An open letter to the UK Green Left
Green Left activist Sean Thompson says ecosocialists should leave the rightward-moving Green Party, and join the effort to build a new political party of the left in Britain.Sean Thompson is a founding member of Green Left, which describes itself as a an ecosocialist, anti-capitalist current within the Green Party of England and Wales.
Comrades,
An event in Manchester last month served to demonstrate to me the limitations of the politics of the Green Party. It was on the TUC demonstration in support of the NHS; a huge, cheerful and largely working class march, the biggest in Manchester in living memory, according to the local police. There were two or three Green Party banners in evidence and a scattering of people carrying Green Party placards, apparently produced specially for the march, with a variety of limp slogans along the lines of “Halt Austerity – we have the answer.”
However, the only really significant Green Party presence that would have been noticed by most marchers was to be found on the pavement at the point were the march passed closest to the Tory conference venue. There assembled was a group of thirty or forty Greens, some in fancy dress, staging a demonstration against the culling of badgers.
Now, despite what the idiot who has taken upon himself the hand crocheted mantle of the Green Party’s Senator McCarthy may say, we ecosocialists have nothing against badgers, indeed, some of my best friends are badgers. We would all agree that the current badger cull is a bad thing, that it flies in the face of scientific evidence, that it’s likely to actually make matters worse etc, etc. However, on that day, in that place, to stage a “save the badger” demo was an act of naive sectarianism.
It was sectarian in that rather than try to demonstrate the integration of the Green Party within the wider movement, so clearly represented by the huge crowd that day, the Greens in their badger masks actually sought to differentiate themselves from that movement. The demonstration was for them, at least in part, an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the broad movement against cuts to the Health Service and preach to it about badgers, and no doubt about “speciesism.”
As the great American socialist Hal Draper put it:
“What characterises the classic sect was best defined by Marx himself: it counterposes its sect criterion of programmatic points against the real movement of the workers in the class struggle, which may not measure up to its high demands. The touchstone of support (the ‘point d’honneur,’ in Marx’s words) is conformity with the sect’s current shibboleths – whatever they may be, including programmatic points good in themselves.”
It was naive because, clearly, the Greens demonstrating on behalf of the badgers as the largest labour movement march in the living memory of Manchester went by just didn’t understand the significance of what was happening. They were watching a tiny flicker of resistance by the one force capable of really challenging the Tories and their bag carriers, the only force with the potential for implementing the fundamental changes to society that all of us – including the badgers no doubt – believe are vital. They were watching the giant of organised labour starting – perhaps – to stir from its long sleep.
But they didn’t get it – and the Green Party corporately doesn’t get it. For most Greens, the political landscape is timeless and largely unchanging. It is inhabited by two and a half “major” political parties who compete to gain or keep political office through marketing campaigns aimed at what they see as key sections of a passive and largely apathetic electorate. The dominating urge of most Greens is to join in that competition, but with a different set of paper policies to sell.
The idea that the political consciousness of ordinary people is not fixed and that they can become active participants in changing society in fundamental ways just doesn’t seem to occur to most Green would-be politicians, nor the idea that real political change will only come about through the self activity of working people organised in a mass movement.
Eighteen months or so ago, in a paper on the future of Green Left, I argued that we had to make the membership of the Green Party realise that its future had to be as “merely one part of a much larger, though inchoate, movement of working people who share our fundamental goal of a just and equal society.”
I suggested that Greens could play a crucial role in helping to mobilise and focus that movement and bring to it valuable insights into the ecological aspects of the crisis humanity faces, but that “we cannot substitute ourselves for it.’”While many members of Green Left have attempted to play such a role, their influence on the direction of the Green Party as a whole has proved to be minimal.
This Spring, in a paper for the Green Left AGM, I argued that the vacillation and programmatic zig zagging displayed by the Green Party was entirely predictable, given the sharpening political situation, the Party’s narrow social composition and the skewed and shallow nature of its radicalism.
Since then, the ground has shifted even more.
The Party has, in my view, begun to move to the right, with a series of significant defeats for the left at the recent party conference, the election or co-option of a number of right wingers to the Executive and the appointment of a number of wanna-be careerists as party spokespeople.
At the same time, the need for a conscious and systematic attempt to work within working class communities to assist them in the concrete daily struggles that they face, with the aim of building a popular base that can begin to challenge Labour’s slowly crumbling hegemony, has never been more urgent.
If there was no alternative to fighting what I suspect many members of Green Left know in their heart of hearts is an unwinnable battle to lever the Green party out of its comfortable niche of liberal radicalism, then a case could, I suppose, be made for continuing with it – although there are many useful single issue campaigns, along with trade union activity, that would probably be more useful. However, the world has moved on since the Spring and there is now an alternative, or at least there may be one in the next few weeks.
The remarkable phenomenon of the Left Unity initiative is potentially a game changer that ecosocialists would be ill advised to ignore or dismiss. The response to Ken Loach’s appearance on Question Time on 28 February, in which he said that we need a broad movement of the left to fight against the sell-off of the NHS and privatisation – “a UKIP of the Left” – was extraordinary. His appeal for people “to discuss the formation of a new political party of the Left to bring together those who wish to defend the welfare state and present an economic alternative to austerity” was put up on Andrew Burgin’s Left Unity website a few days later and within hours hundreds of people were signing up to it.
As of now, over 10,000 have signed up to Ken’s appeal and around 1,000 of those have already committed to being “founder members” of the new party that will be launched at the end of November. There are 83 local groups are at various stages of formation, with perhaps half of them already active.
