I have defected to the Liberal Democrats following differences with myself and the national Green Party. I have rejoined a party I left at the start of the previous government as a result of the direction I felt the party was heading in, but I am confident in the fight back of the party following the election of Tim Farron as party leader and the spirit of the modern party.
I have therefore stepped down from my role as co-ordinator of Rugby Green Party as well as the role of chair of the under 30’s branch of the midlands region of the party.
There is ambition in the Green Party definitely. But that is all there is. Ambition. I believe in democracy and the fact that the Green Party protested about the fact the Conservatives won a mandate to govern the country is simply sickening. I don’t like the Conservatives as much as the next Green Party member but I also respect the process of an election.
It is a hard place to be if you are a male. We had to re-run the ballot twice at the election hustings as no female would come forward to stand. The gender rules in the party will mean that it is near impossible for a male to lead the party. Don’t get me wrong, as a liberal feminist I believe there are requirements needed to promote gender equality but the way it works in the Greens is near anti-male as opposed to there being constructive feminist values in place. In the mean time my needs as an autistic in the party were being overlooked on a national level in the name of preventing a male to speak out.
I spoke with my former general election opponent Ed Goncalves, who I believe was an excellent candidate, and he has made me feel very welcome, along with Jerry Roodhouse. I am excited for my journey ahead and I am looking forward to picking up where I left off. There is a lot of rebuilding to do and trust to win back. Of course we got tuition fees wrong and I won’t defend that. But I remember campaigning five years ago to end income tax on the first £10k you earn and for the pupil premium, which were two Lib Dem policies now in law that I am extremely proud of. I am also looking forward to the EU referendum campaign. I believe the referendum is in the interests of British people and I am looking forward to declaring I wish to remain in Europe and taking the campaign to the streets of Rugby.
* Terry White was the PPC for Rugby for the Green party in 2015 but defected to the Lib Dems two months later
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Back on the campaign trail
1963: London's summer of the Hoverbus
Have resignations led to a rethink?
nigel hunter
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Abrial Jerram
61 Comments
Welcome aboard. Please consider joining the Green Liberal Democrats as well as the main party.
What Richard said
I don’t understand. When the Lib Dems protest about the next nasty Tory policy etc will you find it ‘simply sickening’. I don’t get it what were the Greens to do?
One of the reasons I left the Lib Dems was the prevalent, low-level misogyny, which seemed to reach all the way to highest reaches. I’m not convinced that problem has exactly been solved, indeed, it’s still unclear that the Rennard debacle hasn’t made the problem worse, but at least Tim Farron seems to take it seriously.
I have to say then, that I get a slight twitch when I hear about someone defecting to the Lib Dems on the basis that their old party was “anti-male”, especially since it amounts to little more than holding off selections until a female candidate could be found. This was Lib Dem policy in key seats as well; has it been changed?
As a piece of free advice, I’d suggest that making your first public statement coming out as a Lib Dem by using rhetoric that wouldn’t look out of place on a 4chan discussion about #GamerGate is not a terribly sensible idea.
The Green Party has an authoritarian streak whereas the Liberal Democrats are libertarian.
Welcome to the party, sincerely—but I’d hope that you might look again at some of your statements here and maybe come to understand why they are problematic.
“We had to re-run the ballot twice at the election hustings as no female would come forward to stand.” This is a GOOD thing. No harm came to you because the selection was re-run, you weren’t barred or dissuaded from running. But it did ensure that there was a gender choice on the shortlist.
“The gender rules in the party will mean that it is near impossible for a male to lead the party. ” I’ve looked really hard, including at the Green Party constitution, but I can’t find anything that stops men becoming leader. All it stops is both leader and deputy leader being of the same sex, meaning that both men and women have the exact same opportunity to become leader. But again, encouraging women into positions of leadership in politics is a GOOD thing.
Well said James Graham. We should all note the name Terry White and remember not to vote for him!
