A photo of Green Party campaigners in Bristol

We all agree that the Green Party should have good policies. It is the core basis for any political party. But what makes a ‘good’ policy?

I decided to stand for policy development committee so that I can help the party develop policy which I think is good. I thought about using this article to talk about my experience in research and in Green Party policy, or my own political commitments – as a trade unionist, as a socialist, as a Jew. This would not be in keeping with the role, which isn’t really about me. It is to help members, and the party create good policy.

What is good policy? Our platform needs to give voice to radical ideas, which would not get a hearing in more conservative political parties. They need to be practical enough to be implemented, but utopian enough to give a compelling vision of the future. It should be well researched and intellectually robust, drawing on both traditional academic expertise and the lived experience of the people the policy is trying to help. It needs to be thoroughly consulted, so that we can embed lived experience and cutting edge research into our process.

Instead, drawing on my experience proposing policy to conference, I thought I would write about how I think we should develop good policies in the Green Party and what I see as the Policy Development Committee’s role in that:

  1. Have a good idea

Every good policy comes from a good idea. The core of the democratic politics we have in the Green Party and aspire to have beyond the party, means that anyone in the party can come up with a good idea and make it party policy. However, it doesn’t always quite work like that. There are too many barriers to making a good idea policy, including a policy process which is by necessity complicated and difficult to penetrate from outsiders. The job of PDC is to make the complicated simple and help reduce the barriers to turning good ideas into good policy. Whether its by running training sessions on how to work the process, writing ‘how to’ guides, or introducing people to groups already working on the problem.

  1. Start early

Good policy is rarely written in a hurry (there are notable exceptions). There are lots of stages to turning a good idea into good policy and this is particularly true if you are proposing something complicated. The earlier you start the more research, consultation, drafting and redrafting you can do.

  1. Do some reading

I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you are probably not a singular genius who is the first person in the world to think about a particular policy approach. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we need to be reading and working with sources of external expertise to help fine tune our policies. If I am elected to PDC I will connect people writing policy to experts (and I mean both in the academic sense and in the sense of people with lived experience) working in an area.

  1. Consult

Who does this policy affect? Who is this about? This is something that you need to be thinking about when drafting policy. Talking to the people effected by your policy shouldn’t be an afterthought or only happen when you get slightly pissed off comments on a policy forum. Good policy should be thoroughly consulted and ideally co-created with people it will affect. To develop good policy, you need to be aware of perspectives and experiences beyond your own, and willing to challenge your own biases. If I am elected to PDC, I will work to facilitate consultations on motions, including by making introductions and provided neutral chairing for such meetings.

The party needs good policies. They need to have good ideas, but they also need to be robust and well referenced. We need to use all our expertise (both academic and lived experience), so that our policy ideas are practical and serve our communities. We need to think globally about our policies can connect with each other to form a coherent plan. If elected to PDC, I will work hard to achieve this.

Image credit: Matthew Phillip Long – Creative Commons