The key point about this initiative is that it is explicitly NOT yet another pre-doomed attempt to regroup the existing grouplets of the far left – rearranging the deck-chairs on the Potemkin, as it were. It is, rather, an attempt to build a base among the hundreds of thousands of former Labour Party members or supporters who now feel – rightly – that they have been disenfranchised.
In other words, the Left Unity initiative wants to see the development of exactly the sort of broad based party of the left that Green Left has, sort of, argued the Green Party should aspire to become and it is gaining its support from exactly the constituency that we have argued that the Green Party should focus on.
Of course, there is no guarantee that this initiative will get off the ground. There is already some division between those who want the new party to follow the route described above and those who want it to be a rather more sharply drawn party which is, in effect more a regroupment of the existing organised far left (a sort of Socialist Alliance Mark II), which may or may not be resolved at the founding conference.
In my view, it’s a long shot. The odds are probably against this attempt to build a “party of a new sort” succeeding. Nonetheless, it is a genuine attempt to build a mass, democratic, socialists party that is green, feminist and anti-capitalist but which is rooted in the day to day realities of the lives of ordinary people rather than concerned with telling them what they jolly well should be concerned with.
That, it seems to me, has to be the highest priority of any socialist in Britain today and it is, I believe, the key priority for most members of Green Left. The decision we have to make is how best we can build such a party.
We shouldn’t continue to deceive ourselves that there is any chance that the Green Party, despite its environmental concerns and programmatic radicalism, can be transformed into such a party – indeed, the vast majority of Greens absolutely don’t want their party even to aim to be an organic part of a wider labour movement. It is a middle class radical/liberal party which, if it is not marginalised by a revival of Labour and the Lib Dems and succeeds in growing its niche audience, will be forced inexorably to the right, as all other green parties in similar circumstances have been.
The Left Unity initiative may be a long shot, but unlike the Green Party it does want to build the sort of movement that most of us believe to be vital. To me, a choice between a slim chance and no chance at all is a no brainer. I will be joining the new party when it is established on 30 November and I urge all my friends and comrades in Green Left to do the same.
46 comments
46 responses to “An open letter to the UK Green Left”
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Dear Friends,
I edited a book in 1988 – Into the 21st Century An agenda for Political Realignment withe chapters by Jonathon Porritt, Simon Hughes, Peter Thatchell, Peter Hain, Michael Meadowcroft, Tim Cooper, Jean Lambert and many others. It argued that creating a party was not the way forward and i think the open letter above underlines that. It argued to agree a set of key principles and policies across party boundaries and beyond them. A movement more than everyone joining a particular party.
warmest regards
felix dodds
Hi Felix,
Hi again after many years! I agree we need to be reaching across party political boundaries, not just creating another one. In the face of runaway climate change and biodiversity collapse, politics as usual (including setting up another Left party) just isn’t working. It effectively amounts to denial of the science. Climate change is the priority. And the political priority is finding ways of getting everyone who accepts the science to find ways of working together to mount an effective political challenge. Attempts to further divide greens will be counter-productive. David
Hi Sean,
thanks for this, interesting stuff.
just on your initialy story about Manchester. I’m afraid I couldn’t make that demonstration. However, when I have gone on similar protests in the past, despite being a Green member and activist, I have very rarely carried a party banner. Usually, I have been with my local anti-cuts group, or with some other national organisation, or something. And usually, I have found other Greens, likewise, to be marching similarly not under the name of the party, but with the other bits of the movement they are involved with. This is, it’s often seemed to me, in contrast with people in lots of other left parties, who often seem primarily to identify with their party. It’s also always seemed to me to be a very good sign of a party which is steeped in a movement.
So, here’s my question – how did you know who there was or wasn’t a Green?
I am not seeking to excuse or argue against many of your criticisms here. But I do think that your opening argument requires some examination, because what it implies to me – or certainly, what similar experiences in the past have implied to me – is cruial to your case – whether or not Greens are a party of the movement…
thanks,
Adam
Of course, there was no way for me to know Adam. I was simply using my perception of the day to illustrate the important point made about the nature of sects in the quotation from Hal Draper. I have no idea of how many members of the green party were on the march, how many party banners, how many placards with the party branding etc – I was simply limping along with a section of disabled Unite members. The real question though is whether the Green Party has the capability of becoming more than a radical liberal environmentalist sect. In my view, in so far as it is capable of any development, it is likely to be in an uneven and erratic way, to the right just as all other green parties have done when
I only wish that I could agree with you about the Green Party being ‘steeped in the movement’. I’m afraid that the bulk of Green Party members are pretty unpolitical environmental life style activists (if active in any way at all) who would stare blankly at you if you talked about ‘the movement’ or be a little nervous about trade unions that are pro-nuclear or pro HS2 or whatever. Of the active minority in the Party – which is unlikely to be much more than the 10% or so who go to meetings – perhaps 1,500, rather more than half would probably consider themselves on the left in a general way and perhaps half of that group might consider themselves socialists. And Green Left, which is by far the most politically developed group in the party, most of whose members would consider themselves ecosocialists, is only 170 strong.
you’re a disappointment sean with that letter. i think to highlight that is trivial probably they were there to make a point about the Badger Cull to Tories not to distract attention from the nhs demo. i hope this kind of sectarianism is not going to be widespread. Left Unity is a new party and there is a chance to break away from negative currents on politics. WHile i disagree with your viewpoint i think some people may have a point when they say that by merely having a new party on its own it doesnt amount to much. A movement maybe stronger given our crap voting system but i would argue that the green movement needs to join with the labour movement and vice versa but with no recriminations. Please give Left Unity, that is everyone, the chance to join and leave your old baggage if you have any in the old manchester central station! some new people have a different background to traditionalists on the left and may have something new to offer us which are of benefit to everyone. At our local meetings there is a very wide range of people and we want to keep this diversity. Personally, i m a bit frustrated with some of the negative currents on the left – why wait and see and dont overreact if someone states a view you dont like – give them a chance and try and enter into constructive debate.
