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”
DuncanS
I guess I’d like a party that reflects ‘socialism’ in it’s broadest sense, but I fear – thanks to our dominantly right-wing xenophobic media, which has got a strong grip on a politically apathetic (and rightfully fearful) public – that the message will not get through.
The cartels controlled by the very richest need dismantling, social mobility re-introduced, a tax system that is genuinely ‘fair’ for all (see above – I mean when is enough money, enough?) and used to fund nationalised services.
I digress, in answer to your question I agree with your point.
Ash
What ‘right wing views’? I suggested that many people to the left of Labour are disinclined to work within a party that has a broad appeal rather than a ‘pre-selected fixed ideology’. I think you agree with that, but even if you don’t, it’s not a ‘right wing view’ – it’s just a view about the tendency towards factionalism of some on the left.
You have no reason to think I’m a right-winger. I’m a social democrat with a commitment to greater equality and to publicly funded, publicly provided, universal services and benefits. As for the suggestion that I’m ‘rejecting anyone outside my views’ – where did that come from?
Mick
Don’t worry. Newsbot spams that to anybody. He says things like I bathe in the shed blood of the workers below this comment, or at least I think that’s what he means as his English is terrible.
He makes more reasoned debate with people who think more like him but spams those who disagree. He’s the classic example of the left wing idiom that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance then you must baffle them with bulls**t.
Mick
This may be WAY above your head, but it’s far more interesting to check out the sites which don’t think as you do. More fun to chew out the issues with people of differing perspectives. Though all the left usually have are names and spam, like poor little Newsbot’s.
All you’d want to do is stay on pages within your comfort zone and resist ‘invaders’ who dare wander to places we don’t deserve to.
Ash
“Today Labour occupies approximately the same position that Thatcher did in ’83.”
I have to take issue with this. It’s true enough that New Labour bought in to some right-wing dogmas about the wisdom of markets, and hence sometimes found themselves ‘reforming’ public services in the wrong direction (more private sector involvement) as well as tolerating a lack of private-sector regulation for which we’ve all paid the price. And they failed to grasp that inequality matters and not just poverty. But where Thatcher directed the proceeds of growth into the pockets of the rich (via tax cuts), New Labour directed them into public services and into the pockets of low and middle income households (via benefits and tax credits). And they never tolerated high unemployment, or slave wages, the way Thatcher did. And they took social issues seriously that were so much ‘loony left’ nonsense to Thatcher – e.g. gay rights.
And that was under *Blair*. Under Miliband, we are starting to see explicit assertions about the importance of tackling inequality, about promoting cooperation rather than competition in services like health, etc. I’d like to see some more overtly socialist ideas on the table – e.g. social models of ownership (nationalisation/mutualisation) for the railways and energy companies – but the party is hardly Thatcherite without them.