Why Greens must be Red and Reds must be Green

Ecosocialists see the problems of ecological justice and social justice, as profoundly linked in our economic system, capitalism, and no amount of tinkering with capitalism will ultimately resolve the ecological and social problems caused by this unfair and destructive system. 

More conventional socialists and greens tend to see these problems as largely unconnected, with greens believing that somehow capitalism can be reformed and made more eco-friendly. Socialists, all too often see ecological politics as an add on issue, at best, which will somehow cease to be a problem when we move to a socialist system. 

This thinking is wrong on both sides of the argument. Socialist governments that we have seen around the world, have often had an even more dismal environmental record than capitalist countries. It is true that these states, the USSR and China, and their satellites, were not truly socialist, but the perception of it as being socialism, has lodged in the general public’s minds. Changing those perceptions, is not easy, but I see little from more traditional socialists in even trying too much. 

A healthy environment is essential to humanity’s well-being, and the effects of climate change, for example, impact much more on poorer people. The rich countries can build defences against the worst effects of volatile changes in the climate, at least for now, but the poor ones cannot. Things like incinerators and toxic dumps, tend to be located in poor neighbourhoods, in the richer countries, as well poor ones.   

The British Labour party, under previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did move in a green direction with their plan for a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ which was the basis for a start on a ‘just transition’ of the economy. It is not yet clear whether this will survive under Labour’s new leader, Keir Starmer, although my bet would be that if it does, it will be watered down, so as not to scare British capital. 

When the pandemic lock-down rules were relaxed over the summer, I took the opportunity to meet up with some old friends. One friend is a traditional socialist, a former member of the Socialist Workers Party, who now accepts that there should be a push for renewable energy (and nuclear power). When I pointed out that finite precious metals are needed for wind and solar generated energy, he suggested that we could ‘mine the moon.’ 

I wasn’t entirely surprised by this suggestion, as my friend is a fan of Leon Trotsky, who notoriously wanted his ‘socialist superman’ to ‘move mountains and divert rivers.’ This kind of thinking is far too prevalent in socialist circles, the idea that man can overcome nature, is surely discredited by the current climate crisis. Socialism as the ultimate techo-fix. Economic growth is an addiction of the left, as well as the right. 

For greens, especially in more recent times, social justice issues have been accepted as part of the changed society that they want to see, but attempt to treat the symptoms caused by our economic system, rather than the root cause itself. How can you make a system ecologically rational, when that system is predicated on exponential growth, on a finite planet? 

Some greens, for example, still see population issues as the main issue affecting ecological destruction, but fail to see that the poverty that is inherent in capitalism, forces poor people to have larger families, to generate income, particularly when the parents become too old to work. On top of which, the ecological footprint of people in developing countries, is tiny compared to that of your average consumer in the richer nations. 

Having been a member of the Green party of England and Wales for almost fifteen years now, I can certainly confirm that greens all too often put individual ‘lifestyle’ actions, such as having a vegan diet or using and promoting renewable energy sources to the fore, whilst believing that our economic system, capitalism, can be made ecologically rational. There is also the rather depressingly vacuous mantra of ‘not left or right but forward’ from some of these greens. They can’t see the wood for the trees, so to speak. 

One of the candidates standing for the leadership of the Green party, voting closes on 31 August, claims to take a ‘pragmatic’ approach to policy making, even apparently being open to consideration of nuclear power as an option for tackling the climate crisis. There are many problems with nuclear power, in terms of danger, cost and nuclear weapons, but it is being supported by this candidate on the basis it is a vote winner. Nuclear power is seen as an easy to sell option it seems, but how can greens support it? 

Clinging on to the same greenwash techno solutions largely put forward by the forces of capital is a dead end, and frankly is a waste of precious time. Why attempt to save our economic system, when it has brought us to this sorry pass?   

The point of ecosocialism, is not to try and make the capitalist system run better, but to smash the system altogether and start afresh with a new system. Indeed, ecology is the system's Achilles heel, since infinite economic growth is irrational, and therefore a threat to the logic of capitalism. Once this concept is grasped, the inevitable conclusion is, that capitalism is unsustainable. It needs to be replaced by ecosocialism.

