Rob Johnston has produced a very interesting essay on the true soulmates of Green Politics in Britain
- Forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants
- Stop people from inner cities moving to the countryside to protect traditional lifestyles
- Grant British citizenship only to children born here
- Boycott food grown by black farmers and subsidise crops grown by whites
- Restrict tourism and immigration from outside Europe
- Prohibit embryo research
- Stop lorry movements on the Lord’s Day
- Require State approval for national sports teams to compete overseas
- Disconnect Britain from the European electricity grid
- Establish a “new order” between nations to resolve the world economic crisis
These are the policies of one of Britain’s most influential political parties: a party that has steadily increased its vote over the last decade; a party that appeals overwhelmingly to whites; and a party that shares significant objectives with neo-fascists and religious fundamentalists.
Perhaps – the BNP? Despite its attempts to appear modern and inclusive and the soothing talk in its 2005 General Election Manifesto, of “genuine ethnic and cultural diversity” [1].
Or UKIP? It harbours some pretty backward-looking individuals – but would they stop Britain buying electricity from France if necessary?
Or, maybe, the Conservatives? Could that be a list of recommendations from one of Dave’s lesser-known policy groups – chaired by the ghost of Enoch Powell – quietly shredded to avoid “re-contaminating the Brand”?
Actually, affiliates of the progressive consensus may be surprised to learn that all the reactionary policies in the first paragraph are from the Green Party’s Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (MfSS) or were adopted at the party’s Autumn Conference in Liverpool over the weekend of September 13-16, 2007 [2].
Of course, the Green Party will protest against the accusation of reactionary politics. However, in an article critical of the G8 leaders in June, George Monbiot, (capo di tutti capi of the green movement) advised readers to judge politicians for “what they do, not what they say”.
For example, as well as supporting ethnic and cultural diversity, the BNP says it accepts:
“… the right of law-abiding minorities, in our country because they or their ancestors came here legally, to remain here and to enjoy the full protection of the law against any form of harassment or hostility…” [3]
But, use Monbiot’s argument, disregard the rhetoric and look at what the rest of the BNP manifesto promises would actually do and it remains a party of racist and neo-fascist ideology – internationally isolationist and domestically reactionary.
The trouble for Greens is that their manifesto pledges would result in many of the same outcomes as the BNP programme.
You will not find the words “Boycott food grown by black farmers and subsidise crops grown by whites”, in the Green Party’s manifesto, but consider Monbiot’s advice about the effects of these policies:
“The Green Party recognises that subsidies are sometimes necessary to protect local, regional and national economies and the environment, and we will support them in these instances” [4].
“Controls such as tariff barriers and quotas should be gradually introduced on a national and/or regional bloc level, with the aim of allowing localities and countries to produce as much of their food, goods and services as they can themselves. Anything that cannot be provided nationally should be obtained from neighbouring countries, with long distance trade the very last resort” [5].
The paradox of arguing for Fair Trade while refusing to buy African vegetables because of “food miles” has been noted many times, but it is a paradox the Green Party simply ignores. According to the Guardian, Britain has two black farmers [6], so any policy to subsidise domestic produce and erect barriers to outsiders will, ipso facto, support white farmers and disadvantage black farmers. Even if supplies are “obtained from neighbouring countries”, white European farmers benefit at the expense of poor farmers in Africa and the developing world.
On agricultural policy in general, Greens will agree with the following sentiments:
“Britain’s farming industry will be encouraged to produce a much greater part of the nation’s need in food products. Priority will be switched from quantity to quality, as we move from competing in a global economy to maximum self-sufficiency for Britain, sustainable agriculture, decreased reliance on petro-chemical products and more organic production” [7].
However, those promises come from the BNP 2005 General Election Manifesto – in a section indistinguishable from the Green Party manifesto:
“To be able to fulfil all our basic food needs locally. To grow as many other products as we can to meet our basic needs (e.g. for textiles, fuel, paper) on a local or regional basis. To enable all communities to have access to land which can be used for growing for basic needs. To ensure that all growing systems use only natural, renewable inputs and that all organic waste outputs are able to be recycled back into the soil or water system” [8].
Perhaps this is why, according to the BNP:
“We are the only true ‘Green Party’ in Britain as only the BNP intends to end mass immigration into Britain and thereby remove at a stroke the need for an extra 4 million homes in the green belts of the South East and elsewhere, which are required to house the influx of 5 million immigrants expected to enter the country under present trends over the next twenty years” [9].
Greens agree with the BNP about migration and the green belt. They promise to: minimise the environmental degradation caused by migration; not allow increased net migration; and end the pressure on the Green Belt by reducing population and stopping growth-oriented development [10]. Reduction in non-white tourism and immigration would be an inevitable consequence of government restrictions on air travel. Few refugees from Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe manage to get all the way to Britain without a large carbon footprint, neither can tourists from beyond Europe. How about the accusation that the Green Party would:
“Stop people from inner cities moving to the countryside to protect traditional lifestyles and prevent crime; forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants.”
