New Zealand Mosque Massacre Suspect Says he is an Eco-fascist

Brenton Tarrant, one of four people arrested for the shooting to death of fifty people at two Mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week, claims in a 74 page manifesto, to be, amongst other things, an Eco-fascist. The document entitled the “Great Replacement” has been posted at various locations on the web, but all appear to have been deleted now. I haven’t read the full document myself, but it appears that many people have.

A report on the Medium website has published some extracts from Tarrant’s manifesto, and I’m mainly quoting here from this report. Tarrant apparently declares:

“I am an Ethno-nationalist Eco-fascist,” in his manifesto. “Ethnic autonomy for all peoples with a focus on the preservation of nature, and the natural order.”

He goes on to say:

“Immigration and climate change are the same issue, the environment is being destroyed by over- population” and “we Europeans are one of the groups that are not over populating the world. […] Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation, and by doing so, save the environment.”

Although Tarrant is an Australian national he sees himself as European, from “English, Scottish and Irish” stock, and advocates a hierarchical economic and political system in which an ethnically cleansed Europe will be free from the influences of cheap labour, foreign trade, and environmental destruction.

Tarrant claims to be ‘anti-capitalist’ in his manifesto and he appears to believe in a globalist conspiracy theory in which “Marxists” exact corporate control over the markets, media, academia, and NGOs. This seems to be more akin to a classical antisemitism conspiracy type of belief, with ‘Marxists’ filling the role of ‘Jewish bankers.’

Nazi Germany employed some anti-capitalist rhetoric in its ideology, but after his rise to power, Hitler took a pragmatic position on economics, accepting private property and allowing capitalist private enterprises to exist so long as they adhered to the goals of the Nazi state. Business groups made significant financial contributions to the Nazi Party both before and after the Nazi seizure of power, in the hope that a Nazi dictatorship would eliminate the organized labour movement and the left-wing parties.

Of course Hitler was anti-Marxist, usually of the ‘Jewish bankers’ variety, stating this in his book Mein Kampf and also his hatred of democracy “because it inevitably leads to Marxism.” Left wing activists were persecuted and often murdered in Nazi Germany, alongside Jews and gay people.

Hitler also admired the British Empire and its colonial system as living proof of Germanic superiority over 'inferior' races and saw the United Kingdom as Germany's natural ally. He wrote in Mein Kampf: "For a long time to come there will be only two Powers in Europe with which it may be possible for Germany to conclude an alliance. These Powers are Great Britain and Italy."

Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, written by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier contains two essays entitled "Fascist Ideology: The Green Wing of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents" and "Ecology and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-Right." They linked German Nazism with “traditional agrarian romanticism and hostility to urban civilization”, and that ecological ideas were an “essential element of racial rejuvenation.”

The Nazi slogan “blood and soil” was coined by their foremost ecological thinker, Richard Walter Darré, who meant it to capture a mystical link between race and a particular territory.

This conflation of race and land, quite absurdly in the case of Africa, was present in the South African political and para-military organisation the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, whose leader was Eugène Terre'Blanche, in the era around the end of apartheid in the early 1990s. Terre Blanche means literally in French ‘white land or white earth.’

In more recent times, the British National Party (BNP), under then leader Nick Griffin, before the party imploded, made the argument that climate change offered a great opportunity for the advancement of fascism, with Britain likely not being in the first wave ecological destruction, and an island, with refugees from the worst hit regions wanting to get into the country. The tensions that would arise from this within the British people could be exploited for their political ends, Griffin thought.

The notion of ‘indigenous people’ is captured in this strain of nationalist fascism, a way of life challenged by the arrival of outsiders, who will change the prevailing culture. An insistence on all people in England to speak English, at all times, at least in public, is a common feature of Brexit. I once saw some graffiti in a pub toilet in east London that said: ‘the indigenous people are being discriminated against.’

The United Kingdom Independence Party, largely inherited those voters when the BNP fell apart. They seem to be courting them even more now under their new leader Gerard Batten, who has hired Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), the fascist former English Defence League (EDL) leader, who made anti-muslim sentiment a central part of the EDL’s ideology.  

Whilst the vast majority of the people in the green movement are of the political left, aspects of the movement also bear some ideological blame for a form of eco-fascism. What is known as ‘deep ecology’ sees environmental degradation as a problem caused by ‘too many people’, advocate massive reductions in the human population, usually black and brown people, and strict anti-immigration policies.

Conveniently, they ignore that rich industrial nations, cause much more environmental destruction than the population of Africa and other poor parts of the world. This is a form of eco-fascism, however much deep ecologists try to deny the fact.

All of which means that those of us on the green left, should be aware of this alternative ecological philosophy, and redouble our efforts to challenge their narrative with a just and inclusive green politics.

Would Another Referendum on Brexit Really lead to Civil Unrest?

Nigel Farage, the ex-UKIP leader, has been warning ever since the 2016 referendum that civil unrest would result from the failure of the British government to fulfil his particular version of (hard) Brexit. In 2017, he went further saying he would "don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines."

More recently, Labour front bench MPs appear to be echoing Farage’s threat, with both Barry Gardner (shadow International Trade secretary) and John McDonnell (shadow Chancellor), opining on the issue, with Gardner predicting:

"If people want to be able to achieve change through democratic means, if they feel that that is being denied to them, they then turn to other more socially disruptive ways of expressing their views, and that is the danger here."

McDonnell added “we have to be extremely careful. A number of us now are worried about the rise of the far right in this country and elsewhere," when commenting on the possibility of another referendum on Brexit. Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary has been more positive about holding another referendum though.

Tory MP, Priti Patel went further writing on the Conservative Home website, that the prime minister’s Chequers compromise plan, would lead to people seeking “alternative ways to express their views and frustrations with those who have the privilege of governing our country.” She, like McDonnell, linked Brexit to the rise of the far right in Europe, although there doesn’t appear to be a clamour to leave the European Union in the rest of the bloc.

It is a possibility that some people might feel justified in causing trouble, including violence, if they perceive their wishes are being ignored. On the other hand, there is just as much chance, even more so, I think, that a disastrously chaotic exit, which people like Patel want, with shortages of medicines, food and other things, could lead to widespread civil unrest. Either way, we should plan for civil unrest.

As always with the Brexit debate, there are reflections on the other side of the Atlantic. US President, Donald Trump, has warned that his policies will be "violently" overturned if the Democrats win November's mid-term elections. He told Evangelical leaders that the vote was a "referendum" on freedom of speech and religion, and that these were threatened by "violent people,” meaning anti-fascist protesters, like when Heather Heyer was killed in Charlottesville last year, by a far right supporter driving his car into the crowd.

You have to admire the chutzpah, at least, of a Republican president, accusing the Democrats of frustrating the will of the voters, after all the trouble Republicans gave Barak Obama over his health care proposals, and even further back to the ‘gridlock’ in Congress of Bill Clinton’s Democrat presidency. And, lest we forget, Hillary Clinton, got 3 million more votes than Trump at the presidential elections of 2016.

