Labour must become a green party

By Dan Wilson

With all eyes on the Norwich North by-election, the Brighton and Hove City Council by-election result in the Goldsmid ward might have passed you by. The Green party were concentrating on both contests, looking for indications of the General Election result next year in adjacent constituencies. They were equally cursed and blessed.

Norwich South is one of few seats the Green party think they can win at the General Election. But a miserable showing in next door Norwich North doesn’t augur well: they were pipped by UKIP into a shabby fifth place. The story was different in Hove’s Goldsmid.

That’s why MEP Caroline Lucas, the Green’s leader, was campaigning in a council by-election on polling day rather than concentrating on a national race. Hove’s Goldsmid ward borders Brighton Pavilion: Lucas is standing there in the hope of becoming the first Green MP at Westminster. In Goldsmid the Greens took the Conservative seat, pushing Labour into third place. The Greens are now the joint-opposition with Labour on the council with 13 seats apiece. The Conservatives hold 25 seats, the Liberals have 2 and there’s an Independent in the mix too. The Greens are ecstatic.

Lucas called the Green win “spectacular”: “It signals an unstoppable surge to elect the first Green MP at Westminster.” And hyperbole aside, she has a point: if the Greens gain a seat anywhere it will be Brighton Pavilion. That’s a constituency currently held by Labour.

Labour PPC Nancy Platts is running an energetic and well-organised campaign with a well-funded Green party at her heels. The withdrawal of Tory David Bull a few weeks ago reinforced the contest as a wide-open three horse race. Labour can win.

Many Labour colleagues may wonder if a sole Green victory is a bad thing. After all, Labour people worry about climate change, sustainability and small-g green issues too and a Green presence in Parliament could be an attractive catalyst to pushing them up the agenda. One Green MP isn’t the end of the world. Right?

Yet the Brighton experience over the last decade demonstrates why we must mobilise against the Greens: they generally take their vote from Labour. Progressive voters can easily desert us and go Green, especially when they’re upset with the Labour government.

Secondly, we’re looking PR in the face. A proportional system is good news for niche parties. Right now, even with FPTP, the Greens are a credible challenge to Labour in Norwich, Lewisham, Brighton and Hove and Oxford. PR would make them realistic contenders in many other areas.

Much of the Green appeal is emotional. I’d be surprised if the well-dressed lady I saw last Thursday leaping from her Chelsea Tractor at a polling station, breathlessly declaring that she was going to vote Green, has any idea about the bulk of Green party policy. On close reading the Green manifesto is anti-capitalist, high tax, contradictory, uncosted and at times downright bizarre. They don’t talk about it much on their election leaflets.

Labour’s 12 years in power haven’t been glitteringly green but recent initiatives (such as Ed Milliband’s UK Low Carbon Transition Plan) are part of a positive green story we need to start telling. Labour policies will never be enough for die-hard environmentalists but traditional Labour instincts can lead us to being a green party. When we combine sound economics, our passion for public services and green credentials, we’ll not just beat the Greens but we’ll be stronger against the Liberals and Conservatives too.

Labour must become a green party. It’s time to start socking it to the Greens. We can, and should, become more conscious and cogent about the environment and climate change. If we let Lucas’s party become the default progressive party in areas disaffected by Labour, we’ll rue that in the years to come. Red must be green too.