Yes: the left wing has to stick together at times like these, says Daniel Whittall
When Caroline Lucas made her maiden speech to the House of Commons as Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, she proudly announced that she was following in the footsteps of “those first socialist and independent Labour MPs, over a century ago, whose arrival was seen as a sign of coming revolution”. Citing the inspirational examples of, among others, Keir Hardie and the feminist Millicent Fawcett, Lucas spoke of the need for electoral reform, affordable and sustainable housing, and for public sector workers to be supported in the face of impending cuts. She also alluded to the pressing need to take action against human-induced climate change.
As a Green Party activist, the speech made me immensely proud. This was the culmination of years of hard work and the beginning of a new era. It is also highlighted the fact that the Greens are a party of the left. One result of having a Green MP has been that the party has got more media coverage. It was encouraging to see Tribune’s July 23 editorial announce the intention to “shine the policy spotlight on a party that has always needed to be taken more seriously than the mainstream media generally care to”.
Carl Rowlands’ [who writes again on this subject on the opposite page] article in the same issue should be welcomed for initiating a debate on Green politics within the British labour movement. In the spirit of fostering this debate, it is important to engage with some of Rowlands’ strongest criticisms of the Greens in an effort to lay out another vision of Green Party politics.
Rowlands criticises Lucas for her “over-generous assessment of the Scottish and Welsh nationalists”. For Rowlands, supporting nationalist parties necessarily means a rejection of internationalism. Yet this is far from the reality. One of Lucas’ first actions as MP was to move an amendment calling for the inclusion of Trident within the Strategic Defence Review. Tabled jointly with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, this represented an attempt at the kind of internationalist co-operation which Rowlands rightly values and for which Lucas has long worked as a Member of the European Parliament. Co-operation with the nationalists allowed for a significant statement to be made against nuclear weapons, even as Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs lined up to support continued spending on Trident.
Rowlands is right to point out the many failings of Green parties around Europe. Yet it is becoming something of a hackneyed journalistic cliché to dismiss the leftist credentials of the Green Party of England and Wales because of the actions of others. It would be considered ridiculous to hold the British Conservative Party responsible for the policies of the Republicans in the United States. Nor should Labour and the Lib Dems be written off on account of the mistakes of social democrats elsewhere. For the Greens, a different set of rules seems to exist – allowing their policies to be collapsed into those of other national Green parties, despite their evident differences.
Rowlands contends that the “crucial role of unemployment and the impact it has are often missing from Green analytical perspectives” and claims Green economic policy “leaves the main bases of capitalism and ownership largely untouched”. Yet the Greens’ 2010 general election manifesto argued: “The loss of jobs that has gone with mismanagement of an unsustainable economic model is a criminal waste of talent and aspiration, and has turned life into a daily struggle for survival for millions of our fellow citizens.”
The manifesto laid out a fully-costed strategy for the creation of one million green jobs – a strategy Caroline Lucas has been in long discussion about with trade unions.
The Greens also promise to raise the minimum wage to 60 per cent of net national average earnings – or £8.10, according to 2010 figures. Couple this with Green proposals for a basic income to be paid to all citizens whether they are working or not, a pledge to repeal anti-trade union laws and the Green critique of perpetual economic growth, and you have the basis of a profound challenge to capitalism.
Yet Green politics cannot be reduced to socialism plus environmentalism. Many on the left struggle to accept Green politics because the drive to reduce consumption, contest economic growth and reduce the need to work long hours challenges the industrialist focus of many socialists. The Green Party is, like any political party, a coalition – bringing together some who explicitly describe themselves as socialist and many who prefer the description environmentalist. Some, such as the Green Left grouping, which operates within the party, are developing theoretical and practical expressions of eco-socialism – an ideology which seeks to work through the contradictions between ecological and socialist political thought and practice in the quest for an environmentally sensitive socialist politics. Developing and broadening this dialogue on the relationship between socialism and environmentalism ought to be a central preoccupation of the political left going forward.
No: we must be cautious of the Green party’s agenda, says Carl Rowlands
The angry responses to questions I asked about the Greens and their allies (Tribune July 23) are somewhat surprising. The Green Party want to be considered as a left alternative to Labour, yet appear to resent closer scrutiny. It seems many Greens would frame a dialogue which is primarily at Labour’s expense, underestimating the party’s achievements and the genuine efforts of Labour activists.
The idea that the Greens are the only leftist political organisation campaigning for public housing and local work is disingenuous and wrong. Labour has made significant advances. Despite what Caroline Lucas states, there is no plan for full employment in the Green manifesto. Full employment could only be achieved by a guaranteed job after a specified period – with the state as employer as last resort. Of course, this isn’t official Labour policy – but some prominent Labour members, including former Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, have suggested it.
This has implications beyond the current horizons of both Purnell and the Greens. It might mean a future government has to resume an element of control and ownership over public utilities. But the Labour Party, even now, seems better able to describe the need for a full-employment economy as a pre-requisite for further social and economic progress and a rebalancing of the political relationship between labour and capital.
Caroline Lucas asserts that none of Labour’s five leadership candidates are prepared to argue we cannot rely on markets. Yet Ed Miliband has called on Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne “to stand up to the free-market zealots and keep our plans for an active government to shift our economy towards growth where the planet no longer pays the price”. There may be an element of election grandstanding, but it seems that at least one leading member of Labour’s frontbench is prepared to argue against an unfettered free-market approach. If this were to mark the beginning of a real change in Labour’s thinking, then the Greens could soon be struggling to maintain relevance.
On the education front, the Greens are committed to SureStart. This is actually a palliative for the absence of comprehensive and affordable pre-school facilities for all children – a national kindergarten scheme. For Labour, it would not take an especially radical or innovative socialist agenda to steal the Greens’ thunder.
Again and again, Green parties begin by offering to “transcend left and right”, but eventually come to associate with the right. What does that suggest about green politics in general? It makes an analysis of various green parties in Europe valid and necessary. Labour should approach the Greens with a certain caution. It needs to be aware that the Greens belong to a group of parties who are dependent on benefiting from Labour’s current travails and problems in developing effective policies in line with socialist values.
There are sincere eco-socialists in the Green Party, yet only patchy indications of the Greens moving beyond their core supporters. It is easy for the Greens to advance if Labour has a right-wing leadership. The concern is that the Greens calculate there is more to gain from a right-wing Labour Party than one trying to reapply democratic socialist values.
The general election clash in Brighton between Caroline Lucas and Nancy Platts is emblematic of the risk that, unless the Labour left and the Greens co-ordinate their activities to a certain degree, they will be fighting over the same voters. And a right-wing Labour hierarchy might be happy to see leftist Labour candidates in areas of Green support.
We should welcome the basis of an economic programme emerging from those on the Green left and those in the Labour Party who still regard themselves as socialists. It is from such initiatives that we might see the beginning of a realistic, yet transformative movement in credible opposition to the coalition and its agenda of capitalism and cuts.
