TL;DR: green development gets blocked.
Yeah but the best source you have for that is FT? Really?
There is no reason to doubt the veracity of this story.
green development gets blocked
The Greens control 12 councils and the only example the article brings up of the Greens blocking development is the pylon thing is Suffolk. While wrong, I don’t think it’s enough to say it’s a systemic issue with the party.
There are lots of other examples of them blocking or voting against development, including green development, but often as they’re in opposition it’s not enough to block it entirely (or they team up with whoever the local blockers are and so only contribute to, rather than cause, the problem).
Their default position on everything is ‘This is good, but not perfect, so we’re going to vote against it’, which then leads to nothing happening or just to bizarre contradictions. It’s not just housing and pylons, either: look at their position on HS2 and it’s the same thing: ‘More public transport! But not that.’ Or even on the oil and gas crisis it’s the same thing, with them now arguing that the government should subsidise scarce fossil fuel resources (which is baffling on its own), but not do anything to increase our own production (which is a contradiction). Again, it’s ‘Do this, but not like that’ and the default to stasis.
Totally agree, and i think thst second paragraph puts it perfectly.
If I’m being generous, I know them to have blocked:
- solar power generation
- Nuclear power generation
- HS2, They’ve blocked it hard
- Pylons in suffolk which I just learned about
So at the most generous way of looking at it, that’s only 4 things, but 2 of those - HS2 and Nuclear power - are incredibly important and could completely elevate the environmental performance of our nation.
Solar power? Sure I could argue that the land is better uaed for wildlife and farming, and I usually would do so - but they usually wouldn’t. Absolutely no enforcement of a party policy, which means any nation-wide leadershio will lack directikn and see the ciuntry stagnate or flounder under the weight of 100s of harebrained schemes which act against one another; for every city building a new green energy plant, another city will be tearing one down to build - well, their priorities don’t seem to be the environmetpnt at all right now, so i guess it would be refugee housing or something, which could go anywhere else.
I’m also worried that if the Green party were to take control, anywhere, and didn’t set out to cut any public projects, they would simply de-rail them by running out of budget on other stuff. The list of useless things they want to spend taxpayer money on seems to be endless - yet I don’t see things which will actually improve the wealth of the country, which is what we need right now to fund sweeping changes to the environment, production and public transport.
Famously they’ve been very successful where come from - Sheffield - but have absolutely nothing to put to their name following a long-reigning green party mayor of the city … other than some postulating and participstion in reality shows.
(Actually i would credit the green party’s success here with the delay to Sheffield getting an improved metro system, which is now only going ahead under a labour-led Combined authority for the entire county.)
Also their current leader is the worst one they’ve ever had. Yes he stands up to israel, but he’s cruel and nasty like a cult leader.
Famously they’ve been very successful where come from - Sheffield - but have absolutely nothing to put to their name following a long-reigning green party mayor of the city … other than some postulating and participstion in reality shows.
(Actually i would credit the green party’s success here with the delay to Sheffield getting an improved metro system, which is now only going ahead under a labour-led Combined authority for the entire county.)
He held a, what Wikipedia calls, ceremonial post for one year? The Greens also only had 8 councillors and Labour a majority, so this criticism feels very misplaced.
Yeah, the Polanski geezer is a conman and I’m amazed people can’t see it a mile off. I’ve seen deeper puddles.
The other thing I worry about is if they displace the Labour party as the main centre left force in the country, that would be regressive, in that the organised working class would no longer have any political power at all and the centre left would be represented by the petit bourgeoisie, essentially (which is who makes up most political parties, Labour included), without a workers’ voice. Polanski’s been talking to trade unions, sure - but so did David Cameron. It’s not the same as having a labour party.
The other thing I worry about is if they displace the Labour party as the main centre left force in the country, that would be regressive, in that the organised working class would no longer have any political power at all and the centre left would be represented by the petit bourgeoisie, essentially without a workers’ voice.
Absolutely. Actually I think this is the same old problem - like it or not, the working class is mostly opposed to mass migration, so they’ll be voting restore and reform. Precisely the same thing that kept Tories in power for 15 years from 2010-2025.
I don’t blame the greens and labour for not thinking in 4D chess terms but here we are, back where we started.
Labour’s traditional union backing seems to have split funding between labour and greens now, which is a mistake on their part because The Green Party seems to have nobody with economic literacy in it.
I read somewhere that even the much-mythologised white working class voted Green in the recent Manchester by-election, so the whole culturally conservative thing seems to be much overblown.
Sure, the Green party has a historic current of conservationists small-c conservatives who are only Greens because they want to keep landscapes pretty. Doesn’t help that the only council the Greens have a majority in (Mid Suffolk) is held by that faction, but that will almost certainly change in May. Every party has cranks, but they do stand out a lot more and have a lot more influence in the Greens due to how small the party has historically been. Just look at the ‘natural births’ thing the Greens only dropped in the run up to the 2024 General Election.
