Harry’s Place

Oh dear. The BNP Greens keep falling out of the woodwork, and now it turns out, I may have voted for one of them!

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery, Brett.

A fish rots from the head, as some say.

Financial and moral support from the United States means that Israel has been able to act with relative immunity, hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who criticise its policies are anti Semitic. This does a great disservice to the many Jewish people who support the principle of universal human rights, and who oppose the current policies of the Israeli state.

- Caroline Lucas, on her blog, in May 2008.

Well, has she attempted to substantiate this line yet? Israel can “act with relative immunity” and resort, in that cause, to “hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who criticise its policies are anti Semitic”? “All”? Really? Where? When?

And what’s with her “great disservice” talk? Is this not a call for collective responsibility, of the kind “progressives” should be the first to reject? Is this not bigotry?

What a shambles the Greens are.

Try this delusional MP for size.

Mr Galloway has also claimed early support for Barack Obama, but refused to pledge allegiance to the president if he takes a different policy approach to the one he campaigned on.

“I supported him from the very beginning of my radio shows,” he said. “I argued for him when people couldn’t spell his name. I marched with him on the anti-war march four years ago. We may divert in the future, but I have high hopes for him.”

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/hamhigh/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newshamhigh&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newshamhigh&itemid=WeED27%20Nov%202008%2016%3A23%3A27%3A277

Marching with him in the same invented way he marched against Saddam.

The problem the Greens have stems from their absence of a set of recognisably coherent principles. Some would say “class basis”, but I don’t think it is that.

If you’re a Green, what precisely are you for?

OK, you’re for being worried about the future of the planet, but then all parties say that now. The Greens have been an effective pressure group, and that’s fine. But a party needs something else, something distinctive.

So, what is there? There is, well, I don’t know. Er. Opposition to GM, perhaps. A bit zany, but there you go. Nuclear power? Sure, although I’m not sure why that is. It isn’t cost. It isn’t safety. It isn’t really pollution. It is that it is a vaguely ‘leftish’ position, and a rather outdated one at that, to do with a very different argument about nuclear weapons. Also somewhat zany.

Oh sure, there’s lots of other stuff as well. Being against racism, supposedly. Being for freedom and justice and democracy too. Just like everybody else.

In the absence of a unifying set of political values, is it any surprise that people who are nuts escape detection in the Greens? How could you say to - for example - the 9/11 Troofers that they’re not authentically Green? They couldn’t, which is why they’re there.

Frankly, short of saying:

“I’m in favour of pouring salt on arable land”

it would be difficult to declare a potential Green persona non grata in the party.

The Green party “10 key values” could do with a Fisking. Right out of the gate we get this nonsense:

Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect his or her life and should not be subject to the will of another.

Got that, folks? No laws. No nothing.

Words fail me.

By the way, happy Thanksgiving to my brothers and sisters on both sides of the pond. Not a lot to be thankful for these days but it could be worse.

“I complained because I had no shoes until I met someone who had no feet”

Now, while it is true that there were a few Labour and Tories on the list, these are huge broad-church parties with hundreds of MPs, thousands of local councillors and tens, of not hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file members

That’s amusing. I think there were 11 Tories and 4 Labour people, which will never be mentioned at HP. The Labour and the Tories are “huge broad church” parties, so that’s okay then.

Brett is labouring under the delusion that the BNP problem is a Green problem and thus makes it yet another topic of esoteric trainspotting. It looks like HP will never place the BNP into the broader context that addresses the role of the larger parties, government etc. The BNP in relation to Labour, the Tories, working class etc? Not likely.

The BNP has over quintupled its vote since 1997. Who actually votes BNP? The class/occupational breakdown of members is interesting too. Where are the BNP’s pockets of support? Not Brighton Pavilion, but Labour areas in the north, and East London. The numbers from the 2005 General Election (for example) speak for themselves.

Brett. You say “Yet it seems the Greens have suffered a disproportionately high number of closet right-wingers”

We are talking about three people aren’t we? It’s not exactly a swathe.

This guy Nick Stone is a bit of blow because he didn’t seem mad at the time apparently and he certainly would not have been selected by Lewisham Greens if he’d given any indication of holding the kind of views the BNP hold - but obviously, in hindsight, there was something wrong.

