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Will a leader fix the Green’s problems? 12.09.07
Never has the environment and green issues had a bigger profile yet the Party that has campaigned on the issues for 30 years remains marginal while the big three heat up the Parliament with green hot air.
This week the Greens start their annual conference. It is usually a pretty chaotic affair with the full range of environmentalist politics on display from deep eco, through from conservationist to Green socialism all spiced up with an anarchical under current.
This week’s event looks likely to be even more hotly contested than ever, the key debate however is not on external politics but internal democracy and leadership. The key contention is whether the Green Party should have a discernible leader figure, or two, rather than the two principal speakers and a raft of elected officials and a variety of responsibilities shared out amongst the various committees and individuals.
The issue is one of communication, those who believe that their should be a leader(s) say that the modern media cannot be successfully dealt with by a hotchpotch of individuals each responsible for different areas of policy and organisation. Politics they argue thrives on personalities who embody the politics of the organisation, people identify with individuals not parties, and the media is much happier dealing with a figurehead. A leader they argue is the next logical step as the Party ‘grow up’. Leading figures such as Caroline Lucas MEP and Sian Berry, one of the two Party spokespeople have come out strongly for a clear leadership.
Indeed Sian’s election as an official speaker for the Party is a clear example of how a strong intelligent personality can make a huge difference in reaching in to the mass media. Sian, who first hit the headlines through the anti-urban 4x4 campaign, has been a very effective spokesperson for the Green Party, her media interventions have been powerful and effective. Ironically her very success has lead to a decree of backstabbing and snide comments by fellow Party members.
Caroline Lucas writes in the Guardian this week “What we lack is the opportunity to do so on a national level. While Green party support has almost doubled in polls taken over the last two years, and we are increasingly represented in local councils, our invisibility at Westminster is hobbling our ability to more widely influence political debate.
The continued absence of proportional representation is one explanation. But another is the party’s internal structures and, particularly, our lack of an identifiable leadership team. Most people don’t relate to abstract concepts; rather they relate to the people who espouse and embody them. A leader and deputy leader, or two co-leaders, would act as recognisable and inspiring voices for the thousands of dedicated party activists who collectively make the party what it is.”
On the other side, is Sian’s fellow speaker Derek Wall and leading London members, including London Assembly member Jenny Jones. They argue in effect that old political party structures, centred around a strong unitary leadership have in fact failed, that people no longer identify with the traditional political party structure and one of the components of the Green Party’s success is its very rejection of leadership.
Jenny Jones and Derek Wall argue, “There is a real danger that electing a leader will weaken the party, reduce our commitment to green values, and substitute the "eco" of serious ecological commitment with the dreary "ego" of conventional, shallow, careerist British politics.
Political parties are going out of fashion, with falling membership and voter disillusionment. Young people in particular are alienated from politics. Any move to make the Greens more like the conventional parties is likely to lose us votes rather than win us more. And activists who want to feel engaged will look to movements where their contributions will be welcomed and participatory democracy is the norm.”
At the heart of the issue is the question, what is the Green Party for? Is it a machine to win power for ecologists, the political wing of the environmental movement, the voice of the radical middle class or a political party of a new type? Is the Green Party seeking to transform society or merely to implement a portfolio of environmental policies. Equally important is the UK Green Party a party of the left, or does it position itself as the French Greens sometimes do as above the Left Right debate?
The problem for the greens is that all too often they are seen as the political spokes people for a wide range of environmental concerns. No bad thing in itself but it comes with a great danger, if your programme is in effect a series of policy proposals bereft of an ideology then the minute the polls show that the tide is moving towards you it is relatively simple for the larger parties to simply hijack the most popular policies and pull the carpet form under the your feet.
With “Propeller Head” Cameron and his wind turbine Tories trying to reposition the Tory’s as caring capitalists, the Liberal Democrats going for a carbon neutral Britain and Labour’s Climate Change Bill, veggie Benn and mulching Milliband, what is the essential stand of the Green Party and how will it stand out?
The political equivalent of Clone Town Britain seems to be sweeping its way through the political spectrum, policies are more about polls and presentation than content and belief, what a leader wears and where they go on holiday is as important as what they believe. Profile replaces politics, focus groups replace party democracy and it is the green of money which fertilizes campaigns not causes.
For 30 years the Green Party has stood aside from all of this, fumbling along in a somewhat amateur manner to its present position of 110 principal local authority councilors, 7 MSP and 2 MEPs, outside of Brighton and Lancaster its elected members sit lonely on council benchs. The Party itself is staffed by a small group of dedicated volunteers and its budget not much bigger than a small crèche’s.
Its key environmental policies are more effectively espoused by organizations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, much of the creative thinking about what an alternative society should look like is done outside of its ranks in the likes of the new economics foundation and the pages of magazines such as Red Pepper.
You can look at the Green Party sometimes and easy think ‘what a joke’. But if you did that you would be fundamentally mistaken, the Green party is not the old Communist Party with its central structure and octopus front organizations it is exactly the reverse, the Green party is a product of the myriad of campaigns around the environment and world social justice, it is this organic connection with much broader movements that give it its energy and dynamism.
Over the last ten years out of the seeming chaos of its organization the Green Party has developed a coherent vision of what a sustainable UK economy would look like, and equally important what the role of the UK is in the world. Yes it is blurred, sometime contradictory, but it has at its heart an ecological socialism based on meaningful democracy at the lowest possible level.
A core part of the Green Party’s programme is participatory democracy and shared leadership at a local level, “By the People for the People”, says the website. To throw that aside for the sake of a media friendly ‘leader’ seems to say that while we talk one policy we walk another, a steady slide into the Clone Town Politics of the big two.
As Mathew Sellwood from the Oxford Greens puts it “The Green Party are, of course, still a relatively small element in the political scene, and it would be foolish to claim otherwise. We do, however, have the potential to rapidly expand to fill the space ’left of Labour’ that is such a gaping hole at the moment - and personally I certainly hope that we manage to do so. British politics desperately needs a left party that also has a functioning internal democracy, and that believes in local democracy and participatory economics.”
With the death of the Labour Left, the demise of the Communist Party, and the silly tail chasing of the grouplettes, there is a huge space to the left of Labour that can be filled by the Green Party. What is left of the Left is struggling to engage with ethical consumerism and sustainable economics, issues the Green understand intrinsically. What is more there are literally thousands of people active in campaigning organisations, local communities, trade unions and solidarity groups who could be attracted into a dynamic Green Party.
The Green party does need to develop there is no question of that, more effective Party structures, online democracy, expanded membership and the correspondent stronger financial basis. It needs to pull in more of its passive supportive circle. What it doesn’t need to do is just at a time when traditional party structures are falling apart is to adopt one.
Looking backwards into the future is one a solution if you want to walk into a lampost.
Peter Shield is not a member of the Green Party.
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