tony walker – artist/student
Since 1988 Peter Hain assisted in taking us into the illegal war & occupation of Iraq whilst Simon Hughes has joined forces with the Tories in government so it would be very interesting to see the sort of principles and policies that they were alluding to? However, whilst I’m waiting for the ‘great leap forward’ it is clear that there is a vacuum which will not be filled by a movement that includes the ‘likes of’ Hain & Hughes and Left Unity may be the start of focussing anti-capitalist opposition to the current mainstream parties. The future for radicalism in this country has always been red / green but the Green Party has never quite got the ‘red’ bit and the Green Left have to a greater extent been marginalised. Left Unity may not be the solution but may be a new beginning…
I am a socialist and an animal liberationist and attended the demo against the badger cull outside the Tory conference, mainly to give out leaflets from Greens for Animal Protection urging fellow protesters to join the Green Party.
I was very happy to see that the anti-cull protesters applauded the pro-NHS march as it went past and many of the marchers applauded back.
Let’s not forget that tens of thousands of badgers could be shot because of this government’s callous and insane policy. This on top of the billions of other animals that suffer and die every year in this country because of human imperialism, human supremacism and speciesism. And protecting them is every bit as important as saving the NHS and any other aspect of social justice for humans.
I attended the Green Party conference and, in my view, most of the motions that were passed indicated that the GP is moving further to the left, rather than in the other direction.
Brilliant article Sean ! You have hit the proverbial nail on the head on so many fronts – regardless of the usual Green posters here desperately trying to cover for their Party’s dreadful political practice in Brighton and everywhere whenever real resistance to capitalism is required.
That Ronnie Lee is so divorced from reality that he can seriously say:
” And protecting them (the badgers) is every bit as important as saving the NHS and any other aspect of social justice for humans.”
tells us everything we need to know about this whacky sub-wing of the Green Movement. No Ronnie, saving the badgers is important , but NOT as important as saving the NHS (and there is no actual problem in saving BOTH actually, if a rational social system can be created_). Ronnie’s eccentric statement is a vivid example of the sinister “humanity is an infection on planet earth – and needs to be radically culled” ideology that always lurks at the outer fringes of all environmentalist movements historically – and provides ideological bridges to proponents of eugenics and fascist “back to the soil” nonsense. It also explains why, even in the mainstream Green Movement , “Austerity” as a permanent state of society actually has a deep attraction – ideological cover for the ever increasing robbery by the superrich that it actually is.
Get out now from the Green Party political swamp Sean, and bring your political passion and evident good humour to help build Left Unity !
This post contains lies (or at least mistruths) about what happened on the Tory conference march. There were ZERO Green Party members dressed up in badger themed fancy dress, although there were maybe 10 Green Party activists at the badger cull protest. There were SEVEN HUNDRED anti-austerity Green Party placards handed out on the march. I made just 10 anti-badger cull posters. There were possibly a minimum of 5 Green Party banners at the march which were not part of the badger cull protest.
The TUC invited Animal Rights UK to have an anti-badger cull part of the march and it was Animal Rights UK which then organised the anti-badger cull part of the march, NOT Green Party members. There were not 30 or 40 Green Party members at that badger cull protest. This is just not true. Please remove these outright lies.
Yes, Sean You are that is not true what you say about the Manchester Protest. There were 600 Green Party placards and an equal turnout of Greens to march with them. We produced an excellent new leaflet about the NHS which we gave out thousands of copies of. We had a really good stall at Park with a Tory Cocunut Shy, a meet the Euro Candidates event and a really open space for discussion – which were were the normally lefty ranting and virtually no ideas other than the same old failed ones. It was a nice change to talks from the stage – which we were not allowed to speak at as the left was doing its normal Stalinist control techniques to make sure only their message was heard. The Badger protests were fantastic but as Jake above says, they were nothing to do with the Green Party except were some members chose to march with this group and add their own bit to it. Likewise with the fracking group, pensions, hospitals etc. We put a lot of work in to organising it in the North West.
Apparently Sean you were at another march held in Manchester because your fantasy above bears no reality to the truth. Get a job with the Daily Mail you have a talent for twisting the reality.
Hello Sean,
I had intended joining Green Left when it first formed, but never did. That was because whilst I have tremendous respect for many of those in that tenancy, not least your good self, I found, after attending a couple of early meetings, that it was for me too much a home for the traditional neo-leninist Left. I come from, and adhere to, a more libertarian background. That current remains an strong minority influence on the Green Party, though yes centralisation and elistist-careerism are as much a danger here as a drift to the right. I doubt libertarianism or green philosophy will have a significant impact within Left Unity, though I hope it will.
In recent times the wider opposition-ist, especially the Direct Action movement, in the UK has been heavily influenced by libertarian and anarchist ideas. In my experience those on the libertarian left in the Greens have been very active in these campaigns – often providing the link between new activist movements – like occupy, anonymous and zeigeist – and traditional Left politics. Political parties are all well and good, but it is, as the suffragists taught us “deeds not words” that make change happen. For all its faults The GP still supports NVDA. That’s not a bad sectional shibboleth for me, so whilst it does and has people like Caroline and Natalie speaking up for that, I think I will stay where I am thank you.
