Caucus

By Peter Cranie

Forgive me for saying that as Greens, we are a little “Lost”. Look at any political opinion poll. Labour. Conservatives. Liberal Democrats. Others. Like it or not, we are simply an “other” party at the moment, and I don’t enjoy the company we currently keep.

Since our foundation in 1973 as the Ecology Party, we’ve moved along a different path from traditional political parties. The Greens as a political party pushed environment matters onto the mainstream in 1989, but our levels of representation remain relatively low even today. We are not attempting simply to carve out a niche in British politics, our ambition is to radically overhaul it by gaining political power. That ambition should not be indulgent posturing, but the focus of real activity.

We are very different from the other “others”. For populist mass appeal you might want to take a look at the BNP or UKIP. The BNP was initially a splinter group from the National Front back in 1982 but had little impact in British politics until the election of Nick Griffin as leader in 1999. He has exploited growing public concern over the issue of immigration, linking it to crime and benefits, with an increase in their European vote from 1% to 4.9% in just five years.

UKIP was founded in 1993, but attracted little attention until the Referendum Party after the death of James Goldsmith, when it attracted new members and gained a foothold in British politics by electing 3 MEPs in the 1999 Euro Elections. It also makes a hardline case against immigration, but its central theme is a complete aversion to our membership of the European Union, and taps into a fertile anti-EU vote.

It is only in recent years that the Greens have credibly challenged for elected office at a local level, building from the ground upwards. In 2002 there were just 40 Green councillors in Britain. Now there are 122, with even more expected to get elected in 2008. Despite local successes, we’ve failed to make progress in our big PR opportunities in 2004. We held our two existing European seats with an increased vote share but lost one of our three London Assembly seats.

Meanwhile the populist bandwagon has rolled on, with media coverage on European and Immigration issues greatly increased. UKIP won 12 Euro seats in 2004 without any local base to speak of. The BNP has pushed its number of council seats up to 48 and seems capable of winning 30% or more of the vote in council byelections where it has never previously stood a candidate. Both of these populist and in the latter case, racist, parties are also comparable in size to the Greens. UKIP has about 12,000 members and the BNP just under 7000, compared to our current total of around 7,700. If we are going to talk to voters about sustainability, we should also recognise that as a political party our membership needs to increase to more than 10,000 if we are to be truly sustainable as an organisation at our current level of activity.

The Green Party is radical. We would reduce defence spending, we would pursue an ethical foreign policy and we would deliver a better quality of life for ordinary voters in national government. We already manage to do the latter in areas where local green councillors are working hard for local people, but we are constrained to work within a system where national legislation dominates. In places like Huddersfield, Norwich, Brighton and in London we can point to the successes we’ve brought about through our influence and our local strength, but at no point have we yet had the opportunity to radically put a Green agenda. We are often forced to argue for the least worst option because the influence we have locally isn’t enough to reform or replace the framework in which local government currently operates.

In 2005 the Liberal Democrats gained 22% of the vote with many ordinary voters choosing them as a protest against the war in Iraq. As Nick Clegg drags the Liberals to the right to hold Parliamentary seats at risk from the Conservatives, a radical space is available in politics. The future trajectory of British politics demands that we reach out to a wider audience, and become a little more populist and a little more accessible to voters. The BNP vote will grow in the London Assembly and European Elections, with votes coming from former working class Labour voters. They are likely to gain PR representation in London and perhaps elsewhere, despite their current internal problems.

UKIP will suffer no doubt, as the hardline message of the BNP on immigration and Europe takes away some of their support, but they remain the 4th largest political party in terms of membership and funding, and we should expect for them to retain 3 MEPs at least in 2009.

At the moment, our local strength, our positive achievements at a local level and in London, internal financial stability and growing membership means we are in a strong position to make gains and break out of the category of “Others”. If we are to succeed, additional support for the Greens cannot just come from the left, but also from voters that have grown disillusioned with the Liberal Democrats, who arguably fought the 2005 General Election campaign on the most “left-wing” agenda of any of the main three parties.

The alternative to electoral success is to remain on the margins of politics. What is clear is that locally and nationally is that we do have a positive social justice and environmental agenda that is urgently needed. That means electoral support and representation is vital, not just locally but in Westminster and Europe. A narrow focus and small membership, that allows the Green Party to be defined as simply another far left faction, will limit us to a few local initiatives, and shouting ourselves hoarse in an already crowded left blogosphere.

What we need is a multi-racial, progressive Green Party that embraces equality, social justice and is anti-capitalist, but avoids the worst aspects of dogmatic socialism. What we need is clear recognition by the public that we are the 4th party in British politics by 2010, having elected a Green MP and by increasing our representation at all levels of government. From that platform we will have a real opportunity to challenge the managerial politics with a genuinely radical political programme.