And lo, Derek Wall did turn the Green Leadership elections brown
Contrast Lucas’ mature campaign launch with the behaviour of Derek Wall. Derek, currently the party’s other Principal “Speaker” possibly fancies himself as a rival for the post. And so, he ponders into the debate. With invective, and little else.
A discontented Green Left activist forwarded the following from their e-mail list:
Caroline can spend £2,700 and employ an army of phone canvassers to win and will get a Guardian editorial, no doubt singing her praises... the new elction rules are very very damaging for internal democracy in our party. Likewise while Caroline is a superb Principal Speaker, my opinion is that she will be a very poor leader, if this latest episode is anything to go on.. I fear that we face a very difficult couple of years
Excuse me, Derek? There are some very bold claims there, with little to support them. Where’s Caroline going to get £2700 for an army of phone-canvassers, or indeed that army? And, indeed, where’s the evidence she wants them? He provides no grounds for his invective, and no evidence.
And likewise the other accusations. Caroline might get a Guardian editorial; so what? There’s no use implying something nefarious without actually supporting it. And, again, he doesn’t actually point out how the new rules damage the party, or how Caroline would be a poor leader - or how the next years might be difficult. Does he want to be ignored?
Presumably not, as he develops his whinge on Socialist Unity:
I am not posting this to say how wonderful my own political party is, in fact I am quite anxious about how the new leader/deputy leader structure will play out…my fear is it will take us down the European Green Party route of ‘nu green’.
Again, note the general lack of evidence anywhere. It’s frustrating; how can you have an argument with someone, when they provide no substance to argue with? Perhaps he’s trying to raise concerns about how having a leader will affect party democracy.
Fine. I’ll have that argument anyway, and put across my own view. Wall feels that a leader will be bad for party democracy; he led (hah…) the campaign against leadership so flattened in last year’s referendum. In evidence of this, he cites the centrism and centralism of European Green Parties entering coalitions with convervatives, against the howls of activists. He never cites reasons why we’d follow suit if we had a leader.
Or, indeed, that it’s leaders who are the problem. The Germans have co-leaders who function in much the same fashion as the current co-speakers over here - and they’re in coalition with the CDU. On the other hand, the countries where the Greens have allied with right-wing parties are function on PR, to an extent; and the parties were rarely as radical as the English and Welsh Greens as it was. They aren’t automatically comparable with the situation here. There’s no positive evidence to suggest Wall’s fears are justified.
And plenty to suggest they aren’t. Namely, the rules themselves - which don’t set the leader up as some great Uber-fuhrer of the party. They’re heavily accountable, can’t hammer their decisions on local parties, and exist as much to provide a coherent national narrative as to lead.
And, more relevant to the present, there’s no evidence to suggest Caroline would draw all power to herself. JimJay made an excellent point in his post on her launch:
I particularly liked the get involved section of the campaign site, with its focus on signing local members up as national members, and ensuring that supporters are paid up members by July 24th so they can play a full part in this important political decision making process.
For internal democracy to be meaningful it has to be both inclusive and vibrant in a very concrete way - I’ve no doubt some will be sniffy about the idea of any campaigning at all but without reaching out and spreading the discussion executive posts would inevitably go to those best placed to gain profile in the party, or factions within it, rather than allowing the members as whole to make genuinely informed decisions.
A healthy and active internal democracy is also something that attracts those who have not yet joined the party rather than repels them. Personally I don’t give any credit to the idea that internal democracy is something that should held in secret - because this inevitably ends up shielding the members themselves from discussion and does nothing to increase transparency and accountability of the executive to the members and of the party to the public.
The leadership debate fostered a lot of activity within the party, and showed just how healthy internal democracy was. Lucas’s campaign looks as though it’ll build on that - encouraging people to get involved in the party, and make democracy actually function as it should. Far from killing internal democracy, this could give it a great boost.
So, that’s your debate. The cynic in me isn’t convinced Dezpot (as he shall now be known) wants it. He stands little chance in any one-on-one election, and might well lose his position under this system. That’d explain the poor quality arguments on his part, and yet the desperate urge to make them. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he’s genuinely paranoid, instead.
Interesting series of posts…I’ve just discovered the blog.
I hope that Caroline is opposed, not because I don’t think she’d be excellent, but because I think there should be a debate. If she isn’t, I hope she takes the opportunity to use her campaign to get Green Party members thinking and talking about where we want to go, what our strategy is for getting there, and how they can be involved.
