Prior to the leadership election, the Green Party had two spokespeople called principal speakers instead of leaders.

In November 2007, the party held an internal referendum on whether they should replace the system of principal speakers with a single leader.

The other Assembly Member, Darren Johnson, ran the campaign in favour of moving to a leadership model.

[2] Caroline Lucas, one of the party's principal speakers and a Member of the European Parliament, launched a campaign for the leadership on 14 July 2008.

More than 100 party members signed a protest letter which questioned whether this publication was legal under the Data Protection Act.