Greens internal drama warms up

[fromorbit]

New long article looking at the drama inside the Greens over biology suddenly existing again despite their best efforts.

How the Green Party forgot the environment and was torn apart by trans rows
It was a party united by a single mission – to save the planet. But now the gender identity debate has left it divided and in chaos

https://archive.is/TOlNx

The article is already out of date as Zack Polanski of hypnotic breasts fame has just launched a leadership bid against Deyner and Ramsey.

Emma Bateman
It's no secret that big boobs Polanski wants the top job. He is a student politics slogan churner, a self server who distains women and wants misgendering misdemeanours to be grounds for expulsion from the Greens.
He is "LGB with the T"
Still NO DEBATE!

Pro-women Greens article on his background:;
https://concernedgreens.uk/watchlist/zack-polanski/

The existence of biology is likely to be a significant part of the leadership contest for sure so interesting to watch .

Ali Shahrar has launched another legal challenge against the Greens. Gardening needed.

May 27th is the date for Emma Bateman's legal hearing against the Greens.

On May 27th I am in court against Green Party in a case which will expose the contorted lengths the Greens go to in order to shut women up.

It isn't going to go well for the Greens given the Supreme Court ruling. This could be key moment in seeing the ruling's effect on politics and directly impact the leadership contest. It will also be probably be infuriating and hilarious in equal measure.

Actually I feel it’s a reason to stay in tbe party so I can keep and eye on them and internally vote in ways that help make sure the lunatics don’t take over

I've never been a member of any political party, but that seems quite a lot of money?

30x30.

This is proper multi level marketing stuff.

Reminds me as @SionnachRuadh has mentioned about the MLM techniques and stagecraft of pressure selling. Being part of a movement makes ppl feel good

medium.com/politically-speaking/at-an-amway-meeting-in-1990-i-met-the-future-of-trumpism-72d1cb230ef1

Is this signed off by Polanski and with his name or is it a local party thing

Yeah, I used to do admin in the national office years ago when it was in Balham, and every year many green party members would lie about their salaries to get cheaper rates at conferences. Somehow I can’t imagine the recent influx of new members will be any more likely to put their money where their mouths are. Many of us older and more sensible (ex)members who are more likely to have disposable income have probably either cleared out of the party already or are unlikely to fund this shit show.

It’s a local party thing.

I double checked and it’s 10,000 per year

They may well have targeted the more affluent areas of the city.

It was hand delivered

@WarriorN I'd say the lunatics are already in charge and I simply couldn't stomach my money going to defend the party's refusal to recognise women as a sex class.

At this point I struggle to understand why anyone not deeply embedded in the party hierarchy wouldn't walk away and find more productive uses for her time, energy and money.

I was going to ask how long you think it will take for sanity to return, but your your comment implies that you don't think the party has completely lost it. What grounds do you see for optimism?

If you dont do it does something terrible happen?

Over on the your Party thread I've posted the ongoing mess they are in BC they have 3 separate database of sign ups/ paid members (or so they thought) and um, others.

The green party seems to have a single dBASE , which is to their advantage.

nitter.net/charliemansell/status/1978459886825411052#m

Though that hand delivered letter that @WarriorN seems to have got means it's presumably on the national database. Makes you wonder how ppl were selected for the receipt of the letter. Do signups for 30x30 get special Green party MERCH or to dine with Zack Polanski? Would they get to be on the policy making committee or whatever? That's how Trump/ MAGA work it. They actually sell access. Yes it's corrupt but you can see what you'll get out of it. What do green pledgers get

What do green pledgers get
Sod all, unless you think that Hypnoboobs will lead the party into government at the next GE. Or you are the kind of company that will get brownie points and extra spending from customers as a result of supporting the Hypnoboobs project.

Money talks, I suppose. Labour under Starmer spent four years denouncing the Tories as a bunch of corrupt liggers - not without reason - and as soon as they got into government it turned out Labour MPs were also liggers, except they were hypocritical about it.

If the Greens are setting up some kind of pay-to-play Inner Circle there'd better be some serious goodies on offer, and not just a Zack Polanski Funko Pop doll and some fridge magnets.

I've finally left. After being at FiLiA, reading what Sian Berry wrote about it, I've had enough

The trouble with letters begging for money, is people willing tolerate them for a while but after that they get pissed off (not least because they work out how much money it costs to send so many begging letters).

As previously mentioned the interesting observation about party membership is how the LD have corned the market on ACTIVE membership.

After the surge in LD membership even they struggled to convert a lot of these new joiners into active members. I remember speaking to someone a number of years back who said they'd gone through the list of new joiners in the area and found they got nothing back when they approached them. They were members on paper only. I would imagine that's who has dropped off the LD membership numbers hardest in recent years. Corbynite Labour also had a real issue with this active issue, to an even greater degree than the LDs. And this was made worse by them tending to be economically not well off and tending to be time poor to boot in comparison to many LDs.

The greens STILL have to turn those 100,000 into members who are helpful to the party and wish to participate and are more than virtue signalling paper members.

I imagine many of those same people make up those defections from Labour and the LDs. So it remains to be seen what this changes in practice for an election.

Wall of reality time rather than wishful thinking time.

The Greens have a massive £££ problem. Unlike Labour they don't benefit from union subs and they have a huge legal bill. They also don't have many rich donors and Polanski doesn't strike me as someone who is going to motivate that either. Which celebrity or business man wants to stand on the same platform cheering with someone who was a chancer who hyponitited?

Without the money to put up candidates they are still in a situation where it's difficult for them, especially if there's a risk of losing that deposit.

Without active members they still don't have the people to stand for election - this leads to candidates who are altogether dubious standing because there's no alternative and it all gets a bit desperate. Sophie Molly was a candidate until he proved himself too much of a liability even for the Greens. He won't be the last to demonstrate this problem.

