So the old lie that voting Green splits the Labour vote and prevents progressive candidates from winning is quite simply wrong. Up and down the country Greens took seats from Conservatives. In Craven it was Labour who split our vote and nearly prevented us from weakening the Tories.
Fortunately, the 218 people who voted Labour and “wasted” their vote didn’t prevent a 561 vote to 529 Green victory in Skipton North. Nevertheless, it did point up the utter madness of an electoral system that doesn’t even let people transfer their vote to their second choice. First past the post voting nearly enabled the Conservatives to sneak in despite clearly not being what the majority of voters wanted in a 3 party race.
Local elections are often dramatically unfair and unreasonable in their outcome. In one part of the country yesterday a vote of 19% secured a seat because there were so many candidates. This is ludicrous. So is the idea that local political parties have to do deals in order to avoid daft competition. Political parties shouldn’t have to depend on local backdoor deals to sort out which party stands where. Voters should have the chance to vote with their conscience and then transfer the vote.
With the old two party monoliths breaking apart and a new world of a wider range of quickly changing smaller parties emerging it has become seriously urgent that a form of Proportional Representation is introduced for all future elections.
There is also an urgent need for better enforcement of election regulations and broadcasting balance. There was a dramatic difference between the number of Green Party councillors elected this week and the amount of air time they were given before the vote. A party that gained over 138 new council seats was barely featured in pre-election coverage whereas Change UK got heavy press without actually having any candidates or scoring any higher in the national opinion polls than the Greens. The Brexit Party got top billing on BBC 4 prime time two nights running whilst the launch of the Green Party campaign passed by unnoticed. Worse still is the shadowy nature of the Brexit Party’s funding and the complete lack of serious punishment for direct breaches of electoral law when the Leave campaign funded itself using offshore bank accounts at best and what may very well have been Russian secret service money.
Curiously it didn’t seem to require any Russian funding for Brexit parties to get the credit for election wins that were actually directly the result of people hating Brexit. Nationally the Lib Dems and the Greens were big winners yesterday. Few voters will have failed to notice that they both back Remain and both back a second referendum. To my utter astonishment I heard the BBC informing its listeners that this massive swing to Remain parties meant that people wanted Brexit delivered faster. It didn’t. It meant they most of them were utterly fed up with Brexit and wanted it called off.
In the rural agricultural seat of Upper Wharfedale the Green vote was dramatically up and 23% of the community voted that way for the first time. A lot of that was down to a personal vote for an excellent local candidate. A lot of it was also down to hill farmers being scared stiff about the risk to their livelihoods that has come from Brexit. A great many of them have changed their minds having voted Brexit to express their frustration about EU paperwork and then realised that they needed to Remain to avoid having US farming practices rammed down their throats via antibiotic soaked competition.
All of which is leading some people to conclude that Brexit is the only issue and any party that opposes it must ditch all their differences and join forces so that we can Remain.
I couldn’t disagree more. I think the parties that wish to Remain have very different motives and objectives and there has never been a more important time for a distinctively Green voice to be heard. It is easy to voice a commitment to green politics. It is also easy to forget it once in office. Lib Dems, Labour and Conservatives all recently united in Cumbria to vote to open a new coal mine. The day I heard that I thought that if the Green Party didn’t exist then it would be necessary to form one.
I don’t think there is nothing much wrong with the EU and we just need to get back to normal. I don’t think that the economy was working just fine before all these deprived communities started casting protest votes to Leave the EU. I don’t blame anyone for voting to Leave the EU because they knew that things had to be very different. I do blame anyone who still trusts the greasy lying Nigel Farage to tell the truth after he lied to us so very badly the first time round. The failure to deliver a magic cure all Brexit wasn’t down to the incompetence of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. It was down to the non-existence of any easy cure all solution.
I want to stay in the EU and utterly change the support given to neglected regions. I want to stay in the EU and completely transform the collective response to the challenge and the opportunities of moving over to a low carbon low plastic economy. I want to stay in an EU but make it thoroughly democratic and directly ruled by its MEPs and their choices.
I believe it is really important to have a distinct clear unmuddied Green voice in the room at a local council. I think the same about national parliaments and I think the same about the EU and also about global decision-making bodies. I don’t believe in bland middle of the road change nothing much politics. I want things to be radically transformed every bit as much as the fiercest Brexit fanatic does. I just want that transformation to be forward looking and positive. For that we need a clear separate Green Party.
I am overjoyed to see how many of the people of the UK agreed with that message at the ballot box yesterday. I look forward to making further progress with confidence. In Germany the Green vote has now been running at 20% in the polls for months and they could easily provide the next Chancellor. Onward and upwards!