For the record, I voted ‘no’ in the referendum, but not because I am against a leader - I was against the extension of term periods to two years. But now that debate has gone, I think we need to look, as you say, at how a leadership model can empower and strengthen our internal democracy - which is indeed entirely possible, if done correctly.
Matt
I certainly agree that someone needs to run against Caroline. Internal democracy could hardly be described as functioning if it was inactive. Actually, the same probably goes for all the posts on the Executive - they matter just as much, and it’d be a shame if practical democracy extended only as far as was most visible.
And I can understand objections over term-length more than I can to leaders per se - but I’m not sure my worries about that extended past the potential value of a leader. But, I agree entirely that what we need to look at now is how the model can work best for internal democracy and the party.
And, nice to see a new reader!
While I appreciate your annoyance at Derek for his approach and his arguing style, is it really very seemly to spill this into a public, highly personal attack against him? I think that perhaps you need to see the plank in your own eye before pointing out the mote in Derek’s.
As for the substance of his argument - I think that there is a centralising tendency developing in the party, and Caroline is one of those keen on making us a better electoral machine, potentially to the detriment of the autonomy of local parties. This is a real concern, and not to be idly dismissed.
Other European parties have indeed become less radical and have been co-opted, so surely it is wise to be on our guard against following the same route? Why would we be immune?
What’s unseemly about public debate? I’d say it’s essential for a healthy party democracy. Not every party member subscribes to the internal e-mail lists. We need these arguments to take place in public, if members aren’t to be excluded from them.
As for the centralisation point - I don’t see why performing better electorally necessarily comes at the expense of local autonomy. Policy, party figures and activism all still comes from the grassroots, and there’s no attempt to change that. The national party still exists more as a means to provide a national narrative (and so attract more people to the party), and to co-ordinate between local parties. I agree that we need to be on our guard - but surely, you’d agree that we need to improve our electoral performance too? It’s all very well having independent local parties, but if they can’t get elected, there’s only so much they can do.
Regarding other European parties, I don’t think it’s a matter of straight comparison. The German Greens, for example, have effectively acted as the arbitrators of national government since 1998. I suspect it’s a situation far more conducive to unwise compromises than over here. I agree that we need to be on our guard - but just that, cautious, rather than outright hostile to potentially positive change.
£2.7k would pay for a leaflet to every member, by post, but would certainly not pay an “army” of anything. It could pay for two months of someone’s time.
There are over seven thousand members to engage, for which a couple of thousand pounds is peanuts.
Democracy requires engagement with all members, not just GP activists, and if they are at home, the party has to reach them at home, by foot, mail or telephone, rather than waiting for them to turn up at committee meetings.
Let me make it clear to those whingeing about a “centralising tendency” within the Party: either we start appealing to the public and show some leadership on the important issues of our time, namely climate change, social justice, and economic fairness, or we appeal to the lunatic fringes of our own membership and spend the next 30 years gazing into our navel.
There is a consensus amongst the British public that action should be taken on climate change and other environmental issues, and that the current crop of politicians are failing the public not only on green issues but all others. So, either we step into the breach, become a mainstream party as the European Green Parties have, and yes, risk a little of our radicalism on the way, or we do nothing of substance. Appealing to the millions of people in Britain, or appeasing the hundreds of loons in GreenLeft and the former Empowerment campaign: I know which one I consider to be more democratic.
And the cheek of Derek to be continuing to moan and bitch about the leadership election: if he was a shoo-in to win, and if the hypocrisy of his possibly standing given his anti-leadership smears last summer was not stemming the tide of his increasing irrelevance to the majority of the Green membership (and the public), then I doubt he would be mouthing off in such a pathetic and childish manner. Also, Derek really cannot write a coherent sentence. This man has been trying to dominate the Greens ever since the moderate wing of the Party gave us our finest hour in 1989. It’s about time he shut up and stood down gracefully.
“It’s all very well having independent local parties, but if they can’t get elected, there’s only so much they can do.”
You’re being generous here, Doug - if we can’t get a few hundred members of the public to side with us and our principles enough to elect us as their Councillors, independent local parties can’t do anything. We are a democratic party - we believe in encouraging others to think about certain issues and then help to IMPLEMENT alternatives. We derive a mandate for change from the public, and the most democratic way of doing politics is to be elected. Some Trotskyite entryists in the Party actively disbelieve in democracy, and instead believe we should follow the route of being an irrelevant “vanguard”, which has “correct thinking” but aggressively asserts its right to appeal to no one beyond a small sect of elite “activists”.
