At the weekend, the Green Party took a formal step forward to solidify that position, as their spring conference in Nottingham voted with a majority of 71% to amend its constitution to commit to social justice and the “transformation of society for the benefit of the many not the few”. Their constitutional amendment should help strengthen their position as the only significant party to the left of Labour.
Tonight I will be attending a meeting of Kate Hudson and Andrew Burgin’s new Left Unity project, which will debate the question: why is there no party to the left of Labour?
In the traditional sense, they have a point. The two major projects of the last decade to unite the socialist left as an alternative to New Labour – the Socialist Alliance and RESPECT – never really got past old animosities and internecine squabbling.
But the question – perhaps a little too colour blind in its search for true red – ignores the rise of the Greens as far more than a party for beardy hippy eco-activists and the most successful left of Labour party the UK has seen.
At the weekend, the Green Party took a formal step forward to solidify that position, as their spring conference in Nottingham voted with a majority of 71% to amend its constitution to commit to social justice and the “transformation of society for the benefit of the many not the few”.
The party’s constitution will now call for a move from a “system based on inequality and exploitation” to “a world based on cooperation and democracy”.
But for those who have been immersed in Green politics for any length of time, this will only be a formal recognition of a much longer struggle.
“The Green Party has never been a single issue party,” Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ first MP and former leader told me in 2009.
“We’ve always been a party of social justice, and believe that equity has to be at the heart of a sustainable society. We’ve also always made the case that the best way to protect the environment is to transform the goals and direction of the economy to make it genuinely sustainable.”
Green activist Peter Tatchell says that for more than two decades, the Greens have had a very progressive social agenda.
“Unfortunately, the media tend to cover us only when we campaign on environmental issues,” Tatchell told me.
“That is beginning to change. As a result, more and more voters recognise that we have imaginative policies for a fairer society on a wide range of issues.”
Socialists should be working closer together on their common causes to resist the Conservative onslaught on Britain’s poor, whether that involves coming together to found a party to the left of Labour to help steer the national debate, or working within Labour to push for it to provide a more radical alternative in keeping with its working class roots.
But no one should forget the positive work being done by the Greens, not just when it comes to the environment, but on equality and social justice as well.
Their constitutional amendment should help strengthen their position as the only significant party to the left of Labour.
85 Responses to “Comment: Greens solidify their reputation as the only real alternative to Labour”
Mick
Well, maybe the article is right. The Greens ARE an alternative to Labour. They’re as mad as brown hatters like Tatchell and his militants. From outing gays against their will to thrusting ball-deep into touchy-feely weirdness. The Greens take it all. All up the bum:
https://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/02/greens-prove-they-are-an-alternative-to-labour/
‘It all began Sunday, when Britain’s Green Party introduced “politically correct hugging” at its annual conference.
“We’re a touchy-feely party,” where people hug each other, party spokesman David Taylor said. “But there’s been a breakdown in standards in social codes of behavior and people aren’t sure how to approach each other.”‘
So much so, their ladyboy council banned Mr. and Mrs., to save weirdos getting upset. Trannies apparently don’t even care, but that won’t stop the Greenies: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/political_correctness/
And if that’s too puerile for you, take a look at more general failures like REAL sky-high taxes, or joining the single currency and EU Superstate with such abandon that we’d have zero self-autonomy left.
Just like Labour, only a fiercer shade of Red.
Philip Leicester
Why?
Mick
And by the way, here’s the PC hugging link: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950309&slug=2109161
And if you want to see the Greens being ‘more successful’ than Labour, check out their left wing sh*t like banning binmen from eating sausages or ban things like sandwich adverts before 9pm: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/are-we-witnessing-the-great-green-sellout-7179546.html
What a bloody shambles. What a bloody Left.
Mick
Because the further Left you go, the more dictatorial they are: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/9699000/The-Green-Party-has-an-unpleasant-way-of-dictating-matters-of-conscience.html
And you’d have to go a LONG way to beat people in Labour. Like when 23 MPs signed an early day motion PRAISING Castro on his retirement, as well as Harperson calling him a ‘hero of the Left’.
Greens are green because they make you sick.
DuncanS
Today Labour occupies approximately the same position that Thatcher did in ’83. Disgraceful. I regard myself as a socialist, but there is no party to vote for today, and why? Because Labour pandered to the neo Liberals to get elected.
If a genuinely ‘socialist’ party can’t be honest enough, in the current climate, to express what I believe would be popular policies (windfall and trader taxes) etc. We are forever cursed with no political choice, bar a few key (side) issues, such as gay marriage etc.
Tax the rich, they (and their wizzy accountant / lawyers) can afford it (I would be caught up if the policies I would vote for were introduced), and if business want to stop trading in what is still one of the world’s biggest economies, then let them bugger of and not pay tax elsewhere. We are worth more to them than they are to us.