The More I see of Starmer the More like Blair he Seems – Without the Charisma

Keir Starmer, the UK Labour party leader, made much of his left wing credibility in his political youth, no doubt to appeal to the largely left wing membership in his successful campaign to win the leadership. With some justification it seems, as he was on the editorial board of Socialist Alternatives magazine, a small-circulation Trotskyist-linked red/green journal that billed itself as ‘the human face of the hard left’. He also, as a lawyer, defended poll tax protesters and the ‘McLibel Two,’ in court cases.

Since Starmer became leader of the Labour party though, the signals coming out from himself and shadow Cabinet colleagues is all rather cautious, and definitely ‘centrist’ in nature. Any kind of radical politics have been nowhere to be seen.

He has kicked into the long grass an inconvenient issue, by announcing an investigation into the leaked party report of the sabotaging of Labour’s chances of winning the 2017 General Election, by party officials. It will be chaired by Martin Forde QC, who currently acts as an independent adviser to the Home Office on the government's Windrush compensation scheme, and is seen as a Starmer ally. The pro-Israel lobby inside and outside of the party has been courted too. 

Then we come to Starmer’s response to the toppling and throwing into the harbour of the statue of Victorian era British slave trader, Edward Colston, at the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol. Interviewed on LBC radio about the incident.

He said: "It shouldn't have been done in that way. Completely wrong to pull a statue down like that.

"But that statue should have been taken down a long, long time ago.

"This was a man who was responsible for 100,000 people being moved from Africa to the Caribbean as slaves, including women and children, who were branded on their chests with the name of the company he ran.

"20,000 died on route and they were chucked in the sea.

"He should not be a statue in Bristol or anywhere else."

Most people would agree with the second part of this answer, including the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who later blamed the long-time Labour run council for not removing the statue sooner. Her advisers were obviously listening to the Starmer interview. But what struck me most was, the Janus like attempt to cover off the criminal activity, but probably of a popular act, and to not be seen to condone it, but at the same time make an anti-racist statement of solidarity, with those who suffered and died.

It immediately brought to mind Tony Blair’s catchy soundbite, ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, from his early years as Shadow Home Secretary and in time leader and Prime Minister. He was a better communicator than Starmer, who has a rather slow and dull style, effective though it is, against our blustering Prime Minister in Parliament. Blair, of course was a member of CND in his youth, and look where that went?

Starmer’s answer had the same kind of feel about it, trying to appeal to both sides of opinion, those appalled by what went on in Bristol, and those who broadly supported it. The old triangulation trick. All in all though, the feeling I get so far from the new regime in the Labour party, is very much a back to the future, if you get what I mean.

You could say this is clever politics, at a time when the government are trying to paint the opposition as ‘unpatriotic’ whenever the government's handling of the pandemic crisis or anything else is criticised. The Tories have been whipping up nationalistic sentiment over Brexit, and doing the same thing with all other issues it seems. Which is all very well, but where are the principles? 

Campaigners in Bristol have been trying the legal route of removing the statue for 30 years, to no avail. No one was hurt, just an odious statue removed. No one listened to the suffragettes until they started breaking windows etc.

Most Labour left members as far as I can see are staying with the party, although some have left, waiting to see if the policies change from the last manifesto, and to what extent. That remains an open question at this stage, but the ‘centrist’ signs elsewhere, do not bode well in my opinion. What will happen to policies like the ‘green industrial revolution’ promised by the Corbyn led party, for instance? Will it be watered down to something less radical so as not to scare the horses?

It does look as though this has been mirrored in the US, with Joe Biden gaining the Democratic party presidential nomination. Biden won’t have any kind of radical Green New Deal if he wins the presidency. Bernie Sanders and perhaps Elizabeth Warren were the only hope of that. Maybe, more radical thinking in the big leftish parties in the UK and US has had its albeit brief day?