@Terry welcome back to the party. I’d be interested to hear your reflections on Green Party Policy on mainstream political issues, such as the economy, deficit reduction, taxation, defence, education, welfare and the NHS.
I know that in Oxford East we reopened applications after no female candidate came forward. After a second round of applications and still no female candidate we then commenced with selection.
@James Graham @Leslie Abdela not also that Terry has told us he is autistic, so please cut him some slack.
Seriously? The Liberal Democrats welcome with open arms a man who is “sickened” that the Green Party dared to raise the question of proportional representation? The Conservatives got a majority of the seats with under 37% of the votes and the Greens are wrong to point out that this isn’t fair.
You’re welcome to him, LibDems.
What James said
Agree with TCO 28th Jul ’15 – 10:49am
“@James Graham @Leslie Abdela not also that Terry has told us he is autistic, so please cut him some slack.”
except that ‘not’ should be spelt ‘note’.
i have the sme problem with small type. This word would pass a spell-checker, although it might be queried by a computerised grammar-checker, if used, or a human proof reader, if used.
@Richard Underhill caused by sticky computer keys and a “no ability to edit once the send button has been pressed” problem!
It is about 15 years since I was involved in the Green Party – and though while they had some of the “low level mysogyny” that can be found all over our society, it is to their credit that figures like Caroline Lucas, Jean Lambert and Jenny Jones – a majority of the senior figures you can think of – got there entirely on merit with no positive discrimination involved.
Caroline Lucas was hounded out at one point by a hate campaign accusing her of being a right-wing sell-out (!), that probably would not have gone so far against a man. But she came back in time to stand for the European Parliament. (There was then another campaign to set a period of membership qualification for candidates to keep her out, which I had a part in successfully opposing.)
But I endorse the chorus of “are you really sure about what you are saying here, Terry”? The Greens’ rules and culture may have changed in the interim, I wouldn’t know. But you’ve made a serious accusation against them that is of the kind that we are used to hearing in protest against equality. You can see how that looks.
Vanilla, nobody who is sickened by proportional representation will be attracted to the Liberal Democrats. Perhaps there is some nuance here that we are missing?
Positive discrimination is the worst sort of discrimination. It is intentional.
As a member of the Liberal Democrats (and before that the SDP) since 1982, I have to say that I have never once witnessed “low level misogyny” in either party. Nor high level misogyny. Clearly, I’ve been mixing in the wrong circles.
There is a spectrum here, from ‘gender must be achieved at all costs’ through to ‘all forms of positive discrimination are wrong’.
My view is that we should take active steps to maximise participation for people of all backgrounds, but in moderation and not at the cost of the other aims of our party. Reopening nominations once seems reasonable to me, but to do so indefinitely can clearly stifle progress. There is a balance to be struck and it is quite reasonable to say that the Greens strike the wrong balance without being labelled a patriarchal bigot.
While our gender imbalance at the top of our party is unacceptable, my biggest concern is the affluent bias in our party, but nothing is being done to actively engage with people from poorer backgrounds.
As a Green voter and now member I have to say, respectfully, our party is better off without people such as yourself, Terry.
As said above, we in the Greens protested the fact that the Tories got into power through an outdated and illiberal system (FPTP) and can now rule unopposed on a pitiful 37% of the vote. And that’s based on another poor turnout in the General Election when millions of people couldn’t even be bothered to vote, which would take the Tories’ 37% down even further. That is not in my mind a proper democratic mandate. The Greens are damn right to protest about this and to call for a fairer, more representative voting system. I daresay plenty of Lib Dems would agree with these sentiments.
As for your comments about the Greens being “anti-male”, well, I have no words. If you think taking action to make women more prominent in politics is “anti-male”, then I really don’t know what to say. I’m male and I support action to make politics more gender equal. In fact, I think the country and the entire world would be better off if more women were in positions of power. When was the last time a female leader started a war or committed genocide? Men have had too much power for far too long. I’d go so far as to say I’d like 50% of all MPs in the Commons to be female.