It appears that democracy only comes into things when certain votes have gone your way in the past. Clearly, more self-seeking than noble intention. The mid-term Congressional elections in the US are just part of that country’s democratic checks and balances, existing for centuries, just like the presidential electoral college system, which handed victory to Trump in 2016.

Likewise, in the UK, as ex-foreign secretary David Miliband has said, and I hasten to say I’m not a fan of Miliband senior, by any stretch of the imagination, when he wrote in The Guardian that “democracy did not end on 23 June 2016.” If the Leavers are so confident that they represent the ‘people’s will,’ why are they so afraid of reconfirming this important decision?

There is another possibility, that a sensible compromise can be reached, but the Chequers plan is not it. I have argued before that joining the European Economic Area, perhaps for a temporary period, is the most sensible thing to do, outside of another referendum. Sensible, doesn’t come into it though, for some people.

Local Elections – Something for all the Parties to Cheer, Except UKIP

The UKIP vote collapsed completely in local elections in England on Thursday, as was widely predicted, including on this blog, with the Tories being the main beneficiaries, although Labour did take some of this vote. UKIP had a net loss of 123 council seats. All of the other main parties can claim some sort of success, but also had some disappointments with these results.

For Labour, they can point to a net gain of 57 councillors and the party’s best local elections result in London since 1971, gaining councillors in Tory strongholds, but the results in London weren’t as good as had been hoped for. Labour failed to capture the Tory flagship councils of Southwark, Barnet, Westminster and Grenfell council Kensington and Chelsea.

Labour did gain seats on these councils, with the exception of Barnet, where they lost five seats. Barnet is the home of probably the largest Jewish community in the country, and it is impossible to think this poor result was unaffected by the ongoing problems with anti-Semitism in the party.

The Tories did have a net loss of 28 council seats across England, and outside of the big English cities did reasonably well for a mid-term incumbent government, beset with turmoil over Brexit, the Grenfell disaster, the Windrush scandal and a sluggish economic record. They will be relieved that they held onto the London flagship councils, although their overall results in London were not good.  

The two main parties both scored 35% of the vote nationally and so I think it is fair to say that it was score draw between them. Labour are saying that their younger supporters tend not to vote in local elections and there is some truth in that. The Tories can say, in the circumstances, that they held off Labour, especially in London, and did reasonably well outside of the big cities.  

The Lib Dems had a net gain of 75 council seats and will be extremely pleased with gaining control of Richmond and Kingston councils as well as holding on in Sutton in south west London. A modest improvement for the Lib Dems who gained a national share of the vote of 16%, 3 points up from 2014 when these elections were last fought. It could well be that they gained votes from Labour and Tory Remain voters, but they still have long way to go to reach the heights that they achieved prior to 2010, when they were scoring around 25% nationally.

The Greens likewise may have benefited from Remain voters switching to them, but at 7.5% of the vote (where they stood candidates) it is still two points lower than in 2014. You have to remember though the Greens started to surge in membership around this time and managed to get over one million votes at the 2015 general election. There is no doubt that since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party, the Greens have lost the momentum of those days.

However, it is a reasonably decent result for the Greens this year, with a net gain of 8 seats, bringing the total of Green councillors in England to, I think, 192 councillors, which is a record high for the party. Highlights include gaining 4 seats on Sheffield council where a tree felling plan has been controversial. The Greens now hold 6 seats in Sheffield. A net gain of four seats in Lambeth, south London, bringing the total to five, is largely connected to controversial housing schemes in the Borough, which amount to social cleansing, by the Labour run council. Four seats were also gained on Richmond council, which appears to justify the local deal with the Lib Dems, who took control of the council.

On a personal note, I stood as a ‘paper’ candidate for the Greens in the ward where I live, in Haringey, north London. Without even a hint of a campaign in the ward, I managed to get 303 votes (11%), beating two Tory candidates into the process, but was miles from getting elected. Even I can claim a small victory in this election. Unfortunately, we didn’t win any council seats in Haringey.

All figures quoted here are at time of writing and may change slightly.         

Will Brexit Affect the Local Election Results?

    

The 2018 English local authority elections are scheduled to be held on Thursday 3 May 2018. This includes elections to all 32 London boroughs, 34 metropolitan boroughs (all seats in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle and a third of seats in the rest), 68 district/borough councils (where a third of seats are up for grabs, seven whole council elections and six half councils) and 17 unitary authorities (all seats in Hull and Blackburn and Darwen, a third in the rest). There will also be direct elections for the Mayoralties of Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Watford.

These elections will be the last before Britain leaves the European Union (EU) next year, but have no direct connection to the Brexit process, as local government has no power to make national policy. Councils provide local services and collect a local council tax, and these issues tend to be at the forefront of voters minds when elections come around. Bin collections and dog shit in alleyways tends to be what arouses passions. Turn out is usually on the low side, with only about half of voters turning out compared to general elections.

But also, there is a tendency for voters to use local elections to send a message to central government. When these elections were last held in 2014, UKIP performed very well, winning hundreds of council seats. This made Tory MPs jittery about losing their Parliamentary seats and probably convinced David Cameron, then Tory prime minister to hold the referendum on our membership of the EU.

UKIP are likely to lose most of these seats now (if they haven’t already) as the party is in existential crisis, now that their flagship policy is redundant. It is likely that the Tories will win these seats, but this may well be a small consolation in elections that they are expected to do poorly in. This is put down to Remain voters wanting to make a point about Brexit, and in the areas being contested there are large blocks of Remain voters, especially in London. So much so that the Tories could lose control of iconic councils such as Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, which have been Tory for as long as anyone can remember.

To make matters worse for the Tories, EU nationals can vote in UK local elections (they are not allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections, the Irish being an exception), and these people can’t be too happy with the government. There has been a drive by Labour, Lib Dems and Greens to encourage EU nationals to register and to vote on the Brexit issue. Whether Labour’s pro-Brexit stance will impress these people, is another matter though. It is an opportunity for the Greens and Lib Dems to profit, with their unambiguous anti-Brexit positions.

This is a dilemma for Remain voters generally, do they support Labour, as they are usually best placed to beat the Tories, but Labour has been almost as bad as the Tories on the issue of Brexit. Might Remain voters, even if they think it is only of symbolic value, take the opportunity to make a clear expression of how they feel, and might they want to send a message to Labour too? A message that reads, ‘the Labour Party is not a clear enough alternative to the Tories on Brexit.’

The Tories are desperately trying to make the election about local issues, but this isn’t really their strong point either, given the huge cuts to local government budgets over the last eight years. And as I pointed out on this blog last week, Tory run councils have announced the biggest rises to council tax in thirteen years. Not a very compelling argument for voting Tory, pay more for less local services, it isn’t going to convince many voters to vote for them.

All in all the Tories should get a drubbing in these local elections, but who will be the main beneficiaries? These should be interesting elections, and do make sure you vote on 3 May.             

