Labour and the Greens have much to learn from each other- if they can find a way to co-operate
“To be at the heart of the progressive mainstream… one of our tasks is to learn the lessons of the green movement and put sustainability at the heart of what we do.”
So said Ed Miliband in a speech to the Fabians at the start of this year. Today sees the beginnings of a response to that call with the publication of a new e-book by Compass, Good Society / Green Society? The Red-Green Debate. The collection of essays hopes to stimulate deeper discussion between greens and the broader progressive movement, both within and outside the Labour party.
In one of the opening contributions to the book, Victor Anderson (former environment advisor in Ken Livingstone’s Cabinet) argues that these are auspicious times for red-green relations. Gone are the days, he writes, when socialists used to reject environmentalism as merely a bourgeois distraction; the state of the planet has got too bad to support that view any more. Instead,
“although social democracy still has more impact in the world than green politics does, the greens are no longer the poor relation in the dialogue that they once were, and they have a clarity which many on the left envy.”
Socialist thinking has been in decline for twenty years, but the green analysis has become sharper as the scientific evidence base for ecological problems has grown.
Yet does the left yet really embrace green ideas wholeheartedly? No, argues Compass chair Neal Lawson:
“the mainstream left in and around Labour has never been good when it comes to the environment.”
The reasons for this, he suggests, lie partly in the present imperative of tackling government cuts and partly in the Conservatives’ reversion from being green to true-blue. But there is also a much deeper reason:
“the fact that social democracy is in essence the politics of more: more wages and therefore more things to spend those wages on.”
While ‘a politics of more’ made sense for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, as the left sought to organise working-class communities to demand more from their rulers and employers, today
“class-consciousness has been replaced by consumer consciousness”.
The West is awash with material goods, the never-ending acquisition of which now distracts from securing wellbeing and finding other ways of being human. Consumerism also presents “a double bind for the left”: escalating environmental crises and the undermining of Labour’s traditional electoral base. In short, “the left needs a new game”.
If the left has failed to engage fully with environmentalism, perhaps greens have failed to fully engage with the left. The reason for this lies partly in the existence, for the past forty years, of a separate electoral vehicle for green hopes, the Green Party. Yet as Green Party member John Hare writes, there is certainly potential for future red-green Parliamentary alliances.
Though the era of European red-green governments waned in the late 1990s, the recent resurgence of the Greens in German regional elections has shown they remain a potent political force, and underlines the long-term decline of the SPD. While the UK’s first-past-the-post system protects Labour from losing much ground to the Greens:
“they face the same problem [as the SPD] of steady leakage of millions of voters (many of whom are not being lost to other parties, but are simply refusing to vote) and of having no distinctive and credible ideological identity. In the search for any of these, they might do worse than look to Germany and look for endorsement from the Greens. Offering a few parliamentary seats in exchange might be a deal well worth the cost.”
The book does not shy away from exploring areas of longstanding contention between reds and greens: two chapters exploring ideas around economic growth show many disagreements remain, but also that such arguments are far more subtle and complicated than they are often characterised, and deserve far more attention from all sides.
But areas of common ground are also emphasised. Deborah Doane of the World Development Movement and Ruth Potts of nef see the causes of gender equality and participatory democracy as being given a boost by:
“a green–red alliance, particularly in the context of UK political history, [which] would be uniquely placed to take this forward – because it draws on a history of mutualism, cooperation and inclusiveness.”
A contribution by the author of this blogpost suggests there are new ways both reds and greens could frame the way they talk about environmental and social problems that would better communicate their values – and mutually reinforce their own causes.
It’s to be hoped this book marks only the start of a richer, deeper conversation.
42 Responses to “Compass book puts to Labour-Green co-operation”
Anon E Mouse
“Socialist thinking has been in decline for twenty years, but the green analysis has become sharper as the scientific evidence base for ecological problems has grown.”
The reason socialism is in decline is because no one wants it – it has been comprehensively rejected in every single country in the world given a choice. So instead of providing what people do want your answer is to try and hijack some other bandwagon?
Pathetic…
Leon Wolfson
Bullshit. Many socalist governments drifted to the right, as we saw in the UK, and had no deacent answer for the right’s beloved banks screwing the heck up. If they actually turn back to the left and gain back a lot of voters who feld they could no longer vote at all since they had to party representing them (and in the UK, were duped into voting for the LibDems).
Come up with deacent suggestions to reverse the trend of concentration of money in the rich, which is a result of money flocking to the rich, unearned, rather than being generated via the result of labor, and the left can take those gains back.
Of course, you portray this as bad, since it would mean your rich buddies losing out.
Dave Citizen
For the next generation’s sake, I hope Labour does engage with the new environmental realities and take the political risks necessary to achieve cooperation with those greens who share a vision of a more equal and fairer prosperity on which to build a Britain fit for the future.
Anon E Mouse
Leon Wolfson – If they “drifted to the right” as you say then they are no longer socialists. DUH!
Since I am on the equivalent of minimum wage, the reason I was a lifelong Labour voter pre-Brown and all those other thuggish types, I do not know who these rich people are.
Do you mean the likes of the countess toff Harriet Harman, Lord Hattersley, Alan Sugar or any other of the bankers, city slickers and spivs so richly rewarded by the Labour government?
Please name another country given a choice that has voted for a socialist government.
There isn’t one because unlike a few weirdos with delusional imaginations, like you with your secret agent nonsense, no one wants it. Ask Ed Miliband…
The fact is all you continually do is make things up and I would ask exactly what the point of your posts on this fine blog are? All you are doing is making Labour less and less attractive to floating voters. I don’t get it…
Anon E Mouse
Dave Citizen – Those “environmental realities” are going to mean more and more increases in “green” taxes hitting the working classes and the poor. How does that square with your “fairer prosperity” desires?
The sooner the Labour Party gets real the sooner this country can have a credible opposition to this government…