I won’t talk about the training sessions I went to, but there were some interesting fringes about things like cuts, road safety (by the 20′s Plenty campaign), and the suggestions in the book Prosperity without Growth – which outlines a roadmap to a happier society without the need for continual economic growth (and all the pointless consumerism that it entails).

There was also a very good panel session on the issue of political plurality, featuring Neal Lawson (head of left-wing Labour pressure group Compass, which recently voted to allow people who belong to parties other than labour full membership), and Richard Grayson (a dissident Lib Dem, who raised concerns about the Orange Book faction that is currently leading his party a couple of years before the coalition agreement). What came out of this is that there is quite a lot of potential for those on the political left to work together.

Policy Changes

One of the big things about conference is voting through changes to our party’s policy and structures. The big thing this time was the complete revision of our long-time science and technology policy. Members should give a big thank you to Caroline Allen for her hard work and perseverance on getting this through.

For those of you who aren’t members, or don’t go to conference, I’ll explain the process for you. Once a policy motion gets to conference, it gets fairly thoroughly dissected in a workshop which any member can vote on. Because this is a revision of an entire section of our policy, it basically got three workshops to itself. In the workshop, any contentious issues are worked out, and a straw poll is taken on each motion and amendment to give conference a feel for how those with particular interest and/or expertise feel about the motion. When the motion comes to the conference floor for the main debate, somebody from the workshop (in this particular case it was me) reports on the discussion – noting the main points of contention (if any) for each motion/amendment, and the straw poll vote, before further debate, leading to a vote on whether to accept or reject each motion/amendment (or, in some cases, to refer them back to be redrafted.

The general changes are that we’ve cut a lot of waffle, cut a lot of existing stuff about setting up various commissions to monitor science, and removed a whole lot of policies that gave the impression that we are anti-science. Specific changes include:

• An increase in public sector science funding to at least 1% of GDP (the current level is 0.5%, the US and other EU countries spend 0.8%
• Ensure that funding looks at the long-term as well as the short term (there are currently many projects that get funding to set up, but not to keep running)
• Limit the role of politicians in deciding what gets funded to the strategic level (e.g. funding more climate science and less military projects)
• Reforming libel laws to ensure scientists can publish without threat of legal action
• Making sure that all research funded by government and/or performed by universities is published or at least can be found out by the public
• Opposing patent rights on genes and living organisms
• Clarifying our stance on genetic modification – we are in favour of research in this area (except when it raises animal welfare issues), but not of releasing GMOs into the environment until there is much more evidence about the impact of such activity. (see my previous post on Genetic Modification for more on this one)

We passed policy statements opposing cuts to public services, insisting that Parliament, rather than the Prime Minister, should be responsible for declarations of war, opposing the current HS2 High Speed Rail scheme, and highlighting the need for welfare reform that benefits the poorest.

Other motions included support for student actions against the cuts, a call for a windfall tax on bank profits, support for Norfolk County Council’s initiative to set up its own Energy Services Company (a local Green Party idea that will reduce carbon emissions and generate income for the council – thus reducing the impact of the cuts), support for the Save our Buses campaign, an expression of concern over plans to drill for shale oil in the UK, opposing to cuts in legal aid, and supporting the little-reported protests for democracy in Gabon.

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The first one covered several amendments to the party policy. We threw out a proposed policy update on monetary reform, adopted a proposal on prisoners rights (saying that prisoners should have the vote – which is something that should be happening under European law, and proposing changes that would make prison work better for women). We referred a motion on high speed rail back to the proposers, basically because of the way it was worded. We approved a motion in support of co-operative home ownership, and we finished with an update to our equality and diversity policy. This was very contentious, and our policy now unfortunately includes a commitment that opt-outs from equality and discrimination laws by religious organisations will not be allowed. This has the somewhat ludicrous implication that religious groups will not be able to discriminate on the grounds of religion – so, for example, a mosque would not be able to require their imam to be a Muslim.

We then moved on to emergency motions, backing a campaign to keep Royal Mail public, dealing with the issue of feed-in tarrifs which discriminate against renewables, and condemning a repeated TV broadcast in Greece which was, basically, advocating rape. We threw out a motion about meat-free Mondays on procedural grounds (the wording meant that it was not valid as an emergency motion), and passed a motion condemning Metgate.

