Why Corbynmania is a win for the Green Party
Deb Joffe is a Green Party Councillor in Bristol. This article was originally published on her personal blog, here.
It’s difficult as a Green not to feel a little conflicted about the rise of Jeremy Corbyn. After all the policies he is espousing are pretty much identical in many cases to those the Greens championed during the General Election. Against austerity and fracking; in favour of state ownership of the rail network; cancelling the renewal of Trident; a humane and intelligent response to immigration. Indeed Jeremy’s latest soundbite about education is lifted straight from the strapline of the Green Party Manifesto: ‘For the Common Good’.
Not only did the Labour Party not stand on this manifesto (far from it), but they also received a lot of votes from the very people who are now excited about Corbyn. Much of this may be due to the electoral system which favours the big parties and the breadth of ‘tactical’ voting which went on across the country (in the end to no avail). In Bristol we estimated about 18,000 people may have split their vote, electing Green councillors but ‘playing safe’ in the national elections, even in seats which were nowhere near marginal such as Bristol East or South.
There is also a wariness in the party that now that Labour’s failure to oppose the Tories has been made crystal clear, the people who might have turned finally to the Greens are hanging in with the Labour Party in the hope that Corbyn will be the new leader. It must be true that the Greens are losing out here on potential new members and supporters.
Nonetheless I see the enthusiasm for Corbyn as a success for the Green Party. The Greens (along with the SNP and Plaid Cymru) held the torch of opposition to mainstream neoliberalism and the austerity programme throughout the General Election. For all the criticism of Natalie Bennett’s technique, people on the doorstep told us they liked what she had to say. That torch is – for now- in the hands of a man who might actually be able to set something on fire.
The point of the Green Party is to see its policies implemented. We can achieve this directly through electoral success or through shifting political discourse towards the environmental sustainability and social justice which are our core values. Electoral success and the agenda shift are of course interconnected and voting Green certainly turns the heads of the parties who lose votes in the process. In Bristol City Council the Liberal Democrats demise has coincided with the Green’s rise but the Tories and Labour are also finding it harder to hold their seats.
I am in no way suggesting we should not stand for election. The Green Party is not simply a pressure group. However we have to recognise, with the electoral system we have, that success may not always come in the form of winning seats. Watching a major party shift its position towards our own has to be viewed gladly. After all it is the policy not the party that counts.
I’m very skeptical about Corbyn, I’m skeptical about labour per say, but one of the reasons I support the Greens is because of the rational socialism it offers, I genuinely believe the Greens under Bennett can lift this fear that the British public has about socialism and move it forward into the 2020s and beyond, Corbyn appears to be the personified knee jerk reaction and I think that jerk will take us back a few decades and not forwards, we need new ideas, labour is lost because they abandoned their core values back in 1997 and Blairism still lingers, And that is why I’d want the greens to remain distant from labour, look at what happened to libdems when they threw in with the Tories, also Corbyn may be a true leftist but he doesn’t appear to represent green values of today, the greens did really well to be a contender in the 2015 elections, I’d hate to see us throw in with Corbyn and see that tarnished.
I find this article disturbing for the opposite reason than Sean T. (who has quit the Green Party and now is humming the same old tune of ‘Vote Labour’!): I think it is dangerously soft on Corbyn and on Labour. Don’t get me wrong: I want Corbyn to win, and I want a limited pact with Corbyn’s Labour: https://www.the-newshub.com/uk-politics/the-case-for-an-electoral-pact-to-secure-a-greener-democratic-future
But for goodness sake, colleagues, let’s remember the kinds of reasons why we are GREENS: Corbyn presents us with a humungous opportunity… to redefine the Green Party as based in ecology…
to set ourselves apart from a Corbyn-led Labour, we will need to be absolutely upfront with our post-growthist policies on preserving the green belt, CI, Land reform, LVT, etc. … 🙂 Corbyn doesn’t want any of these, so far as I know. He is a growthist, an old fashioned productivist socialist. We can outflank him – NOT on the Left, but as GREENS…
JC has gathered a following of people who are wanting the green policies he is putting out there. And they aren’t just clicking like and moving on, they are donating to his campaign. The cash in the Jeremy Corbyn for Leader kitty is going up in small increments (£5 – £10 at a time) and is currently at £87,560. That is a lot of supporters, who will probably be looking for another political home for their hearts, minds and votes if he loses the leadership contest (or gets it taken away from him.) If he wins the leadership I believe he will work well with the green party. Either way I think this can be a very good thing for the Greens. and as the original article says the policies should always come before the politics!
The reality is that even though many of us Green or SNP voters or Left voters aspire to see Labour return to the left values which Jeremy is a credible figurehead for, its highly unlikely a radically reformed Labour party could win outright. So its about creating circumstances for a coalition of the left in order to remove the Tories. If Lablur signed a pledge to reform electoral voting system within next Parliament, to somehow include representation via proportional representation, then that would be a huge motivation to give Labour a final chance but I won’t trust otherwise giving Labour my vote when the SNP and Greens are more credible choices.
I’m afraid that this article betrays (for the best of possible motives) some of the sectarianism that has bedevilled the British Left for so long. A world viewed solely through the prism of the programmatic priorities and organisational ambitions of the Green Party is likely to be very distorted.