For any kind of an even small move in the direction of ecosocialism, in the UK and US, it doesn’t look good. The Green party in England, offering some ecosocialist type polices may win one or two more seats in Parliament, in a hung Parliament, which is surely the best Labour can hope for, which could possibly yield some useful environmental and social concessions, but that is about all I can see.

It could be that action outside of electoral politics will be much more important than what happens in Parliament, once we get through the pandemic. The momentum of the climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests has been lost now with the lock-down - it will need to be ramped up again, if we are get any meaningful action on environmental and social justice. 

For a United Ecosocialist States of Europe!

Written by Allan Todd

 A tragic opportunity

The Covid-19 pandemic has already been a real tragedy for tens of thousands of UK individuals and their families. And, as information slowly emerges, it is clearly very much a neoliberal tragedy.

Since 2010, successive Tory governments - & the Tory-LibDem coalition - have deliberately underfunded our NHS, both as part of their austerity, and as steps to weaken it for further stealth privatisation. And, even though ‘Exercise Cygnus’ in 2016 showed just how unprepared our NHS was for a huge pandemic - which was seen as a much greater threat to UK citizens than terrorism - May and Johnson both ignored requests to increase the number of Intensive Care Unit beds and to replenish stocks of in-date Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

More recently, Johnson and his government have repeatedly lied about having sufficient - and safe - stocks of PPE for frontline health and social care workers; and have failed to introduce, as constantly urged to do so by the World Health Organisation, a ‘Test, Trace and Isolate’ strategy. All these deliberate failures to act in the right ways, at the right times, have resulted in the UK having the highest number of deaths in Europe, and the second highest in the world.

Thus it will now be much harder for the supporters of, and the apologists for, the neoliberal system to argue that the UK was, pre-Covid-19, an exemplar of social care and economic equality. Consequently, in some ways, this tragic crisis is also an opportunity for change, as it will be much easier to make the case that the pre-Covid system essentially best-served the interests of the 1% alone.

However, a word of warning: it is not just an opportunity for radical progressives to push for fundamental changes to this failing and grossly-unequal system - it will also be an opportunity, in the immediate aftermath, for those on the other side of the barricades to push forward with their agenda.

And this is an opportunity they are already planning to take advantage of: hence recent comments, from various right-wing quarters, about the need to impose pay freezes on public sector employees; to “set aside” the National Minimum Wage and “restrictive” legislation regarding employee and environmental protections; and the need for more austerity to re-coup the costs of this pandemic.

For those who doubt that the ‘other side’ will act in this way post-lockdown, try reading Naomi Klein’s 2014 book about what she calls ‘Disaster Capitalism’:

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, 2014

Internationalism

The rapid spread across the world of this Coronavirus has underlined once more, in a very deadly way, just how such crises have important global causes, dimensions and impacts - in a similar but more graphic way than the 2008 banking crisis did. 

In the same way, this pandemic has also shown the importance of global solutions - and, for those who have not forgotten the ever-worsening twin crises of global warming and biodiversity loss, it is even more clear now how, ultimately, such crises will only be fully solved on a global, international, basis. As Brexit looms, a useful starting platform would be that of Europe. 

George Orwell, in the journal Partisan Review, July-August 1947

George Orwell recognised that fascism and Nazi Germany would not truly be defeated by military means alone - he also argued that there needed to be fundamental economic and social reforms to end the inequalities and injustices of pre-war Europe. As History confirms, in 1945, the majority of voters in the UK and elsewhere saw the end of the war as an opportunity to transform their societies into various types of welfare capitalism - a state of affairs that lasted till the end of the 1970s, when neoliberalism began to roll back those gains.

The idea of a Socialist United States of Europe was first raised, as early as September 1914, by Leon Trotsky, in his The War and the International, at the start of WW1. That call was made in the belief that, after the end of the war, it would be necessary to make a clean break with the old order’s ‘business as usual’ that had led to the horrors of war; and to move the whole of Europe on to a new and better future.

If we are to turn this pandemic into a positive, then it is vital that the current crisis is seen as an opportunity, in some ways comparable to those presented by the two world wars of the last century. 

