We Lib Dems have some reflecting to do after this week’s local and devolved elections. Yes, we made gains for a record eight years running – so yes, we now have more devolved parliamentarians and councillors, and run more English councils than we did before. But for the first time in a few years, our gains were not spectacular: we flirted with Labour, but ultimately they pulled ahead of us on numbers. We once again toyed with oblivion in Wales. And both the Green Party and Reform UK outperformed us on gains. Why?
The two “insurgent” parties are poles apart – Reform UK are far-right and have pledged to introduce actual concentration camps, while the Green Party are progressive and to the left, and have not. In fact, on many issues, our core vote and the Green Party’s overlap considerably, and on many more, we disagree only by matters of degree. Of late, the Green Party leadership has been decidedly more bullish on issues that only a few years ago, our own leadership would have been equally full-throated on and which many of us wish it were again. Reform UK, meanwhile, have gutted entire departments and programmes in councils they run, saving little money or less than none overall, but with huge impacts disproportionately affecting the women and minorities their party’s policies are crafted to undermine. They have promised to introduce Trump-style politics to the UK, specifically attacking the fundamental societal pillars of trust, inclusivity, state support, and public health which our party exists to defend. And again: concentration camps. I really shouldn’t need to say more.
Our values, membership, and voter base are largely in tune with one of these parties, but largely antithetical to the other. Importantly, the two are seen in very different ways by the public: the Green Party is seen as a viable alternative to us and more particularly Labour, whose performance in this week’s elections was inversely proportional to the Green Party’s, suggesting a real movement of voters between the two – and it is likely that their future success will be determined by their ability to use power well as much as their ability to build on their gains. However, Reform UK will not win or lose elections on competence: their promise is instead punishment of those perceived to be responsible for decline. And I know I keep coming back to concentration camps, but given everything else we know about them, why should we assume that they would stop there, if given a chance? They have told us who they are, and we should believe them: no-one who counts themselves as part of a minority should expect to survive an unfettered Reform UK government.
In that context, it is incredibly unwise of our leadership to equate the two, and risks further alienating the large, liberally-inclined section of the electorate weighing up whether to support us or the Green Party, and which includes large sections of our active membership. The Green Party seeks, as we do, to improve society and propel us into the future, on somewhat similar lines to us – Reform UK seeks to destroy that society and abort that future entirely.
We must not make the mistake of equating the two again.
* John Grout is a Lib Dem activist and lives in Reading.
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21 Comments
John,
I couldn’t agree more. I have friends and allies in the Green Party. My dear friend Lori has just been elected in Portswood, as has my friend Melissa in Gateshead. When we disagree, we disagree amicably, and I know that a Green Councillor will be far more dependable on looking after their community than a Reform councillor. On this, the statistics speak for themselves. A Reform politician I struggle to regard as anything other than a vile racist thug. A Green politician seeks the betterment of their communities and the uplifting of all people. We agree far more than we disagree and as you say, typically when we do disagree it is only by degree of implementation. It is also noteworthy that the Greens have been far more outspoken on issues of social injustice, civil rights, and individual liberty than we have recently.
We could learn a lot from them.
I agree with this assessment, we are far closer to the Greens politically and to Labour politically than we are to the Conservatives and Reform UK, we have learnt to ‘play nice’ with Labour, but when it comes to the Greens we seem to be now labelling them as ‘extremists’ which won’t help us to win over either Labour or Green voters in the long term as most people leaving Labour will just move to the Greens if our only message is don’t vote Green because they are extremists.
Fully agree with this article
Might the concept and practices of cooperative competition* with positive political parties be worth pursuing?
*Collaboration in specific areas combined with competition in others.
Thank you for the article, John. It’s a thoughtful and salutary reminder that the Greens are not in the same league as Reform. However, there are two big differences between the Greens of today and the Greens of five years ago. Firstly they are increasingly what John Curtice called ‘watermelons’ rather than ‘mangoes’ – refugees from the hard left Corbyn Labour Party rather than the more traditionally small ‘l’ liberal or social Democrat philosophy. That makes them more ideological, more extreme, and more prone to mad ideas. Secondly, and flowing partly from that, their new leader, despite having once been a libdem, comes out with ill-thought through teenage nonsense like ignoring the bond markets or abolishing private landlords. So it’s fair enough to attack them in a way that wasn’t the case previously. But I do agree with your core point – a Green government is infinitely less worrying than a Reform one.
Leaving aside that the Greens are now riddled with anti semites and corbynites this is nonsense. The Green’s policies- no growth, leaving NATO, rent controls etc would be a disaster for our country. Just as Reform would be.
Frankly, Ed throwing the “extremist” label at Polanski is quite telling of his own worldview: that someone advancing an actual vision for politics is a dangerous ideologue and what the country needs is more bland triangulated managerial nothing. On this analysis, presumably, Keir Starmer’s big mistake has been being too strident in setting out a compelling vision for the country.
Fully in agreement. Equating the two parties makes the leadership look foolish and out of touch.
I agree with Dominic and Simon. The Polanski Greens are NOT the cuddly Greens of up to a year ago. They would find a better home in a Corbyn-led Labour Party. They are no friends of ours. They want to destroy us.
I agree with Simon. The anti semitic comments made by some of their representatives is very worrying. Leaving NATO in an insecure world doesn’t make sense. I think it’s far better to challenge other parties policies on the right than insult their politicians by labelling them racists, echoes of Brexit.
We should have nothing to do with Polanski’s Greens. Like Reform they have no wish to solve the countries problems because they live off them.