UK General Election – It Just Keeps Getting Better

Has there ever been a general election campaign like this year’s? I really don’t think there has been. I can’t find a previous general election in which the opinion polls have moved so much as they have this year, nothing even close. All of the polls show a narrowing of the gap between the Tories and Labour, to different degrees, but all point to the gap closing.

YouGov has been showing the smallest gap for a few polls now, but today’s Ipsos MORI poll slashes its 10 point Tory lead in half, indicating the Tories on 45% and Labour 40%. Another YouGov poll yesterday puts Labour on 50% in London, a 17 point lead over the Tories, and set to gain at least four seats from the Tories, whilst the Lib Dems look to be in line for gaining at least two seats from the Tories.

Even in normally true blue Cornwall, Cornwall Live are reporting a local survey indicating Labour could win in Camborne and Redruth and St Austell and Newquay! There is also some good news for the Lib Dems with them neck and neck with the Tories in North Cornwall and St Ives.  

This has happened amid the disastrous Tory election campaign, which has included unpopular policies, policy U-Turns, arrogance, only fleeting and extremely poor public performances by the Tory leader, Theresa May, and plotting by some Tory MPs aimed at removing May from the leadership, should the result be worse than in 2015.   

Today’s news of the Tory candidate for South Thanet, Craig Mackinlay, who has been charged with electoral fraud in the 2015 general election, is perfectly timed for effect. MacKinlay is standing in the same seat this year, and has the ‘full support’ of the Tory leadership. The Tories may now lose this seat to UKIP or Labour.

Meanwhile, Local Government News reports Electoral Reform Society findings that one in five voters are planning to vote ‘tactically.’ This is more than double the amount of voters who claimed to have voted tactically in 2015. There could be some UKIP voters tactically voting Tory, but I suspect the bulk of the tactical voting will be anti-Tory, with Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters opting for the best placed challenger to the Tories.

The Lib Dems, it has to said, have had a poor campaign too, hardly making any impression in the national opinion polls, and trailing at about 7%. They have been dogged by their leader, Tim Farron, getting embroiled in a row about whether he thinks gay sex is a ‘sin.’ Farron, should have cleared this up immediately, pointing to the Lib Dems policy on the issue, which is supportive gay relationships, and said his personal beliefs were neither here nor there. Instead, he equivocated and ended up looking shifty. Although it seems like a lifetime away, in psephological terms, the Lib Dems did score 18% in the local elections, less than a month ago. It could be that their small vote will be concentrated in areas that hurt the Tories most.

Labour, apart from a few slip ups from senior figures in the party with exact figures on spending commitments, have had a good campaign. Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has looked warm, calm and assured, albeit up against Theresa May, he hasn’t had to do much other than behave like a normal person.

We are in the final straight now, and it does still look like a Tory majority anywhere from 1 to about 75 seats, but they could lose their majority altogether. Turn out of anti-Tory voters will be crucial, but we might see the biggest electoral upset ever in the UK.

I did say at the start of this campaign, on this blog, that I still had some hope left that this election might not go as well as the Tories obviously thought it was going to. Something seems to be happening amongst the voters, something I have not seen before in my lifetime, a swing away from the Tories during an election campaign. Blair didn’t even manage that in 1997. Another small swing away from the Tories in final five days of the campaign, and we could be celebrating next Friday.         

Stoke and Copeland By-election Results Show the Folly of Labour’s Hard Brexit Stance

Let us start with the constituency of Stoke in yesterday's by-elections, which at least the Labour Party managed to retain on Thursday. On a low turn-out of just 38%, Labour won with a 37.1% share of the vote, which is a fall of 2.2% of the vote share from the last general election in 2015. I suspect that most of the fall in support went to the Lib Dems who increased their vote share by 5.7%.

Labour were fortunate, that in a constituency that voted strongly to leave the EU at last year’s referendum, and where UKIP had finished second in 2015, the UKIP candidate and new leader, Eddie Hitler loolalike, Paul Nuttall, ran an abysmal campaign. Caught out telling lies about losing close friends at the Hillsborough football disaster, that he lived in the constituency, has a PHD and was a professional footballer, and making several policy gaffes, like wanting to privatise the NHS, he threw Labour a lifeline. Even then, Nuttall did manage to increase his party’s vote share by 2.1%, but it was not enough.

If UKIP can’t win a seat like Stoke, with their leader standing, then there is little hope for them anywhere else. Labour apparently, did manage an effective ground operation, with hundreds of party members doing the hard slog of door knocking in poor weather, but against a more credible opponent, they would probably have lost. The Tories also increased their vote share by 1.9% on 2015.

Which brings us to the other by-election on Thursday, Copeland in Cumbria, which the Tories won from Labour with a 6.7% swing from Labour to Tory. A seat held by Labour for 80 years and the first by-election loss by the main opposition party to the governing party since 1982, when the SDP split the left vote and the Tories won from Labour, with a 10.2% swing, in Mitcham and Morden in south London. The Tories went onto win a landslide victory in the 1983 general election.

So this was a historic loss by Labour and must be deeply worrying to the party. A national swing of 6.7% from Labour to Tory would see the Tories gain 52 seats from Labour, reducing the party to around 170 seats and a Tory overall majority of 114. And remember the constituency boundaries will likely change before the next general election, which favours the Tories by around 25 additional seats.

The increase in the Tories share of the vote at 8.5% is almost exactly the same as the 9% fall in the UKIP vote since 2015, and this will be the most troubling aspect for Labour, because it looks as though the Tories have stolen the UKIP vote, which is hardly surprising given the hard Brexit stance of the government. The Lib Dems also increased their vote share by 3.8%, which makes matters even worse for Labour, as they look to be in a pincer movement, with the Lib Dems picking up voters who wanted to remain in the EU and those wanting to leave, moving to the Tories.

Corbyn supporters have been quick to blame the two MPs who stood down and Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson for comments they made in the week leading up the election, but this is a weak excuse. Nobody really listens to Blair or Mandelson these days, they were not a factor in these results.

Corbyn’s critics have laid the blame at Corbyn’s doorstep, but are reluctant to launch another leadership challenge, after Corbyn’s easy win last year. They are putting pressure on Corbyn to stand down for the good of the party, but they tried this last year too. Corbyn strikes me as a stubborn individual and he is unlikely, now at least, to resign the leadership.

But the plates are shifting, Dave Prentis, leader of the second biggest trade union in the UK, UNISON, released a statement which implied that Corbyn was partly to blame for the Copeland defeat.   

The main difference though to last year is that Corbyn’s support amongst newer members appears to be falling. These members are overwhelmingly pro-EU and have been saddened by Corbyn insisting Labour MPs vote to trigger the Article 50 process which will formally see us leave the EU.

As we saw in these by-elections, Labour’s Article 50 debacle isn’t even popular with voters who want to leave the EU, or Labour would have held Copeland and done better in Stoke. History may conclude that the Article 50 vote in Parliament, was the beginning of the end for Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

I think Corbyn is now beatable in a leadership challenge, and if he doesn’t stand down, I think one will come before the next general election in 2020, probably in 2018. If the opinion polls don’t improve, and worse if more seats are lost to the Tories (and Lib Dems), there will surely be an attempt to oust Corbyn.

