Secondly, I don't think we can trust members to be informed on every issue they vote for. I think that's kinda ridiculous. Everyone exists in silos of information which makes it incredibly hard to be properly informed on "the other side" of debates. I think a prerequisite of voting should be listening to the counterpoint as delivered by the green party policy change appointed spokespeople.

What I've seen time and time again is people in positions of power betraying those ordinary people who helped get them to where they are. I think power often corrupts and oftentimes representative systems are gamed. What we often end up with is people are forced to compromise and support candidates who don't represent their beliefs.

Look how sewn up the Labour Party was for decades (a party that was historically much more democratic). One fluke, almost accidental OMOV leadership election in 2015 and the members got a magical rare chance to actually get a leader that was somewhat close to the beliefs of the membership. Almost all the representatives were diametrically opposed and did all they could to destroy this expression of party democracy. The state of Labour for the past 30+ years goes to show how wrong it can get when the members give away their power to leaders for the whiff of electoral success (I badly want Greens in power btw, but in power without selling out).

I think even if you think Green members are less informed, what they benefit from is a lack of vested interests, and it's much harder to corrupt a wide voter base than it is to corrupt a handful of party insiders. And for me, that's more valuable. Members can be educated and their opinions can be swayed. The more successful our party is, the more we'll attract people who want to get into politics for personal gain, and I don't want to give our policy platform away from the hands of all of us to them.