There was nothing that jumped out and said “go to me” out of the next bunch of sessions, so I had some lunch, and ended up chatting to some of the Young Greens. I followed lunch with a session on the economy of economics, where the speaker was outlining his views on how economics developed, and why current economics is at odds with preserving the environment. In the end, he concluded that the fundamental problem was the concept of ownership, and that we needed to stop thinking conceptually and start thinking instinctively instead. I was less than convinced, but may try to think through his ideas (possibly in a future blog post).

Following this, we had a plenary session on organisational and other motions. There were a couple of fairly trivial organisational motions. We then voted that, although we want to see proportional representation, we will back the yes to AV campaign if the coming referendum is a straight choice between First Past the Post and AV. We referred a motion to create a Green Party Shadow Cabinet back to the proposers, to enable further consultation about what would be a radical change to the way we do things, and then ran out of time.

Following this, I went to two consecutive meetings about election strategy. One was three councillors sharing their stories of how they got elected, and answering questions. The other was the second half of feeding back what worked and didn’t from Brighton Pavilion. As a result, I now have a complete collection of Caroline Lucas’s campaign leaflets (or, rather, of the ones where they had any left over).

We then went in to the third plenary of the day, dealing with policy again. We passed a motion that asked the policy committee to look again at our agriculture policy, which is rather out of date, passed a couple of amendments to our education policy, whilst throwing out a couple of other parts of that proposal, passed a motion protecting private tenants, and another to impose a container charge on imported containers that go by road (except to destinations close to the port) rather than by rail, as a mechanism to encourage our policy of moving goods by rail or canal rather than by road. It was pointed out that, at the moment, the taxation on such containers vastly favours those going by road.

After this, I went to a session on the opportunities and problems that come with a growing party membership. And then went to a discussion about how the party can better engage with faith groups, which I really enjoyed. It’s certainly something we need to improve as a party, and this session came up with a few ideas. It also gave me the chance to meet a few other Christians (albeit all of very different theological persuasions to myself) within the party. Anyway, hello to anybody who’s reading this because I mentioned my blog in that session.

I ended the day having a great chat over a drink with somebody else from the regional party who was at the final session, before heading home. Anyway, it was a more relaxed day, despite also being more eventful, and I’m still really enjoying conference. I also have a lot of stuff I need to process and apply to my local party as a result of the conference, and I’ve still got the final day to go.

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After this, we had a fantastic speech from the party’s Deputy Leader Adrian Ramsey (whose local party picked up yet another council seat the night before conference began). This was followed by a hustings for the membership of the Green Party’s Executive Committee, although I sneaked out halfway through so I had enough time to eat some lunch. After lunch, I went to a session on learning the lessons from Brighton Pavilion’s successful General Election campaign, which was extremely useful, and there was a lot of stuff that I’ll be looking to implement for our local party’s next local elections.

I followed this, by going to a debate about our party’s stance on the Alternative Vote referendum. The party position is that we want a fairer, and more proportional voting system, which AV isn’t. We have two camps within the party on this question. One is saying that, if Caroline Lucas’s amendment to the bill ensure that genuine Proportional Representation is on the table fails, we should back AV as being at least a marginal improvement on First Past the Post. The other camp is saying that AV is as bad, and that we should take no stance. There will be a proper vote at a plenary session on this issue later in the conference.

After that, I went to the launch of Derek Wall‘s new book The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics, where it was endorsed by two very different figures from Latin American politics. I look forward to reading it, when conference is over. This was followed by another plenary. This time we were voting on changes to our long-term party policy. In 50 minutes, we got through two motions – one on making banking more sustainable, and the other restating our long-term commitment to reforming the economy to be a steady state economy, rather than one that depends on economic growth.

I finished the day with a double-length session on building a more diverse and inclusive Green Party. I didn’t get as much out of this as I hoped, partly because I was tired at the end of a long day (it was 6 by that point), partly because I was expecting a rather different session to what I got, and possibly partly because I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for many of the workshop exercises.

Anyway, apart from having problems engaging with the final session, I had a very enjoyable second day, and feel like I now know how it all works.