It may be true that there were few GP banners at the demo in Manchester, but then again I can’t recall seeing many traditional Left banners, or even lefties, at Balcombe. I wasn’t at Manchester, but I have been at similar London demos and remain active in anti-cuts, pro-NHS initiatives in my region – working happily with the trade union movement, left Labourites and the Leninist Left. But I was also at Balcombe, campaign against nuclear power, for disarmament etc etc and if I lived in the South West I might well have been involved more in direct action to thwart the badger cull. In short, despite the concerns about the direction of travel for the Green Party, I remain relatively comfortable with it. And yes, I am a son of toil, a TU member and a former member of the Labour Party. I wish you and Left Unity well. Keep in touch and I look forward to working together. We have a common enemy of great power. Best to stick together as much as we can.
Yours in peace and in hope of a better world,
Tim
The Green Party is a single issue Liberal Party. If it says leftish sounding things it is to win the votes of working people under false pretences. It will coalesce with left or right to push its single issue agenda whilst facilitating anti working class policies if necessary in the name of that coalition just like its big brother the Lib Dems. Like all liberals power is more important to it than principles.
The thing is however Left Unity has not even been established yet and it has already taken a gigantic step to the right. Politics have been banned from the founding conference in favour of a stale debate about various sectarian platforms and the turgid constitution and all talk of socialism as the rule of the working class has been well and truly banished. What policies Left Unity does have are either right wing New Labour style policies or pure demagoguery by which for the sake of votes they promise to do all manner of things for us that they know they would never be allowed to do. Most of all though, like its rival sect-run venture, the People’s Assembly which has substituted itself for a real movement, it avoids policy as much as possible in favour of unrpincipled lash ups. As capitalism collapses all tendencies converge cowering in the middle apart from two: fascism and revolutionary socialism. Of course there is also ultra-leftism but that is just opportunism masquerading as sectarianism.
What is needed is not Left Unity by which those who wish to see working class rule unify their programme with those who do not, that is liquidationism, but the principled unity of those who do.
David/Baton
I thought you said on another thread (written under the name Baton Rouge)that you had given up on Left unity. Please don’t say you were just building our hopes up!
This was sometime ago, 2009, but it served to reveal exactly what the Green Party were like.
http://www.mikeashworth.co.uk/2009/11/brighton-green-party-whats-up-with-them/
Mike
I was not at the event you talk off but to be honest, after 25 years in the Green Party getting criticised by the left, Labout and Tories we do sometimes get a bit protective, although I’d say that actually the problem is we do not speak up loudly enough. If you think the media are harsh to the left try being in Lancaster and Morecambe where the Greens have been in the council for 16 years. We are loathed by the media as a Green agenda is actually opposed to unlimited capitalist growth in a fundamental environmental way as well as a social and economic way. We do not have the voice of the left, Green political theory is not even touched in most universities so we have limited intellectual support and have to find our own way – it is not some scripted teaching like Marxism or the Bible.
> The Green Party is a single issue Liberal Party.
how can you say that? Liberal perhaps, is the new ‘Left Unity’ Party (whatever is it going to be called?) going to be an unLiberal one?
But to say that the Green Party is a single issue party is to just make shit up.
I have found the response to Sean’s resignation most illuminating. I think there is some missing the wood for the trees going on here. I am not going to go into the ins and outs of Badger protesters, FWIW I think Sean was unwise to hang the article around that and his perhaps inaccurate view of Green representation on the march, but Greens getting on high horses about that some appear to be missing the main drift that stands, regardless of what happened in Manchester. (As it happens I was carrying a large IWW flag on that demo so also not identified with Greens/GL)
Here is the response I made to Sean when he originally posted this article:
Sean, I share many of the views that you have expressed here. I also would add that the unfolding debacle in Brighton and the fact that the “original” Greens in Germany are discussing joining in coalition with the CDU (The German Tories!) are ticking time bombs to add to the damage already done by Green betrayals in Ireland, Bristol, Leeds etc.
However, I will not be joining the new Party immediately until I see that it is going to be at least along the lines that the Left Party Platform are projecting (and even this in my opinion does not go far enough towards the industrial and community organising focused and based Party that would meet the requirement of the day. I think the inspiration should come from the current work being done by people like Unite Community, the IWW, the IWGB, Citizens and other community organising efforts, bedroom tax organising and the likes of the SEIU led fast food workers campaign in the US)
If the toytown revolutionaries of the sects win the day in November, it will indeed be Socialist Alliance Mk 2 – on this occasion, the reverse of the saying the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce… I have signed the support declaration, nonetheless and cooperate with the local LU.
In my experience most Green success has been on a liberal basis, with core vote coming from ex liberals. My own local Green Party, though they are dear friends and lovely people, are more involved in things like CAMRA, Greenpeace and small “sustainable business” initiatives than the bedroom tax, anti-cuts and union organising that I spend my time doing. Other than my own efforts the local Greens have virtually no impact in local social struggles and this is reflected in most Green votes coming from the most middle class areas of a largely working class, struggling North Midland ex-mining town. The image problem, lack of time/motivation amongst current members and lack of resources of the Green Party in this part of the world have proved insuperable obstacles to recruiting any wider sections of the population to our ranks. Even in the nearest city with more resources and members the Green Party is largely composed of (perhaps temporarily) “radical” students and liberal, middle class intellectuals. (And for clarification, nothing wrong with being middle class – it is when your orientation is primarily to middle class concerns that the problem arises)
Whatever happens I will continue working with the anti-cuts group, the IWW, Unison and other campaigns and organisations that address the real day to day issues confronting ordinary people – to which activists can bring a wider (e.g. re climate change/sustainability, economics, history) perspective but from which *they* can also learn a great deal.