Here, are the relevant resolutions from the MfSS:
“Communities and regions should have the right to restrict inward migration when one or more of the following conditions are satisfied: [11]
a) The ecology of the recipient area would be significantly adversely affected by in-comers to the detriment of the wider community (eg. National Parks, Antarctica).
b) The recipient area is owned or controlled by indigenous peoples (eg Australian aboriginal people) whose traditional lifestyle would be adversely affected by in-comers.
c) The prospective migrants have, on average, equal or greater economic power than the residents of the recipient area and they or their families were not forced to leave the area in the recent past.”“Regions or communities must have the right to reject specific individuals on grounds of public safety” [12].
The examples (breathtakingly disingenuous) assert that they intend simply to stop Richard Branson driving a new main line through Stonehenge, Rupert Murdoch building a printing press on top of Uluru or Caesar’s Palace opening a casino at the South Pole.
Surely the Greens, of all people, know that Britain has hardly any desolate tundra and few Australian aboriginal communities. In practice, these policies would give the “indigenous” white folk of a quaint rural hamlet the right to rebuff a Leicester Bangladeshi purchaser for its corner shop because she has “greater economic power” than the villagers – whose “traditional lifestyle” would be “adversely affected” by her ethnicity and religion. They could also keep her out “on ground of public safety” because her inner city Muslim children are more likely to be criminals than their own offspring.
Not surprisingly, the BNP agrees with the Greens about the “right of all peoples to self-determination and that must include the indigenous peoples of these islands” [13]… Alas, not every small community is Ambridgely-correct – thrilled to embrace a half-Irish gay couple, a Vicar with a Hindu girlfriend and a mixed-race child, and an African husband for the daughter of the Lord of the Manor with the same enthusiasm it has for organic ciabatta and carbon trading.
In the 1980s, when the Thatcher government restricted immigration to Britain to those with at least one grandparent born here, it was accused of constructive racism. Thatcher claimed her measures were not racist – any discrimination against nonwhites was just an incidental consequence of the need to maintain what is now called “community cohesion”. Green Party policy would go even further down the road of constructive racism than Mrs Thatcher, refusing citizenship to children born overseas even if their parents hold British passports [14].
The Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence identified “unwitting racism” in the police that can arise from well intentioned words or actions that arise out of uncritical self-understanding born out of an inflexible ethos of the “traditional” way of doing things:
“It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation” [15].
By its uncritical acceptance of “traditional” ways of doing things – from the “spiritual link between ourselves and nature” [16] in agriculture, to anti-globalisation, to making the home “an important centre of economic activity” [17] – the Green Party allies itself with some of the most reactionary contemporary political forces in the land. And the “traditional” way of doing things is usually a reactionary approach to modern social issues.
Green Party agreement with Christian fundamentalists on at least two issues requires no textual analysis: MfSS policy number EU523 would ban lorry movements on Sunday throughout Europe and H329 calls for an immediate ban on embryo manipulation and cloning for any research, therapeutic or reproductive purposes [18].
Policies EU532 and 533 would scrap all connection of electricity grids throughout Europe – partly because interconnectivity allows nuclear generated power to creep along the wires [19].
For national sports teams, CMS871 would require politicians to determine “whether it is appropriate for the team to take part in competition against a country with whom normal friendly, respectful, or diplomatic relations are not possible” [20].
It is frequent for parties on the extreme fringes to share an analysis of contemporary politics – and Greens and BNP certainly share a lot of analysis. From the BNP 2005 Manifesto [21]:
“For most of human history, the existence of such ethnic and cultural diversity among humanity was so obvious and apparently unchallengeably natural that the political theorists and philosophers of past generations simply took it for granted. Only in the last few decades has this been changed forever by the advent of mass passenger travel, the insatiable desire of the globalised capitalist economy for cheap labour, and the worldwide reach of US consumerist culture through film and television.”
“That poison is in large measure the blind economic force of global capitalism, with its insistence on the unrestricted flow of goods, capital and labour to wherever in the world they will make the maximum short-term profit … It is not about ‘love’ and ‘tolerance’, it is about profit.”
From the Green Party Manifesto:
“Formidably powerful and publicly unaccountable transnational companies are becoming ever more footloose, their strength and mobility facilitated both by technological advances, and by the progressive withdrawal of investment controls by governments and by multilateral institutions such as WTO. TNCs are now increasingly able to exploit differences in social and environmental standards between countries in order to maximise profits” [22].
“The rush towards globalisation is neither inevitable nor desirable. It is leading to the sharp reduction in powers of local and indigenous communities, states, and even nations, to control their futures, as economic power is transferred to global institutions. A worldwide homogenization of diverse, local, and indigenous cultures, social and economic forms, as well as values and living patterns increasingly reflect the new global monoculture” [23].