As you say there are labour, lib dem, and tory ex-cllrs and the like so we’re not alone in having ex-members on the list.

The other two weren’t your classic BNP types either and neither one stayed in the BNP long enough to even get their jackboots warm - so it’s difficult to say there’s a big BNP / Green correlation simply because none of the three people were ever BNP activists and certainly they didn’t argue for anything like fascist policy when they were in the Greens (or the BNP for that matter as they found it wasn’t for them pretty quickly).

My personal feelings about the two previously discussed is that its part of the problem of being a small party. In Lewisham, Norwich or Brighton (and others) where we’re strong we do have robust democratic culture - where we’re weaker it’s harder to have proper vetting because we have far fewer members to choose from and to hold people to account.

As to the troofer - he’s been suspended from the party pending an enquiry. All political parties will have to discipline people sometimes or have people do embarressing things - I think it’s how you respond to that that’s the important thing.

That’s how it seems to me anyway.

Jim,

wouldn’t it be sensible for all political groupings, including the Greens, to cross reference the BNP membership list against their current members to try and weed out any dodgy ones?

It is arguable that the Greens are not particularly zany, so zany people who join get bored and drift off to the BNP. I don’t think these people are likely to be politically principled. They appear to be lonely political minnows who are perhaps seeking to become big fish in small ponds, but are too inept to get very far and perhaps find political activism requires hard work they are not prepared to undertake. Some more motivated loners may be attracted to each other and set up some short-lived micro-party that pretends it is different but has no fresh ideas, like this one: http://www.ukpopdems.org.uk/

I pity the fool who didn’t figure the Greens for a bunch of fascists long ago…

It’s been in their manifestos for years.

They are evil and should be rusticated to a carbon neutral game park where (for a fee) Japanese tourists can bag one as a trophy.

The rest of the time they can roam free in nature. It’s what they want, right?

Cheerful Charlie Chuckles (aka luggsy) is Greener than slime. Just read his bilge in the Times yesterday.

Dangerous, evil, true-believing lunatics. They should be chained to the Islamists and the Commies and we can have a Big-Brother type show to see which gnaws the others’ ankles off first. Presented by Ant & Dec.

Kind of says all you need to know about the Greens that they think the BNP are beyond the pale but that the equally despicable and dangerous Socialist Action are alright by them. Says all you need to know about you too Brett I guess, sadly, that you seem to think that the Greens, with their thinly veiled anti semitism and support of some incredibly dodgy organisations and causes abroad are ok too.

Nature Notes

The greens are alright, generally nice people. Rarely far-right, possibly somewhat misanthropic in outlook, often a tad fantastical, and sadly often a tad naive. May believe in conspiracy theories, generally, without intentional malice. Always exceptions to the rules.

Yet it seems the Greens have suffered a disproportionately high number of closet right-wingers - especially when you add the antisemitic ‘troofers’ to the leaked BNP list.

Oh, I absolutely love the constant sniping that keeps on going on in this blog against the Greens. They really are the scum of the earth aren’t they? It’s not like there were 7 people from the Tories on there, or that any attempt to compare the policies of the Greens to the BNP falls apart at first instance.
The constant repitition of this statistically abnormality puts you guys in the same league as the nutjob libertarians who keep insisting that the Greens are the new fascists. That’s what I call sophisticated political debate. But hey, what’s wrong with a bit of leftie bashing eh? It’s a popular sport around here.

And just to add to that - there has been a lot of drift from Labour voters to the BNP, especially in the east end. Is that meant to say something about Labour? Something about Labour voters? Something about the BNP?

David T

A very succinct summation of the Green’s definitional problem. Only trouble is you’re only half-way there. Nick M (in what is one of the most biting and funny but dead on accurate comments I’ve seen in a while) puts it into perspective. They (the Greens) are determined to save us from ourselves and they–and only they–know how to do it. And, like ALGORE, will brook no opposition because, like all true Gnostics, they firmly believe themselves to be in possession of the ultimate word/truth and in this, as Nick M says, share messianic religious-like true believer status with their totalitarian brothers.

