politics

GE2015: Labour vs The Greens

The battle for the soul of the left is rapidly gathering pace. The Greens as the burgeoning youth vote, Labour as the old stalwarts of the socialist left. Both sides have taken it upon themselves to promote themselves as the true left option, but one is doing a damn site better than the other. Labour continues to muddy it’s own waters by out-torying the Tories on immigration, leaning heavily on austerity and drifting in the neoliberal middle ground it’s been stuck in since Thatcher demolished it’s true value as a people’s party decades ago.

Labour is depending on the same PR stance as they did with Scottish Independence, fear. No promises of better times, just blaming the ‘competition’. They’re so obsessed with complete success it seems unlikely they’d even consider a coalition until they absolutely HAD to.

That said, the Green Party is still part of the system, it’s fourth largest donor, and sole candidate for Cambridge, is currently getting a lot of stick for being a transmisogynist, arguably disablist and as far right on immigration policy as some ‘kippers’. They need to prove that policy is more important than money. The Greens are the UKIP of the Left, in the respect that the main ‘left’ party feels threatened. Where UKIP and the Greens differ is that UKIP is just another Tory Party, another arm from the same body.

Nothing excuses the recent Propaganda campaign against the Greens, but fear of loss of power justifies it for Labour. They’re making traction with each Tory failure and don’t like the Greens getting their share of the voters. Especially since the ‘vote for policies’ campaign has shown the Greens cover a lot of ground for potential voters. Labour refuse to step back, they’ve gone too far. They have to commit to the middle ground, or admit they’ve been wrong since 1997.

Let’s not forget (whilst the Tories are as close to quantifiable evil that British Politics can get) it was New Labour’s figurehead, Tony Blair, who became a war criminal. No such accusations can be thrown at any of the recent Green leaders. Arguably because no one had the foggiest who they were until now. The Tories shouldn’t be the focus, the ideology, policies and narrow view they share with the other major parties of the world should.

Labour has been standing up for the NHS for 67 years. RT and stand with us tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/UMSPMIQujv #VoteLabour

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) May 6, 2015

Party distinctions are arbitrary and superficial. They all work with the same narrow framework of a constitutional monarchy, a faux-democracy.

Syriza and Podemos were answers to such arbitrary distinctions. New parties, for the express intent to fight austerity measures. While the Greens rely much less on them, they will make concessions for them, Labour will make much more. SNP want localised power, which is admirable. The TUSC are probably as close to the party I’d vote for, but in the current system, they’re massively undermined by their (respectable) lack of funding. The hipster, precious part of my brain wants the TUSC to get votes off it’s own policies than to rely on the huge PR overhaul and celebrity endorsement that the Green’s have had.

Getting Labour in to give the other Left parties some wiggle room seems a bit backwards to me. Typically the left gets a go, the right gets a go, then the left, then the right. If there is going to be a coalition of the left, it needs to happen this year. Not in 4 years.

Labour cannot be trusted, they’ve proven that time and again. The Greens have an opportunity to prove the trust of young voters and are in talks with the SNP, TUSC & other Left Unity parties. This said, I’m an anarchist. So, they’re all dodgy in my eyes. Some are worse than others, but if the Left can push for the dismantling of hierarchical structures and a gradual, increasingly localised and syndicalised form of governance, I’m all for it.

Otherwise, it’s just the lesser, or Greener, of two evils for me.