Maybe we should all be joining the Green Party

[JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown]

It seems that an entire branch of the Green Party has gone on strike over the suspension of Emma Bateman. You can read their letter on Glinner's substack below.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-small-bit-of-sanity-from-green

This part of the letter really stood out for me:

At the recent conference, a gender self ID motion was passed: only 493 people voted, of whom 281 were in favour of it. 281 people out of 50,000 have imposed a policy supporting gender self ID on the entire party. What would the 50,000 have said?

A motion proposing that the GP should support women's sex-based rights, in accordance with the United Nations CEDAW agreement (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) was voted down. Only 491 people voted, or whom 289 people voted against women's rights, and the motion failed. What would the 50,000 have said?

I was going to start a thread earlier asking how many of us had left a party over women's rights (I've left Labour) but those numbers have me thinking.

There are so many of us lefty women who feel politically homeless right now. If all of us vipers joined the Greens, voted and got involved, based on those numbers, we could almost certainly make a difference.

What does everyone else think?

Most of the crowdfunders are made up of small donations, meaning that thousands are donating. That's a lot of engaged and really pissed off women who are willing to put their money where their mouth is. I've been thinking about how we can make that work politically.

I'm a GP member and I must admit very lazy when it comes to voting and getting involved. GP is full of people with quite fringe views, but actually has some great women and is very democratic in it's adoption of policy and constitution. I think that it certainly could be possible to make a concerted effort to make it more female friendly.

I'm not sure how much impact that would make, you'd need a lot of support. UKIP managed to have a significant policy impact despite not getting any actual MPs, 4.5 million votes certainly made those in power sit up, and to be fair the brief green surge where they got a lot of members and 1.5 million votes did translate into more environmental focus briefly, although this seems to have now fallen by the wayside.

With FPTP it's impossible that the GP would ever get more than a couple of elected Westminster MPs.

I have to hold my nose when I vote Labour.

God only knows what I’d have to hold to vote Green.

Absolutely bloody not.

Green members interested in Environmental issues AND female (Sex based) Rights need to stop being lazy and join/create a new Party.

I guess I'm thinking that as it stands, there aren't really any women-friendly parties. If those are the numbers voting internally for Green policies and motions, it wouldn't take that many more women getting involved to get female-friendly motions put through.
In some ways, the party system feels like they've all been taken over by teenagers trashing the house and us grown ups are just moving out with nowhere else to go instead of telling them off and getting the place sorted out and cleaned out.

I am wondering this, but it will have to be with a party that has a chance of winning power. The Greens and Lib Dems are irrelevant right now - the key choices are Labour, Tory and SNP (not sure about NI - sorry).

However, a working group with a stated aim can make a massive difference to that party. The Conservatives are being steered by the ERG and pressured by the "Red Wall" Tories who have effectively banded together. Labour had the pleasure of Momentum under Corbyn.

The Green party has always been ripe for takeover by any determined faction because its rules about accountability and discipline in general are pretty lax. This was part of a general philosophy about tolerance and rejecting hierarchies - it took a long time for them to decide they needed an official leader of the party for example, Caroline Lucas was good but the joint leadership of Bartlett and Berry in my opinion was always weak and proved problematic. The TWAW supporters worked this out and picked their time to make a challenge.

@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown

I guess I'm thinking that as it stands, there aren't really any women-friendly parties. If those are the numbers voting internally for Green policies and motions, it wouldn't take that many more women getting involved to get female-friendly motions put through. In some ways, the party system feels like they've all been taken over by teenagers trashing the house and us grown ups are just moving out with nowhere else to go instead of telling them off and getting the place sorted out and cleaned out.

I see where your going with this and it's a good idea, what stops me personally and others I'm sure is that we would have to pay to join a party that doesn't actually recognise us. That would gall me. If I dont exist you don't see me, then you dont get my very hard earned money. Let's be fair, im a part time low income woman. I have to prioritise my spending. Why would I give any to any party that thinks im a non man?

@FamilyOfAliens

I have to hold my nose when I vote Labour.

God only knows what I’d have to hold to vote Green.