Even more than the 2008 banking crisis, Covid-19 is sapping the foundations of the rotten neoliberal ‘order’ - not just financially, but also politically, with many now seeing the glimpse of a better way of doing things. And that creating another, better, world IS possible - if the political will is there. Some shapes of this better world which have emerged in the lockdown - such as cleaner air, more free time, working from home, etc. - point the way to the changes we need to make.

As many are increasingly arguing, the Climate Emergency will, ultimately, only be tackled on a global basis - which is why ecosocialists are committed to internationalism. Thus, as an important first step, Trotsky and George Orwell’s slogans need to be transformed into a call for a United Ecosocialist States of Europe.

The Extreme Centre

The urgent need for such a political entity from Tariq Ali’s book, The Extreme Centre:

Tariq Ali, The Extreme Centre, 2015

As well as warning about the various threats to democracy, and to the living standards of the 99%, posed by the rise of neoliberalism, this book deals with the political dangers posed by what Tariq Ali calls the pro-neoliberal ‘Extreme Centre’.

Prior to 2015, the political situation in the UK was dominated by main parties that, to different degrees, were united in offering to serve neoliberal interests - a situation described by Tariq Ali as one of: 

“an extreme centre, a trilateral monolith, made up of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition plus Labour.” (p.17).

For almost 5 years, from 2015-20, that “trilateral monolith” was broken up by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, and the Labour Party’s consequent moves away from Blairite ‘New’ Labour, pro-neoliberal, positions.

But, with Jeremy Corbyn no longer Leader, and with Keir Starmer now in his place, it looks possible that much of the Corbyn Project will now be rolled back if, as some fear, Keir Starmer tries to move the Labour Party back to some kind of an opportunistic ‘Centre’ position.

If such a development were to take place, this would be a political and human tragedy because events since 1979 have shown, with increasingly-severe impacts on the 99%, that a return to any tri-partite ‘Extreme Centre’ consensus on maintaining neoliberalism will result in ever-more suffering.

The neoliberal elites, protected and enabled by the ‘Extreme Centre’, are still both immensely wealthy and powerful - and forces of radical opposition are still small and often disunited. But, even if the Labour Party starts to drift back to that ‘Extreme Centre’, those who form the core of this radical opposition - in the Labour Party, in the Green Party, and elsewhere - are the only hope of stopping and reversing capitalism’s destructive activities.

Ever since the 1970s, and the first Earth Day, history has shown time and time again that, ultimately, market-based ecological ‘solutions’ haven’t and won’t stop the crisis.  In fact, to use a phrase of Walter Benjamin’s, neoliberalism is driving the world “into the abyss”.

Hence the urgent need to move, as quickly as possible, to an ecosocialist future - as Michael Löwy said in Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe (2015):

“Ecosocialism is a political current based on an essential insight: that preserving the ecological equilibrium of the planet and therefore an environment favourable to living species, including ours, is incompatible with the expansive and destructive logic of the capitalist system.” (p.vii).

Parties of the ‘Extreme Centre’ will never stop that destructive ‘logic’.

  

No Going Back!

Even if, under Keir Starmer, Labour do win the next election by adopting a more ‘centre’ position, that won’t save us from the Climate Emergency - or solve the other pressing problems.

Thus it’s imperative to make a clear political break from all those who belong to that ‘Extreme Centre’. For those who are still unconvinced about the need to make rapid moves towards ecosocialism, it’s useful to remember what James Hansen said in his book, Storms of My Grandchildren (2011):

“Planet Earth,…the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shore-lines, is in imminent peril. The urgency of the situation crystalized only in the past few years. We now have clear evidence of the crisis, … The startling conclusion is that continued exploitation of all fossil fuels on Earth threatens not just the other millions of species on the planet but also the survival of humanity itself - and the timetable is shorter than we thought.” (p.ix)

Hence the importance of Extinction Rebellion’s argument that, post-lockdown, there can be ‘No Going Back’ to the failed and rotten system we’ve put up with for the past 40 years. A system so broken that it’s:

• pushed millions into dependency on foodbanks - including many who are in employment, such as the nurses this government now wants to ‘reward’ for their Covid-19 sacrifices with another pay freeze

• forced thousands into rough-sleeping, via the Bedroom Tax and insufficient affordable properties for rent

• created, for the first time in over 100 years, a society in which life expectancy has stalled - and, for women in poorer areas, has actually declined

• consistently refused to take the steps necessary for protecting UK citizens from the growing threats from global warming

Yet this awful health tragedy has shown - far more clearly than the financial crisis of 2008 - the gross inequalities existing in the UK. It has also shown how many of these problems can be tackled: for example, at present, rough-sleeping has been almost eliminated, overnight.