When the public start looking at real life elections, if their local candidate is an absolute donkey, that's when those polling figures crumble because it's a different prospect from theoretically switching to actually switching.

If they do get candidates at the next local elections they have to prove themselves.

I maintain that the greens still have a ceiling for electoral success as a result of this.

Meanwhile Reform has started to break through the credibility issue and has started to get some notable backers, which makes them a different prospect to in the past (as ukip). And they still are facing some pretty big issues with new reform local representatives proving themselves in their new roles. It's not exactly going well on this front.

So the comparison being made that the Greens are the Reform of the left, really isn't an accurate one because it's neglecting some pretty big practical issues the party still has and the one point of comparison which has credibility demonstrates an issue that's not necessarily a good one.

Those begging letters are a sign that it's not all about having a gobby leader.

Also if you pour money into a party you expect results. If the Greens don't start delivering candidates, and worse still lose deposits, they'll also get blow back from that too.

Very important point about sudden membership surges. The SNP's membership surged to a ridiculous level after the referendum, but it's fallen off a cliff again in recent years. I wonder how much of that is disappointment at their performance in government, how much is disappointment that they don't have a strategy for independence, and how much is Sturgeon and Swinney closing down democracy in what used to be a very member-led party.

There are issues with Reform, and I'd say the leadership are aware of those issues. They've drawn some lessons from what was wrong with Ukip and don't want to repeat the experience. The big push at the moment is to convert that 260k membership into people who'll go door knocking. The medium term problem is to get credible candidates. A big part of that will just be Reform led councils meeting a base level of competence - they don't have to be brilliant, they just have to prove they can run a local authority.

I wonder about these membership surges on the centre left. Labour under Corbyn had them, the Lib Dems accumulated a bunch of paper members in 2019-20, now the Greens have one. Lots of this seems to be people who don't want to get active in the party, they just want to make a donation and join the mailing list. I'd be interested to know the social breakdown of these people.

. A big part of that will just be Reform led councils meeting a base level of competence - they don't have to be brilliant, they just have to prove they can run a local authority.

so far councils run by the Greens and those run by Reform are a dogs breakfast. Mostly because running local authorities is very hard very dull thankless work and they're both parties predicated on protest and national issues.

YY, that’s an excellent point.

Mostly because running local authorities is very hard very dull thankless work and they're both parties predicated on protest and national issues.

And they’re parties populated by lots of people with strong opinions based on little actual knowledge or experience and no clue as to how to organise anything. Definitely the case round here.

I also have a theory that membership surges can be a bad sign.

Corbyn, for example. If you're generating that much passion in a few hundred thousand people, your appeal is probably pretty limited for the broader electorate.

To put it another way: however much 300,000 people really, REALLY want you to be PM, if 20 million others don't, you've got problems.

Have to assume Hypnoboobs will encounter similar, since he's thoughtfully provided huge amounts of ammunition to his detractors.

And fucking well hope it'll be the same for Farage, once the absolute incompetence of Reform to run anything other than a punch-up in a brewery has time to filter into public consciousness.

Is now an appropriate time to insert my standard rant about local authorities being apolitical? Councillors should NEVER have party political affiliations, imo. The best ones are always independents, and unfortunately are often hobbled by others who are there for their own careers rather than serving constituents.

Great discussion folks keep it up.

Meanwhile ZP's Hypno powers don't seem to be working. His clash with Carole Malone on Jeremy Vine was epic covered his tendency to call everyone right wing fascist to his sexist trash talk about JKR.

https://nitter.net/OkayBiology/status/1978520750588895291#m

While online some people are hailing ZP 's performance as an epic win I think it shows how it is going to limit his appeal to people on the left with more simplistic takes. Malone is not the best debater, but she shows him up here.

Imagine what happens if ZP encounters Helen Joyce or someone from Labour with some sense especially if they study his interviews. He falls back on rubbish positions every time.

I think ZP is proving to be a good Agent for Operation Let Them Speak. He appeals to those already convinced biology is not a thing, but shows the weakness of gender ideas to others.

Those dreading a Reform government though need to stop ZP now though. He is making a Farage win more likely.

So to zoom out a little, my firm view is that the political class centred on the two big legacy parties is crumbling. It's not dead yet, but it might be in terminal decline. One response is the standard TRIP response - we must prop up the failing system at all costs. But what if it can no longer be propped up?

Reform is not surfing the populist wave. It is the wave. People used to think Corbyn could be the wave, but even if that was real and not a mirage, that time is past.

So there's a gap in the market for whoever can successfully paint themselves as the anti-Farage. That seems to be working very well for Plaid at the moment (though I'd say that isn't necessarily a stroke of genius on Rhun's part; there's long been a big chunk of Welsh voters who backed Labour for Westminster and Plaid for the Senedd, so that was already fertile territory; and I think there are also limits to Plaid's support)

Ed Davey is having a fair old stab at doing the same thing. Starmer and Swinney are at least thinking along similar lines, though they're constrained by leading unpopular governments.

Zack seems to think he's doing that, and being clever by nicking the populist style, but his model seems to be not current year Reform, but circa 2015 Ukip - being shouty and playing to a niche audience. That might be enough to get the Greens from 10% to 15%, but unless Labour collapses entirely, that might be as far as he can go.

There's nothing wrong with learning from opposition parties - Farage has been saying for ages he wants Reform to be as good at grassroots politics as the Lib Dems - but you need to be sure it's the right lesson you're learning.

The whole issue with Brexit was people who don't know how things work. Johnson was the finest example.

You can't just change things because you feel like it, because there's a whole bunch of other laws / practicalities / realities that don't let you.

The public haven't grasped this reoccurring theme yet.