And what of the Greens? Well, we did poorly in Thursday’s by-elections, but these areas are not fertile ground for the Greens. In the south of England we should concentrate on challenging the Lib Dems for the 48% of voters who voted to remain in the EU. There must be people who will not vote for the Lib Dems because of their part in propping up the Tories, and the Greens are just as pro EU as the Lib Dems.

We should look to widen the crack in Labour’s support from remainers, it could well be very fruitful come the general election. 

Do Recent Political Events Signal the End of Neo-liberalism?

The Austrian Presidential election last week appears to have bucked the trend in a year of political victories for the right, indeed the far right. The left leaning and former Green, Alexander van der Bellen, defeated Norbert Hofer the far right candidate, and by a comfortable majority, in what seems to be a return to business as usual politics.

The Italian constitutional referendum, held on the same day, did see the President, Matteo Renzi, lose the vote, and is resigning his post, although this was not as immediately as he first suggested. But this was only a partial victory for the Italian far right, as many leftish voters also rejected his reforms, probably more than those who voted against, from the right.

All of this comes on the back of the Brexit referendum result in the UK and Donald Trump winning the US Presidential election, both of which were mainly victories for the right and far right of the political spectrum. The Ku Klux Klan supported Trump.

I had a discussion with a friend a couple of weeks ago, who I have known for a long time, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that he voted to leave the EU, as that has always been his position. A former Socialist Worker Party member, now ‘hanging around’ the Revolutionary Socialism for the twenty first century party (RS21). He told me of his surprise that he had been allowed to pay the £25 supporters fee, and voted for Jeremy Corbyn in this year’s Labour Party leadership election.  

He puts the Brexit vote and Trump as part of a piece, and welcomes Corbyn’s success saying that for the first time in his life the next UK general election will be a proper left versus right election, especially now the European Union will likely be out of way by then. He also thinks that voters have taken these positions because the neo-liberal economic system has failed, which it clearly has, and that this is a big opportunity for the left, which I think it is too, but I am less confident about.

But, why have the right been the beneficiaries of this change, so far anyway? Trump will clearly do little about neo-liberalism, apart from maybe introducing some tariffs on imports to the US. His whole programme is based on keeping immigrants out, as was the Brexit campaign, when they weren’t just spreading downright lies about more money for the NHS after Brexit.

I think there is an element of rejecting the economic system in these votes, but I think these votes are more to do with a cultural shift in the electorate, or some of the electorate anyway. The rust belt states that won Trump the election and parts of the UK that have never recovered from the post industrialisation of the 1980s, clearly have not done well out the system, but also have similar cultural attitudes. These cultural attitudes are also very different from say, California and London, places which did not vote for Trump or for Brexit.

Immigration is not an issue in California or London, and the people who live in these places take a very different world view, open, liberal and cultured. Suzanne Evans, who stood unsuccessfully to become leader of the right wing UKIP party recently, commented a couple of year’s back, on why she thought UKIP had done poorly in London elections. She said that the people in London were ‘too young, well-educated and cultured,’ and I think she was spot on in her assessment of the situation.

California and London are held in contempt by people in the rust belt and Brexit land, yes because they are relatively more prosperous, but also because of their outlook on things generally. The right in the UK are always accusing the Labour Party leader, as being an ‘Islington liberal’ and so out of touch with Labour’s core voters in the north of England. To be fair, there is a lot of truth in that, but it comes down to cultural differences more than economic success. Perhaps the two go hand in hand, so this should not be surprising.

All of which leaves the Labour Party with a lot of difficulties, in trying to please both sets of supporters, or former supporters. For this reason, I think the next general election could well be a complete disaster for Labour, and the broader left in general. Labour could win less than 200 seats, perhaps not many over 100.

I said to my friend, be careful what you wish for, I think the political (far) right are on the march now, and his obvious optimism, is not well placed if we judge it by the facts. Time will tell, but I am very pessimistic about the future of politics.    

  

UKIP – Goodbye and Good Riddance

In March this year, I wrote on this blog a post entitled ‘Will UKIP Cease to Exist after the EU Referendum?’ I speculated that after the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) referendum, whichever way the result went, UKIP would probably fade away from politics in this country. Getting a referendum on our membership and then campaigning to leave the organisation was the party’s raison d’etre and if we voted to stay, the issue would be dead for years to come. If we voted to leave, then they would have achieved their objective and their members could safely (re)-join the Tories.

It should be said, they were successful in forcing the referendum by worrying the Tory government (and MPs) about taking votes from them in the 2015 general election. This made the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, promise the referendum within two years of the election. Which, as we now know, was a fatal error from Cameron, who has now left politics altogether.

In the general election of 2015, as it turned out, UKIP took just as many, if not more votes from Labour than the Tories, particularly in Labour's northern heartlands, and the party thought that this trend would continue, with even their leader, Nigel Farage, talking about standing in a Labour held seat at the next general election. UKIP’s stated aim was to replace Labour as the opposition to the Tories, after the 2015 election.

Since the referendum, things have not gone so well for UKIP. Members have started to drift away and join the Tories, you can read about three UKIP activists who have made this journey on the Conservative Home website. The rumours are that thousands of UKIP members have now joined (or re-joined) the Tory Party. The Tories have stolen UKIP’s grammar school policy and appear to be heading for an uncompromisingly ‘hard’ Brexit from the EU, so UKIP seem to be redundant as a political force.

At the beginning of October, UKIP’s newly elected leader, Diane James, resigned after only 18 days in the job, saying publicly that it was for personal reasons (politicians always say that), amid talk of clashes with senior members of the party’s hierarchy. 

Last week, two of their MEPs were involved in what was described as an ‘altercation’, with one, Steven Woolfe, ending up in hospital. Woolfe has since left UKIP, and will probably join the Tory Party now, which is reportedly what the altercation was about. Of course, when we leave the EU, all of UKIP’s MEPs will also be redundant, and the party will be deprived of substantial funding from the EU. Wealthy donors also appear to backing away from the party too.

But UKIP have, by and large, kept their opinion poll ratings in double figures since the EU referendum, until now. A poll by Ipsos MORI published on Wednesday, only gives UKIP a 6% share of the vote, so it looks as though the voters are drifting away as well, and probably to the Tories (who are on 47% in the same poll). It is true though that this polling company has had UKIP lower than the other pollsters for a while now, but never this low, for the last couple of years.

Then we had yesterday’s by-election in Witney, the former constituency of the  resigned Prime Minister, David Cameron, where the UKIP candidate finished behind the Green Party candidate, polling just 3.5% of the vote, down from 9.1% at last year’s general election.

It looks as though my predictions from March about the demise of UKIP are turning out to be pretty accurate. They may not be completely finished yet, but it is just a matter of time, and they will probably have largely disappeared by the time we do leave the EU.

As we know, there is a small constituency vote for the far right in this country, which the BNP have exploited in the past, to some extent, and UKIP could carry on courting these voters, but the high water mark for UKIP has passed. The future looks to be of a terminal decline.