Frankly, and with respect, you won’t be missed.
Ms Vanilla Rose : Is it correct to say that you dislike the following quote?
“I believe in democracy and the fact that the Green Party protested about the fact the Conservatives won a mandate to govern the country is simply sickening. I don’t like the Conservatives as much as the next Green Party member but I also respect the process of an election.”
There is a difference between wanting to change the rules, as both parties do, and recognising the legality of the existing outcome. Not recognising legality leads towards violence.
In 1989 the Greens got about 18% of the vote but no Green MEPs were elected in the UK. Liberal Democrat politicians spoke in diverse forums saying this was unfair to the Greens, not just from self-interest.
For the 1999 euro-elections Paddy Ashdown had managed to negotiate proportional representation by regional party list, not ideal, not party policy, but a substantial improvement.
In the southeast of England Caroline Lucas became one of our MEPs, elected via PR. She has since been elected twice as an MP first-past-the-post, while continuing to support PR (as Scottish Nationalists also do).
Liberal Democrats support the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member seats, which allows the electors to choose individuals to represent them from different parties, different genders, different orientation, etc. The best size for a seat is about 3 to 5 members.
Welcome back to the party Terry! 🙂 Don’t worry about the folks that can’t understand what you’re saying, some of them might be on the spectrum too without having realised it. I’m glad you’ve re-joined and you’re out there campaigning, the country needs a Liberal alternative, is there’s anything you miss from the Greens?
@Richard Underhill: “There is a difference between wanting to change the rules, as both parties do, and recognising the legality of the existing outcome. Not recognising legality leads towards violence.”
Strawman.
Sometimes the only way to fight injustice and bad laws is to not recognise them. Slavery was once legal. I would’ve supported violence, if necessary, to end it. Same thing with apartheid. In North Korea, forced labour is legal. I would support the North Koreans if they rose up and violently deposed their government.
No, I am not comparing these abuses to our voting system. But sometimes the only way to defeat bad laws is to ignore them, engage in civil disobedience or, rarely, use violence.
Just to clear it up a bit.
Because of the gender balance requirements it took six months to select a general election candidate.
In an internal elections there is a rule that no more more than one male can hold each role. If there is a scenario of three or more candidates and only one identifies themselves as female, they are automatically elected. Therefore when they had the deputy leaders elections whether anyone voted for Amelia Womack or not she was automatically elected.
I do not have a problem with demonstrating or campaigning against the current voting system. However when the conservatives win a general election based on seats I do not believe it is right that a political party should be protesting against the party that has constitutionally won a mandate to govern, instead as opposition we should be holding them to account and looking to grow our influence within the political institution. That’s democracy and I am a democrat.
TCO — I’m autistic, as is Jennie, and we both agree with James Graham, rather than the original poster. Being autistic does not make one sexist, and nor, despite ChrisB’s rather unpleasantly ableist insinuations, does it make one incapable of understanding the original post.
There are possibly problems with the Greens’ system — I don’t know, not being a member — but there’s no evidence presented here that it’s “anti-male”, and pretty much every time I see someone complaining about something being “anti-male” they mean it redresses some of the societal bias against women. Incidentally, OP, “women” is the word you want to use, not “females”. Use of “female” as a noun to refer to humans is pretty much confined to the nastier, 4chanish, segments of the Internet, and using the word that way won’t help you convince anyone you mean well…
@ TCO,
Ah TCO, you’re all heart. Please allow me to offer my brain!
@ Terry White,
What are the rules in the Green party that make it near impossible for a male to become leader? I am genuinely interested.
It seems that there are others on here that want to pick your brain on your experiences as a former Green Party member too.
“In an internal elections there is a rule that no more more than one male can hold each role.”
