Webchat with Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, Weds March 4th, at 1pm

[JustineMumsnet]

I'm very pleased to say that the leader of the Green Party England and Wales, Natalie Bennett, will be joining us for a webchat this Wednesday, March 4, at 1pm.

The Greens have been under the spotlight over the last few months, with a surge in membership, and controversy about whether they should be included in the pre-election TV debates.

Now's your chance to ask Natalie about leadership structures, the record of the Green council in Brighton and Hove and Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas, whether there's a long-term movement towards smaller parties in national politics, Green policies on housing, benefits, health, the economy and the environment - and what it's like to be at the eye of a media storm. Plus anything else that takes your fancy of course.

Natalie was born in Australia and worked as a journalist there and in Thailand before settling in the UK in 1999. She worked for The Guardian, among other UK newspapers, before becoming Green Party leader in 2012. She's standing for Parliament in the 2015 General Election in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

I view environmental issues as vital. If we haven't got a planet left to stand on there could be a small problem. I have been trying to tell people that for decades.

However I also feel distinctly unhappy about voting for a party that would relegate women back to 2nd class citizens, who possibly view bodily autonomy as a male-only privilege (we all noticed you still not answering Annie's question), and whose representatives apparently believed women who hold opinions on women's affairs can be told to put up, shut up, and go away. Which is exactly what you are doing, VoyageOfDad. It's exactly what men have been telling us for years. You disgust us.

Pragmatically, you are not selling the greens very well. If there are any fence-sitters watching you've quite possibly pushed them into the 'no' category. Congratulations. Is that what you wanted?

I think those two issues matter to a lot of us because we would like to vote Green and would expect the party to be an ally, and an obvious choice for women, particularly feminists. Unfortunately they have a misogynist equalities lead, and a controversial view on prostitution.

I was saddened to cancel my DD to amnesty last year as well - 99% of the work they do is well founded and important, but having taken a stance that "sex is a human right" I could not continue to fund them.

It saddens me when otherwise ideologically sound organisations tie themselves up in knots and defend the indefensible in what seems like "extreme political correctness"

Not by merit of supporting the greens. By merit of telling us all that we are silly little wimmin who don't know what we're talking about and that the issues we're worried about (like the huge number of rapes that happen every year ) are worthless and unimportant. Can't you see that?

The leading question, is it really so hard for you to say that women are not there just for male sexual pleasure, just to be raped?

Going back to Natalie Bennett, I hope that she at least opens the door to a more diversified and less pimp-friendly debate about prostitution.

Line Runner's right. We can hope that this may lead to change. As a couple of people have said on the other thread, it may be that they're holding onto an old policy with old research.

Gibbering I think so. I would say she is up for a fresh debate.

I notice the New Statesman article about this very thread this very day doesn't mention the prostitution part of the thread, distills it down to biscuits and ice cream.

I think Green policies are fixed and they won't change them before the election, not sure if they can anyway, constitutionally - is a manifesto not fixed? - wouldn't it be like false advertising if they came out now and say they supported the Nordic model instead of the NZ?

Hoping the answer is no, despite VoyageofDad's remarkable posts.

Tbh I think the Greens have wasted this election anyway by ending up on the back foot over costings of the Citizen's Income and house building. I like both policies in principle but the former would, as originally promoted, apparently take income from the poorest; and I am still unsure about the feasibility of the latter.

So Natalie Bennett has a few years to support adoption of the Nordic model to take potentially into a hung parliament.

“It seems if I voice any difference of opinion then somehow in your world view I must hate women and find their issues trivial”

You’ve made that up. It’s not us who has used the term woman hater, it’s you.

“If I agree with Green party policy, well according to you and the other posters here it's open season on insults. How very narrow minded.”

Actually, it’s your tone that has been patronising, dismissive and insulting. Your first post about us discussing this issue which is so important to us, was patronising and dismissive and when we responded to that in kind, instead of considering why we might have responded so negatively, you got more and more aggressive, angry and dismissive.

“You express yourself in a rude, abrasive and self indulgent fashion and expect to be able to bully everyone into submission”

Pot. Kettle. Black. Lots of men perceive women contradicting them as being bullying and abrasive and aggressive. They’re just so surprised not to be agreed with.

But you see, we don’t agree with you. Astonishing I know. Outrageous even.

And actually, the reason we’re still discussing this here is mainly probably because of you. I did link ot the thread over at the other section, but hey, if you keep on posting here, then so will we I guess.

I'm slightly confused by the idea that if someone doesn't vote green, they must be a tory at heart.

There are other parties you know.

Some of them are even left wing.

