The Green Party needs to go big or go home
In 2002, the German city of Dresden flooded. So suddenly, with such force, that 382 people died. Gerhard Schröder was chancellor at the head of a Green/Social Democrat coalition. They were trailing in the polls.
Schröder got stuck in with the clean-up. Polling swung in his favour, and the green left-wing triumphed.
Nineteen years later in England and Wales, the Greens are nowhere near power. To turn this around, we need to grow big, fast. Otherwise, we may as well prepare for the end of life on earth as we know it.
We must focus, laser-like, on getting Greens elected.
To those activists who think that we should abandon all electoral efforts – I’m sure Friends of the Earth would love your help instead. The P in GPEW stands for (political) party. We exist to get elected. And we need to stop telling people to vote for other parties.
While it’s easy to despair at our lack of power, a ‘perfect’ storm is coming. It is perfect in the sense that it will be the very last wake-up call. Society is unprepared. It will be shocking and fatal.
When that mother of all floods does come, voters will want one party to give them the answers. That has to be us.
If we want to speak directly to the hearts of millions, we need to earn that right.
How do we do that?
1. We need to know our future voters
We occupy a powerful political niche. We’re the only left wing party that can reach across political dividing lines.
It was delightful to watch our latest local election results come in. We ousted the tired old parties in the most unexpected places; left, right and centre (pun intended).
Labour are busy doing our work for us, with the Blairite retaking of Labour nearly complete, and activists leaving them in droves.
If you think this is a weird coalition to maintain – look at the SNP, who defeated the FPTP system we loathe so much. They enthused tartan Tories and disaffected lefties alike.
We don’t need – and indeed, we must not wait – for our voting system to change. If the SNP managed to sweep to power, so can we.
2. We need to deliver one simple message that rings true
“Take back control.” “Get Brexit done.”
That feeling you get when you read these? Contempt. This happens because you are all too familiar with these slogans.
Both came directly from the mouths of voters. You’ll notice they are both three words long. No word has more than seven letters. They sum up the gut feeling that millions of people had.
At the time, I rolled my eyes – and this was because I hadn’t spent enough time with voters outside cities. Now, full of regret, I know we need to listen better. And we need to test our messages with our future voters. Our winning message must resonate with them. And to ring true, it has to be backed up by past actions.
Then, yes, we repeat it until it’s a running joke.
3. Our next leader needs to embody our message
By this I mean that their life story must match it. Like Sadiq Khan being the son of a Pakistani bus driver. That showed he lived the issues of race and class – the ideal tonic for Zack Goldsmith’s aloof bigotry.
This path to winning power is what keeps me going. Let’s build our structures to respond – with dynamism – to what lies ahead. It’s time to go big, or go home.
Rachel Collinson is standing on a job share ticket with Kathryn Bristow for publications coordinator in this year’s Green Party of England and Wales Executive elections.
This article is part of a series from candidates seeking election to the Green Party Executive. Other articles in the series, as well as wider coverage of the elections can be found here. Members will be balloted for these elections in August.
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Image credit – Bristol Green Party
We need to push our drug policy to the top of our agenda and also centre hemp for a green transition.
‘Go big or go home’ sounds too much like Labour’s ‘one last push’ to me. We need more than ambition and we are not going to ‘go big’ unless we create the necessary conditions to get our candidates into Parliament. That must start with the timely selection of suitable candidates, who should be prepared to go through intensive training, much like our best campaign managers are sent to Campaign School. Local parties might as well start the selection process now to avoid being caught on the hop (again) by an increasingly desperate government. Coming across as loveable dilettantes (which is the case all too often) may be good enough for gathering protest votes, but it won’t get us elected. Having said that, better prepared candidates alone won’t make much of a difference as long as communications between the national party, the regions, and local parties remain haphazard. In short, Greens need to become much more professional at every level and in every constituency.
I have never met any Green Party member who wanted to stop putting people up for election. Extinction Rebellion & the Schoolkids strike & Green members campaigning on roads, fracking & air pollution increased our membership & our votes. Those who put their bodies where their mouths are, like Alison Teal & the Sheffield campaign to stop tree felling, more likely to win votes, as they are seen, correctly, as having integrity.
Out of touch. Boring.
Germany has a better election system. That helps German Greens to do better than us
For local elections maybe, but for general elections no. I remember what it was like in 2015. We got 12% of the vote here in Bath. That helped elect a Conservative. Really, we all know the result of the next general election for the Greens. We all know which constituency we will win, even who the successful candidate will be. The Tories must lose a net 40 seats at the next general election. Every progressive party running candidates everywhere will help ensure they don’t, so now we need to use our heads and build alliances.
More information can be found at https://www.compassonline.org.uk/
You cannot make a direct comparison with the success of the Green party in Germany. They do not have the handicap of an undemocratic voting system known as first past the post. We need to get all the ABC (any but the Conservatives) Parties to unite and field just one candidate per constituency and have only one aim, to pass a law changing to a system of proportional representation. Without this change the Tories will win most elections and reverses any advances made.