatory, shows there is likely a significant difference in offending rates among Afghans compared with Britons - but not to the extent described by Mr Farage. Our estimates conclude that Afghans are actually four times more likely to be convicted of a sexual offence than someone born in the UK, rather than 22 times. Limitations to the data, which we will explain in more detail later on, mean that "four times higher" is still potentially an over-estimate. We also found the overall foreign-born population of London was slightly higher than the percentage of non-British people who have been charged with a sexual offence since 2018. That would mean that foreign-born individuals are less likely to be charged with sexual offences than somebody born in the UK. How can the numbers be so different? The figures come from comparing the numbers of offences committed by people of different nationalities with the number of people belonging to those nationalities in the wider population. The police provided data on the number of people from different countries who were convicted of various crimes. There may be some imperfections in how that data is collected and recorded, and also in terms of how many sexual assaults go either unreported or don't result in a conviction, but the figures we're working from are the most comprehensive currently available. That data says there were 77 Afghans convicted of sexual offences in England and Wales from 2021 to 2023, compared with 14,270 people convicted from the UK. Those are the same figures cited by Mr Farage. But, there are different ways of defining nationality and counting how many people from various different countries are in the UK. Using data that counts people born abroad, for example, compared with alternative data that lists people's declared nationality, will give two very different ratios of how prevalent crime is among people from different countries. We asked the ONS and the Migration Observatory which figures were best to use. Both organisations told us that no one measure was perfect to compare against police nationality statistics, but both also told us the figures cited by Mr Farage use an estimate for the Afghan population that is "too small". 1:13 The Home Office also told us the method used to generate Mr Farage's figures underestimates the Afghan population. They added that if the correct data had been used, the figure for the offending rate among the Afghan community would be lower. They also said Afghans in Britain are more likely to be of working age, compared with Britons who include a higher proportion of elderly people and children. People of working age are most likely to be criminally active. Mr Farage's central assertion - the 22 times higher offending rate - comes from a comparison of the police figures against nationality data from the ONS's Annual Population Survey (APS), last published in 2021. That put the Afghan population of England and Wales at 13,000 and the British population at 53.6 million. For our analysis, we used "country of birth" data from the 2021 Census, as recommended to us by the ONS, the Met Police and the Home Office. These figures placed the Afghan population of England and Wales to be 65,687 in 2021, five times higher than the APS estimate. They also put the British-born population slightly lower, at 49.6 million. The Migration Observatory told us that, due to high levels of immigration since the 2021 census, particularly from Afghanistan following the resurgence of the Taliban in 2021, these numbers are also now too low. The ONS, however, told us the census figures were the "preferred measure when looking at the longer-term impacts of migration and the population of people who have moved to the UK". So, in the understanding that they too are likely to be an under-estimate, we used them to compare with Mr Farage's claim. Using the census figures, we get 11.7 sexual offences per 10,000 Afghans, and 2.9 per 10,000 Britons. The Afghan figure is four times higher. Using the APS figures, we get 59.2 offences per 10,000 Afghans, and 2.7 per 10,000 Britons. That's where Mr Farage's higher figure of 22 times higher comes from. Sexual assaults in London Mr Farage said that "40% of sexual assaults in London over the course of the last five years have been committed by those born overseas". The 2021 census data for London says that 40.6% of the population was born overseas. Where do these figures come from? The stats used by Mr Farage come from analysis by an organisation called the Centre for Migration Control (CMC). The CMC describes itself as a "think tank committed to controlling and reducing migration to Britain". The CMC took the police figures, provided to it in response to a Freedom of Information request, and added its own comparison to population data. The CMC also points out that there are limitations in the publicly available data, in terms of how well they estimate the number of people from different countries present in the UK. We asked why it chose to use the APS data, rather than "country of birth" census estimates as recommended to us by the ONS, the Met and the Home Office. It said: "In recent days the ONS has been handing out incorrect population stats and statements to other news outlets and then forced to retract them. To blindly insist on using 'country of birth' rather than 'nationality' reeks of an agenda which does a huge disservice to your readers. "Using 'country of birth' populations to compare arrests by national groups is clearly flawed. The data provided by the Met in our most recent research, and by the Ministry of Justice in our previous research, was with regards to arrest by 'nationality', not 'country of birth'. "Were 'country of birth' figures to be used, the British nationality figure would be under-represented owing to it excluding many millions of foreign-born individuals who have obtained British citizenship. The inverse is true with regards to the foreign national figure - which would be over-represented owing to many individuals born overseas now being British citizens." The Met Police told Sky News that "country of birth" is something they record in their Connect crime database - where their figures came from. They also advised us that the "country of birth" census figures were likely to be the best option for us to use to make a comparison against their figures. Mr Farage also mentioned people "born in this country" and "those born overseas" in his statements. Those refer directly to people's "country of birth", rather than their current nationality. Responding to our analysis, a Reform spokesperson told us on Monday that "The Sun ran the four-in-10 figure in London last week and we trust the Centre for Migration Control's numbers". On Tuesday, we asked them if Mr Farage misspoke in mentioning people's country of birth rather than their nationality, as described in the CMC data