When we eventually come out of this pandemic, bruised and battered, what we must not do is attempt to ‘re-adjust’ ourselves to the so-called ‘normality’ of neoliberalism. In preparation for the tasks ahead, we should be watching Ken Loach’s excellent documentary, The Spirit of 45, which shows how the WW2 generations voted overwhelmingly for a better world in May 1945 - and made great steps towards achieving that better world, which lasted through the 1950s & 1960s, only to fall back after the oil crisis of 1973; and then, under Thatcher’s neoliberalism, suffer a fatal blow.

In particular, it’s vital to grasp that the human tragedies, social disruptions and financial costs of this pandemic are just a taste of the chaos and human suffering to come, as the impacts of the worsening Climate Emergency increase in severity.

At this month’s virtual Hay Festival, Mark Lynas will be talking about his new book, Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency:

Mark Lynas, Our Final Warning, 2020

His book (which is an even-more frightening update of his 2007 book) sets out, in stages of 1C degree, all the various scenarios for global warming impacts - from a 1C increase in average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels (where we are now already); to those which would accompany a rise of 6C (which some climate scientists and the IPCC are now warning is on the cards by the end of this century, if there are no immediate and drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions).

With the impacts of unchecked global warming going to be so much worse than those of this current pandemic, a ‘middle/liberal/centre’ position - whether pro-neoliberal, or half-way between neoliberalism and ecosocialism - is no longer tenable.

A Red-Green United Front

“Another world IS Possible!”  But, to get that other world, we need to recognise that the old order’s ‘business as usual’ has led us to the brink of an abyss - if not ended, it will push us and the planet over the edge. Instead, we need to be pushing for a completely new content for social life - giving real dignity to health & social care workers, and to all other workers - and for serious measures to cut carbon emissions.

In the present circumstances, this is going to need an active realignment of radical forces which are prepared to work together for common goals. 

On paper, in the UK, political groups such as RedGreen Labour, the Green Left, Left Unity and Socialist Resistance - and organisations such as Another Europe, War on Want, Global Justice Now and DiEM25 - have much more in common than what divides them.

Only such an active Red-Green Coalition of Radicals - which breaks with ‘business as usual’ and unites with like-minded people - can save us. Fortunately, there is a real basis for meaningful co-operation and joint campaigning between these groups. Consequently, history won’t forgive us if we continue to sit in our separate ‘camps’ and let this opportunity pass by. 

It’s not a question - certainly not at this stage - of merging to form a new party. It is completely understandable that many of those in the Labour Party - though disappointed by the outcome of the recent leadership elections - are deciding to remain members, in order to resist the dropping of the Corbynite policy programme.

The same holds true for those in the Green Party (especially those in Green Left) who, despite concerns over last December’s pact with the LibDems, remain to resist any shift away from the party’s commendable radical commitments to social and economic justice - something the right of the party has never been comfortable with.

Though, of course, as I’ve found out, those who do abandon old political loyalties and do decide to leave Labour or the Greens, will find a very warm welcome in Left Unity!

In the present circumstances, the important thing is to avoid the bitterness and narrow sectarian party political divisions and separations which are sometimes a feature on the left of the political spectrum!  There’s far too much at stake to hold back because of political loyalties which are too narrow to take us forward. It makes no political sense to operate separately anymore - if it ever did. Zoom gives us a wonderful chance to start joint discussions and planning, so that we can ‘hit the ground running’ once the lock-down ends.