The same rule also means that no more than one woman can hold the role, at least when it comes to the Greens’ deputy leadership. The deputy leadership is deliberately gender-balanced — they have one man and one woman, and this was chosen because their previous method, having the deputy leader be the “opposite” gender (assuming a gender binary I don’t agree with) from the leader had meant that in 2012 a man had become deputy leader even though women got more votes.
It isn’t “anti-man” to have two positions, of which one must be a man and one must be a woman.
“However when the conservatives win a general election based on seats I do not believe it is right that a political party should be protesting against the party that has constitutionally won a mandate to govern,”
And why not? The whole point of protest is to hold the powerful to account. This is the same spurious logic that had Labour abstaining on the Welfare bill.
I have no great love for the Greens, but the arguments you’re making against them hold no water…
I totally support equality. That means having a level playing field and objectivity in the selection process. If, for example, these criteria are met, but no females apply, that is their choice. It may raise other questions or concerns but it would have nothing to do with equality. When the role concerns public service, the public have the right to expect selection of the most suitable candidate, not some consequence of misguided political correctness.
Positive discrimination is indefensible under all circumstances. If you find gender discrimination unacceptable, how can you justify positive discrimination?
“In fact, I think the country and the entire world would be better off if more women were in positions of power. When was the last time a female leader started a war or committed genocide?”
I’m a Green Party member, I would describe myself as a feminist and I fully support the GP’s arrangements re gender balance. But nevertheless, in answer to the question, I don’t know if you remember the last time that this country had a female leader…?
Richard,
This is a bit of an aside, but 3 members is not actually a very good size for an STV constituency. For STV to work as it should, you want parties to have a chance of getting more than one person elected, so they put up more than one candidate. And with 3 member seats it is not very proportional and small parties do very badly. It is a pity that Scotland went for/kept 3 member seats in local government, although it is still much better than FPTP.
Norther Ireland assembly elections have 6 member seats – that works well…
@ Terry White,
Apologies, Terry, you had already answered my question by the time I had posted it.
Thanks Andrew, glad to see you back on here 🙂
I was the returning officer for 4 constituencies in Manchester for the Green Party. There is no reason why the requirement to do a second call out for candidates if no female puts themselves forward during the first call should make the process last so long. Whilst we fortunately had women put themselves forward for all constituencies in Manchester, I decided at the start of the process that it would be reasonable that if I did need to send another email out to encourage members to put themselves forward, that I would give this stage 2 weeks. After we had selected I noticed that the national Green party had produced guidelines (that weren’t constitutionally binding) that if a second call out was required that the process would only need to take an additional 18 days. In total the national guidelines state that the process for selecting a candidate should take 51 days, or 69 days if no woman puts themself forward in the first call out (therefore approximately 2 months). If Terry has an issue that the constituency took 6 months to select a candidate, the issue is a matter to take up with the local party and the returning officer there rather than an issue to take up with the national party, and certainly not an issue that arises due to encouraging more women to stand .
” when they had the deputy leaders elections whether anyone voted for Amelia Womack or not she was automatically elected.”
Firstly, in the Green Party people can vote for RON or Re-Open Nominations. If more people had voted for RON than for Amelia Womack, she would not have been automatically elected and the election would have instead been run again.
Secondly, If there had been three people who self-defined as female and one male in the election, then only one of the three women could have been elected and the one man who did stand could have won, or the members could have voted for RON. The rule clearly provides balance and diversity, rather than it being anti-men.
Thirdly, the rule is that the deputy leaders should be of different genders. Not that there must be one man and one woman as Andrew claims. If there had been one person who stood who self-defined as female, three who self-defined ad male and one who self defined outside of the gender binary – then the two winners would decided between RON, the man who got the most votes, the woman and the person who self-defined outside the gender binary.
Stephen Campbell: You called me a “Strawman.”. May i refer you to “Non-violence, the history of a dangerous idea” by mark Kurlansky, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama. £12.99 in hardback, 184 pages, eleven ounces.