Saying that if you can't vote for the Green Party due to their support of the NZ model then you can't vote for any other party because none of them actively support the Nordic model is daft. There is a difference between a party that has as an active policy something you can't in all conscience support, and one that remains neutral on that issue.

If someone were completely anti nuclear power, and all parties made no comment about nuclear power except for one that you broadly agreed with on other issues but they were firmly in favour of nuclear power, it's something they would want to weigh up very carefully before they voted for them and it could very well mean they couldn't bring themselves to vote for that party. It doesn't mean the other parties are off limits to them, they would also want to weigh up those parties' policies on other matters.

I think that Natalie Benett and Caroline Lucas now have access to some valuable stuff here, in terms of potential voters' thoughts on their policies and their Party, if they choose to look at it.

I'm nodding along with your post Petula. I'm a natural Green voter and have always voted Green when I've had the chance, especially where I think (thought!) it would make a difference - EU and local elections.

I brought my original sticking point - ecigs - to this thread but my question wasn't answered or even acknowledged. I've had similar luck on Twitter. I won't rant about it any more here because I'm sure most people are bored sick of me by now but I am in the process of writing to all my local candidates about the issue. The Labour guy has already replied requesting more info.

Meanwhile, I am very grateful to the feminists on this thread for questioning the Green policies on the sex industry and on trans issues because I wasn't aware of those, or of the behaviour of the Green equalities bod. I now have four sticking points.

• ecigs - 10% of the population of the UK are dying on average 10 years early because of smoking related diseases and the Greens have voted against something that could make smoking obsolete in a decade or two and has at least 95% lower risk to health than smoking. I'm confused by this and their subsequent silence, given that harm reduction features highly in other policies.

• sex industry policy - makes a mockery of the bodily autonomy of women and validates some very nasty attitudes about women and what they are 'for', causes net harm to women from all the evidence I have read.

• stance on trans issues - denies women the ability to name the cause of our oppression or to create safe spaces for ourselves.

• behaviour of the equalities bod - a man seeks to silence women for speaking out about the above.

Major major sticking points for voting Green which I didn't used to have.

VoyageOfDad you're just having a bit of a tantrum because women aren't deferring to your opinion of what should be important. Please stop it.

Well, VoyageofDad nothing I said was bullying, so what's the problem? I stand by every word.

And no, you don't have to answer any question put to you. But if you can't, as a party activist, honestly and straightforwardly say whether you think women have a right to bodily autonomy or not, you cannot be all that astonished and outraged if women don't want to vote for you.

Consider: would you really, truly be prepared to say everything you've said to us here, to Natalie Bennett or Caroline Lucas? To their faces? Honestly?

And seemingly, by merit of supporting the Greens I'm a massive misogynist and a woman hater. Who'd have known ! Not me or the women in my life that's for sure.

Oh, and no, it's not "by merit of supporting the Greens" that you are a massive woman-hater. There's plenty of good people in the Greens. It's by merit of you coming here and explicitly rubbishing us for taking into consideration a party's views on women before we decide whether to vote for them or not.

And you don't get to decide whether you are a massive misogynist or not. Most of the massive misogynists out there think they are perfectly decent chaps, it's just that the women are getting a bit uppity. We get to decide if you are a massive misogynist. And you will have to forgive us if we don't take your rather rosy view of what the women in your life - who aren't here to speak for themselves - think of you, either.

Archery Annie, sorry to butt in here but there are very few people that align 100% to any 1 parties policy views.
Finding a party that aligns with the majority of your views is down to the individual voters and what the value most. Take the 'Vote for policies, not personalities' survey online and see what your results are. It is interesting and informative.
The green party passes all policies through conference where members decide, if you don't like a policy, then join as a member and be an activist for change. Simple.

Tactical voting is not working, and people are looking for alternatives.

Likewise, some members will leave a party if there is a particular issue that they simply cannot align themselves with - MPs do it fairly frequently. Some who disagree with the green policy on prostitution may well feel that they can change thiungs from within. For others it's a barrier to aligning themselves in the first place or a reason to leave. It's fine to feel that strongly and shouldn't be dismissed.

Oh, I agree pand0ra, but that's the point - everyone has their line in the sand. My irritation with VoyageofDad is not that we have different lines in the sand, but that he came on here explicitly to say that my line in the sand was stupid because it was about recognising women as people, when I should be focusing on the important stuff, like he does. And that I was a closet Tory or something, because I didn't do what he did.

Fair enough, for the record I personally would not like to see the UK turn into Amsterdam with its slack laws on sex and drugs.
Richard branson and nick clegg have both spoken recently about how the 'war on drugs' not working and for it to be decriminalised. I dont agree with those views but the green party does. However my views align with greens more than any other, I'd like to think there is a compromise if you bang your drum hard enough to be heard others may do the same