A time for unity....

This is still an ex-blog....but I did feel the need to clamber atop my battered soapbox one last time, to make a plea to fellow members of the Green Party.

As many readers will know, the Green Party has just had an internal referendum on the 'leadership question'. After many months of discussion and debate, the Party membership voted 73% to 27% (with about a 50% turnout) to switch away from our current model of Principal Speakers without a vote on the National Exec and elected annually, to a model of Leader/Deputy Leader both with a vote on the Exec and elected once every two years.

Readers may also know that, due to my opposition to the abandoning of annual elections, I urged a 'No' vote in the referendum.

However - I strongly believe that now that the Party membership has spoken, it is time to unify and move on to what we are meant to be doing - winning elections and building a movement for radical social change. It is up to the hundreds of members who voted 'NO' to act constructively to ensure that a Green model of leadership is inclusive, transparent, accountable and empowering - not to fight some sort of guerilla battle against proposals that have been overwhelmingly supported by thousands of party members.

I guess I just wanted to express my opinion, clearly, that now is the time to take stock of our new internal structure and make sure that it works for everyone. Not to hark back to an old structure that, lets be honest, never worked very well anyway and has been rejected by a large majority of our fellow party members.

Here's hoping that peace breaks out, and we can all move forward on a constructive basis...winning at least one MP at the next General Election!

Cheers and best wishes,

Matt

An ex-blog

OK, OK, I admit it. This is an ex-blog. It has ceased to be. etc. My apologies to my literally tens of readers, but I just don't have the time to update it anymore...things keep getting more and more hectic, and my need for free time isn't going away....

I hope people have found it a useful if rather random and erratic snapshot into the life of a district councillor. If you are interested in that aspect of things, then do go along to http://greenladywell.blogspot.com for Cllr Sue Luxton's thoughts on life in Lewisham! Alternatively, if its left/green analysis you would like, there's nowhere better than http://greenmansoccasional.blogspot.com

Enjoy - and best wishes, as always!

Matt

Oxford Police and Protest

Having returned from a wonderful holiday (walking the Cumbria Way - I fully recommend it!) I was very disturbed to see the latest copy of direct action weekly 'SCHNEWS'. It has news of the dismissal of charges against animal rights protestors, due to unacceptable behaviour from the Oxford police force:

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news590.htm

Now, as regular readers of my blog will know, there is history of my views on this subject being somewhat selectively represented. So, I will make it clear. I do not agree with everything that SPEAK say. I DO agree with their right to say it, and certainly with their right to say it without a campaign to 'persecute' them. Our police should be on the side of the law, not of Oxford University. I know from bitter experience in the past that the police, too often, are on the side of power against those wanting to express unpopular or controversial views. I will continue to do everything within my limited power to hold actions like this to account.

B52 not guilty!

News that I am delighted about today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6681639.stm

It's taken them four years of their life, but they've been found 'not guilty' - I won't say that they were vindicated, because regardless of the court finding, there was never any doubt in my mind that they did the right thing. Speaking as someone who broke into RAF Fairford at around the same time in order to stop the planes taking off - but also as someone who, quite frankly, wasn't brave enough to take on the whole judicial system - I am over the moon for them.

Phil and Toby, my heroes!

Matt

Ex-Lib Dems become Tories

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/display.var.1407826.0.two_jump_ship_to_tories.php

I'm a bit speechless about this one. Defecting to become Independents is one thing - but Tories? One of the councillors, Paul Sargent, was elected as a Lib Dem in Carfax Ward at the same election as me - and Carfax is the only ward less student dominated than my own. I can guarantee that the many students who voted for him thought he was the progressive choice - not a Tory in disguise.

As for Tia Macgregor...I don't know what to say. Her voting record is progressive and leftish - I can't imagine what on earth she is doing joining the Conservatives.

I could make the obvious comment about the Lib Dems recruiting their candidates from people who don't quite know what their politics are - but its a bit too easy, isn't it....

Matt

New Council Year

Well, tearing myself away from esoteric theory, I should point out that council business goes on as ever. Annual Council was yesterday, at which we appoint all the committees for the year, as well as the Leader/Deputy Leader of the Council. Everything stayed pretty much the same - the Lib Dems are still in minority administration (despite not being the largest party!), I am still sitting on Executive Board as the Green Group representative, and so on. John Tanner was also sworn in as Lord Mayor for the year, which should provide much hilarity. Even his own Labour benches started laughing when he had to take an oath promising to use his 'good judgement'....

I didn't stay for the ceremonial flummery afterwards, as generally I don't like that kind of thing unless I have promised to give a speech nominating someone to a civic office (as last year) - but perhaps I should have done, because I came home to the tidal wave of sycophantic coverage about Blair's resignation. I had to restrain myself from putting my foot through the TV at times...particularly when commentator after commentator said things like 'well, putting aside Iraq'....

PUTTING ASIDE IRAQ? Thats like saying of Pinochet - 'well, putting aside the death squads'....

The man is a mass murdering war criminal. He deserves to go down in history as such, and I trust that he will, despite the seeming inability of today's media to paint him in his true light. May he have a long and unhappy retirement.

Matt

Greens and the left

Well, my post on local elections seems to have awakened a debate - mostly on my assertion, made over a number of years now, that the Greens need to affirm themselves as an explicitly 'left' and anti-capitalist party.

At the risk of appearing immodest, I felt it might be useful to explain exactly what I mean by this, as such a statement is open to misinterpretations.

I most certainly do *not* mean that the Greens should adopt the kind of alienating language used by the far left, that we should reject everyone to our right as 'class enemies', that we should refuse ever to engage in the existing political system, or that we should adopt the stifling centralisation of Leninism. While the antics of the far-left over the decades have meant that these counterproductive habits have become associated with being on the left, they are certainly not inherent in a leftist position.

What I *do* mean is that the Green Party needs, urgently, to have a debate about how the radical social and economic changes that we desire will come about. At the moment many Greens have a sort of fuzzy faith that electing councillors and MPs to institute greenish reforms will do it. This is fine if you believe that the current system can be reformed. I don't think that most Greens actually believe that this is the case...instead, we believe that a radical change is necessary - in short, that capitalism as a system cannot deliver sustainability and social justice. If we think this (as I do) then we have to be honest about it - *and* we have to have some idea at least of our 'direction of travel'. Yes, elected representatives are part of the way in which we change society, but they are by no means the only way - and if they become too compromised by the status quo, too obsessed with 'managing decline' and ameliorating cuts, they actually become actively counter-productive.

I am an anti-capitalist, left-wing Green. I am anti-capitalist because I believe that capitalism cannot deliver a sustainable society, and I am left-wing because I believe that a sustainable society without equality, social justice and peace would not be worth living in or fighting for. I believe that the most important function of Green representatives is to provide leadership in empowering their communities, in restoring cohesion amongst people, in creating solidarity and communication that has been ripped apart by capitalism and modern society. Green representatives should be the catalysts for true 'people power' - not the administrators of neo-liberalism.

If people aren't happy with using the word 'left', I don't really mind. What is important is the policy that is put forward, the vision for radical change, and the actions in practice. As long as those are socially just, and move against the system that commodifies nature and people, I don't care what you call it!

Matt

P.S. The most interesting comment to the last post was from DarrenJ, who said that he was happy for the Greens to be a progressive 'centre left' party, but not a 'far left' party. Does this mean that it is OK for Greens to be social democrats, but not anti-capitalists? And if so....can we really get to a sustainable society by reforming the current system? I don't think so - perhaps others disagree.