Their brand of xenophobia come racism will not be missed.     

Alleged Tory Election Expenses Fraud Should Lead to 33 By-Elections

The Independent reports that the judge who has granted Kent police more time to fully investigate the allegations of fraud in the Parliamentary seat of South Thanet, at last year’s general election, said that if it is proven, a by-election would need to held in the constituency. Normally there is a 12 month limit on investigations under the Representation of the People Act.

Judge Justin Barron said "The consequences of a conviction would be of a local and national significance with the potential for election results being declared void."   

The Independent piece is in the context of this giving Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, a second shot at winning the seat, where he lost in last year’s general election by around 3,000 votes. It seems it takes a UKIP angle to get this story some coverage in the mainstream media. There has been one previous story in the Independent about this scandal and one in The Guardian, the Whig press as I like to call it, but little elsewhere.

The original story was broken by Channel 4 News where they say that over the country 33 constituencies are involved with 29 winning Tory MPs involved, and up to ten police forces involved. All of these constituencies were marginals at the election, which is why they were targeted. 

The main allegation in all these cases is that spending on a campaign battle bus, as well as election material handed out, naming the local Tory candidate, was only declared as national spending, and within those limits.

Accommodation for staff who worked on some local campaigns, including in South Thanet, weren't declared at all. If the staff were helping with the local campaign then it should have been declared as a local expense.

These alleged false declarations of these constituencies has taken spending above the limit allowed, which is against the law. The Electoral Commission is also conducting an investigation.

I know, as a former election agent for eight years in my local Green Party, how careful you have to be with spending returns, as agent I could have finished up in jail, if I made a false declaration. But it is not just the election agents who gets in trouble if spending limits are breached; the candidates also sign the declarations. We have never come near the general election spending limits, but in local elections we did run it close in our target wards. 

If the allegations are true, and the police at least think they are worthy of further investigation, some sitting MPs could be sent to jail. At the very least these MPs (and other losing candidates) are likely to be barred from holding public office, which will entail the elections being re-run.

With the Tory government only holding a 12 seat overall majority, if they lose some of these by-elections, they could become a minority administration, with all of the problems that brings, in trying to get legislation through the House of Commons. 

Basically, it would be a lame duck government, and a fresh general election would surely follow within months. And without the gerrymandering of constituency boundaries in the Tories favour, which has long been the plan.

It never rains, but it pours for the Tories at the moment, what with a rebellion breaking out amongst Tory MPs over the government’s handling of the EU referendum campaign, and a certain Boris Johnson MP staking out his claim to the party’s leadership, post referendum.

We live in very volatile political times, all kinds of things could happen in the next six months or so.    

Should the Greens join a ‘Progressive Alliance’ at the next General Election?

In what is apparently the first of a series of open letters to UK ‘progressive parties’ written by Neal Lawson, Chair of the Labour Party grouping Compass, and published at Open Democracy, argues that the Greens should join such an alliance.

Lawson, whilst accepting the UK’s First Past the Post electoral system handicaps the Green Party, writes:

The recent local election results confirm the mini-surge is over. Yes the excellent Sian Berry ran a good campaign in London, but in a Corbyn world you have lost support to Labour in key places like Norwich and Bristol. The moment in the sun on the Brighton council is over. Yes in Scotland under PR you won more MSP seats – but not as many as you thought. 

He goes onto assert:

The only hope, I repeat the only hope we all have in the short term is for a progressive alliance of Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to defeat the Tories and UKIP.

He says that the Greens can be more of a influencer party, in terms of policies on environmental sustainability and nuclear weapons for example. Presumably, he means influence the Labour Party in particular. Lawson himself may be open to such influence, but is the Labour Party as a whole?

Leaving aside my dislike of the term ‘progressive’ which encompasses the likes of Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and Nick Clegg, is some kind of electoral alliance of the vaguely left UK political parties workable, and indeed desirable?

Let’s start with desirable. I would dearly love to see the back of this Tory government, which is characterised by nasty propaganda, scapegoating of minority groups, such as those on welfare benefits, tax breaks for the rich and sheer incompetence in economic management.

So, it is most certainly desirable in my book. Even the last majority Labour government was preferable to what we’ve had for the past six years.

The ‘is it workable’ bit, has two parts really, workable in terms of will all the parties agree to it, and then will the voters buy it?

There are a number of problems that I can foresee in all of the parties mentioned agreeing to this. For the Greens, the only likely Parliamentary advantage is if Labour does not contest Green Party MP Caroline Lucas’ Brighton Pavilion seat. Even if Labour agreed to this, and I think that is far from guaranteed, we have won this seat twice now, without any help from Labour, quite the reverse. So it is not a big giveaway, although with Parliamentary constituency boundary changes almost certain before the next general election, this seat may not be as green as it has been.

There is also the problem of not knowing what flavour of Labour Party we will be dealing with by 2020. Corbyn may not last as Labour leader, and even if he does, his radicalness seems to be being steadily stripped from him by his MPs.

Then there is working with the Lib Dems. Let us not forget that they propped up the vicious Tory government for five years, which did immeasurable damage to the most vulnerable people in our society. Should they be helped to get back on their feet by the Greens?

The SNP and PC are perhaps less problematic, in that they are broadly social democrat, but also nationalist, which is something of an anathema to Greens, generally.

And what role, if any, is there for Green Left in all of this? Should we open our membership to non Green Party members or form a kind of open Green Momentum instead, now that Labour’s version is now closed to non Labour members (or supporters, but you now have to sign a declaration saying don’t support any other party than Labour)? We will need to discuss this amongst ourselves in the next few months, but it is possible to see Green Left as something of facilitator in this, particularly with Labour.

Will the voters elect this progressive alliance, maybe? I think the main problem will be with English voters. At the last general election, there was talk of this type of alliance post election, although Labour rejected it, and for good reason I think.

The Tories made capital out of saying that voting Labour in England would lead to us being run by the Scots (SNP), and I’m sure this message was effective in the end. After all, no-one expected the Tories to win a majority, and I think this issue had a bearing on the result.

Having said all of this, without some kind of cooperation between ‘left’ parties, it is hard to see the Tories losing the next general election, from this distance out. That could change though, the EU referendum is tearing the Tories apart and they may not recover from this for years.

I would be prepared to back some kind of alliance, on the proviso that all of the parties of the alliance give an unambiguous endorsement of a change to a proportional election system for all levels of elections in the UK. Not a referendum pledge, it has to be in the parties manifestos and implemented within the lifetime of the next Parliament. Although, as I say, I'm not sure the voters of England will back this.

For the avoidance of any doubt whatsoever, as it says in this blog’s description, this is my opinion, not an official statement by Green Left or the Green Party.    

      

Will UKIP Cease to Exist after the EU Referendum?

As the moment approaches for which the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) have dreamed about for over twenty years, that is, the referendum on the UK’s continued, or not, membership of the European Union (EU), what lies ahead for the party after the vote?

Well, it probably depends on the result of the referendum, of which, I think, one of three scenarios will occur.