Paul, Green Left member (for the moment, anyway!)
The Greens are a backwards looking pro austerity nightmare … We need to eschew all the doomsterism they promulgate , whether that be on GM food , nuclear power , cheap flights , consumerism etc …these are all good things and the Left Unity needs to remember that if it doesnt want to fall into the trap of advocating austerity for all as opposed to riches for all in the race to see who can be the biggest crackpot doomster on issues such as climate change … Badgers …i ask you ….
Yours in disgust
Micky D
So much for Left Unity!
Er …when you try to start a new party from scratch you sometimes have disagreements.
Hold the front page….
Paul Frost and Micky D’s comments are revealing. Paul seems to regret that Greens are supported by people who do not identify as left, and Micky D rubbishes what the Green party was formed for. I will make one admission. In general, ‘non left’ Green supporters have not yet grasped the fact that saving the planet for their grandchildren will involve a much fairer society than we have at present. My own suggestion has always been that the Citizens’ Basic Income needs to be one component. Green Left members seem to approve. Has Left Unity yet given the C(B)I a thought?
I am normally against ‘ad hominem’ attacks, but I must break that rule now. If Sean T. succeeds in causing an exodus From the Green Party, will the Green Left please be sure to take Sebastian Power with you. Left Unity are welcome to his toxic, twisted, and frankly libellous views on population.
I am saddened that Sean has left the Green Party and even sadder that he is urging members of Green Left to leave and join Ken Loach’s new epic. Whilst some may say that they will be happier there and so will the Green Party, I would disagree, not because I agree with Sean’s analysis but because I believe the logical progression of socialism is green.
Socialist in Keir Hardie’s age reached out to the oppressed black, brown and yellow people in the imperial colonies whilst fighting oppression at home. Now as we stand at the edge of the anthropocene that our pollution and greed – irrespective of whether we are socialist or capitalist, has caused, it is clear that the new oppressed will be our children and our children’s children. It is sad that so few socialist today make the leap and see that it is their duty to fight the oppression of future generations as a priority, even though they may seem as distant now as the oppressed “natives” must have to Keir Hardie’s socialists.
It is for this reason that the Green Party is not turning Left nor Right. It is the party that stands for One World One Chance, whilst un-reconstructedm socialism will be seen by future generations as standing for inter-generational oppression.
Your point about ‘un-reconstructed socialism’ is absolutely vital. Some years ago when reading the late Jerry Cohen’s excellent book “If you’re an egalitarian, how come you’re so rich?” I was disappointed with his conclusion that communism is no longer a realistic aim because it assumes unbounded natural resources. That did not, and still does not, seem to be a reason to give up on Marx. But I now realise that he was actually saying the same thing as you: that if you treat ‘Marxism’ (as developed post-Marx) as revealed truth in the religious sense, without bringing his ideas together with what we have learnt since his time, then you do everyone a disservice, especially our offspring and theirs, wherever and whenever.
Oppression of future generations ?? Are you for real ? As they dont yet exist they cant therefore be oppressed ….
Micky, a perfect example of un-reconstructed socialist “they don’t exist, they cannot be oppressed” . It’s our children, grand children and great grandchildren you are talking about.
It is this attitude to future generations and the environment that has made me realise that old style socialism is an ideology of inter generational greed and selfishness, no different from capitalism in its desire to rape and pillage our children’s earth, just less effective in doing so.
It is for this reason that I am sceptical about the ability of the left to work with greens on anything other than present day issues of equity. Even many socialists with a good understanding of environmental issues like climate change all too often have long term green issues coming a poor third to social issues of today.
No wonder the future is unsafe in Socialist hands!
It is a very poor article drafted with little Marxist understanding – Sean is basically saying a wish and prayer approach is needed in respect of the Left Unity Party.
The Green Party exists and getting support in this country and around the globe because a large number of people are firstly very alarmed about the damage that is being done to the planet and know that the multinationals and self interest at different levels (micro to global) are responsible for this.
– This is an organic reason why the Greens are getting support and will continue to gain support.
It then follows for many green supporters that social and economic justice cannot be separate from their support for greens issues and especially with the fact of former workers parties collapsing into neo liberalist positions, the end of the eastern bloc deformed workers states and also the dogmatic and divisive approach by the sects that is on offer.
The Greens are getting this social and economic support because if the vacuum that exists on the left and is unlikely to be reversed for the material reasons that exist. Even in Scotland when the SSP was doing well (with PR I should add), the Greens were still gaining support.
I am not going to talk about the infighting that took place in the breakthrough that was the SSP or the similar situation that has taken place in Ireland by apparently rounded out comrades but their are lessons that need to be learnt and so far not addressed on the Left Unity forum.
South America is a slightly different situation – well worth time to analysis – but not discussed on the Left Unity site but something we need to discuss.
Little time is given, on both the official Left Unity site for the following issues;
• The need to build an inclusive left movement based on united struggle as promoted at the People’s Assembly before having the trust and capacity to building yet another party to the left of Labour or a workers party.
• How they can work with the Labour Left MP’s and good lefts in the Green Party and others on the left – such as Plaid , National Health Party, George Galloway etc.
• The issue of best placed electoral left hardly gets an hearing.
• The problem with such a poor electoral system – WE DON’T HAVE PR!
