Day One
I haven’t been to a political party conference for quite a while, infact as I travelled down on the train to Cardiff, I suddenly remembered that it was nearly 12 years ago.
Feeling somewhat overawed by that realisation I read my way through the standing orders for the conduct of conference and then undaunted by the turgid prose I even read “So you want to change the green party”, which is also not an easy read and then the party manifesto. I think somewhere between Bristol Parkway and Newport I fell asleep only to be woken by the announcement that the train was pulling into Cardiff.
I recovered my energy by downing a gigantic super size cup of caffe latte(Cardiff seemed to be sponsored by coffee chains) and then with a caffeine charged surge headed for the conference venue. I am a relatively new member but am aware already that the party is organisationally “challenged”. Problems with website, party member database etc. Having registered online I am told that I am not on the list but its ok because there have been problems in updating registration lists. Still the problem has silver lining so to speak as I and the other 50% of the party who have joined in the past year are responsible for this it seems. It’s the old problem of growth.
Anyway all is very affably sorted out and I find myself listening to the speeches of the leader of the Greens in Wales and the Caroline Lucas, the leader of the party. Jake Griffiths, is the leader of the greens in Wales and with elections for the Welsh assembly naturally his input was geared to that event and the possibility that Fib DEM discontent will become green votes. I wish him all the best of course but I hope that no one posts the welsh part of his speech on You tube. I say this because whilst Griffiths is clearly a “welsh” name Jake is clearly not welsh except in name. I have English born friends who have been in living Wales and who speak Welsh with a better accent than he managed.
Caroline Lucas was announced like as if she was a prize fighter entering the ring. She spoke well. “Principled, independent and on your side” is how she summed up the key principles of the party. “The other political parties are out of touch with the people they represent”.
Great stuff… I head out to a fringe event that turns out to be a “beyond the fringe” event. Its about class in the green party, or rather the lack of working class in the party. I really couldn’t work out what was the issue. The political class has always been somewhat of an elite and in the past 25 years as politics has become irrelevant for most people (working and middle classes) its not surprising that politics has become the preserve the of relatively small(less than 1% of 18-65 year olds are members of any political party) members of the upper and middle classes and the “educated working class”. Infact as evidenced by an input from a speaker from the Latin American workers association , its migrant workers who now are super exploited in our economy. I doubt if they see their affinity with an English working class. In the end it seemed that the issue was really not about class as such but really about “council estates and poor private rented/owned areas”. Here I suspect its got nothing to do with exclusion or inclusion, its simply the number crunching that guides party resources to areas and communities where there is more chance of voters. The bottom line for a political party is where can we have the biggest impact, not where should we be investing our resources to creative a more inclusive politics. Its an “organisational logic that has “operational logic”, but self-defeating outcomes in terms of the wider philosophical goals relating to equality, social justice and empowerment.
I leave this interesting but muddled discussion and head for a session on “monetary policy”. Having read the manifesto and heard Caroline Lucas speaking so forcefully about the immorality of our financial system, I was expecting some good debate…but there was none. I found myself in a discussion about a motion and an amendment to the motion.
I have never understood why motions arouse so much energy. For me they are the antithesis of debate and discussion. They invite “anoraks” to strip any meaning out of discussion into a discussion over meaning of words and of course procedure.
Having had all my energy sucked out by this session, I went for another gigantic caffe latte and then went on to listen to a debate with Caroline and Jake about “alternatives to austerity: the case for green investment and jobs”. Infact they were talking to the converted so there was no debate, but I do wonder where the million jobs will come from and who will get these jobs? The only “hard” example of what kind of jobs we are talking about was when Jake spoke about home insulation. Home insulation projects have been around along time, infact every job creation programme since the 1980’s has supported these kinds of actions. So I left wondering if the party was in danger of placing too much confidence in “spin” and not enough in “form”. On the Young Greens stand there were prominently displayed copies of the “Jilted Generation”. An excellent analysis of how neo liberal logic has “deprived “ the jilted generation of their future progression in terms of work, housing, access to money, involvement in politics. What’s more the book is not focussing on the “usual suspects” in terms of young people (eg early school leavers, low qualified , certain ethnic groups). The book is actually focussing on the kind of young people that young greens are- educated, motivated, frustrated and wanting to do something. The party needs an “economic policy” that responds to their experience. The green new deal will not create jobs that will necessarily be fulfilling for enough young people. We need to re-think the process of “job creation”. It has to be a more bottom –up process. For example, Holland for some three years had a small but nice programme which simply allowed people who were unemployed to secure an “idea job”. These “idea jobs” were infact created by individuals and especially from people in the “social economy”.A scheme like this with minimum wage funding provided would actually enable a real “flowering” of local initiatives and allow a different form of job/work creation to take place.