First, if the UK votes for Brexit, then UKIP’s job is pretty much done. They will have achieved their goal of separating us from the EU, and so their members may decide that it is now safe to re-join the Conservative Party (from whence many have come) and be part of a Eurosceptic party, in government. This may though be a problem for some of their best known ex Conservative members, MP Douglas Carswell and ex (Conservative) MP Neil Hamilton, who might not be welcomed back into the fold. But, by and large, I think that will be the attitude of most UKIP members, and they will probably feel at home, in what will surely be a Eurosceptic Conservative Party after a vote to leave the EU. So, it is probably curtains for UKIP in this scenario, as they will have lost their whole raison d’etre.

The second possibility is a large win for staying in the EU, say 60/40, in which case the whole issue of our EU membership will be put to bed for at least a generation and probably more. The country will have decisively rejected the idea of leaving the EU, and I expect the matter will fall away from the public’s consciousness and UKIP will dwindle in members and supporters, until it finally fades away entirely. I will put a rider on this, because the anti-establishment feeling around at the moment, here and elsewhere in the world, could maybe still sustain UKIP but a name change might be necessary, UKP perhaps?  

The third outcome of the referendum may be a narrow win for staying in the EU, which is currently how the opinion polls are looking. In this case, although disappointed, UKIP may be emboldened in the same way that the Scottish National Party (SNP) was after the unsuccessful Scottish independence referendum in 2014. This is the best case scenario for UKIP, in terms of keeping the party intact, where they will cry foul about the whole establishment being against them, and continue to press for Brexit as business as usual. Even this outcome though will still call into question the point of UKIP, so they will need to do some re-inventing of themselves.

Whatever the result of the referendum, I think there is one thing we can be sure of, there will be a split in UKIP. They have barely kept the lid on the tensions within their ranks since last year’s general election.

UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage has been in a running battle with UKIP’s MP, Douglas Carswell for months now, and similarly with ex Chair and rising star of the party Suzanne Evans who was sacked as Chair for disloyalty to the great leader. Once the referendum is out of the way, there will be an almighty struggle for the party or what is left of it.

I hope they do tear themselves apart, along with Tories who are also limbering up for a fight post referendum. It may be the only good thing that comes out of this referendum is two civil wars on the right of the political spectrum. It should make for entertaining viewing.    

    

Why Greens Should Vote to Leave the EU

This is an extract from a much longer piece written by Larry O'Hara

The onward march of ever greater EU centralization and the growing (if covert) influence of shadowy pressure groups like the European Round Table of Industrialists (hereafter ERT) has been watched by me with ever growing concern, even if viewed with indifference by many in the Green Party.  In recent years, the disgraceful treatment of Greece’s Syriza government by the EU seemed to momentarily lift scales from some eyes, for here was a genuine radical government being totally crushed by the EU, who were (and are) dictating to a democratically elected government, empowered by a popular referendum even, that they had to tear up their radical programme, privatize industries, dismantle welfare provisions, annihilate pensions, all in order to appease the loan shark parasites of the international banking community.  Surely, one might have thought, the fate of this government tells us something about the nature of the EU?  That has not altered since a defeated Greece is now out of the headlines.

At its minimum, the EU is about market ‘harmonization’: code for driving down workers living conditions worldwide.  This is what Tory supporters (and even opponents like Boris Johnson) of the EU mean when they concede it has been good for trade.  One instrument for harmonization is ‘bench marking’, whereby the most disadvantageous (to workers) practices are made the norm.  Another aspect is introducing ever more competition in the provision of services hitherto provided by the public sector.  It is this that provides the backdrop to welfare state privatization, Royal Mail sell-off and the unmitigated disaster that has been the PFI initiative in the NHS, mortgaging the future for generations to come while saddling citizens with ever mounting debt.  The Campaign Against Euro-Federalism have bravely, and indefatigably drawn attention to these matters in great detail.  What a pity Europhiliacs in the Labour Party and elsewhere blithely ignore this evidence; as too have most Greens to date.  TTIP and the related Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada, which will provide a back-door for US corporations to sue elected governments as in TTIP, are both dangerous and blatantly contradict Green principles, as can be seen by perusing the excellent Leave.EU pamphlet on these subjects .  Yet both are imminently set to become EU reality.

A paradox needs explaining: the mismatch between fundamental Green principles and the EU itself, a gap so wide that the fact many Greens (and Leftists generally) do not realise it demands serious explanation.  The gap can be summarized thus:

a)            Internationalism should always be voluntary to be genuine (e.g. the 1930s International Brigades) and should never be confused with the creation of supranational institutions with imperial ambitions: which the EU has been ever since Jean Monnet’s vision took shape in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, explicit aim, ever-closer union.  Like a ratchet, every single EU development has travelled that path, whether it be majority voting, Maastricht Lisbon and the rest.  EU centralization operates like a ratchet, that only goes one way.  I fully support Europe as an idea, and co-operation between European peoples, but no way should this be confused with the EU (on this at least I agree with Boris Johnson).  This very article was started in Hamburg, indeed.  One mendacious act of many is the deliberate sleight of hand by which proponents of Empire (the EU) seek to conflate Europe as an idea with the EU as an institution.

b)            Every accretion of power to EU institutions (of whatever stripe) is a diminution of power available locally.  If any referendum produces the ‘wrong’ (i.e. anti-centralist) result, it is re-run until the right answer ensues.  Furthermore, the whole notion of ‘subsidiarity’ is a pathetic fig-leaf: the centre decides what powers to give away, and it is the centre that can rescind any concessions.

c)            It is not just beyond belief, but even comprehension, that anybody could really think that a political entity with 503 million inhabitants like the EU could be democratic.  Institutions to be democratic have to be on a scale that people can understand, meaningfully relate to, and control.  Those numbers mean that is just not possible: but is conversely why the ERT favours the EU.  How much easier to negotiate with one government than 28.  Just when did some Greens think the slogan ‘Think Global, Act Local’ became redundant?  As Tony Benn never tired of pointing out, if you don’t elect people (European Court/Commission) and you can’t remove them, they’re not accountable to you.  

This is the definition of undemocratic. It is fascinating, therefore, to hear Benn’s thoughts echoed in Michael Gove’s 20/2/16 statement on the EU “My starting point is simple. I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time. But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out. We can take out our anger on elected representatives in Westminster but whoever is in Government in London cannot remove or reduce VAT, cannot support a steel plant through troubled times, cannot build the houses we need where they’re needed and cannot deport all the individuals who shouldn’t be in this country. I believe that needs to change“.  If this applies to even a Tory government, why would it apply less to a Green government or even a Corbyn-led one?

d)            As for the European Parliament, giving it even more power, which I do not favour, would inevitably (and unavoidably) be at the expense of national governments, who whatever their faults can at least in principle be removed: on this Tony Benn Michael Gove and George Galloway are all right.  Even if every single MEP (and MP) elected from the UK (or even England) favoured withdrawal from the EU or any other policy, MEPs elsewhere, if we give them power, would be able to prevent such a policy happening.  Anybody thinking that situation democratic is beyond reason, or even hope.  As too the current European Council of Ministers where the UK has voted against 72 measures, and been defeated 72 times.

e)            Sustainability is not merely an argument for more recycling bins and altering fridges: it should be at the heart of Green policies aimed at breaking the capitalist market cycle of planned obsolescence which will ineluctably mean taking on the multinational corporations who are so keen, with EU acquiescence, to push through the devastating TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Treaty).  In proper context, developing a genuinely sustainable economy is a dagger to the heart of capitalism, and the illusory religion of economic growth.