• Are the electorate going to vote for the Left Unity Party more than the very poor results for Trade Unions snd Socialists Against the Cuts got – is it not more likely that results will continue to be pitiful and that people will vote Labour positively or vote Labour against the Tories. Or where best placed lefts have support.
The worse situation would be, for those who wanted a coherent left approach is that the Sects win the day or that people get carried away with thinking what happens at the Left Unity conference in November is any way the finished product.
As a Marxist my understanding is that wishing for events does not equate to a thought out political strategy unfortunately this is what Sean has done and I suspect many but not in Left Unity are doing as well.
The Greens get next to nowt in terms of support from the British public … Quite rightly too … What kind of person votes to be made poorer?
‘I suspect many but not all in Left Unity are doing as well.’
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/15/rachel-reeves-labour-benefit-recipients
I have lots of issues with the Greens and do think they could one day regress to a centre/centre right party like the Greens in Germany, but I think this article is mean spirited: in todays Guardian Natalie Bennet has taken Rachel Reeves to task for attacking those on benefits and has championed a fair and social security system for all. Left Unity haven’t really said much on these vital issues, lots on equalities, foreign policy, etc, don’t forget the basics.
The problem is that ideologically the greens are against wealth creation , consumerism , working class people being able to take cheap flights etc … Its good that Bennet says that we should have a decent welfare state , but this pales into insignificance against her parties ( and other green types ) default setting of wanting effectively austerity for all … It wasnt so long ago Lucas was raising and praising the idea of rationing and Monbiot wrote a piece saying Hooray for the recession …..Greens / environmentalists typically want people to live with less … Previously socialists saw this as poverty ( quite rightly ) now its merely reframed as ‘ saving the planet ‘ or being ‘ sustainable ‘ which itself is merely a byword for poverty … Socialists need to rediscover the original idea of Socialism which was riches for all … Not a life on benefits or a life lived at that level
It is of course dangerous to make judgements on so limited numbers, but the responses from those who are not Greens in this thread do little to encourage me to look forward to Left Unity with anything other than disquiet. Clearly these people do not understand where we come from, the full character of our position or the many different Left strands within the party. Morover, there is a total lack of understanding of one of the founding pillars of Green Philosophy – real democracy – that is decisions and policies made at the lowest possible level by those directly involved. I tried to make it clear to Green Left at the Liverpool conference (sorry to sound like Harold Wilson!) that whatever I or we thought about the actions of the Green Group in Brighton over the budget cuts it was primarily for the local party members in Brighton to sort it out, not a smaller group of people in a gilded hotel ballroom 250 miles away in Liverpool. Whilst most in Green Left disagreed with that, and of course there was a debate to be had about when a local issue has wider ramifications, the worrying thing was that some either did not understand or wanted to ignore the very sound libertarian Green philosophical basis to my arguments. A lot of us on the Left in the Greens have histories in struggel going back many years. Happy to put my own 40 year plus record of activism up against anyone. So the kind of contemptuous commentary from the contributors I find here will act as a warning to us to beware of Left Unity, nationally at least. When you are tested and trusted I look forward to working with you locally – as I do with the established autonomous and trotskyist groups and Left Labour people in my part of the world. At least with them I know what to expect and where the boundaries are and they don’t say silly things about the Greens because they have learned to know better.
I agree, disappointing article. It would take a lot to convince me that Left Unity will not go the way of NotoEU 4 years ago or TUSC more recently. And I am not going to apologise for caring about badgers. We have 34 mammal species in the UK, half of those are bats and many are threatened. It’s always been a Tory notion that inconvenient animals shoudl be killed off – red suqirrels used to have a price on their heads, or rather tails because that was what was handed in to collect the money so that game could be protected for the Hooray Henry hunters to shoot. I want a world with animals. That’s not a middle class stance, as I already had it in bucketfuls in my working class childhood, living in a flat from which a council house was a step up. I missed the Manchester march becasue I had already agreed to look after 4 grandchildren, but I know many GP members who went and most did not take banners but walked with TU groups. I would like to jopin Left Unity but have been told that it is going to register as a political party. It is no way ready to stand in elections and is likely to go the way of UKIP of having inadequate selection processes and unprepared candidates who will put their foot in their mouths in public. That’s an awful waste of a movement that could make a real difference, if it brought people together instead of dividing them. It’s cheap and easy to label a group of people as a sect rather than arguing with what they stand for.
Four points:
First; it always strikes me as strange the way that when people don’t like what you are saying, they tend to hear something else and accuse you of saying something that you haven’t actually said. Roy Sandison, who is generally a jolly good egg despite giving me a D- for the quality of the marxist analysis in my open letter, accuses me of saying that ‘a wish and prayer approach is needed in respect of the Left Unity Party’. What I actually said was that ‘the odds are probably against this attempt to build a “party of a new sort” succeeding. Nonetheless, it is a genuine attempt to build a mass, democratic, socialists party that is green, feminist and anti-capitalist but which is rooted in the day to day realities of the lives of ordinary people rather than concerned with telling them what they jolly well should be concerned with’. I contrasted this with my assessment of the Green Party’s likelihood of movement in the same direction – which was/is zero – and concluded that some chance of success was better than none at all.
Second; it’s extraordinary that so many Green Party members seem to be readers of the Left Unity web page, including the surprising appearance of Clive Lord, a splendid veteran Green from Leeds! The extreme defensiveness, amounting to outrage, on the part of some of them, while by no means unique to that organisation, is an unfortunate example of just that naive sectarianism that I mentioned in my letter.
