The Green Party and a new party of the left
Comments on socialistresistance.org2010sTwo comments by Alan in the thread under “New Parties of the Left–a view from the Green Party” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. Sean Thompson of Green Left, the ecosocialist current in the Green Party, reviewed New Parties of the Left (Resistance Books, 2011), whose chapter on Britain is by Alan and John Lister. He found that the book did not deal adequately with the Green Party, and that it passed over the 2003 initiative of Salma Yaqoob and George Monbiot. Alan replied.
15 November 2011
Sean is right that the book does not address the issue of the Green Party adequately. He is also right that in our chapter on Britain John L and I do not mention the initiative of Salma Yaqoob and George Monbiot in the autumn of 2003 in publishing a (rather general) discussion paper on the possibility of a political alternative to the left of Labour emerging out of the unity forged in the course of opposition to the Iraq war - including the Green Party (of which Monbiot was not a member at that time).
It was a short lived initiative which was quickly overtaken by the expulsion of George Galloway from the Labour Party and his appeal for a new electoral coalition to stand on forthcoming election. Both Yaqoob and Monbiot attended the informal gatherings which led to the formation of Respect. The Green Party (as I remember it) declined to attend those gatherings. Monbiot dropped out towards the end fearing that when a new alliance was launched would end up standing candidates against the Green Party. In fact after Respect emerged it went to great lengths to avoid it - approaching the Green Party for an electoral arrangement to avoid clashes. The response from the Green Party was to the effect that they would stand where they so decided and this was non-negotiable.
Having said that, however, the Green Party has moved to the left with Caroline Lukas as leader and is playing an important role. It is now essentially a left social democratic party from environmental origins. It is still not, however, an organisation which could conceivably form a new party with the rest of the left, not least because it is itself a coalition with a strong right-wing component reflected most importantly amongst its councillors.
Editor's note. Mike Rodriguez answered that while Respect unravelled the Green Party had nearly doubled its membership and taken much of the ground Respect had aimed for. With over 10,000 members and a clear left-of-Labour programme, he wrote, it is “objectively part of the raw material” of a broad left party, and that unity should not be pronounced impossible. “GL” below is Green Left; “CoR” is the Coalition of Resistance.
20 November 2011
I very much agree with Mike that the Green Party (GP) has to be a part of the picture (or the mix as he puts it) when we consider the problems of building a radical left party. Maybe my shorthand came out over negative. It is the case, however, that with its current political profile, the GP is not a candidate to become a part of such a party without significant political developments. I would be surprised if Sean, or other comrades of the GL, would disagree with this. This should stop us being positive about the GP, however, or underestimate the significance of its growth or its shift to the left under Caroline Lukas. These are important gains for the whole movement
The issue right now, however, is not whether the GP can be a part of a new radical party but whether a working relationship can be established between the GP and the rest of the left either in the form of a new left party or on general campaigning issues. And since the radical left has spectacularly failed to build a radical left party despite favorable conditions this makes the development of joint campaigning work particularly important. There has been progress recently on this for example in work around the cuts in CoR. There was and is also joint work on the stop the war coalition. Joint campaigning around environmental issues is more limited because much of the ‘traditional’ left is lacking on the subject.
Mike points out that the rise of the GP coincided with the demise of Respect. This is true chronologically, but in my view one was not the result of the other. In fact their constituencies and recruiting bases only marginally overlapped. There was ample space for both parties to develop by occupying space to the left of Labour – particularly if they made arrangements to avoid electoral clashes. In fact after Caroline Lukas became leader Respect was able to make several agreements at local level to avoid clashes which would have previously been impossible. The problem was that whilst the GP moved to the left by denouncing austerity and war - and also because the increasing relevance of the ecological issues themselves - Respect self-destructed by reverting to the undemocratic practices which have plagued the British left for so long.