There is some interesting stuff on the the blog "Another Green World" about some really rather dodgy internal party politics and the Stalinist nature of the Green Party.
A membership list, it appears, were being used without permission, in order for one side to campaign on the internal referendum on the issue of a single leader for the Green Party. Then it is alleged that people are being thrown out of the Green Party for raising issues of concern about party procedures being broken, with a kangaroo court using a catch 22 situation in order to force people out.
From a local perspective we read in the comment section of the post that at least one Green Party Councillor in Norwich has been forced out of the Green Party for a period of five years, but remains (oddly) a member of the Green Group on Norwich City Council. It seems odd that the Norwich Greens are so at odds with their own national party that the national party can exclude someone from membership of the Greens yet their own deputy leader (who sits as a Norwich City Councillor) can work with this excluded member in his own council group. What does this say about Norwich Greens or the views that their deputy leader has of the Green Party nationally ?
There was an interesting comment made to me by a journalist at the Norwich North count who mentioned that the Green Party had in its deselection of a local candidate in favour of another in Norwich North and through its other internal problems which have started to appear, discovered that it is a political party with egos, factions and all the same problems and divisions of any other political party.
So are the Norwich Greens going to tell us which of their members has been thrown out of the Green Party nationally ?
24 comments:
You should see the spat going on in Oxford about nuclear power.
There were leaflets in neighbouring wards in the County elections - one in favour, the other strongly against!
Not really Stalinist, a bit more of your every day party procedure. Do Lib Dems not have to put up with stuff like this? Lucky Lib Dems.
The Green blogger himself referred to it as a catch 22. What about the issue of The natioanl party, of which Ramsay is deputy leader, expelling a member but him seemingly ignoring this and sitting with them in the green group on Norwich City Council. Isn't this him ignoring the authority of the party he is deputy leader of ?
Talk about having your cake and eating it.
Like the Greens in Oxford, different messages in different places,
I was a member of The Ecology Party. The vote to change the name to the Green Party was rigged.
I was famous for threatening someone with physical harm at a Green Party conference.
An elderly man was making a valid point when several loonies began shouting him down. One of them deicded to use physical force to manhandle the old chap and force him back into his seat
He was applauded by his fellow loons (all Social worker types) and I walked over to the thug and said, in a conversational tone: "If I EVER see you physically assaulting an old person like that, ever again, I'll break every bone in your &%$£ing body. I hope I am making myself clear?" I smiled at him.
He gulped. Shrunk into his chair and looked aghast. I think he then realised what he had done...
There's a nasty authoritarian streak in the Green Party.
There are clearly issues in Norwich. Rupert "Look at Me" gets Ramsay's parliamentary seat to stand in. Ramsay before this moving wards so he and RR are in separate wards. Greens privately briefing. You should have seen the faces and heard the conversations of Greens at the Eastern region Euro declaration. Scratch the surface and it far from the happy band of brothers and sisters they claim to be.
Ridiculous article, you explain your claim of the dodgy internal politics (albeit with little hard evidence as back up) but go nowhere near explaining your claim of them being Stalinist. It's not like me to defend the Green Party but it seems to me like a smear attempt by you based on local political grievances.
Green Party members will have received a ballot paper with their copy of Green World this week. Most positions on the Green Party Executive are going uncontested or unfilled; however it’s the campaign for External Communications that has shown an unsavoury side to GPEW internal politics. The highly respected Tracy Dighton Brown ( who was behind probably the best and most stylish Euro PPB) is being subjected to some quite vicious smears. ‘Another Green World’ has some details, have to say I’m ideologically light year away from Derek Wall’s position, but you can’t beat the candour and honesty of Derek.
politically they are the same as the small marksist parties in the ussr.
they all fought and had a totalitarian adgenda.
ThatsNews: You weren't the first person to attend a Green party Conference in a suit were you?
While I was a Labour Agent (unpaid) I was invited by the local Tory Agent top sign up, he pointed out that they didn't exclude those who were members of other parties. I was also invited to become a Tory Agent, lucrative, but . . .
My time as a Green Party person I found notabel for the insistance by half the membership that they just wanted to help Greenpeace . .
Ho hum
Nothing in British politics should surprise anyone much, except:
http://www.lordtobyharris.org.uk/a-chief-of-staff-is-better-than-a-mayoral-cabinet-mayor-boris-johnson-agrees-with-ex-mayor-ken-livingstones-former-chief-of-staff/
These Bullingdons are cads, aren't they? (Whoops, lazy r)
I love Rupert - I count the references to himself on his blog. And if I manage that, I move on to the photos of himself and then the names he's dropped. It's a full time job you know.