To solve these “problems” the Green Party calls for an international “new order” to address a “global economic … cris[i]s” [24]. That language requires a very special kind of historical ignorance. Can no one in the Green Party have noticed that the last ideology to emphasise the spiritual oneness of man and nature (“blood and soil”) and used the phrase “new order” was the fascism of the mid-20th century? A fascism represented in contemporary politics by the BNP. Similar analyses may be common for parties on opposite wings of politics, but it is not so common to posit the same solutions.
No doubt, when the Green Party adopted its manifesto there was no deliberate intention to implement a reactionary and racist strategy. But the Green Party is overwhelmingly white: of more than three dozen individuals listed as speakers and discussion leaders at its Autumn Conference only one was obviously a member of a visible ethnic minority (VEMs to those in the know) [25]. Even the discussion on issues affecting women from ethnic minority communities was led by a white woman and just 2% of Green Party candidates in the 2006 local elections were VEMs [26]. Perhaps the absence of minority members in Green Party counsels results in the same sort of “canteen culture” that affects the police, making it oblivious to the right-wing, pseudo racist nature of its plans for Britain.
The lessons of the Macpherson Report’s “institutional racism” could be expanded to include “institutional reactionaryism” and should be learnt not only by the state apparatus and large companies, but also by the Green Party – which declares its desire for a fair and just society.
References:
1.BNP 2005 General Election Manifesto: Rebuilding British Democracy (BNP 2005) pg 3 http://www.bnp.org.uk/candidates2005/manifesto/manifesto2005.pdf
2.Green Party Autumn Conference 2007: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/conference/2007/Final_Agenda_Autumn07.pdf
3.BNP 2005: pg 21
4.Green Party Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (GP MfSS): EU413 http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/
5.Ibid: EU443
6.The Guardian Monday June 26, 2006 “Meet Britain’s other black farmer” http://www.guardian.co.uk/country/article/0,,1805973,00.html
7.BNP 2005: pg47
8.GP MfSS: AG500, AG501, AG502, AG503
9.BNP 2005: pg 48
10.GP MfSS: MG200, MG400, CY561
11.Ibid: MG204
12.Ibid: MG207
13.BNP 2005: pg 3
14.GP MfSS: NY515
15.Rachel Morris, Cardiff Law School: Summary of Macpherson Report: http://www.law.cf.ac.uk/tlru/Lawrence.pdf
16.GP MfSS: AG100
17.Ibid: EC403
18.Ibid: EU523, H329
19.Ibid: EU532, EU533
20.Ibid: CMS871
21.BNP 2005: pg 18-19
22.GP MfSS: EC902
23.Ibid: EC903
24.Ibid: EC900
25.Green Party Autumn Conference 2007 Timetable. http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/conference/2007/Liverpool_timetable_full.pdf
26.Green Party Candidates for May 4th 2006 http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/election/2WebverLE06cand.htm
altogether no surprise at all, when you understand that the Nazis were the most zealous defenders of Nature, before the so-called Grunen emerged in the 1980s.
That is an outstanding and well cited article! I’d be willing to bet if you tried to get that published in the Guardian, they’d turn you down without actually being able to fault your premise or research.
Rob Johnston replies:
Thanks Albion — in fact the New Statesman turned it down on the basis that the anti-“airmiles” campaign — that would mean very little food from Africa being available in Britain — was not the same as a boycott of black farmers!
Thereby entirely missing the whole point of the article, that “unwitting racism” (for which the Police were blamed in the Macpherson Report on the death of Stephen Lawrence) can apply equally to sanctimonious Greens as well.
Having just quit the Green Party national executive, I would agree that the party has some pretty odd policies.
However, this article makes a mistake in leading with agricultural policy as an example of racism. The fact that farmers in the UK are white; and that there are black or brown or yellow farmers elsewhere in the world does not make it racist to pursue a local food policy. The aim is to reduce fuel use – this may be misguided/protectionist/authoritarian or whatever, but it’s not racist.
To put it in simple terms, the Green Party would prefer it if you got your potatoes from your neighbour Mr Patel’s garden, than from Farmer Giles 300 miles away.
And if half the farms in Britain were bought out by black farmers, Green Party policy wouldn’t change.
the anti-“airmiles” campaign — that would mean very little food from Africa being available in Britain — was not the same as a boycott of black farmers!
Airmiles? Or food miles? whatever.
The anti-(food)airmiles campaign is irrational, based on sentiment and ignorance. If its effect is to disproportionately disadvantage food produced by black African farmers then you are correct, by the self-righteous lefts own definition of racism, it is racist. Especially so given that everyone who supports it, who is not either ignorant or a moron, has an agenda separate to the environmental concerns it purports to address.