The phenomenon of the Corbyn campaign, which has come as a surprise to everyone, is indeed a sort of extension of the ‘Green Surge’, but that surge was itself only partly about the virtues of the Green Party, still less about the correctness or otherwise of its programme (much of which it holds in common with much of the wider Left, including Jeremy, of course). The SNP/Green/Corbyn surges are the most significant (up till now) part of the more or less spontaneous manifestations of popular rejection of the Tories’ austerity agenda, largely but not entirely on the part of young members of the precariat.
There is no doubt that the ongoing underlying economic crisis is both the driver and the opportunity for the Tories, emboldened by the apparent lack of opposition to its economically illiterate 2010 austerity programme (and in particular by Labour’s effective capitulation) to launch a savage attack on the welfare state and the trade unions that will sweep away most of the gains of a century of reforms. However, economic crises also produce a response among those who are faced to pay the price for their resolution, albeit delayed. When crises come, they develop in new and unexpected ways as their contradictions are condensed and dispersed, rupturing in surprising ways.
If we (and I mean the Left as a whole) are to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by the crisis we need to be aware that the window of opportunity can both open and shut very rapidly and without apparent warning. In order to seize the time one needs a party, or at least a popular movement, or at least a critical mass of some thousands of activists who can provide the energy, physical resources and imagination needed to mobilise that movement and build (or rebuild) that party. So what grouping on the left could provide such a critical mass? The Green Party could do it but won’t. Left Unity would do it but can’t (certainly not on its own). The various comic opera bolshevik sects don’t even want to. But perhaps – just perhaps – the inchoate movement coalescing around Jeremy Corbyn might. While the Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader campaign might not be a Podemos, and certainly not a Syriza, its remarkable success in mobilising significant numbers of current and former Labour members or supporters, independent socialists and most crucially, battalions of young people, it may well be a case of third time lucky after the dead end of the ‘Green Surge’ and the sadly drifting Left Unity project.
If Jeremy wins (or, indeed, if he very narrowly loses) we cannot predict with any certainty what will happen next. But what we can say with certainty is that his victory would be a game changer for the left. I quite understand that as members of the Green Party you can’t vote for him. However, if he wins I would urge you to consider what your main priority is – building the Green Party or building a broad mass movement with the potential to be the most critical step towards the birth (or rebirth) of a mass pluralist party of the socialist/feminist/green left in our lifetime.
hold your horses there. A Labour Party under Corbyn would be amenable to some of our policies and a good basis for a progressive alliance – but it would still be a long way from our core values or the kind of radical economic and societal change we need to implement if we are to combat and survive climate change. The Labour Party left me behind years ago, and whilst Corbyn represents a massive move back to where Labour should be, it’s still missed the bus. We need to be moving to a post capitalist economy, and even radical socialism (which Corbyn does not represent) wouldn’t cut it.
Well said, Michael. This piece is dangerously soft on Corbyn and on Labour. Don’t get me wrong: I want Corbyn to win, and I want a limited pact with Corbyn’s Labour: https://www.the-newshub.com/uk-politics/the-case-for-an-electoral-pact-to-secure-a-greener-democratic-future
But for goodness sake, colleagues, let’s remember the kinds of reasons why we are GREENS: Corbyn presents us with a humungous opportunity… to redefine the Green Party as based in ecology…
to set ourselves apart from a Corbyn-led Labour, we will need to be absolutely upfront with our post-growthist policies on preserving the green belt, CI, Land reform, LVT, etc. … 🙂 Corbyn doesn’t want any of these, so far as I know. He is a growthist, an old fashioned productivist socialist. We can outflank him – NOT on the Left, but as GREENS…
If Corbyn wins , one good thing for the Greens is that the mass-media narrative will have to shift our way, if only just to report what he stands for. If he doesn’t win, then I think our membership (and active supporters) will obviously be boosted a bit… I’m trying to be a nice optimistic Green here! (based in Plymouth)
well it’s no coincidence the recent growth in green party support and membership has coincided with the strong anti austerity position it has adopted. we’ve succeeded in marrying a strong committment to the environment with the pursuit of social justice! yes jeremy corbyn’s campaign is interesting but we’re already saying everything he is saying – and more – in the green party.
furthermore electing corbyn as labour leader wont on its own change labour support for nuclear power and nuclear weapons. it wont change labour policy on nato and it wont change labour policy on privatisation.
im a socialist and i do wish JC well in his campaign – but i’ll be sticking with the green party thank you very much. people with corbyn’s progressive agenda arent the exception in the greens, as they are in labour – they are the norm!
I too have mixed feelings- mainly because I don’t believe the Labour Party (in any of its incarnations) has ever taken environmental issues seriously. As someone who joined the Green Party primarily (not exclusively) because of these concerns, rather than a focus on social justice, I remain wary of Labour. Opposition to fracking is a populist position but what about the deeper changes needed to move to a low carbon society?
Exactly-like looking at how much we consume and how wealth inequalities play a part in damage caused to the environment. There are also constituencies where I believe Labour is not in a position to win anyway and likely never will be, but where the Greens could be able to win in the near future (e.g. Bath and Somerton & Frome).