Rupert Read has not worked for a year. Some say it is so he could devote himself full time to getting elected (ha, ha). I think it is so he could look in the mirror all day.
We're hardly authoritarian. Rather we give too much power to local parties (in my opinion), which explains the case of the local councillor in Norwich. What would you rather we do, have a show trial followed by a few years of hard labour?
How can we possibly be authoritarian or Stalinist if we are a bottom-up party that gives members a choice whether to be national or local members?
Is this just Green bashing for the sake of it?
Luke
(An Activist President)
Rosa, You should compare Rupert Read’s ‘Clean Campaign Pledge’ for Norwich North (published by Matt Wootton) http://www.clean-campaign-pledge.net/ , then look at the very nasty campaign being waged against Tracy D-B in the internal elections for GPEW ExComm.
Matt Wootton makes a very personal attack on Tracy on his blog www.dailyplanet.org.uk/. An endorsement from Mark Hill on the Rupert+Jason site is a straightforward character assassination http://rupertjason.wordpress.com/endorsements/
Stalinist? not sure, nasty yes!
The attacks on this blog by “Green” trolls show two things Nich. The first is that you seem to have a lot of “Green” readers, the second reminds me off Dads army “They don’t like it up them Mr Mannering”. I guess that’s what comes of having a single issue and the belief that you are right and the whole world system is wrong, I guess in some ways the green is a religious cult for the atheist. As someone who works in the nuclear industry I guess I would be a hate figure.
Luke, in South Devon the Green Party abused the membership lists of a Transition Towns group and environmental group. Which led to them trying to recruit ‘a fantastic environmentalist’ who turned out to be the deputy leader of the Lib Dem group Now when someone mis-used the Green Party’s membership list they get expelled for five years. What ever you call this it’s double standards.
The problem is tht most people don't know what they stand for aside from caring for the environment. If people actually knew they'd never vote for them. It's more akin to a front for those who used to stand outside Marks and Spencer in Norwich on a Friday selling Socialist Worker.
Alistaire: They are ignoring you.
You need to find out about their ideas, for sadly, you know nothing.
Zeitgeist, boyo.
Anonymous,
You must understand that the governance of the Green Party is most unlike any other. It is a bottom-up party that takes localism to heart. The national party can only act when it is a national concern, e.g. using the membership list of the national party. I can not possibly comment on what has happened in South Devon, but it seems that similar lists have been abused.
Many voters are aware that there is no such thing as clean politics, it's utopian. In the Greens we try to come to as close to clean as we can, but heck, everyone can make up their own mind at the end of the day and we're not in the business of barking at people in what to do, despite the claims that we're 'Stalinist' or 'nasty.'
How many Lib Dem members have faced similar hearings for misdeeds in the past year? How many have been expelled?
Simple questions really, but I bet there has been more than one.
Luke
My problem with the Greens is that I can't stand being talked down to by pompous, pious middle-class fops who seem to think everyone they meet can't possibly know as much as they do about anything and therefore need 'educating'.
However, there are some excellent 'old labour' style policies I'd vote for, unfortunately allied to post-modern, psuedo-sciencey rubbish that reads like the ramblings of a drugged horse (halts to stem cell research, animal experimentation and a promotion of alternative therpaies etc).
Probably make reasonable neighbours though.
It will be interesting to see who Ramsay supports in one the contested elections. Will he go for the caroline lucas backed incumbant or instead his city council collegue rupert?
Do they actually get on ?
Fair comment Luke, all political parties on occasions fail to live up to their principles. You clearly live in the imperfect real world, but many of your colleagues are sanctimonious and smug. In fact a potential Green Party member has joined the Lib Dems in Torbay instead after meeting local Greens!
The way Rupert Read has conducted his campaign for Excomm rather make his Clean Campaign Pledge looks at best tarnished, Tracy Dighton Brown to her credit has only reacted to some quite unprecedented personal attacks, with a rebuttal of nonsense about the freepost operation - an
environmentally unfriendly operation – which begs the question does political expediency trump green principles?
There's more:
http://libcync.blogspot.com/2009/08/interesting-twist-to-latest-green-party.html
Rupert Read has pulled out
http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2009/09/rupert-pulls-out_03.html
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