Third; I’m sorry that Jonno thinks that I am mean spirited in my analysis of the Greens. There are many excellent activists in the Green Party – indeed, many of them are many fine socialists. Natalie Bennet is a friend and neighbour of mine and I defer to no-one in my admiration for Caroline Lucas, who is an outstanding campaigner and MP. However, none of that detracts from the fact that the Party exists in a comfortable political niche that it shows no inclination at all to move out from, and at 3% in the opinion polls, despite Roy’s rose tinted assessment of its upwards path, it remains a margininal political grouping. Unfortunately, when Greens’ muddled and shallow rooted radicalism is challenged by the harsh realities of class politics they corporately tend to move to the right. When push comes to shove, they get shoved.
Fourth; in response to Clive’s question, yes, the Citizens Income concept has been discussed with some interest in one of our policy commissions, but it’s early days yet as far as LU’s policy development, or any other aspect of its development, is concerned – indeed, the ugly duckling isn’t quite out of the egg yet!
Hi Shaun.
I’m sorry to see you leave GPEW, but if there’s one place I would rather you go it’s to Left Unity, who I hope utilise your huge talents and intellect.
I’ve always liked and admired you, and yes there is a “but” coming…
As someone who has been a Manchester activist for many years, including within GP, broad left and Animal Rights, I knew a great many people on that demo.
As such, your complaints in the article are simply not based in fact and I simply have no idea where you concoct some of your conclusions from, they are suppositions at best. It’s seriously the only deluded stuff I’ve ever seen or heard from you, but it is deluded nonetheless.
Regardless of the “rightness” of the badger cull aspect of the protest (god forbid that there is breadth of opinion and opposition to death lust weirdos), there were swathes of Green Party in attendance, the vast majority of them not to do with the badger cull stuff.
The banner / placcard operation was about the most thorough I’ve seen outside of a specific eco protest.
And of the anti badger cull people, a great many of whom I also know personally and work with, the vast majority WERE NOT Green Party Shaun. I’m not making this up and have no need to.
I wish Left Unity all the best and will watch with interest. You are not the first to leave GP from the left with some sense of frustration, and that’s something I could respect and live with. But to base your depature on error of fact is just weird and un necessary
Anyway, The UK needs a solid Left and a solid Green Party with different, sometimes overlapping traditions and standpoints, I would like to think they would not be major rivals to one another.
Hi Steve,
I’m quite bemused by the outraged, and on the part of two or three ‘comrades’ in Green Left, grossly insulting, responses here and elsewhere, to my perceptions of one demonstration, which were obviously subjective and limited to my own limited observations of one part of it and merely served as an introduction to my sustantive political point. Half a dozen other observers at half a dozen different locations might have seen half a dozen different pictures.
My assessment of the Green Party as a radical liberal sect with no corporate desire or potential to play a role in building a mass movement of working people that is both green and red was obviously not based on the number uof Green placards, banners or participants on that or any other march, and as you know is one which I have held and expressed for some years. However, that central argument has not been addressed by even one of the many Green Party members who have written in response to my letter. To suggest, as you – and all the other Greens appear to do – that I am leaving the Green Party because of who was or wasn’t on some demo or other is farcical. I’ve got really bored with such nonsense, Greens should try dealing with the politics, not the trivia if they want to be taken seriously.
Shaun, I hope you didn’t find my comments grossly insulting, I will address them after speaking to the substantive point:
I will continue to work for GPEW candidates I believe in and to advance the broad Green platform. I have no big problem with it, not least because people like you have been involved in its composition.
I am deeply skeptical of any mainstreamist tendencies within the party and will guard against them. They are counterproductive anyway, as there is no point offering a 5th mainstream option to voters when 4 are already available. Generally I think members and supporters get that, even if some are more timid in expressing it.
There are some right-pulling forces but the majority is very much centre (or further) left and left facing. I also like the non dogmatic and non authoritarian feel of GPEW. But I haven’t ruled out leaving, not that this means I’d join another party if I did.
I think a cultural problem with Greens is that pacifist sense of not wanting a row, which leads to being talked into things that are not wise. More liberal than the liberals in too many of the wrong ways. But it’s not like it’s a culture unique to The Greens.
I have no interest here and now in critiquing what happens in British Left organisations. First, it’s not in the spirit of solidarity which I hope eminated from the last post, and secondly there’d be hardly any need – the knowledge of history we all possess suffices.
As I sketched out above, Greens and Socialists each have long and rich separate, sometimes overlapping, traditions worthy of separate parties representing them. There is enough difficulty in forming one party of the broad church of socialism without trying to crowbar the ecological angle in as well.
You are in one group, those you have critiqued and who may be critiquing you are in another. So be it, I’m not much for sniping and the amount of time we will spend contesting elections we can both win may well be very small indeed.
There are people in both groups who love to denounce. I hope you aint one of them. You’ve said your piece, which I have some sympathy with and I hope we can leave it there without adding fuel to the fire of people on both sides who just like a slanging match.
As to your comments on the demo, to which I responded:
My comments were based in fact in contrast to error presented as fact, no matter how you may use subjectivity as a defence.
I don’t suggest you left because of the march. I’m not surprised at your building frustration over the years. But it was you who gave front end and weight to the shallow complaint about the demo, to complain about responses on the grounds that they too are narrow seems a bit shortsighted.
I’ve always believed that those who dole out criticism should be able to take it back. That’s all that happened with your post and my response. “Gross insult” has nothing to do with it.