Day Two
I made the same mistake as yesterday when I found my self in a session on “policy making”.From my reading of “So you want to change the party”, I had noted that the policy making process was of course the main tool for making change .Once again the focus was a motion. For me the motion was clear, we need a”pre-agenda” phase in the motion setting phase. Why? Because motions arrive at the last moment and no one has seen them. Again I could not see the problem in what was being proposed and after 40 minutes of hair splitting analysis and hand wringing over what it would mean, everyone felt it seems the same as me and we left. In the course of this discussion what was the most important issue was just lost. One person made the point that there was no connection between the policy making process and local parties. This comment just raised a laugh as if this was just self obvious. However, we could not focus on this fundamental issue as the focus was the motion. I will not hold my breath for the impact of this pre-agenda element in the policy making process especially, as it will not be obligatory. Motions, in short will continue to arrive at “5 for 12” and the link with local parties will remain tenuous as best.
Then to a session on diversity and equality in the party. Some twenty years I decided to join a political party. The choice for me was green or labour?I chose labour, why? Because the green party was just a middle class white party. It still is but with the injection of “educated working class “members who have left labour and other parties. In terms of diversity, its basically non existent. A few middle class Asians like me . But what the hell, having been in the labour party, where the diversity looks better, it doesn’t make it a more inclusive party. At a local level the labour party machine operates as a kind of neo colonial machine. Ethnic minority “leaders “ are given red carpet treatment on the understanding that through them the minority vote can be “bought”.
We need to be a party that is post class, post nationalism and of course post material. I suspect I may be in tune with the philosophical basis of the party but out of tune with the political correctness that underpins all such discussions. Lets focus on the real issues, pay gap between men and women, the obscene inequality that the last 30 years has created in income distribution, the structural failure to address discrimination. It’s the failure in these areas that have switched of so many people from politics.
Diversity monitoring may be useful in terms of keeping the issue on the agenda BUT it will change nothing. Lets move on beyond beards and burqua’s.
On a totally different note, I was really taken back by the account given by one delegate regarding failure to take into consideration access issues at the last GPEW conference. Whilst it seemed that this issue had received more consideration in the planning of this event, there was still considerable improvement needed and this was the overwhelming consensus in the workshop.
Then I thought that I would go and meet the GPEX. It seems too many people wanted to do this so I went and watched the rugby.I am always fascinated watching the scrum as for me its like watching a 22 legged crab.
Then onto a session on financial reform. Excellent inputs from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. If we want real policies to deal with the greatest robbery that has taken place, then I suggest we ensure that local parties get briefings from NEF and the Bretton Woods project. We may end up with better motions. The sad news is that the developments at the European Parliament level are just so pathetically irrelevant in terms of re-designing our financial system. The only aspect that the discussion did not touch upon is the close links between the financial sector and big party funding. The Cons raised 3,5 million pounds in the last quarter of 2010. Virtually all of this came from financial institutions. At EU level it’s the same. We have to disentangle this incestuous relationship if we really want to get democratic control into our financial systems. I personally would like to see an international court of financial crimes to also be set up. Of course it will never happen, it would be inundated with petitions.
Day Three
An excellent session with Anne Pettifor and Patrick Harvie. Anne is one of the few people globally who foresaw the global financial crisis years before anyone else.The bad news is that she forsees another crunch..infact a triple crunch, financial, economic and ecological crisis. We need a banking system that is subordinated to addressing social and ecological needs. Her political message just remained undiscussed..”we need to build alliances if we are to take on the monolithic power of the banking system.” Maybe the message went unheard because she is rooted in labour.
Patrick Harvie gave an upbeat message..”its our time”..the recession offers an opportunity. I know that party politicians have to make these kinds of noises but when it came down to how to convert the dissatisfaction into support for the green party it became a bit unclear and not very different from what labour activists will be saying on the door step. Think household economy was the message. How can the party save household bills in these tight times.Insulation was again the big idea, jobs, lower energy bills , lower CO2 emissions. Its a nice mantra but just ignores the bit about changing behaviour.
In fairness he did try to touch this issue by saying that we all needed to stop buying “stuff”. Meaning the “stuff” we do not need.His logic drove him into saying that we just needed to abolish advertisng. This won applause from the audience but some disapproval from party apparatchiks and he quickly retreated his statement. In doing so he exposed the problem. The green party is not now and possibly will not be the party in power for a considerable time.So why do we not just say what we feel and think rather than try and pre-package our messages. Our role should be one of mobilisation, empowerment and exposure of the lies of a busted political model. The party has this within its philosophical base, but there is now a tension in terms of the need of securing votes as a political party. The problem here is organisational capacity and of course the lack of a broad diverse base.
