Posted in Greens

A response to “I didn’t leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me”

Jack Monroe changing partiesI write this, not as a response to Jack Monroe, who announced that she’d left the Labour Party to join the Greens this week, but as a response to the many hundreds of good, socialists activists who have left the Labour Party over the years. It’s not meant as a rebuke, but merely to ask some important questions about their reasoning and our strategy as socialists. Whilst it’s understandable that people who consider themselves socialists have constant battles with their conscience about leaving the Labour Party, we must be careful of the mantra:

I didn’t leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me”

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Will Natalie Bennett’s trainwreck derail the Greens?

14-natalie-bennettDoing okay in the polls … has some popular, left wing policies … yet there are questions surrounding the leader’s competence. We’ve heard the story many times before, but on this occasion it’s the Green Party and Natalie Bennett under the spotlight. In late January there was the Andrew Neil interview where she had certain difficulties outlining her party’s position on the citizen’s income. And today was her train wreck with Nick Ferrari on LBC, which you can listen to here if you’re yet to hear it. The thing is, as awful as Ferrari is, his tone was measured (some might say gentle) throughout, and it’s precisely that that made it so devastating. And as we know from Lord Fink and Malcolm Rifkind, the fashion in politics at the moment is to make a mistake and then compound it. Here’s Baroness Jenny Jones helping make Natalie’s day that little bit worse. Continue reading →

Former chair of Labour executive defects to UKIP after deselection as councillor

Harriet YeoHarriet Yeo who was Chair of the Labour Party from 2012 to 2013 has resigned from the party having been removed as leader of the small Labour group on Ashford council last week for non-attendance at council meetings and a failure to undertake council casework, and, on Monday night, deselected as a candidate for the 2015 local elections. She then claimed her defection was in order to back UKIP “because of Ed Miliband’s failure to offer a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union“. Her daughter had already defected to UKIP last March,

Mr Farage commented (presumably to the sound of barrels being scraped): “I’m delighted that Ukip can now count upon the support of such respected figure as Harriet Yeo.” He would no doubt be less pleased to know that only 9 months ago Ms Yeo retweeted the following uncomplimentary messages about him: Continue reading →

It’s reds under the beds time (for the Greens)

reds under the beds by senbleeIt’s reds under the beds time! Or rather in the newly insurgent Green Party. According to today’s Mirror, “hard left activists” have flocked to the Greens. Natalie Bennett has been forced to deny that significant numbers of former Socialist Workers Party members have been signing up, though the paper notes “her own partner is an ex-SWP ­stalwart“. They omit to mention that his membership ceased well over 10 years ago. It also notes with shock that the Greens are now taking a leaf out of Syriza’s book – “the anti-austerity message seems more important to the party than its green roots these days – Ms Bennett barely mentions the environment once in our interview“. How dare the Greens not conform to the tree-eating, muesli-hugging stereotype! In all, if this was a red baiting attack then the party comes out of it rather well. Continue reading →

The Green surge: explaining it and countering it

green_surgeThis week, with 5000 new members, it is reported that the Green parties of Britain (the Scottish Green Party is wholly independent of that in England and Wales) overtook both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats in membership.

In many ways, the surge in Green Party membership is more significant and remarkable than the rise of UKIP. Consider the people bleaters for a moment. Since about 2011 this has been the anti-establishment party the establishment can’t get enough of. Every advantage has been afforded them. The backing of certain papers, wall-to-wall rolling news coverage, loads of slots on Question Time. Fair or foul, the media lit a rocket under UKIP’s arse and hundreds of thousands of people have taken notice. Continue reading →