ISBN 9780224077910 OR ISBN 0224077910. Your local library may have it, or be willing to buy it.
Politically, try the Poll Tax.
There were riots in Glasgow and in London’s Trafalgar Square, but the opinion of the Tories hardened.
What killed it was the Ribble Valley by-election, peacefully conducted, despite the Tories having a large majority in the previous election in Ribble Valley and a large majority of MPs in the Commons.
As for me, i have served in the Life Sentence Review Section of the Prison Service. Would you like to hear about murders, attempted murders, violent assaults, rapes, homosexual rapes, kidnappings and causing explosions?
My father was a volunteer in the armed forces. so i was born in Kent, which was where the invasion was likely to come,
As a child my MP was Sir Winston Churchill, soldier, journalist, painter, bricklayer and politician.
At the first federal conference of the Liberal Democrats we debated modern slavery. Imagine an eight year old child in a brickworks in India, or forced marriages of underage girls, happening now.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was violent, as was chattel slavery in North America, South America and the Caribbean.
It was ended by unexpected means, at unexpected times. have a look at William Hague’s biography of independent MP William Wilberforce, £9.99 in paperback, ISBN978-0-00-722886-7.
The Lib Dems are liberal-the greens are authoritrain staists-as for the direction in the last parlaiment-Tim supported it-not every policy0-but the direction-he wasnt against the coalrtion and isnt now-and wasnt against the leader-and he supports the tax cutting policies-rather than the spending more money polciies-he is a true liberal in that regard
Andrew: you are right that ” 3 members is not actually a very good size for an STV constituency.”
The trouble is that three MEPs is the maximum that Northern Ireland has ever had.
i forget whether there have been larger euro-constituencies in the Republic.
The election of Mary Robinson as President depended on there being three candidates.
According to her memoirs if there had only been two she would probably not have won.
i am a former member of the APNI, knew David Ford, John Alderdice and have met his predecessor.
“Thirdly, the rule is that the deputy leaders should be of different genders. Not that there must be one man and one woman as Andrew claims. ”
I apologise — my information source on the rules for the deputy leader elections for your party must have been in error. Glad to hear I was wrong.
Re-Open Nominations is also available in hustings for parliamentary candidates in the Liberal Democrats.
At federal conference some people were calling for rules providing for 50% women, despite having heard that some people decline to describe themselves as men or women. They would therefore have risked being ineligble to stand if the rule had been carried.
Richard,
I was not really talking about Euro elections. As you say with only 3 MEP’s Northern Ireland could never have a 4 member Euro seat! STV in a 3 member seat is preferable to a list system though in my view!
In the Republic there were three constituencies with either 3 or 4 members in the last Euro election. General election seats have 3 to 5 members
This comment thread has got a little sidetracked…
Terry I welcome your clarification, but you have made a very serious allegation that the Greens are “anti-male” and have not addressed it. You have clarified that it is not, as you claimed in your post, more difficult for a man to become leader than a woman. Perhaps this could be edited to reflect the error? If it took six months to find a woman willing to be on a shortlist, maybe you should have started engaging women earlier??
I can sympathise with your position on anti-Government protests in principle, but saying it is “sickening” is a tad over-dramatic. Saying “that’s democracy and I am a democrat” is all very well, but I’m also a liberal—that means I defend the right of people to protest against the Government and hold them to account.
PS.. Memo to tax cutters : Announced today : £80m has been cut from the NHS mental health budget for children and adolescents in the past four years, including £35m in the last year alone. (Source, The Guardian). Nuff said…… other than let’s hope Tim can start to lead us in another direction.
The Green Party of England and Wales is having its next Leadership elections next autumn (Sept 2016) I believe. I can’t see Natalie Bennett staying on. I wonder who the main contenders are, apart from, should she want it, Caroline Lucas? Amelia Womack’s very good. I’ll be really interested (partly, of course, as a Lib Dem!) to see how the Greens fare in the next few years. I think their position on the EU Referendum might be particularly fascinating.
