Pic copyright Steve Sainsbury /Bristol Camera
Just a few weeks to the election - and probably the most intriguing one for decades. The UK is still reeling from the independence vote in Scotland last year. We are also watching with interest the winding up of UKIP, probably the only political party in the world that wants to return a country to a non-existent past. We have a Labour Party that looks down on working people and makes no attempt to understand or represent them, and we have the tories who as always see politics simply as a career choice and a way of networking amongst the self-appointed elite. We have super confident Scottish nationalists on the verge of getting freedom from this dying union with less confident Welsh and Cornish nationalists picking up speed in their wake. We have a far right that has mistakenly hitched a ride on the back of the ridiculous UKIP, bringing them and themselves down in the process. We have the shellshocked Lib Dems wondering what hit them ...
... and then we have the Greens.
We live in confusing times. The country has been in economic shock since 2008 and there's no obvious way out. There is the sterile austerity/not austerity gambit - which as Greens we know is nonsense. There is pandering to 'Britishness' but not the wonderful multicultural and crazy Britishness that we all know and live, but a weird media-based filmic hybrid of the 50s and the 90s, which none of us know or live.
The primacy of myth and magic over reality and science suggests real issues at the heart of the psyche of this country. Why has this happened? I suspect it's closely linked to the economic crisis, which is clearly a harbinger of our future low-growth, no-growth or negative growth declining energy economy. Nostalgia is taking over at the same rate as we are losing our senses ...
... and then we have the Greens.
The Greens are close to a breakthrough, that much is clear, though whether that breakthrough will be in 2015, 2020 or even 2025 is anybody's guess. But even the Greens have their problems, their clinging to nostalgia and a more comfortable if backwards-looking view of Britain. The party is still infested with extreme lefties and marxists who moved away from Labour as the toffs took over, and saw the Green Party (correctly) as a soft touch. Some 'Greens' still see no irony or shame in describing themselves as marxists or even trotskyists. Is there any greater nostalgia? How exactly do these 'Greens' imagine the future of low energy, low resources and localization will sit easily with their dream of the big state, compliant workers, disrespect of the environment and class war (with the middle classes as always being the winners)?
The Greens need to sweep this rubbish under the carpet and start building a REAL Green Party to take power in the coming decades. It needs to appeal across the board, not just to a few middle class academic and soulless lefties. It needs to show those members who run businesses (and there are MANY of those) that the party supports local capitalism and will help businesses establish themselves under the new sustainable paradigm. They need to push the positives of a species that works in cooperation - rather than against - nature. They need to bring joy, light and humour into the whole process. Because, believe it or not, the time for government is not now far off. As Greens we need to become the people that can help run a country, to listen to people and to announce our motto from the rooftops ...
Be kind and have courage!
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