I could certainly say more, and maybe will elsewhere, but have hopefully said enough to substantiate my claim that, as I see it, there is a gap between genuine Green principles and the EU.  The paradox therefore which needs explaining is this; if these things are so axiomatic and obvious to me and the few Greens who share such views (like Jenny Jones and a minority of Green Left members) why is this the case?  This, I would suggest, requires an exploration of the political journeys undertaken by those who have arrived at a different destination to me.  In the real world, the Green project cannot advance without support from others including elements in the unions and the Labour Party.  Uncomfortable but true, which means making sense of current Labour/union policy on the EU: any progressive anti-EU coalition needs to build bridges, if not with most of the leadership, certainly the members.  This includes those who flocked to join Labour in the belief Jeremy Corbyn and his allies in Momentum intend, and are capable of, bringing about radical change.  I do not look at all tendencies within Labour, just the most important in relation to the current EU debate.

In 1990 a motion to withdraw from the EU was narrowly defeated at the Green Party (hereafter GP) conference, which I thought then was a great mistake.  Had Greens the nerve to advocate EU withdrawal, that may well have helped create the political space to make a breakthrough, conjoining radical politics with an anti-EU stance.  Instead, Greens vacated that space, some of which was later colonized by UKIP.  Since then Green policy has been contradictory: practically accommodating to the EU in many areas, contrasting party policies with others, while remaining within.  All encapsulated in the ‘Three Yeses’ policy adopted in 2013: Yes to a referendum, Yes to the EU and Yes to major change within the EU.  My contention is the first two are inconsistent with the third.

The rationale for such a policy is various.  Firstly, Greens were actually getting elected to the European Parliament, and joined a Europe-wide Federation of Green Parties (formalized 2004).  It also has to be said that the lavish wages allowances and such available in the European Parliament are inevitably corroding.  It was this de-radicalising effect that initially led German Greens to propose rotation in elected positions after all.  Dropping that policy was one more nail in the German Green’s coffin, and sadly rotation has never even been tried in the UK.  I have never agreed with Green MEPs (or any others) having the right themselves to allocate such funds, this should always be a party matter: but it never has been.  Secondly, on a more positive note, having elected MEPs allowed Greens to influence (however minutely) policy in a way denied the Greens until Caroline Lucas (a former MEP) was elected to Westminster in 2010.  The third reason is similar to that affecting Labour and the unions: a basic pessimism about getting change in the UK alone means the EU offers a better prospect.  As we shall see, this motivation still applies today.

At this point, a mea culpa on my part: while perturbed at the general pro-EU drift of GP policy, concentrating on other areas, and the fact that even in Green Left (of which I am a member) anti-EU positions are held by only a minority, I did not pay attention to the nuts and bolts of that policy.  I probably should have, but in any event rectify that now.  Before looking at pro-EU arguments by some Greens, I review GP policy as a whole, not least to substantiate my outline summary above.  

The Europe policy (part of the ongoing ‘Policies For a Sustainable Society’) can be found on the Party web-site at http://policy.greenparty.org.uk.    Numbering refers to policy sections therein. 

Early on they sort of grasp the subsidiarity nettle, saying “many issues currently decided at the EU level should be dealt with at a more appropriate level for effective action, which might be local, national or global” (EU120).  Which begs the question: who decides which is which, and how is this to happen?  There is no unequivocally clear answer, in that the areas they outline are ambiguous and open to interpretation and contestation.  It is not as if the GP does not know the reality of “subsidiarity in the European Union at present, a top down distribution of a fraction of power accumulated at the centre” (EU390).  They state the ‘European level’ should “safeguard basic human social and political rights” (EU121), indeed “high standards of human and civil and social rights” (EU212) and “cooperation to regionalize the industrial base, services and resources” (EU212).  All these beg definition because not only is there no universal agreement about rights, in the real world, rights often conflict.  Who, exactly, is to decide what ‘high standards’ are? There is the unproven assertion that air pollution “can best be resolved at the European level” (EU121), but this is not obvious, and a basic confusion of Europe-wide with European, which in this case means imposed.  

The European level is supposed to “promote sustainable, non-exploitative, self-reliant local and regional economies” (EU121).  Yet this does not happen currently, indeed as we shall see such economies will be resisted at the ‘European level’.   This is the reality which confounds the GP recognition that “subsidies are sometimes necessary to protect local, regional and national economies and the environment, and we will support them in these instances” (EU413).  The contrast between what the GP supports and EU reality is at times staggering: try telling Greece that “each member state government should be entirely free to set its own levels and methods of taxation, public spending and public borrowing” (EU425).

Conversely, do the GP really believe that EU members will “initiate programmes to support local economies against market centralization” (EU426)?  I don’t, but if they did, they’d get the Greek treatment. 

I find many GP policy aims appealing (just as well given I’ve been a member for 28 years!), the problem is that they have no realistic transitional strategy to get there other than the implicit mirage of a Green majority in the EP.  In parallel with this, exhorting current national governments to do things they have no intention of doing, or, if they did, would be stamped on.  In this context, GP policy is inappropriately abstract and unrealistic while appearing otherwise.  I agree wholeheartedly that “tariff barriers and quotas should be gradually introduced on a national and/or regional bloc level, with the aim of allowing localities and countries to produce as much of their goods and services as they can themselves” (EU443).  My objection  is simple: this will not and cannot happen within the EU.  I have no problem up to a point with “a democratically accountable and controlled European Confederation of Regions, based on Green principles” (EU302).  

Though the problem is that confederations by definition are voluntary, so where does this word ‘controlled’ come from?  Unless you mean control by the regions, but as we shall see this is not consistent with other aspects of GP policy.  It is naïve to imagine any of this can arise if you “reconstitute the EU” (EU302).  How, exactly, does the GP imagine the EU will ‘reconstitute’ itself, liquidating its own power?  We are told “regions should also have the right to define themselves, where appropriate across national frontiers…through referenda” (EU393).  Dependent on the approval of who?  For example is Spain really going to accept Basque independence, or France Corsican?  

A further contradictory policy is belief the European Council of Ministers “should seek to make decisions by consensus” (EU320), immediately followed by support for non-consensual Qualified Majority Voting (EU321).  While the European Commission’s powers are to be reduced (EU310) potential conflict between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers is made more likely by supporting “the extension of ordinary legislative procedure with the European Parliament…to all issues where the Council decides by Qualified Majority Voting” (EU326), indeed the “powers of the European Parliament should be extended to give its members greater oversight of the work of the EU” (EU333).  Oversight and more voting will inevitably be at the expense of national parliaments and governments, how could it be otherwise? 