Other non-Trot Greens are simply scared that appealing to the common sense of the public will force us to shave our beards off and wear suits. Wake up: do we want to be different, or do we want to make a difference?
Great blog, Doug.
Thanks, Anon (Anons? Different IPs, but that could mean either one or two people)! I very much agree - although I’m not even sure whether we really risk our radicalism by moving to be more successful electorally. I mean, Adrian Ramsay leads the most electorally successful council group we’ve ever had - and they’re still in a position most Greens would be happy with.
Public debate is unseemly when comments on a private email list are deliberately leaked in order to damage someone’s reputation, and when it becomes a personal vendetta against one of our elected officers. I find the bitterness and hostility towards other members in the party in this thread quite sad.
People are not ‘whingeing’ about centralisation, we are raising genuine concerns. You might disagree, but please show a little respect in the way you argue; I’m not surprised that you hide behind anonymity.
As for Derek’s abilities… I agree with much of his ecosocialist politics, but I also agree that he has not been an effective leader or spokesman. But I don’t feel the need to pile on bile and kick a man when he’s down. There’s a mob mentality about the attacks on him that I really don’t like.
Can everyone please try to be civil, and discuss issues of our party future, leadership, and democracy without name calling?
p.s. I used to be a ‘Trot fellow traveller’, and guess what - when I went up to Haltemprice to campaign earlier in the month, I shaved off my beard.
You don’t think it’s important that party members know quite what bile their elected officers are spewing about each other? To say what he’s been saying behind other elected officials’ backs strikes me as really very cowardly. I’m not doing it to damage Derek’s reputation - he can do that well enough himself - but because I think the party really needs to know what he tells his supporters about them.
If you want the debate to be more civil, fair enough. I’ll try my best to be not quite so invective in future. I take it you’ve expressed the same views to Derek, though, as his comments are fairly intemperate…
Exactly. For months, members of the Green Left, including Derek Wall, spread slander and smears about Sian Berry on their e-mail list. Derek has only himself to blame for the situation he finds himself in. An honourable man would have stepped down as Principal Speaker when the membership indicated they wanted Leadership positions instead. And now we all know he wants to run for Leader but knows the writing is on the wall (ha ha) and so has resorted to scurrilous nonsense about the true leaders and figureheads in the Party. He hasn’t even lost yet - not that I think he will have the courage to run - and he is already a sore, bitter loser.
I for one am glad Doug has posted these comments here. I read what he wrote on Socialist Unity and felt embarrassed that I was in the same party as him, but suggesting Caroline would be “a very poor leader” and slinging mud at her by claiming she has a paltry few thousand to reach a membership of 7,000 plus (evidence, Trots?) is unacceptable.
As with all autocratic fuckwits, Derek probably senses his time at the top of the very small Green Party tree is coming to an end, and is hitting out at anything (Caroline, leadership, electoral politics, Europeans) in sheer desperation. I will gladly refrain from “kicking” him when he is “down”, but to let his bullshit go uncalled would be unfair.
I’ve noted that this is now described as a private email list, rather than the open democratic one, I read on another site.
I’m wondering what kind of level people have to be operating on to think like this, and to imply that some leaks are bad and some leaks are good…
Gordon, I was calling the Green Left email list a private one. I might be wrong in this as I haven’t joined it and I’m not a member of Green Left, so I cannot speak for them. I don’t expect to see the contents of that list without joining - unless the poster gives their permission, of course.
I hope I don’t have double standards:
I asked Derek to take down his blog post of the Making Leadership Work minutes;
I think whoever spoke to Pandora made a grave error and needs to apologise to the party for doing so;
I think that James Caspell should not have posted the Gaunt’s House minutes to the web.
I believe that whoever leaked these minutes *internally* did the right thing, as the contents portray a pattern of thought and behaviour among some of our leadership that needs to change, but they should not have been leaked externally.
Anon, please go lie down in a darkened room and come out when the elections are over. You say:
“An honourable man would have stepped down as Principal Speaker when the membership indicated they wanted Leadership positions instead”.
What utter rot! Derek was elected to serve a second year as Principal Speaker; the impending elections did nothing to change that.