PS to Nick M: GREAT COMMENT! “I wish I’d said that!” (Chortling loudly)

Which one of you fuckers went and ruffled Sunny’s feathers? :D

OFF TOPIC:

Why on earth was the Mumbai thread closed? Why, while democracy in India is still under bloody siege and innocent people are being murdered by the representatives of a savage totalitarian ideology? Why, when the totalitarian terrorists have discovered a potent new weapon which may be used against us in our towns and cities shortly?

Are we back to nonsensical and dictatorial thread closure? While frivolous threads like this are allowed to flourish (who on earth really cares if a couple of Nazis are posing as Greens - we know the average Green is more interested in beards, beer and bicycles than jackbooting their way to power).

tim

“I supported him from the very beginning of my radio shows,”

Does that mean that Galloway is aware that most people treat his frequent appearances as ’shows’????

I always thought that I was in a minority.

OK, you’re for being worried about the future of the planet, but then all parties say that now.

Oh come on, David. Just becasue all parties say that it doesn’t mean it’s going to be reflected in their policies.

CH - Correctly I’d say.

Its an example of George’s fantasy world.
He “discovered” Obama six months after Obama was on the cover of Time accompanied by the headline “The Next President”

You have to love the comments here sometimes. Brett is being vilified for both “supporting” and “criticising the Greens! Marvelous fun!

Btw I’m glad to see Bob from Brockley pointing out that my own locality is a “BNP-free zone” and would have to say that I have always found Darren Johnson to be ready to talk seriously about any issue.

I like Darren J

Frankly, short of saying:
“I’m in favour of pouring salt on arable land”
it would be difficult to declare a potential Green persona non grata in the party. (David T)

Who says that the Greens care at all for arable land? They prefer to see woods grow on arable lands and couldn’t care less for human food needs.

Pouring salt on Arab land on the other hand will have every Green on your doorstep.

“so it’s difficult to say there’s a big BNP / Green correlation”

I have not been arguing that there’s a correlation

” It’s not like there were 7 people from the Tories on there…”

Sunny, are you really surprised when people on the right wing of the Tory Party defect to the BNP - particularly as the leadership appears to be moving more to the centre? Is this even news(worthy)?

Sunny,

surely the point is, that you’d expect a bit more from Greens?

that they wouldn’t necessarily be taken in by the crude English nationalism, xenophobia and racism articulated by the BNP?

that they would have seen thru that before and were not so susceptible to it??

whereas you could find a lot of that guffin the Tory Party, so the change over from voting Tory to the BNP is not so dramatic, and thus ex-Greens becoming BNPers is more noteworthy

mod “you’d expect a bit more from Greens”

Than what? Having three ex-members on the BNP list - when at least two of them (not sure about the third) left almost immediately citing that they hadn’t understood the BNP was a racist party… I mean it’s stupid in the extreme but it doesn’t make them fascists.

Every party has names of ex-members on this list. It would be extraordinary if the Greens *didn’t*. This is a non-story, a minor story at best.

We’re getting comments here like “I pity the fool who didn’t figure the Greens for a bunch of fascists long ago… ” on the basis of what? Generalising from very isolated incidents.

No one can point to anything these people did whilst in the Greens that would indicate they were racists. Which means there’s no evidence to suppose the Greens tolerate racism in their ranks when they are aware of it. None.

This seems very thin to me. The Greens are a down the line progressive party and were instrumental, for instance, in getting the London Assembly to look at the amnesty for irregular migrants much talked about last week. They are consistently for loosening immigration controls (and some are even for no borders, although that is not the policy) - I’d like to see the BNP swallow that policy with good grace.

Jim, what does “progressive” mean to you?

Today’s South London Press has a short article and quotes from Nicholas Stone saying he never joined the party, did not know he was on the list until it was made public, is not a sympathiser and he guesses that he might have been added to the mailing list maliciously by local BNP activists. I’m sure some will not believe that, some will believe it, but it does seem possible and plausible and is not the usual reaction of ‘Yes I’m a member, what of it?’ which many of those challenged have responded with.

I watched the rise of the Greens in West Germany many years ago and was struck by this thought “One kind of extremism has the same kind of appeal as another”. I have never changed my mind.