I don’t think their fate has ever been so directly tied to the Labour Leadership Contest, either. If Kendall wins (unlikely), it would be a bonanza for the Greens. I wouldn’t even rule out MP defections to them. If Corbyn wins (increasingly possible) they’re surely done-for? (apart from Caroline Lucas.) If Burnham or Cooper win, might be more room for a continuing, frictional, but essentially stable co-existence.
An OBR poll in the Independent shows Labour less electable than at the general election.
Caroline Lucas has said she will not stand for the Green leadership again.
I persevered to the end of this discussion but I still could not find any word about ‘Green’ issues. What went wrong?
I was Terry’s Lib Dem opponent in Rugby at the general election, and got to know him pretty well during the campaign. After one hustings, my 11 year old boys (who had come along) said that if it wasn’t for the fact their Dad was standing, they’d want to vote for him! My sons are pretty good judges of character. He fought a great campaign on civil liberties, equality, social justice, environmentalism and more. He is a committed and passionate green social liberal, and I welcome him with open arms to our party.
Ed Goncalves Well said Ed .I met Terry during the campaign and came to the same conclusion .as a committed environmentalist I too welcome him on board .Sadly as we can see from the comments from his former party .They are more interested in gesture politics than practical delivery of a progressive policies .I think they have a sneaking admiration for our party regardless of their rhetoric or they wouldn’t spend so much time on our web sites !
Welcome back, Terry. I suppose why when I’ve been deeply depressed about the Liberal Democrats’ direction I felt joining the Greens was not a likely option, was that I saw in them too much political self-righteousness and not enough responsibility. That sounds like a harsh judgement and in fact I know many Greens I like a lot and I see a lot of good in their party. After all, I think climate change is the most important political issue. But there are too many Greens who dismiss anyone active in another party who claims environmental credentials as a fake. I was raising such issues before our Greens existed and when they usually got you laughed at. They also seem too often to put political purity ahead of achieving things through politics. They got an excellent MP elected, a wonderful achievement in our system, and then did almost nothing to promote her, choosing as leader someone whose ignorance when tested in the recent election was painful.
But I don’t entirely understand your charge about not accepting the Conservative mandate to govern. Many Liberal Democrats have argued that little more than a third of the vote does not confer a mandate to do whatever you want. Legally it does, of course, until a few of their MPs rebel or defect or they lose by-elections; but legality and legitimacy are not the same. If the Greens are advocating illegal resistance to the Conservatives, that’s dangerous and something that should be done only in extreme circumstances. But if they’re challenging the Conservative claim to a mandate, I agree with them.
How great to see someone on the autistic spectrum politically active…..and owning up to his position on the spectrum. How great to see a young person politically active. In my book both are to be encouraged.
I prefer people who join a political party and stick with it though thick and thin
Caroline Lucas and Vince Cable were one of the pairs put together by a newspaper before the general election. She was not polite about him.
The judge found this case “unarguably correct”. What Cope and Phips are doing is using the courts to generate publicity for an opinion which should be decided in parliament. They are presumably aware that if they exhaust their legal rights in the UK they could face long delays for the European Court of Human Rights and a filtering process.
An analysis of the time needed by an MP was done by an academic a few years ago. The Labour MP was full time. The Tory had enough time to work in business as well. The Liberal Democrat Archy Kirkwood was working 120 hours a week. He was an expert on social security, now known as welfare. He was an MP in the Scottish Borders.
The volume and complexity of casework seems likely to increase, as MPs who are not ministers and not on committees want to be re-elected.
A Liberal Democrat eurocandidate https://twitter.com/dintibatstone consulted on job sharing.
She was number three on the lis for the southeast. I do not know the outcome.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/28/green-party-job-share-mp-high-court-rejected
MPs in the UK used to share a constituency a long time ago. Councillors do now in some wards, but they are not job-shares.