he was quoting from. They repeated their existing statement. Responding to our analysis, CMC research director Robert Bates said: "The figures produced by Sky are the result of comparing wholly unrelated population data - the result of too many in the media simply refusing to accept that foreign nationals are disproportionately convicted for certain crimes. Gerrymandering irrefutable statistics by comparing apples and pears. "I note Sky News has never once reported on Ministry of Justice data which shows a quarter of sexual assault and rape convictions last year were of foreign nationals. "When beginning their reporting on this issue, Sky News approached the ONS with only a partial representation of what they sought to report. Official data in this country is in a woeful condition, and the APS is the only dataset which reports on nationality, with Afghan nationals in the APS closely marrying the number of passport holders in the census. To blindly insist on using 'country of birth' rather than 'nationality' reeks of an agenda which does a huge disservice to your readers. "Mr Farage is correct in his assertions regarding sexual offence conviction rates in England and Wales and, as BBC Verify confirmed on Monday, foreign nationals are disproportionately represented in sexual offence charges in London." Asked whether Mr Farage misspoke in mentioning people's country of birth rather than their nationality, they told us: "I'm relatively comfortable with Mr Farage's comments. "Most people born in this country will be British nationals, and thus the comparison applies. Roughly 1% people born in this country hold a passport which is non-UK/Ireland as primary passport. "He has if anything understated the scale, not overstating it, as some British nationals proceeded against may very well have been born overseas." The Migration Observatory said: "It is likely that rates of criminal convictions and incarceration vary substantially by nationality, due to differences in people's age, reasons for migration, socio-economic status and previous life experiences. However, problems in the official data currently make it extremely difficult to analyse these variations with confidence. "The CMC say they used the publicly available APS figures from 2021 and cross-referenced these with the census. These will be too small. Things get worse when you take it down to the individual nationality level using APS, which is why we do not currently do this. "The census is now over four years old and there has been an unusually high level of migration since then. It can also be difficult to accurately measure some groups of migrants even in the census. "All this means that, while we can be confident that there will be variations between different groups of non-citizens in the UK - with some seeing higher rates of incarceration than Brits and others lower rates - we cannot measure them precisely."
Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Keir Starmer blasts Nigel Farage over Andrew Tate comment - 'completely wrong'
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the Reform UK leader is on the 'wrong side' of parents who don't want their kids being drawn into the world of influencers like Andrew Tate Keir Starmer has said Nigel Farage is 'completely wrong' to call Andrew Tate an 'important voice' for young men. The Prime Minister said the Reform UK leader is on the 'wrong side' of parents who don't want their kids being 'drawn into this world '. He said influencers like Tate draw in young men with the lure of being a 'strong, successful, wealthy man', adding: 'But then locked in and alongside it, misogyny.' Mr Starmer continued: 'I don't share Nigel Farage 's view that this is all alright… I don't think any parent really seriously thinks it's alright because misogyny is something that gets deep into the psyche, affects so many young people. I think it's very important as a Prime Minister, as a dad, that I call this out. And I just think Nigel Farage is completely wrong and think he's on the wrong side of where most families are because they don't want their boys being drawn into this world, which is not going to be good for them, not going to be good for their future relationships and won't be good for girls and young women either.' It comes after Nigel Farage came under pressure to distance himself from 'racist' Ant Middleton rant. Mr Farage backed Tate in a Strike It Big podcast that aired in February last year. While saying the toxic influencer had said some 'pretty horrible' things, he said: 'Tate was a very important voice for an emasculated … you three guys, you are all 25, you are all kind of being told you can't be blokes, you can't do laddish, fun, bloke things … That's almost what you're being told. 'That masculinity is something we should look down upon, something we should frown upon. It's like the men are becoming feminine and the women are becoming masculine and it's a bit difficult to tell these days who's what.' And in the election campaign last year, Mr Farage said he was part of 'a similar phenomenon' to the misogynistic influencer amid polls showing young men are flocking to his party. Mr Farage's comments came after Tate was arrested in Romania in 2022 accused of rape and human trafficking. The Reform UK leader's views on children's safety online have been the centre of debate since Mr Farage last week said his party would abolish the Online Safety Act if it was elected. It would mean removing Ofcom's children's safety codes, which came into force at the end of July and which order tech companies to prevent children accessing harmful content, including misogynistic material, extreme violence and pornography. Today, the PM announced an £88million investment in clubs and after-school activities to try to stop kids being stuck in their bedrooms doomscrolling on their phones. 'I think any parent across the country worries about this because children spend too much time online,' he told 5 News. 'It's quite isolating because often they're in their bedrooms on their own. They're not interacting with other people. And so we have to find a way of dealing with that. And one of the ways is to say there are other activities that are available for them to do.' The PM said he wanted to stop kids, particularly boys, getting 'sucked into this world'. 'There's a lot of sort of male, sort of toxic masculinity if you like, that boys get attracted to, get sucked into,' he said. Elsewhere, it was announced last month that children will get lessons on the dangers of the online world to help tackle 'an epidemic' of misogyny in schools. New Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) guidance will aim to address a crisis in attitudes towards women and girls among boys and men. The Department for Education said data shows 'misogynistic attitudes have reached epidemic scale by the end of secondary school'.