The fact national parliaments get no positive mention in this policy is telling.   The European Parliament itself is to decide on the wording for referenda on a future European Constitution defining “the values, objectives powers, decision-making procedures and institutions of the EU” (EU356/352).  The only area where the policy wholeheartedly (if transiently) accepts national level democracy is in the area of having referenda on Monetary Union (EU423) and a new European Constitution (EU354).  But given the European Parliament decides the rules, question, and even date, of any referendum we can see where power lies (EU356).  Ironically, not only does this undermine national parliaments, being serious about decentralization would mean regions being the voting basis, surely?  Yet they are not.

Looking at all this in the round, leaving aside pressure/interest groups, there are six potential competing centres of power within the EU: the European Parliament, European Commission, European Council of Ministers, the Regions, national Parliaments and finally the European Court of Justice (ECJ).  While adding the meaningless qualification that “care should be taken not to duplicate the roles of existing courts in member countries”, the nub is this: “the role of the CJEU should extend as appropriate within the competencies of the EU” (EU342).  Not only can these judges not be removed by nation states, the policy states that judicial “candidates should be nominated by the Committee of Regions…Appointments shall be made by the European Parliament” (EU346).  The blatant intent is to undermine nation states, not really to give real power to the regions (else power would be genuinely decentralized elsewhere) but undermine the nation state in favour of supranational EU institutions.  Technically, decentralization as a function of centralization.

Above I have concentrated on areas where I either disagree with the principle, or am sceptical about the practice.  Opposition to NATO for example, or a European Army, and European Monetary Union, I fully support.  If the GP was arguing for decentralization and self-sufficiency as part of an anti-EU programme aimed at seeking mass support across Europe for undermining/bypassing the EU, I would not demur.  Yet the simultaneous support for EU institutions, particularly the EP, is intended to give the EU legitimacy it does not deserve.  Internationalism does not mean the liquidation of nations, but voluntary cooperation between them and also groups within those nations.  A simple point, but one that seems to have eluded those writing GP policy. 

I am equally unimpressed by the absence of explicit anti-capitalism, for me such is integral to Green politics.  Despite this important absence, policies like genuine decentralization and self-sufficiency would genuinely undermine the EU if implemented, but the fact the GP don’t either realise or accept this is unfortunate.  Though hardly accidental: one reason I define myself as Left/Green rather than just Green is the traditional far left understood only too well the necessity of confronting powerful interests, and mobilizing support to do so, within a strategic context that does not see the state (any state,including the EU) as a neutral instrument.  Which is where Lukacs and Lenin (or indeed Henri Weber’s famous interview with Nicos Poulantzas ) come in.  The point is not to disavow GP policy on the EU, but to keep the attractive bits and help them become reality.  Which will mean leaving the EU, using the momentum of that departure to galvanise sympathisers within the EU to make genuine decentralisation and confederation come about.

Given the above policy framework, it is little surprise that GP luminaries have lined up to support the EU.  Caroline Lucas makes the point that the Tory “government are the loudest cheerleaders for TTIP, and ministers would happily create an equally dangerous bilateral deal with the US if we left the EU” .  I agree: but of course if/when we leave the EU we can tear up this treaty with a change of UK government, something we cannot do while staying in the EU.  She also makes the same point many Labour supporters do “exit would leave many of the things we hold dear—be it maternity pay, the right to join a trade union or providing refuge to those seeking sanctuary—in peril”.  Quite possibly: but only if you think a progressive government could never be elected in the UK, which is again unbridled pessimism.

A draft letter circulated by Caroline Lucas’ office to be sent to papers (19/2/16) is even more vacuous.  It says that “in a fast-changing world we need international rules to control big business and finance”.  Indeed: yet TTIP which the EU is covertly negotiating is all about big business and finance controlling governments.  Then there is the non-sequitur that “only by working with our European neighbours can we tackle climate change, protect wildlife and reduce pollution”.  Really?  What would stop an independent UK doing all this?  Nothing at all.  Then we have the canard that EU countries have agreed to “share sovereignty”—yet not only is such not possible, the GP policy above as we have seen involves ceding such.  How being in the EU helps the UK to meet the challenge of “international terrorism” is asserted, not explored.  After all, the US cooperates with the EU while not formally joined, and while indelicate, it has to be mentioned porous EU borders both externally and internally made it easy for ISIS murderers to travel to Paris from Belgium (and back in one case).   Is that not why France moved to suspend Schengen border arrangements? Or are we supposed to forget this?  The letter concludes by saying a “better EU is possible: where corporate influence is curtailed, where more power is held locally, and citizens have a real say”.  Yet this is not the content, or thrust, of GP policy: Lucas evidently hopes voters do not know this.  Understandable, but dishonest.

Amelia Womack, Green Deputy Leader, heading the Green Yes campaign, is equally unimpressive.  Claiming that “just as Caroline Lucas has been working to shake up and democratize parliament, the Green MEPs have been doing the same at the EU level” .  If the EP is democratized, how does that affect national parliaments?  No answer.  There is also the claim that as an internationalist party the GP believes in working with like-minded people.  Indeed, but why restrict this to the EU?  Then pessimism kicks in: “by exiting, we’d be facing a whole new raft of deregulation and slashing of…workers’ and environmental rights”.  Maybe: but this could be resisted locally, whereas very real proposals/policies to undermine those rights at the EU level cannot.  Speaking of TTIP, Womack is at her most dishonest, saying this “deal is signed at both European and state level—it’s down to our own Parliament to accept it, or not”.   The idea this would be voluntary is incredible: no way would the UK be allowed to ‘opt out’, Qualified Majority Voting would ineluctably apply.

Rather more honest is Green Left’s Mike Shaughnessy, who admitted that “probably the vast majority of the political left will campaign to remain in the EU…with the vague idea promoted by the more radical elements of changing the system from within.  It is not clear to me how this will be achieved, and I doubt it is really possible anyway, given the anti-democratic nature of the EU beast. ‘A People’s Europe’ is the slogan, but this is just a pipe dream at best, dishonest at worst”.  Couldn’t have put it better myself!  Shaughnessy will vote to stay because the No campaign is dominated by the Little England/nationalistic/racist tendency.  Which need not necessarily be the case.  He concludes by saying “in the end I’m going to go with my emotions….I am going to vote to remain, although I have to say, with not much enthusiasm for the EU of the corporates” .  These sentiments should, logically, lead him to vote no, but as he says, it’s an emotion thing.

What Lucas and Womack have to say on the other hand hardly convinces, interestingly neither spell out the full centralist thrust of GP policy, preferring instead to emphasise a supposed correspondence with some Green principles.  I prefer to stick with those principles, in their entirety, and follow Green/decentralist aspects of GP policy to their logical conclusion.  Exiting the EU.

Larry O'Hara is a Green Party member who lives in Suffolk, and is a Green Left supporter.