Then on to fringe meeting about selling the no growth economy.Unfortunately the presenter was not present and thus the discussion centered on the setting up of a working group on GP economic policy. This turned out to raise some really important issues. How can we sell no-growth or “steady state” on the door step? Let alone in the media. For the millions who are already experiencing the price of the banking greed, the idea of remaining as they are is hardly attractive. How do we measure growth ? Is it just about GDP? Clearly not but GDP remains coupled to material throughput so we still require this as a measure. The issue then becomes how to complement this. The working group will be grappling with this and other issues with a view to reporting back at the autumn conference.
Day Four
A discussion about “political pluralism” which in plain English simply means that we should work with Labour and dissident lib dems. Neal Lawson from Compass bared his soul in outlining how new labour had betrayed the cause and that we now had a “crisis of social democracy across Europe.”Neal is a good speaker and has some great sound bites: “the poor are getting poorer and the planets burning”. A dissident Lib Dem speaker than spoke about the struggle for the soul of the Liberal party. The “orange book” gang had infiltrated and captured the party at a time when the party had been weak. The question in my mind was when did the Lib Dems have a “soul”, let alone loose it. At a local level , well before the Clegg debacle, there were local lib dem parties working with Tories. There were also some working with labour.What I am saying is that Lib Dems have always just been political prostitutes, there is no distinct philosophical or political core too their position.
I am all for building alliances but please lets not create a fantasy world of pluralism. If we are to engage in such collaboration then which of the other two parties are going to come out in support of no growth, which of them are going to support the local and regional control of our banking system? It will not be labour or lib dems so where does that leave things?
There was much talk in this session about “creating new lines in the campsite”. The metaphor was that political parties are essentially like a collection of tents pitched on some campsite. Some are big tents and other have small tents.So all we have to do is visit each other’s tents or create new spaces for exchange. Sounds fun except that no one focussed on the decay in the campsite. There is no/low trust in politics, there is lack of participation, there is declining membership, there are fewer activists, youth parties are in decline. The political class that lives in this metaphysical campsite first has to wake up to the fact that politics is broken. Its not simply about new policies its about HOW we do politics as well as WHO we do this with.
I ran a fringe event on the theme of “Building Resistance at a European level”. As I walked to the conference venue I saw the main headline in the Dail Mail screaming “EU pension madness”..and then a diatribe about how a new directive was going to cost jobs and money.
For the past 7 years I have been working for a not for profit EU network of local authorities and other ngo’s, and have seen how distant Brussels is from citizens. In the case of the UK even more so than the majority of EU states. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had 15 people at the meeting. The European level is being ignored at our peril. Over 80% of legislation is now originating from Europe. It is impacting significantly on our lives, our environment and democracy. There is hardly any or no accountability or transparency in the EU decision making process. The European Council is like a mediaeval round table, held in secret, no published account, just decisions. In the period of the last EP (2004-2009) nearly 83% of all decision were made by the European Parliament in camera with the European Council. The real irony is that the new pension directive is part of what the European Council (our leaders and ministers) have already agreed. Anyway, as result of the fringe I have agreed to set up online forum. If you are interested then just send me mail.
Then onto an event that for me was another highpoint. Tim Jackson speaking about Equality without growth. This is the core issue we face. Climate change has to be linked to social justice. Its about people AND the planet and not the planet before people. This is still the tension that runs deep in the party(at least as evidenced by interventions at conference).Tim Jackson highlighted the crucial role that the GP could play but he also said that we had to loose our “fluffy” image. We have an economic model that has not only failed on its own terms but has also in the process created a social pathology which is addicted to consumption. We have a society that grants status through consumption. We have an economy that can only flourish if people can be persuaded to buy things they do not need or do not even know they need. We have a level of individual encapsulated in the slogan “the brand called you”. We have “finance capitalism “within which shareholders profits trump all other considerations. This has meant that we have swallowed the myth of “downsizing” meaning improved productivity, when in actual fact there is no, evidence that it did and has done so and yet it’s a myth that still prevails. In fact this myth has allowed for the decoupling of wider social responsibility from the role of the private(for profit) sector. Layoffs are always good news for share holders, they always result in increased share prices –at least in the short term.
We have an economy that is creating sickness and negative entropy. Neal Lawson and several interventions throughout the conference raised the issue of reasserting and making time for human contact and spiritual reflection.
For me its also an economy that is generating a form of politics that threatens our very democracy. I recently read John Dunns book called”Setting the people free:the story of democracy”.He asserts that we now have far greater control of citizens by governments. Democracy in English speaking nations today has come to mean the handing over of vast number of decisions and powers to rulers in return for the freedom to pursue egotistical, hedonistic consumer choices.
In short,we need a new economics that recognises the financial, political and cultural aspects of current economic structures. The starting point has to be about redistribution of available resources. Here I think the party has to perhaps listen to the philosophical (not necessarily tactical) base that underpins Green Left.
Haroon Saad
Waltham Forest and Redbridge GP
h.saad@ludenet.org
The “What is GPEX” in my title is a question I heard between two delegates and for me encapsulated the national /local tension I refer to.
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