Hopefully the Greens with all the momentum behind them now can leave most of that stuff behind, Polanski himself has come out in support of pylons and the people in my local Green party are from this new wave and are pretty sensible, so I have hope.
arguing that the government should subsidise scarce fossil fuel resources
No, they argue that the government should provide support to cap people’s energy bills. This unfortunately means paying for fossil fuels, but that’s just the nature of our current energy grid. Reeves has announced intentions to provide support for energy bills as well, they’re just less broad than the Greens proposal and will mean people over whatever threshold the Treasury decides don’t get the support they likely need. Do you think it’d be fair to brand the Labour government as subsidising fossil fuels when these measures are actually announced?
A caveat: The Greens proposal only really makes sense when done along with the Greens proposed broad tax rises.
but not do anything to increase our own production
Unless you’re arguing for fracking, North Sea drilling won’t bring in enough gas to meet our needs or even affect the price very much. We’ll still need to buy most of it from Norway and arguing over domestic production is frankly a distraction.
No, they argue that the government should provide support to cap people’s energy bills. This unfortunately means paying for fossil fuels, but that’s just
In practical terms, this is the same thing! I agree with you that Reeves’ proposal is equally as foolish. The government should leave it alone and spend the money on direct financial support for the poorest people.
True, direct financial support is basically always better than these convoluted financing schemes. Too bad the media will eat you alive if you try to do it.
I don’t know, just writing cheques would be popular, I think!
The article is entirely speculative about what the Greens think. It draws ambitious conclusions from local towns where they have been elected. My understanding is that if elected to governments, they will have the strength and the power to do what is intended. The FT article entirely fails to capture the balance that the Green Party tried to achieve between development and sustainability.
The german Greens dropped all their ideals (environmentalism, pacifism, social equality, etc) and transformed into a liberal-centrist party, the moment they came into power for the first time (achieved by forming a coalition with the firmly anti environment conservative party). Lets Hope UK Greens are different…
If it’s drawing conclusions from actual examples where they’ve been elected, it’s by definition not entirely speculative.
The FT article entirely fails to capture the balance that the Green Party tried to achieve between development and sustainability.
This is what everyone* wants to do. The point is that the Greens have a tendency to oppose development, including sustainable development. So, far from balancing the two, they end up achieving neither.
*Well, perhaps not Reform or the current Tories, but Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Plaid would all say this is what they want.
A lot of handwaving going on here, and motivated reasoning too. I’m voting Green in May but that doesn’t mean I have to believe they are perfect. They do and have done a lot of dumb things. I voted Labour in 2024 and I criticised them at the time and still do now. Not sure why people need to support parties like football teams.
One thing I have to give Labour credit for (Ed Milliband in particular) is their Net Zero policies. They really are doing the hard work of decarbonising our country.
One thing I have to give Labour credit for (Ed Milliband in particular) is their Net Zero policies. They really are doing the hard work of decarbonising our country.
Miliband is the only thing keeping me sane. Well, him and the renters’ and workers’ rights bills.
Conservatives (and the FT are very muchsmall-c conservatives) are starting to panic because the Greens are in with a chance. Expect much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in the next few weeks.
I agree that the Greens are not only in with a chance but near-certain to make huge gains in the local elections. But given their propensity for blocking necessary changes, I imagine they’ll garner a lot of small-c conservative support themselves!
The problem with all protest parties is it’s easy to oppose things but governing is about making hard choices. UKIP made progress in the polls until they got the Brexit they were after but haven’t exactly been able to point to the benefits since. We are seeing Reform suffer the same when they realise there aren’t piles of “woke” projects to DOGE away to fund local councils.
I’m sympathetic to the core Green mission but opposing the expansion of the grid we need to supply renewables is peek contraianism.
“Protest parties” is dismissive from the start. Then you talk about UKIP, as though the Greens are equivalent. Here’s one difference: UKIP and Reform are both one-man-shows, with no policies with any specificity. You can go online and see the Greens’ policies, and their governance structure is far more member-driven than any other party but Corbyn’s rump YourParty (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days). They’re not perfect, but the alternatives are worse.
I’m sympathetic to the core Green mission but opposing the expansion of the grid we need to supply renewables is peek contraianism.
Policies that enourage greater energy efficiency, if successfully implemented, will mean that there’s less need to expand the grid further, though additional resiliency works would still be worth doing.
I guess it depends on how many of the newly minted green voters have moved across because they have carefully read their policy offering and how many just wanted to vote not-Labour because they were unhappy (i.e. protesting) with the government. Things will become clearer next month and finally at the next general election.
Energy efficiency is great but we still need to get the power from our new shiny off-shore wind farms to where the population centres are. The original grid was very much designed to radiate power from the big generators which are more central (modulo the nuclear generators which tend to be coastal).
Populists gonna popul.
Is there a way to read this article? Could it be copied and pasted here please?
Thank you so much for this. I hadn’t realised that this was possible.
