Our new leaders gave their speeches - Johnathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas taking turns at delivering their message. She talked about the "heartbreak" of 24th June and I thought - that's how I felt, and I was grateful to her for not making light of it. The Greens want another referendum, this time when our government has made terms with the EU for our continued relationship, to vote on the new deal. Don't know if we'll get that but I think it would be far more democratic and meaningful than voting for a pig in a poke (a sack). Caroline reminded us that this year was the hottest ever and it is even more important to leave fossil fuels in the ground.
I then went to a fringe meeting on Further Education and Higher Education. We talked about the new Education bill which seeks to deregulate Further Ed. We are very radical on further ed. we want to end tuition fees and achieve social mobility. We believe that Higher Ed and F. E. are not markets. We believe in evening classes and lifelong learning. We don't believe that employers should dictate the content of education, or that it's all about money. We wondered how we could get the students to take more interest in these matters politically. We wondered if colleges could start by campaigning about young people's living/working conditions - low pay, etc. Area Reviews - mergers - very demoralizing - but Local Councils can reject the Area Review - e.g. Manchester did just that.
I also went to a panel debate on the Progressive Alliances which have been mooted by the people at Westminster. Zoe Williams of the Guardian chaired this debate. Caroline spoke in favour of the alliance. She said that if we had Proportional Rep we wouldn't need to do it and the goal is to get the progressive parties into power so that we can vote in Proportional Rep. She pointed out that when the voters go to the polls the progressive parties are fighting each other over small differences, and where we can co-operate locally, to get a Tory out of an unsafe seat, we should do so. Caroline pointed out that time is short for our planet but progressives are fighting each other over small differences. Fighting over the deckchairs on the Titanic, really. She did say that the Green Party doesn't impose from the centre but the idea is to allow for arrangements to be made locally. However, the view from the floor was against this as there are grass roots activists who do not think strategically. They dream of winning an overall majority!
The next day I went to a talk about creating teams that work at local level. The Snowflake model. They stressed that the Greens should do fun things together. I thought that this was very much what volunteers wanted. When I, with my local party, put forward ideas about catering for an event my ideas were so shot down in flames that I have not yet gone back! I felt that the members were hostile to me because I was new, which of course was probably true and the only solution is to wait for 6 months or so before you offer any opinion whatsoever.
The next thing I went to was in the Great Hall - it was called a plenary, and we discussed motions for changing our policy documents. All motions were followed by amendments to the motions, which were both friendly and unfriendly. We voted firstly on the amendments and then on the motions. I was very interested in the procedure as much as the motions ,and I was also pleased to discover that my ideas are pretty mainstream in the Greens.
I went to a talk by Baroness Jenny Jones on what she has been up to in the House of Lords - this was very interesting. She wants to reform the House of Lords but she also said "It's riven with rules and idiocy but it works" which is what I feel about the H o L, that it is the only effective opposition to the government and therefore we should treasure it! She wrote a paper on her Bill to reform the HoL over 10 years - giving representatives long terms of service in which to gain expertise - trying to keep what she values in the HoL and yet move towards full democracy. I recommend that the noble Lords support it!
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| A formidable woman |
I also went to a talk on the Northern Ireland border Post Brexit which has clearly never been thought through and clearly it will have to be a "hard" border if we are to stop unlimited immigration from Europe and this will be very divisive to the people of Ireland who were beginning to feel like one nation, two governments. Now they will be riven again.
Post Brexit - what now? This was the last thing on which I took notes because I was there for 2 days and a half and I was pretty tired by the end. These are the things which the Greens want:
1. to win the right for EU nationalities to remain here.
2. The Young Greens want freedom of movement (they will get this: if they think they will be able to live and work in Europe that is another matter).
3. We want to keep the Human Rights Act.
4. We want the 16+ age group to have the right to vote.
I also went to 2 more plenaries and at the last I despaired of the Green Party for their pettiness and, in some cases, their desire to be Alternative rather than electable. It's a question of identity. Sadly, identifying yourself as Alternative is unlikely to make a party electable, or even have a coherent sense of what kind of Alternative you are. Are we hippies, punks or radical liberals? One lobby keeps us busy altering the wording of all our literature to make it gender non-binary and when we have done that, that particular ginger group will probably leave, its mission accomplished.
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