Greens adopt policy treating Zionism as racism (part 2)

[Twiglets1]

Follow on from previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/5585462-greens-adopt-policy-treating-zionism-as-racism?page=40&reply=155235707

I suspect many more will be leaving as their memberships become due and they quietly choose just not to renew.

The thing is, 18,000 is nothing compared to the 200,000 who joined precisely to make the Greens a Hard Left party. The moderate Greens are not only a minority but are actively unwelcome. They can't change their policy for 2 years and will not be able to change their rules without the support of the majority of the party, who are likely to be the people who joined in order to vote for this policy. The only thing g that may collapse the is money. It doesn't seem that the people who joined are that keen on redistributing their wealth to the party if 18000 has led to a loss of £800000 even after they gained so many members. I don't have that much sympathy for the 'old' Greens as they stood by while their youth wing called women 'non men' and stood by while people who held gender critical views were hounded out of the party. Now they are being hounded out by people who care more about Gaza than trans rights, yet trans activists who actively hounded out gender critical people have decided that as long as you are pro pal it doesn't really matter if you are anti LGBTQ. The lack of money once the discrimination action cases pile on may collapse them hopefully.

Agree it is a relatively small number compared to the number that joined the Green party for reasons seemingly unrelated to environmental concerns.

But - it's still a step in the right direction. It's evidence that recent party policy has reached the limit of what traditional Greens will tolerate, and now they are starting to vote with their feet and cancel their membership or let it lapse.

200,000 who joined precisely to make the Greens a Hard Left party.

I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. Some who joined the Greens were looking for a party after Corbyn left Labour and obviously Your Party was a farce. They didn't join the Greens to make it a hard left party, they joined the Greens because they were genuinely inspired by Zack Polanski. Which sounds odd but he does say the right things.

I mean, it's not like many people were inspired by Labour under Keir Starmer, you didn't need to be hard left to be looking for a left wing alternative.

The people who joined the Green party just because they wanted a left wing alternative to Keir Starmer and felt inspired by some of Polanski's rhetoric have no excuse to stay in the Green party now.

Where do they go? There's a push but no pull which leads to apathy.

The left leaning voter who doesn't want to be associated with antisemitism has 3 choices at the moment: Lib Dems, Labour or to consider themselves "politically homeless" for a period of time until one of the parties hold enough appeal for them.

OK yes that was harsh of me. But how many of those are really that upset by the policy enough to leave? The GP does seem to be a vessel now for SWP/people who found Corbyn not Left enough and people obsessed with Gaza as well as political Islam ( not left socially at least in any way). Although you're right. The Greens probably have always been Left of Labour, who never succeed if the veer to far out of the centre Left position,normally when they are pulled there by people like Militant/Momentum etc who are now in The Greens.

It’s just suicidal empathy.

They may still be inspired by Zack Polanski and he doesn't completely support the policy so they might stay for him.

It would be interesting to see what happens when he inevitably gets replaced.

Lib Dems aren't really left though. They formed a coalition with the Tories, for example. Have people forgiven them for tuition fees? I guess the Green types we are talking about might not even remember that.

Lib Dems I think are taking more of their voters from people who are well-off and disillusioned with the Conservatives.

Lib Dems are generally considered left of centre and yes I do think many voters have largely forgiven/forgotten/never knew they were partly responsible for tuition fees.

Labour hasn't reversed tuition fees anyway so if people want to move away from the Green party they don't have much choice but to let that one go.

No party offers everything you want anyway, there are always compromises. The Lib Dem party may seem preferable to Labour with their policies on certain issues considered important to traditional Green voters.

A joint analysis of political party manifestos carried out by Greenpeace UK and Friends of the Earth (in June 2024) evaluated the four manifestos against 40 policy recommendations published last autumn by the organisations.

The Green Party scored highest with a near perfect score of 39 out of 40, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 32, the Labour Party with 21 and the Conservatives bottom with 5. Scores were also broken down into four categories: climate and energy, homes and transport, nature and environment, and justice and democracy.

friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/election-labours-green-plans-score-4x-higher-tories

Lib Dems never keep a promise, they formed a coalition with David Cameron's government and got absolutely played on proportional representation.

It was embarrassing to watch to be honest.

Labour has done a lot of good things and have doneva hell of a lot better than Rishi, Boris and Liz Truss.

The Greens are and will always be a protest government. I agree with some of their policies and I agree that there are elements of extreme Zionist ideas are in complete conflict with Western ideals and I share that belief also about elements of other religions and political groups.

Labour need to be given a chance to do what they were elected to do. The Greens should focus on green issues and playing that part at a local level rather than focusing on geo politics.

Agree with most of that.

People will make their own choices, I don't think any political party is perfect and you can never please everyone. On issues such as the Rosebank oil field for example, traditional Green voters may feel that the Lib Dems are closer aligned to their values than Labour. Depending on how the current government decides to proceed on that.

Two ways of looking at the oil, if we use the tax to invest in infrastructure...like public transport and public charging for EV then that oil could mean a greener UK. If we waste the money on handouts then it would be a tragedy.

I consider my self on the green side of politics, I'm not pro oil. But we have to accept we need it and drilling it will make very little difference...but we use the money to build a greener country we will need less of it.

I have visited cities with large amounts of green councillors and many of them don't have the cash to sort things like public transport out. Old diesel buses.... Sheffield council for example. We forgot that we need money to invest and it's a fine balance

If no party is perfect and you can’t please everyone then why not stay in the Green Party?

Because they are antisemitic and that is not something any right minded person should be prepared to compromise on.

I agree re Rose bank. One of the reasons countries like China and Norway are so far ahead on Green energy is because they use the money they make from selling fossil fuels to fund Green energy infrastructure. Environmentalists were pie in the sky about nuclear and fossil fuels. We can't have a consistent 100% Green energy grid without huge batteries which are an environmental disaster in themselves. We need something consistent and the only current source is fossil fuels or nuclear. Now we have mothballed the nuclear power stations which take years to build, cost a fortune and need highly trained staff who no longer exist. We still use fossil fuels but ship it in from elsewhere so why not just sell our own? I don't know why we have such a short sighted short termism country. I suspect it's partly because FPTP discourages any collaboration between parties.

But Zack Polanski doesn’t agree with the policy, it will probably be changed, it doesn’t actually mean anything and besides only a tiny percentage of the party voted for it

etc etc

It means a lot here. The horrible union at my workplace is very excited about having Green Party members all over the place now. I’ve heard from multiple people that they’re joining the Green party now as they’re the only ones focussing on the ‘most important issue of today’. I don’t think this is the own goal people might have thought at all.

On the other hand Polanski chose not to stay to vote against it and has maintained that "Zionism is racism in the practical application of it."

It can't be changed until at least 2028 and personally I would feel embarrassed to show strong support for a party widely viewed as having a strong racist or antisemitic element to them (feel the same about Reform).

Most important issue of today if you live in Gaza, but crazy to say this about the UK.

I left the Labour Party over Corbyn and so did my Mum, and that's deplorable because she had been a member of the Labour Party since she met my Dad in the 1950s.

Well my mum often voted Green - she was a kind soul who would be horrified at what they have become.

Sounds like you are satisfied with the current Labour government anyway.