Presidential elections in the USA are for two jobs on one vote, but the electorate mainly chooses on the senior position, for instance Eisenhower was president twice, Nixon was vice-president.
The Labour Party did that when they elected John Smith and Margaret Beckett.
Looking at the issue more broadly there have been attempts to make hours of work in the Commons more family friendly.
One possibility is getting a seat in London. Increased devolution is another, but should the Commons simply do less than it does now? Or should it do more of the detailed work that it currently devolves, unconsidered, to the House of Lords?
Terry has had a bit of a kicking here for suggesting that the Green Party is “anti-men”. It’s worth noting that the Green Party has:
* 3 Leaders (Welsh, Scottish, English)
* 3 MEPs
* 1 peer
* 1 MP
Of those 8, currently 6 are women and 2 are men. You’ve probably never heard of those two men.
Currently, the Lib Dems are rightly getting a kicking for having 8 of 8 of its top politicians as men. It’s fair to say the Lib Dems would still be fairly unhappy if there were 6 men and 2 women. Is it perhaps not unreasonable for Terry to argue that the Green Party have the balance wrong?
I know a few people in the Green Party, and I have heard several of them complain about the onerousness of the positive discrimination in the party – and not just men, women complaining too.
I think the point Duncan Stott makes is very fair: “There is a balance to be struck and it is quite reasonable to say that the Greens strike the wrong balance without being labelled a patriarchal bigot.”
OK MBoy, no harm in asking the question. But let’s not jump to conclusions with the answers.
Caroline Lucas, Jean Lambert and Jenny Jones are very capable. Molly Scott IMHO not so much on grounds of more off-the-wall views but I guess that goes down well over there. The male MEP – you’re right I don’t recall the name of, and I don’t know who the other man is you refer to.
The question is whether the Greens happen to have the men among them who are as good as the women they happen to have. (I fully realise if I made this argument the other way round about another party, I would be taking the side of the devils, but I’m not and I won’t.)
Jason Kitcat, I think is pretty good, but has probably taken too much actual responsibility to be a contender. Rupert Read is too deep into obscurantist philosophy to think clearly. Mike Woodin was excellent but he died young. I always liked and amired Darren Johnson, who made the transition from stand-up comic well – which could be taken as a slight, but is meant sincerely. Who else is there?
I am obviously some years out of date. And I’ve not mentioned Natalie Bennett who, as I’ve said before should have resigned before the General Election, never mind after it.
Jonathon Porritt’s views might be worthy of consideration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Porritt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_in_Northern_Ireland
I was a member of Scottish Green Party, some years before joining Lib Dems, in Scotland. Sadly, Greens are just a load of very rich people, that harm the environment. They fly around in planes, telling us not to use a car. Just a joke party, if you want my honest opinion. Green is Authoritarian, opposite of Liberal. Not sure we should be helping Green ideology, we should be standing firm on Liberal policies. While taking care of the wider community.
Terry White: you make strong claims. While I have no reason to distrust genuine experience colours these claims, I think it is clear greater clarity is required, whether of policy or personal experience.
Andrew Hickey: “Use of “female” as a noun to refer to humans is pretty much confined to the nastier, 4chanish, segments of the Internet.” This is nonsense, ‘female’ refers to humans as does Terry’s use of ‘male’ to describe humans in the sentence he used immediately before it. Ms Vanilla Rose: there’s a difference between raising the question of proportional representation, which the LibDems did, do and will continue to do, and not recognising a democratic result (also, it should be noted the Conservatives, UKIP and DUP together got a majority, and I for one wouldn’t be much happier with them together being the government).
There are genuine questions to answer regarding alleged issues in the Green Party. I would only request the original poster is questioned before criticized.
I’ve heard of Porrit and, his ideology, very worrying.
You are very welcome…..back…..Terry.