Been reading up on my candidates and Green seems most palatable to me - am I mad?

[igivein]

I'm politically homeless so have been reading up on candidates as it seemed better than getting to the polling booth and sticking a pin in the ballot paper.
Although I think climate change and environmental issues are really important I had discounted the Greens because women's rights are really important to me and I'm GC.
But looking at the actual candidate she seems eminently sensible and what she says chimes with my own views. All about the environment and sustainability and not a peep about gender.
So I looked at the Green candidates in surrounding constituencies and they're all pretty much the same. The county websites for the Greens - same, not a single mention anywhere of identity politics.
Does this mean that they're coming to their senses and I could vote for them? Or are they running a psy-op to hoodwink environmentally minded voters?

If the greens are suited to your beliefs, then go for it!

No. It still means they are totally captured. The other parties do green stuff as well, so their main push now is social stuff- including deconstruction of women’s rights.

They may seem sensible. They may be sensible- I have sensible friends in Green Party, some of whom stand at local elections. But they don’t interact much with the main party stuff so don’t realise what total twaddle is going on. They think it’s a few people, a bit niche, or just be kind, without realising it’s actually really serious.

Just looked at the national manifesto and they support self ID, but it's one bullet point quite far down the list. Hmmm...

Not mad at all. All the major parties are raving mysiognists and it's going to take more than one election to sort that out. Pick the best candidate you feel you can support.

No in a word. The Greens are still appalling on women’s rights and self ID will be a disaster for women. It’s bad enough already. Sometimes a candidate can do well to turn things around from within but the Greens won’t allow that and are expelling women from the party for not backing down on women’s rights. Details on the feminism boards. They’re just awful in so many ways sadly.

The Greens are unlikely to win.

But if they do get better figures (which I think is fairly likely) then what the other political parties are likely to conclude from that is that there is an appetite for greener policies (not their stance on self-ID)

So voting for then, if you generally want greener policies seems pretty sensible to me.

(Unless it really is a red line, single most important issue, in which case it has to be Reform - they won't get in either, but you can email you other candidates explaining that you feel so strongly that you've made a protest vote for the party that is against self ID)

Why vote for a party that won't win? Wasted vote.

The greens disassociated with the greens women’s party as they disagreeing men being in women’s showers.

They are very anti women.

So yes you would be mad if you vote for them - their main advocacy at the moment is pursuit of obliterating women’s right to single sex provisions

If you've read up on them and decided, good for you! No point posting on here, there will be a million reasons why you should or shouldn't vote for any party, just be happy to have made a choice and go with it.

No party will ever be 100% in line with you.

So what are your priorities in this election?

Keeping the Tories in power
Change of government (vote tactically)
Gender issue
Climate change
Something else

???

My local green party candidate has been working as a councillor here for several years and is thoroughly brilliant. I wish she stood a chance here.

Yes mine's a Councillor in a different area of the constituency and seems to have worked hard and done well for her area.
If only the grass roots people could rise up and give the national executive a good shake they could be a real prospect for the future.
Or maybe the people expelled for supporting women could form a new party, I could probably get behind them!

It's unlikely they'll get into government in our lifetime, so do you think them introducing self ID is likely? If they gel with your principles, then vote for them They may do a lot of good locally.

They say lots of good things about combating climate change, but their policy of legalising drugs is worrying

Here's a cautionary tale, tho' it's a bit late as it's GE day.
https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/the-sad-saga-of-sheffield-green-alison 'The Greens have lost their way. Instead of dismissing and expelling members and losing costly law suits and getting so enmeshed in identity politics, the Greens might get back to real campaigning about climate change.' And there's a very interesting insight at this discussion here

Zoë Hatch in discussion with Alison Teal Green Women's Declaration Webinar; Teal - A More Sophisticated Shade of Green.

It's all very sad and a scandal, what's happened to the Green Party.