I admit I was peeved to see you “subjectively” suppose that the badger contingent was to some degree an incarnation of a green caucus because the largest and most visible part of the anti-cull stuff, and the part which stayed outside the centre, were the hunt sabs. I don’t speak for them, but know in reality many of them are anarchists, and as such would object to being thought GPEW.
This brings me to a final, tangental but important point which I hope everyone reading digests: In my observation no segment of activism gets more Cinderalla treatment than AR, and the broad left is as guilty as anyone within that. Anarchists certainly tend to be sympathetic, as do a great many GP, but in my experience the broad left are hardly more likely to be so than Labour or Liberals.
Animal Rights activists are some of the most breathtakingly heroic I’ve met. In place of the indifference, sneering or even outright acrimony they too often receive (these comments are not aimed at Shaun) they deserve far more solidarity from outside their immediate movement.
Best wishes in any case Shaun, and hope to see you again in the not too distant.
Of course I didn’t find your remarks objectionable at all Steve; I was responding to an extraordinary barrage of correspondence ranging from disappointed to, frankly, hysterical – including someone who I don’t think that I’ve met repeatedly calling me a liar (I did respond by offering him a smack in the mouth, I have to admit) and, believe it or not, someone who suggested that I must be involved in some MI5 plot!
The main complaint from Greens – whose wild over-reactions ( I exclude you, Tim and a handful of others ) must have given pause to many on the left who have always thought of the GPEW as the ‘nice people’s party’ – after the one that I did not experience the march in question the same way that they did (I.e. the correct way) or recognise the affiliations of every anti cull demonstrator, has been that I am unfair on the Green Party because it has, on the whole, very progressive policies. Thus they demonstrate they haven’t understood my key point, while demonstrating it for me. The quote from Hal Draper made it clear – the central characteristic of sects is their obsession with the purity and superiority of their various programmatic shibboleths, some of which may well have great merit, and their insistence that their programmatic priorities, rather than those emerging from real class struggle in the real world outside, are what matters.
As far as I am concerned, by the way, I like you, will continue to support decent left candidates in elections regardless of their organisational labels – I’ll be voting Green against Labour in my ward next May, for example. I will be astonished if the vast majority of LU supporters don’t also do that. You and I both know that it is not what parties say that counts, but what they do. The Green Party has said, and continues to say, many excellent things ( as well as one or two rather daft things), but in the real world – in Brighton to be specific – it fell at the first hurdle, and the left in the Party failed by 2 to 1 to challenge that failure. You and I both know that the future for the Green Party is either complete marginalization or further concessions to the right.
alot of interesting issues raised here but i think as it is a left unity website then maybe a debate on left unitys views on ecology are needed as it is aparrent that despite the presence of some ecosocialist in left unity there are some around it who do not think ecology important. and the debate between those people would best be done with the green party removed from it. the french left party have declared themselves to be ecosocialist and have a branch in london who work with greenleft and socialist resistance so maybe invite them in to this debate.
Uh, some pretty radical left wing motions came out of the Autumn conference http://www.compassonline.org.uk/the-green-party-takes-on-the-banks/
Sean, as you have called the Green Party a sect, could you explain why 84% of Green Party members voted in a ballot to stand down our selected Green Party candidate in Birmingham Hall Green in favour of Salma Yaqoob. And why this was given support across the Green Party – including the national leadership?
Just for interest are their many other examples amongst the groups making up Left Unity who have done the same thing?
I can think of other times, that the Green Party has done this, for the best placed left candidate and to support the left and local community campign candidates.
Coventry Greens for example never stand against Dave Nellist in Coventry – despite the seat he was a Councillor in, being an area where the Greens would do well.
Read my article Roy, I explain why quite clearly. Or read the three or four papers I wrote for Green Left over the previous two or three years, which all said the same thing. Or just read the quote from Hall Draper above, who in turn was quoting Marx.
It will be interesting to see if Leftunity leads us to the perfect world we all desire. Peter Hartley ( Sheffield )
One of the biggest sources of anger appears to be Greens in coalition with parties which are on the right. It seems to me, in a democracy, we are only really arguing the question “Do you prefer mummy or daddy?” Daddy might offer more pocket money if you agree to wash the car so the next week the child might prefer daddy. Comments are made about Greens in Ireland and Germany and those opposed act like petulant children and walk out of meetings shouting as loud as they can about betrayal. Fact is it may be inappropriate for a lot of Green issues to be left on the shelf for five more years if an agreement can be made to support some common issues in exchange for some green policies. The criticism of Brighton is a similar dead end. The late seventies refusal to budge by trade union leaders and the on-going crushing of trade unions seeking simple work place recognition for their negotiations on behalf of staff. Let’s not be uncompromising again because that is what makes it simple to erode rights. Revolution and conflict are only justified when the democratic principle is being attacked or the views of the majority have become tyranny of the majority.
If you don’t all stop this kind of argument there will be no bloody unity of anything. It seems like you all want to pick a fight. If people want to do a protest about badgers, let them, they are not harming anybody. You certainly won’t win them over by telling them badgers don’t matter.
Caroline Lucas has been the only politician I have heard in the media mentioning the word socialism. I am sad she isn’t leading them anymore. I have been frustrated that the Greens often do not appear in the media when we get to hear plenty from UKIP and the BNP.
I would like to commit to a Left Unity Party, but I would feel a lot easier about it if we were united with the Greens.
Seems from some of the comments above that the Left (or certainly some of those on it) will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to embrace the concept of animal liberation, just as it had to be dragged kicking and screaming to embrace the concepts of women’s liberation and gay liberation in the past. And I, for one, shall carry on dragging!