Equating Reform and the Greens is fatuous. The Greens, however objectionable some of their policies may be, are a democratic party operating within civilised norms. Lib Dems can (and do) enter into coalition with them, just as we have with Labour, Conservatives and nationalists in various parliaments and councils, depending on the election results and the political circumstances.
Reform are different. Reform are fascists. We must, as a matter of the strongest principle, maintain a cordon sanitaire against them. That means resolving never to enter into a coalition or other deal with them, regardelss of circumstance. But it also means making it clear that our differences with them are not like our differences with other parties. We can potentially work together with parties we disagree with on policy, but we cannot work with a party that seeks to destroy everything we value. Pretending that Reform and the Greens are on the same level obscures this crucial distinction.
I suggest that a good way of signalling this would to be adopt a party policy that we will never, at any level of government, enter into a coalition or confidence and supply deal that involves Reform, under any circumstances.
The papers are certainly doing their best to smear the Greens with anti semitism, as happened to the Corbyn led labour party. As to leaving NATO, there is now some uncertainty as to the US commitment.
@ Simon,
“The Green’s policies- no growth, leaving NATO, rent controls etc would be a disaster for our country.”
There are of course arguments for abolishing all rent controls and remaining a member of NATO but it’s rather dramatic to claim that either of these would be a disaster for the UK.
After all many EU countries (such as Germany) have strong rent controls. Austria and Ireland aren’t in NATO. France was effectively out of NATO for 40 years. Somehow they have just about managed to survive.
The most effective political messages are those that reinforce what voters already believe to be true. Almost no voters will perceive any equivalence between Reform and the Greens, so telling them otherwise won’t work.
That said, while we may have some overlap with the Greens, we are not the same and it’s essential that we differentiate ourselves from them. If voters form the opinion that we and the Greens are essentially the same in policy terms, but they are younger, more exciting and sexier than us, then it won’t end well (for us).
Extremism is in the eye of the beholder, but they have policies that I strongly disagree with. And as the balance of power within the Greens between the moderate environmentalists and the anti-growth lefties changes, they will probably move further away from us.
I’m not feeling particularly charitable towards them having just fought a local election that was effectively Green-facing in campaign terms, where they attacked us relentlessly, and enabled a first win for Reform by campaigning hard in one of our held seats where they had no chance, while failing to make any gains themselves.
@Andy Hinton:
Is Ed Davey, in that, not doing exactly what the membership elected him for. The main party leaders at the time of his election were Corbyn and Johnson, and there was a big call in the centrist parts of the media at the time for a bland triangulated manager to replace them.
(And I’m sure that there are thoughts that if Starmer does go, there’s a big chance for the Lib Dems to consolidate the boring managerialist vote)
@Dominic Curran:
The Greens have always been (openly!) like this. Their 1997 manifesto had calls to allow councils to take over empty buildings to house the homeless, guaranteed basic income, nuclear disarmament and public railway ownership. Caroline Lucas welcomed the “watermelon” comment back as the Green’s first MP in 2010, describing herself as socialist.
Like Nick Baird above, I would counsel caution when dealing with Greens. Outwardly they appear similar to us, but from experience they do not hesitate to stab Liberal Democrats in the back and would never ally themselves with us.
I agree with the article, and I’m sorry to see some of the anti-Green smears reproduced above.
They have a rapidly growing membership, and doubtless include some anti-semites, but it’s ridiculous to call a party with a Jewish leader anti-semitic: Polanski is not anti-semitic, just strongly against the Israeli government and its genocidal/colonialist actions in Gaza/the West Bank as are we. And while some of their specific suggestions on economic policy, housing and prisons may be silly, these are all areas where we need to be more radical, and a friendly dialogue might lead us to progressive collaboration. And could people please stop referring to the ‘hard left’; the Labour Party’s manifesto policies under Corbyn were not so different from those of Heath’s Conservatives in the 1960s.
Of course, one of the main impediments on collaboration is our electoral system, which pushes parties with similar policy and voter bases into fighting one another. In Scotland it has pushed LDs and Greens into being firmly on different sides of the independence/unionist divide, something a fair proportion of both parties’ members are unhappy about (the Scottish Greens’ first leader in our Parliament resigned from the party over this issue). One of the great things about the Single Transferable Vote as an electoral system is that it pushes parties with similar policies towards collaboration instead of antagonism. Yet another reason why electoral reform is so fundamental to getting a better politics.
@cim “Their 1997 manifesto had calls to allow councils to take over empty buildings to house the homeless, guaranteed basic income, nuclear disarmament and public railway ownership.”
I am fairly sure you will find members of the Lib Dems who support at least some of those policies, especially the first one.
Meanwhile…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy02wdzrg6jo
‘Green Party admits Polanski may have failed to pay council tax
The Green Party has admitted that its leader Zack Polanski has, until recently, been living on a houseboat in London and may have failed to pay council tax.
In a statement given to the BBC, a party spokesperson said Polanski had “taken steps to pay any council tax he may be found to owe”.
They added: “Zack apologises sincerely for the unintentional mistake.”
Polanski has been under pressure to explain whether the houseboat, moored at a marina in east London, had been his primary residence.
A boat is liable for council tax when used as a person’s “sole or main residence”, according to the tax lawyer Dan Neidle……..’
@Nonconformistradical – And Nigel Farage failed to declare a £5m donation, which by my maths is three orders of magnitude bigger, and worse in that is smacks of bought influence. Why is that not getting three orders of magnitude more scrutiny?