I joined WEP as a founder member but left over their (non) handling of gender vs sex. If there was a new ecofeminist party that recognised women’s sex-based rights then I’d probably join; as it is I’m currently waiting out my 2 years before Labour will re-consider me for membership (they refused me 3 months after I joined saying I was a WEP member, after I had initially contacted them to say I was leaving WEP to defect!) and just watching what Labour do in the meantime whether I would want to join them. They’re the only threat to my Tory MP and aside from the fringe/extremist trans lobby I generally see eye to eye with them.

The Greens - no - their (non) handling of the Challenors, their nasty nasty councillors & candidates on Twitter never being reigned in from posting hate against women....no. They do not recognise my sex so no, I will not work for them. They said they don’t even want my vote if I don’t profess belief in an untruth; so no. Really can’t see it happening, whatever the numbers are.

As others have pointed out, maybe a new party - Envionmental Change - could be setup, by existing members who are unhappy.
I think the Green party has lost sight of its original aims and targets. I think the same as happened to the LibDems and Labour.

UKIP managed to have a significant policy impact despite not getting any actual MPs

This is exactly why it is so bloody disappointing that they have embroiled themselves so deeply in gender woo as to make themselves ridiculous. Single-issue parties have a really important role to play in UK politics and I cannot think of any other issue that more desperately needs representing than climate change.

There is a GC Facebook page called Green Women, not aligned with the GP.

I wonder if at the moment there are the numbers of people to support something that would have an impact. Are enough people awake to the sex not gender issues?

I maintain my GP membership in the hope that the TRA are passing through and because I am genuinely terrified of the environmental issues we're facing and don't know where else I can impact some change on this.

I am sympathetic to XR, but I'm not sure they've achieved anything other than getting a lot of backs up on London, Greenpeace seem to have lost their way and outside EU now we've lost the impetus that was coming from Green support on the continent.

I joined about 6 mo ago as I knew more women fighting for this cause in the greens that any other party actually.

I'm not going to leave over this; so many are fighting extremely hard.

There's an extraordinary vote today actually which might be worth looking at. (Some to vote up and some to ignore.)

Btw, the libdems have formed a grassroots women's movement for actual women, launched last week.

I left the GP over their anti-woman antics. I respect those within the party who are fighting for rights of women and children, but honestly I have better things to do with my time and money.

If Sharar Ali had won I might have stayed on but he didn't, more's the pity.

Without a change at the top that shows that women and children are important, I can't forgive them for many things including the safeguarding failures around the rapist Challenor. I don't think those in charge have learned any lessons.

I'm afraid gender ideology has far too firm a grip on influential figures at the top of the party - including women like Amelia Womack and Sian Berry - for me to ever consider voting green. The language they choose to use to describe women is an affront too. So much focus on making women move over for trans women - not enough energy right now going into driving actual societal change on the environment. They seem a bit broken.

I am not giving membership money to the Green party. I am just not, after all the stuff I have seen come out from the leadership. Siân Berry even outright said on twitter "please never join, thanks" to a polite woman saying she only wanted to join a party that knew what a woman was.

I deeply admire those within the Green party who are trying to haul the ship back on course, but it's not for me.

I've stopped voting Green (I used to vote Green in safe seats to get them their deposit back) and I've discovered that the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) do know what a woman is and have a policy that could have been written by an FWR womanittee.

It really demonstrates how these captures have happened and why it's so important not to abandon these parties (and their resources!) to extremists.

Why should the majority declare themselves politically homeless?

Hm. I see what you mean, OP, but I think as the Greens now are the least woman-friendly party of all, it is maybe best leaving them as voting flypaper - all the TRAs can gravitate there and the party will quickly sink into irrelevance - and seeking another group to join.

I always liked the Libdems. I wonder if I could join the new liberals for women group. Does it involve Layla Moran looking into your soul, though, because I don't know if I fancy that.

The Challoner debacle was so grimy I know I can't vote for Greens in the state of not having a scooby doo over what safeguarding is... However did rejoin to support Green Party Women & the people critical of the gender nonsense see if it could be driven out..... However it was more to attend the online weekend (I worked some of it too) than my years membership?! ...so nope better to give any I could to the many necessary crowdfunders...

If Sharar Ali had won I might have stayed on but he didn't, more's the pity.

I definitely would have stayed if Ali had won. Berry and Bartley are just two clowns who wouldn't know what a woman was if she came up and slapped them in the face with a wet seahorse.