Is it time for the Green Party to affiliate to Labour?

Nearly a month on from the election, talk is growing about the prospect of Labour and the Greens formally uniting.

Since the Green Party’s vote halved last month, debate has been growing as to what the party should do next.

Now that talk has turned to potentially affiliating to the Labour Party.

The main group for left-wing Greens has been seen a lot of talk from people suggesting the party formerly unites with Labour.

The first time we heard this idea was when Jon Lansman, Labour member and one of the founders of Momentum, suggested it last year.

The model that is being talked about is that of the Co-operative Party, which goes back to the roots of the movement in Rochdale, Lancashire, where the first Co-op was formed in 1844, and they became a political party in 1917. As their website says:

“Since 1927, the Party has had an electoral agreement with Labour Party. This enables us to stand joint candidates in elections, recognising our shared values and maximising our impact.’ The Co-operative Party now has 38 MPs and many elected regional and local representatives.”

The Co-operative Party has many co-operative retail businesses as members and promotes this form of economic ownership, within the Labour Party and outside. Co-operative Party branches affiliate to their local Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

This enables them to send delegates to Labour meetings and provides a process for selecting joint Labour & Co-operative Party candidates at elections. And they contribute to the election expenses of Co-operative (and Labour) party candidates.

Members of the Co-operative Party can be solely that, or members of the Labour Party as well, but the Co-operative Party does have an independent structure, separate from the Labour Party. As an independent political party, it maintains its own membership, staff, national executive committee (NEC) and policy platform, all of which are independent of Labour’s.

So the question is – could this type of arrangement be beneficial to the Green Party? The Co-operative website does suggest a (stark) comparison when it says:

“One approach is that of the Green Party, which has stood in elections for over 40 years. In that time, the Party has secured the election of just one MP, control of a single local authority and no policies turned into law.”

The Co-operative Party, although a hundred years old, does have many more elected representatives at all levels of government, including 38 MPs, than the Green Party.

Would the Greens benefit from this situation, in pushing their agenda forward?

It is worth thinking about seriously. But there are also many obstacles.

Firstly, there would be resistance form people in both Labour and the Greens, with Labour fearing a kind of ‘entryism’ which seems to obsess it.

Meanwhile, Greens may worry about the loss of the party’s independent status and fear that (joint) Labour and Green members from the Labour tradition would take over the party.

Under Jeremy Corbyn, there are many similar policies advocated by Labour and Greens. But there are also some quite large differences.

Labour operates under a fiercely centralised structure, whereas the Greens have a de-centralised structure – with no tight control from above. Without a whip – whether Parliamentary or otherwise – Greens are also more free to voice opinions which may differ from the party line. That is something not common in the Labour Party.

That’s on top of huge policy differences over nuclear power and nuclear weapons, where Corbyn is more in tune with the Greens than the majority of his party. And then is the question of economic growth, championed by Labour but seen as the root of our ecological problems by Greens.

But if these hurdles can be overcome by some kind of agreement – which I think is possible – the rewards could significant for both parties.

For the Greens, there’s the chance to gain many more MPs and local councillors, and achieve the kind of political influence that has largely alluded us so far. Time is short. With the climate crisis in full swing, action needs to be taken sooner rather than later, and this idea might just do that.

And ecosocialists like me in the Green Party, might affiliation to Labour help spread ‘green left’ ideas to a wider audience?

For Labour, already eyeing up more Green voters for the future, this set-up could broaden the party’s electoral appeal, bringing it even closer to younger voters.

The time has come for both parties to at least explore this idea, to see how it might work in practice. Given the potential benefits that this type of agreement could bring, it’s an opportunity that can’t be ignored.

Mike Shaughnessy is a Green writer and blogs at London Green Left

74 Responses to “Is it time for the Green Party to affiliate to Labour?”

  1. Peter Allen

    I seem to be almost alone in thinking that discussions such as this should take place within Green Party forums rather than in the public domain.

    Accepting that I have lost that arguement I would contend that the alternatives are not between affiliating to Labour and regarding them as, in all circumstances, electoral opponents.

    The Green Party has an important role to play in trying to ensure that the recent growth of radical/anti-austerity sentiment has ecology ( Eco socialism ) at its core.

    This neither means that we should feel compelled to stand against Labour in FPTP elections or that we should never do so.

    It does mean that we should recognise that the election of a Corbyn ( or similar) Labour led government provides the best immediate prospect of making progress towards a more equal and more ecologically sustainable UK and that we should do our best to assist such a government coming to power and refrain from electoral activity ( ie standing against Labour in marginal seats )that makes it less likely.

    The recent election shows that there are more ‘marginal’ seats than the experts would have us believe. My own constituency of High Peak was regarded by many Greens as not being marginal, one of the reasons given for objecting to the decision of High Peak Green Party to stand our candidate down and campaign for the Labour candidate, who overturned a Tory majority of nearly 5,000.

    The above approach can and should be combined with independent campaigning to try and ensure that the growing challenge to neo liberalism is green as well as red and needs to include political reform, including PR.

  2. greg

    The problem is that Labour are pro-growth.

    But, I have also never understood a Green party being an advocate for unlimited immigration, when that will entail building houses, roads, and airports.

    I have never been convinced on the CO2 hypothesis, but I can believe in the ‘urban heat islands’, created by development, contributing to global warming.

    And every field dug up or tree pulled down for housing deprives this planet of a little more of its natural and ecological systems – overpopulation is the problem.

  3. Peter HIxon

    I am also a “floating voter” with regard to the Labour and the Green party. I am also a believer in staying in the EU. The problem, as I see it is not how to distribute the wealth of the world equally alone, but also to recognise that the manner in which we live our lives has to be infinitely more parsimonious in regard to the use of the power available. Without the use of fossil fuel the world will be a different place and our “freedom” as we see it will, to a degree be curtailed. Given the nature of Humanity, I cannot see this happening. The Labour party has a possible chance of making the world a better place but only if it allies with other anti austerity parties around Europe and the democratic world. The Green party, without a degree of hypocrisy, will alienate many people when push comes to shove. To change the world, we have to change the culture of consumerism and, I doubt that we can do that. It reminds me of the Seventies when ” Green” was the buzz word of using lead free petrol, (perhaps a parallel of what we feel today about diesel) it was not unusual to see a large, safe? Volvo disgorging children outside of the school gates with a sticker on it stating that “I drive Green”. The problem of exponential growth is not going to be addressed by politicians of any hue who hope to keep their job, only society as a whole can suggest that consumerism is an ill! To just look around at the amount of plastic rubbish we generate is to provide an answer to the idea of being green. To look at the amount of varying products that we feel we need on supermarket shops is, similarly a comment on the idea of being a “green society”. Everything that we do is driven by our feeling that we have a right to use as much power as we can pay for and until we can get society to feel that this is not the case the idea of Green is riven with inconsistancies

  4. David Walsh

    I suppose the story (a sad one, from the perspective of a deep green) of the German Die Grune is salutary, both for what it did to that party but also in the way in which some of the Green leaders there went into ministerial power on a prospectus far to the right of UK Labour,like ducks into water.

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