Green Party

Why I'm not voting Green this May

What kind of a society would you like to live in? The world I want to live in would have things like rail, energy and other basic industries socialised, owned by and run in the interests of society. It would have an education system freed from the interests of business and profit, and funded entirely by progressive taxation. Public services would be run by the people who work in them and the community they serve, not by executives on six or seven figure salaries, drawn from an Oxbridge elite. I’d like constituents to be able to recall their MPs from parliament, and a much fuller democracy than...

Fighting the Greens’ “compassionate” cuts

The Green administration of Brighton council is proposing £10.5 million cuts for 2012, with an additional £17.7 million for 2013/14. Most departments are facing 5 to 15% cuts in services. The main cuts over the year 2012/13 will be to adult social care (£3.2m), children's services (£2.78m), housing (£2.09m), communities (£1.1m), city regulation and infrastructure (£4.85m) and resources and finance (£1.85m). Up to 120 council jobs will be lost, although this figure only includes permanent posts, as they are also stopping the usage of agency staff in many areas, which is not included in the...

Thousands of jobs on the line as councils prepare new cuts

As local councils begin setting their 2012-2013 budgets, working-class people face another round of attacks as councils across the country put jobs and services back on the chopping block. Proposed job losses at larger councils figure in the hundreds. Leeds City Council plans “savings” of £55 million, including axing 400 jobs. Swindon Borough Council’s draft budget seeks to shed over 100 jobs as part of a £12 million cuts programme, including cutting trade-union facility time. £24 million and 300 jobs could go at Labour-run Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Nearly 400 jobs are on the line as...

Boycotting Israel: neither Murdoch, nor Stalin!

Over the weeks since the New South Wales election on 26 March, Rupert Murdoch's paper The Australian has run a big campaign against sections of Australia's Green Party over their policy of boycotting Israel. Several front-page stories have targeted Fiona Byrne, Green mayor of the Sydney suburb of Marrickville and narrowly-unsuccessful Green candidate for the Marrickville electorate in the NSW election, and Lee Rhiannon, elected as a NSW Senator to the federal Parliament in 2010 and due to take her seat in the Senate in July 2011. The Australian strongly supports Australia's conservative...

Joel Kovel meeting - why I'm sceptical about "eco-socialism"

Recently I went to a lecture by Joel Kovel, a leading US eco-socialist and author of the book, The Enemy of Nature. The meeting was chaired by Derek Wall from the Green Party and had Jane Kelly from Socialist Resistance on the platform. Over 50 people were there.

Kovel spoke well enough about the...

Alliances with the Greens?

Three letters responding to Sacha Ismail’s “Peter Tatchell and voting Labour” (Solidarity 3/111). Political contradictions The specific issue of whether or not to support Tatchell clarifies a number of positions upon which the AWL’s line in the past has been something of a fudge. Sacha says that “If Tatchell were standing as part of a socialist and working-class coalition (such as the old Socialist Alliance), or even perhaps as an ‘ecosocialist independent’” then the AWL would be in a position to support him. In the meanwhile socialists in Oxford East should vote Labour, because Tatchell is...

Peter Tatchell and voting Labour

The news that long-standing gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will be the Green Party’s candidate in Oxford East at the next general election has generated some debate on the left. Tatchell was the hard left Labour candidate in 1983’s infamous Bermondsey by-election, losing as a result of homophobic, red-baiting sabotage by the local Labour right and the party’s national leadership. He is a member of the Greens’ “ecosocialist” Green Left caucus and at least as radical on most issues as most Labour left-wingers. He is a committed, politically courageous and physically brave campaigner for...

A socialist platform in the Green Party?

Anyone who encountered the Green Party during the recent local elections will be aware of their incoherent and even janus-like politics, claiming to transcend “traditional” left-right divisions and appealing to everyone from Labour voters disillusioned with Blairism to Tories with a “social conscience”. Where they have gained local influence, the Greens’ record has been far from radical, sustaining right-wing townhall coalitions (Lib Dem in Oxford, Lib Dem-Tory in Leeds) which have carried out cuts and privatisations with at least as much zeal as New Labour. On the other hand, the Green Party...

Bolshy Talks to Tatchell

Peter Tatchell is a human rights activist who is a member of the Green Party and the gay rights group OutRage! He is particularly well-known for his criticism of homophobic reggae artists and the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe, who he has twice tried to Citizen's Arrest. ON GETTING INVOLVED: **What was it that first made you decide to become politically active? My first campaign involved opposition to the death penalty in my home city of Melbourne, Australia. It was in 1965, I was aged 13 and I read a newspaper report about a prisoner who had escaped from prison and allegedly shot a warder dead...

Hijacked by the Greens

The Green Party has really increased its profile in recent years, particularly among Britain's youth. This has led to a progression in the number of Greens and environmentalists at all sorts of demos, and they've managed to make their anti-war sentiment well known. Beyond this, their stances on issues such as gay and lesbian rights, top-up fees and multinationals have meant that they've been able to attract a number of young people, disaffected by the mainstream parties, looking for a group which can voice their anger at the problems in our society. The fact that the traditional Left, most...

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