History tends to give only fleeting opportunities for fundamental change - if they are missed, the usual outcome is increased reaction. The past 40 years - in particular, the last decade - have shown only too clearly what kind of reaction can be expected if we let this opportunity slip from our grasp.

Ideally, what’s needed is an ecosocialist and internationalist Red-Green Coalition of Radicals - like the Zimmerwald Movement which developed in 1915-16 before the crisis of WW1 ended. Referring again to Michael Löwy (2015):  

“The central premise of ecosocialism, already suggested by the term itself, is that nonecological socialism is a dead end and a nonsocialist ecology cannot confront the present ecological crisis.” (p.xi)

Allan Todd is a member of Left Unity, an environmental and anti-fascist activist, and author of Revolutions 1789-1917

Labour’s Apparent Shift to the Right is a Big Opportunity for the Green Party

Keir Starmer’s convincing victory in the Labour leadership election appears to mark a move away from the Corbyn era of the last five years. Starmer talked a left wing stance during the leadership campaign, and that with his ‘statesman’ type demeanour, looks to have been enough to swing the result his way. But judging by the indications of his shadow cabinet appointments so far, it does seem that his leadership of the party will pursue a more centrist route than that of the Corbyn years.

Looking at social media, many Labour members are unhappy with Starmer’s victory, and saying they have left, or are about to leave the party, but others, perhaps most, are saying they will stick around to see what policies emerge from new leader. When things settle down, there may well be a mass exodus from the Labour party, of many of those who joined the party after Corbyn’s surprise victory in 2015, of perhaps hundreds of thousands of members. Will these people abandon party politics, or will they join other parties?

On social media again, some ex-Labour members have said that they are joining one of the various small socialist sects, and some are saying that they have joined the Green party, or are thinking about it. We should remember, that in 2015, before Corbyn became the Labour leader and the huge surge in members to the party, there was a large-ish surge in membership of the Green party, reaching in excess of 70,000, a record high for the Greens.

The 2015 general election saw the Green party record 1.1 million votes, another record high, but this momentum was reversed once Corbyn became Labour leader. All of this was part of the same phenomenon, a feeling of dissatisfaction with politics as usual, particularly on the left. Might we see history repeating itself, in reverse, with a surge from Labour to the Greens?

Many long established Green party members also joined Labour after 2015, especially those activists on the left of the party. Might some of these people return to the Greens, now that Labour appears to be reverting to type, a centrist Tory light party? One of the main reasons that I decided to stick with the Greens, rather than follow some of my comrades into the Labour party, was that I suspected, at some stage, Labour would revert to its pre-Corbyn leadership mode. It looks as though I was right.

Many of the policies that Corbyn’s Labour championed were taken from the Green party, pretty much a straight lift, like the Green New Deal, but will these policies continue to be pursued by Labour? Starmer, during his campaign to become leader, gave the impression that these policies would not change, but there has to a huge question mark over this now he has won. I expect that they will be quietly dropped or at least watered down to be become worthless in any meaningful sense.

The Green party is not perfect, far too many members are ‘lifestyle’ greens of a liberal persuasion, and if anything once Corbyn became Labour leader, has shifted to right, which was to be expected with large numbers from the left of party joining Labour. There will be enough competition for the centre ground at the next general election, with the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems pitching their tents there, so it is pointless for the Greens to follow suit. The electoral space will be on the left, the radical left.

There are still socialists in the Green party, me amongst them, but the ‘not left nor right, but forward’ brigade has been gaining influence. Of course an influx of socialists from Labour would boost the left’s influence in the Green party.

There is an ecosocialist grouping in the Green party, to which I belong, called Green Left, which is organised and provides a pole of attraction for socialists in the Green party and a campaigning group to push ecosocialist ideas, inside and outside of the party. Any recent socialists who may have joined the Greens recently, can join Green Left, by following the instructions here: http://greenleftblog.blogspot.com/p/how-to-join-green-left.html.

For peace, ecology and socialism, the Green party is the largest party in England, and so is best placed to carry the fight on, when Labour abandons these positions in favour of the soggy centre ground, which it surely will.