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Caroline Lucas was really good, highlighting some of our successes, some of our ideas, and making the case why disaffected voters from each of the big three parties might want to consider us. She was followed by the leader of the Welsh party, who basically made a case for why cuts would hit Wales (and other similar regions) hard, and why the Greens are the best placed to oppose them. He also did a bit in Welsh.

After that, we had a Plenary session, which is basically where we discuss motions brought to conference and vote for them. This one was a fairly trivial one about accepting a report, and finished early – which appears to have been quite an achievement. It was followed by hustings for the position of Party Leader (the options being Caroline Lucas and Re-Open Nominations) and Deputy Leader (Adrian Ramsey, Derek Wall, and Re-Open Nominations). I went in to the hustings leaning towards voting for Adrian, but came out absolutely on the fence about who would be best.

The rest of the day I went to fringe events (a term which covers a very wide range of things). So I went to one by the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which touched on a whole range of issues about international relations and the monetary and economic system, rather than just third world debt (which is still as much of an issue as it was back in the 90s when we made it big news). I also went to an introduction to conference session, to ensure I understood everything that was going on. Plus an event organised by the Young Greens about the effect of the cuts on younger people. Like the debt meeting, this one covered a wide range of issues – about the effect cuts will have on public services for various vulnerable groups, and about the way the system has given younger people today a much rougher deal than their parents and grandparents had.

We finished the day with the announcement of the leader and deputy leader ballots, and to nobody’s surprise, Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsey were re-elected to the posts.

So, overall, it was a rather enjoyable first day. I now understand how it works, and am looking forward to the rest of it. The one thing that struck me, though, was that there aren’t any real timetabled breaks. There’s 10 minutes between sessions, with no mealtime breaks in the timetable. If you want to eat, you either have to do so quickly, or you have to miss something.

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Nationally, the big three parties all lost. Labour lost a lot of seats, the Lib Dem surge lost them seats, and the Tories frittered away what had been a massive poll lead, and didn’t get enough seats for a majority. The only parties who won in terms of the voting were us Greens, getting our first MP, the Northern Ireland Alliance Party, who also got their first MP, and Plaid Cymru, who picked up a seat.

In the local elections, Labour were the big winners.The big three parties all benefited from the locals being held alongside the general, and Labour was the party which, as a result, gained seats. In fact, in some wards in London, this led to paper candidates tripling their vote, and shooting past parties who campaigned hard to double theirs.

For some good analysis of the national picture, take a look at Jim Jepps’ blog

Anyway, we now have a Lib-Con coalition. On the upside there are some signs that the deal has reigned in some of the Tories’ pro-rich policies, and we’ve got nice-looking things like the new Freedom Bill, which will revoke most, if not all, of Labour’s attacks on civil liberties. On the downside, are the savage cuts they’ll be making to public services. If you’re a Lib Dem member or voter who is unhappy about this new alliance, The Greens will happily offer you a new political home.

One more piece of post-election analysis that’s worth pointing to is from The Jubilee Centre, who reminds Christians why we’ve no need to panic about how bad the new government might turn out,
and that we still have a duty to pray for the the new government.

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Firstly, there’s the Vote for Policies site, which allows you to find out which party reflects your views on a range of policy issues. The Green Party is the most popular party on this measure (at 26.47% as I write this), so it’s a shame that the actual election result is very unlikely to reflect that.

Then there’s the Green Party’s make your own election video, based on our party election broadcast:

If you’re a Christian wondering whether or not you should bother with the election, then here’s 10 reasons for Christians to vote and a whole host of resources aimed at Catholics explaining why bother to vote.

There are a whole host of websites offering summaries and analysis of the different parties’ policies on various issues. However, I really don’t have the time to try to compile a useful list of them, so you’ll just have to go hunting.

And, finally, something amusing I stumbled across this morning is that, according to this article, the Tories apparently think that promising to give us “the power to plant trees” gives them some kind of credibility on environmental issues.

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In fact, even the Tories’ core activists appear to be having doubts. There are quite a few Tory activists who want to see Nigel Farage take Tom Bercow’s seat in Buckingham (see, for example, the comments here). Apparently they think that he’s “too new Labour” which, given that new Labour is virtually indistinguishable from the Tories in policy terms, doesn’t bode well for David Cameron’s future.

Labour are, likewise, in disarray – knowing that they are on course to lose the next General Election, and fighting each other, rather than fighting to change their collective fortune.

