Leadership election results!

The results are in and the Green Party of England and Wales has it's first ever leader and deputy leader.

On a turnout of 37.9% (up from 20% for the principal speaker posts last year) of the 7,565 members I can announced that the results are as follows;

For leader;

Caroline Lucas 2,559
Ashley Gunstock 210

And for deputy;

Adrian Ramsay 2,785

Congratulations to the candidates. In her acceptance speech Caroline spoke of the "honour and responsibility" leading the party in a period when there is "such a vacuum in the mainstream parties" who have no answers for the extra-ordinary problems facing the world today.
Green politics she said was essential to counter "the politics of paralysis".

Ashley, conceding defeat gave warm praise to his opponent. He also described himself as a "Green Party member and will do my best to make the leadership work - but you never know I might be back."

Adrian Ramsay, accepting the post of deputy leader said that up until this point he had been concentrating on building the party in Norwich but we were gaining ground all over the country. Adrian left us with the thought that son we'd have seats in Parliament and the opportunity to put policies into practice.

I can also reveal, in confidence, that there were barely any re-open nominations - which I was really surprised about. Just 79 RONs for Caroline/Ashley - fantastic! (edit: there seems to be some confusion over the RON figures for Adrian although all the numbers I've heard have been very low, but I thought in light of the difference of opinion I'd remove my possibly inaccurate version)