The point is that the Greens are taking action against these idiots.

http://www.bristolgreenparty.org.uk/nr/081126suspension.

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2008-11-21-jean.html

If they weren’t then there would really be something worth shouting about. A lot of people on the BNP list have turned out not to have ever been members (including an 80 year old Jewish near neighbour of mine)

Here’s the statement from Stone, which underlines the unreliability of this list:

“Election candidate says his name on BNP list was ‘joke’

“A former council election candidate for the Green Party has denied supporting the BNP despite his name appearing on the leaked membership list. Nicholas Stone, who stood for the Green Party in Telegraph Hill ward in Lewisham in the 2006 council elections, said he had suspicions about how his name got on to the list.

“He said: “There were plenty of BNP sympathisers where I once worked and they could have put me on the mailing list as a joke. I am not a member of the BNP nor am I a sympathiser of their policies. I still support the Green Party and although my membership has lapsed I may well rejoin the party in the future.”"

So Brett, you can rest easy - you didn’t vote for a Nazi.

ps Joe: what does progressive mean to me is quite a big question to be honest. I’m not sure I have a pithy response to it… my quick and clumsy reply would be that I think the Greens are positioned to the left of Labour but that as a pluralist party with a number of competing versions of what it is to be “a Green” that set of politics is not always/often framed within the orthodox confines of left or socialist ideology - so I used a looser term.

I hope that helps clarify what I was driving at in this context and I understand why the term progressive can be a difficult one to unpick as everyone wants to lay claim to it these days.

I think the various Green Partys harbour a lot of extremists. I,ve taken a good gander at Canada’s Green Party and it’s platform comes across more as a theological statement than as a political programme.

Their enviromental positions, especially, are all apocalyptic in tone and remind one of those end-of-days evangelicals scouring the horizon for the arrival of the rapture.

So is it any surprise that some should end up in the ranks of the BNP?

I must admit as a longstanding Green Party member I was rather alarmed when Boogski (below) highlighted the following from the party’s ten key values. Which idiots in the Green Party wrote that nonsense, I thought. But then I checked the party’s actual 10 core core values on the website http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/values.html

And the words that Boogski “quoted” were nowhere to be found! I wonder where he got them from?

“The Green party “10 key values” could do with a Fisking. Right out of the gate we get this nonsense:

Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect his or her life and should not be subject to the will of another.

Got that, folks? No laws. No nothing. Words fail me.”

We are an internationally-orientated bunch here;

http://www.greens.org/iowa/positions.htm

I quite like that Iowa Greens stuff, bit wishy washy but better than the neocon shite you here on this blog.

From this side of the pond, the reaction to the “BNP list” has been rather focused on two points:

1) Who is to validate the accuracy of the “list?” Lots of people are getting pilloried for being on it, but how is there any confirmation of the veracity of the list in question?

2) Have the British polity studied Senator McCarthy and his famous lists used to get “bad people?” Turns out most of them were completely contrived, and the political climate he created for years was one of the most toxic in US history. Why are the British now emulating that environment?

Sunny,

surely the point is, that you’d expect a bit more from Greens?

Expect what? Them to run extensive background checks on everyone who joins the party? I’d love for you to advocate that Brett, and stand by the courage of your convictions, you know?

And when you say its not surprising there were Tories in there, I’m afraid it doens’t come across like that. There’s already a bunch of nutjob libertarians here who spend all their time wanking off to comparing Greens to Hitler. It seems you’re just trying to keep asserting that link. It rather sounds something out of the Samizdata blog.

And secondly, how about actually attacking the Tories once in a while? Are are you going to do that only once the progressive left in Britain has been completely decimated over in-fighting and finger-pointing? I mean…. I must be living in a parallel universe where the left is full of great ideas, lots of energy and doing positive activism. Its not like the Tories are re-surgent with 20 point leads. Who ever thinks these guys are going to come into power eh?

I quite like that Iowa Greens stuff, bit wishy washy but better than the neocon shite you here on this blog.

Hear? Read maybe? If we You hear a lot on this blog - not least generic whinging from middle-class Tories pretending to be “Leninists” like yourself.