This means that smaller parties like the Greens, have a massive opportunity for breakthrough. Green membership is growing, our share of the vote went up by more than anybody else’s in the European Elections – and did so across the country, and we managed to quadruple our share of the vote in the Norwich North By-Election. In fact, we are more popular amongst those thinking of switching their vote than the Tories.

The best example of how much difference having highly motivated activists on the ground makes is Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign. The most important factor in his win over John McCain was the massive emphasis he placed on having activists on the ground. Every other aspect of his campaign was built around his ground game.

If we can get those who voted for us to become members and activists, , if we can equip them to be effective campaigners in towns and cities across the country, and if we can direct their efforts to the wards and constituencies where they will have the greatest effect, then we have a good chance of becoming and remaining a major player in British politics and getting much of our policy agenda enacted.

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Of the six national parties with enough support to obtain Euro MPs, there are two that I consider to be particularly in conflict with Christian values. The first is the BNP – who are both racist and fascist. Their whole ethos is direct conflict with the core of the gospel. The second is UKIP. Whilst their central policy is an issue which is morally neutral, the party seems to be dominated by those with a “little Englander” mentality.

Of the remaining four parties, the Green Party’s values seem to me to match Biblical values a bit more than the other parties. They also match my political instincts, which may well colour my judgement.

So what are the values which attracted me to the Green Party?

Ecological Wisdom

The first, and most distinctive, of these values is the party’s commitment to the environment. Whilst Labour and the Tories talk about this issue a lot and the Lib Dems have a few good environmental policies, the Greens are the only party which considers how we treat the Earth as an issue of first importance. This is particularly important as we live in an era where climate change is one of the biggest dangers to the future of human civilisation.

This commitment to the environment is very close to the Bible’s teaching about how we are to relate to the rest of creation – we are to be good stewards of it, and practise what is increasingly being called “creation care”.

Social Justice

The Greens are strongly committed to the cause of the poor, both in this country, and globally. Unlike Labour, whose current leadership has downplayed its socialist roots (which, incidentally, largely lie in Christian Socialism), the Greens still put the welfare of the poor as a matter of high priority.

This commitment is, of course, a major theme of the Bible. If you don’t think that God hates injustice and oppression of the poor, then you either haven’t read the Bible or haven’t understood it.

Long-Term Perspective

The Greens are the only major UK party whose policies plan for the long term. The big three parties are particularly guilty of not doing this. Their policies, when they actually have any, seem to be driven primarily by short-term factors – being geared towards the next election, or making a splash in the press. The Greens may not take as long-term a perspective as God does, but they certainly aren’t as short-sighted as the other parties.

Nonviolence

The Green Party is committed to non-violent solutions to conflicts. Whilst I believe that some wars (such as World War 2) are a necessary evil, I believe that this approach to conflict fits far better with what Jesus taught (turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, etc.) than the pro-war stances that Labour, the Tories and, to a lesser extent, the Lib Dems have taken over the last couple of decades.

Grassroots Democracy

Unlike the big three parties, the Greens are run from the bottom up. There isn’t central vetting of the activities or decisions of local parties, which means there are more opportunities to get involved at a practical level, and that local candidates actually have roots in the communities they seek to represent. It also means that the leaders aren’t behaving like the rulers that Jesus condemned in Luke 22:25, and imposing their leadership on the membership.

Focus on Community

The Greens are big on the value of community when it comes to economics. The major parties all agree that particular economic indicators (particularly economic growth) are the main measure of a successful country. The Greens, however, take a wider view, considering non-economic factors to be equally important. Society is viewed from a holistic viewpoint and not primarily in terms of how much money it produces.

Overall Values

Whilst there are certainly factions within each of the big three parties that tend towards most of these values (the Compassionate Conservatives in the Tory Party, the grassroots socialists in the Labour Party, and the Social Democratic wing of the Lib Dems), I believe that the Green Party reflects the Biblical view the most. There are areas where Greens tend not to be as much inline with Biblical values, and other areas where they don’t particularly stand out. However, in the 21st Century Western world, it is my belief that the values I have outlined are particularly important. The major challenges of our era demand this kind of approach to politics in order to find solutions. And that’s why I chose to join the Green Party rather than any of the others.

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