I see what you did there!
You abandoned any pretense at being sensible, just for the sake of attacking the Green Party. Seriously now, I hope this was meant to be ironic.
Obviously the New Statesman has better screening than Samizdata, cause, guess what? They were right, cutting down on ‘airmiles’ does not mean the same as discriminating against black farmers. In fact, it may mean discriminating against English farmers, just because they are in the wrong part of the country.
Well Oscar, I suggest you go back and read the article. Rob points out that unlike the BNP, where it is actually the objective, racism is just a consequence of Green policy. It will hurt non-whites and Greens frankly do not give a damn. It may not the the objective bit that is the reality because there is actually very little functional difference.
Then please point out the factual error for us.
Personally I am a great deal less kind than John in my view of the underpinning motives of the Green Party, but it is not my article and in any case the article is mostly about consequences rather than motives.
Oh, well. That’s all right then. I’m sure the black farmers will be pleased. It’s nothing personal, fellas. Old Farmer Giles is on his uppers as well. Doesn’t that make you feel better?
The genius of “food miles” will bring back all the ailments of malnutrition to the poor.
It would be interesting to see how the EU,for it is an EU policy can balance local food with the production of biofuels.
Well, Perry, you assume that the other position, continuing to import food from abroad, doesn’t hurt non-whites. I dare say the Green Party would hold that the continued importation of food from abroad (or rather, with lots of ‘food miles’) will hurt non-white people more in the long term. You may or may not agree with that, but to suggest they don’t give a damn is not true.
If the Greens are not motivated by racism, and consider the effects of their policies to be beneficial to non-white people, then the charge of racism becomes far less realistic. The issue is only confused because by the action of nature the people who live the greatest distance from you are more likely to be of a different ‘race’. But that’s true in many parts of the world, not just Europe. I’m truly sorry that human migration in the recent historical period hasn’t yet fully corrected that.
Perhaps we could make up for it by funding a better transport infastructure in Africa itself so that there is a larger market for their homegrown produce?
Yeah, fatherland, mother earth. Duh. They both have the same roots in rural romanticism, the mythical forest, the spiritual bond between man and land. They aren’t similar. They’re different emanations of the same philosophy.
Here in Blighty, the early organic movement was lousy with British Union of Fascists wallahs. And so on.
Different rhetoric in some respects, same thing. Man as noble farmer, bonded with the Earth. Plough the fields and scatter while listening to Wagner and contemplating Hegel. Welcome to the New Order. Etc.
Control.
That’s what the whole “movement” is all about— nothing less than having the power to tell everyone what to do, how to do it, what is permitted, what is forbidden.
So many people here, for or against, keep looking for motives, consequences, reasons, justifications, arguments for, arguments against.
Is it intentionally racist? Is it accidentally racist in effect? Is it logical? Is it self-contradictory? Will the results be for the better? Or make things worse?
When will everyone finally realize none of this matters at all?
That the whole point is gaining control. Nothing else matters.
It’s not about the environment, or pollution, or fair this or fair that, economics or trade policy.
It’s always been, and always will be, about who has the power.
And the one who can say “You can’t do it that way. This is what you must do…” That’s who has the power to controll your life.
Does it really matter whether they are red or green?
If you turn from looking at the consequences of Green Party policies to their motivation, they still won’t come out smelling of roses. Surely, they are just another bunch of PC progressives following Frankfurt school Marxism and hell bent on the destruction of Western civilization?
Who is “we”? As I said, I am rather less kind than John and regard you greens as in no way materially different either practically or morally to the BNP, so if YOU want to fund “infrastructure” in Africa, go right ahead and give your money to some corrupt African government.
All *I* want to do is have people like you stay the fuck out of the way whilst I trade with whoever I damn well please (such as African or bloody Martian farmers if that is what I want). Markets will lift the world out of poverty in spite of control freaks like you. The ‘Green Movement’ is yet another reason I am not a pacifist.
Not a damn. Red, Green or Blackshirt. Same control obsessed psychos who need to be opposed by whatever means necessary.
Red, Green or Blackshirt.
So the communists are red. The old-school autocrats are white. The environmentalists are green. The facists are black. What colour are libertarians?
The Greens are different to the BNP,the Greens have power,they are driving EU environmental policy,they have you paranoid about which bin to use.The BNP can only dream about power like that.
Whatever colour they want to be. Such is the nature of libertarians.
I checked the references for the first three points, and the people who acclaimed this research might be interested in what they actually say:
*Forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants; stop people from the inner cities moving to the countryside
MG205 – “Migration policies should not discriminate directly on grounds of race, colour, religion, political belief, disability, sex or sexual orientation.” It’s a section about making migration easier. MG 208 – “The interests of both prospective migrants and the recipient area or community must be recognised and, hence, the appropriate resolution of a particular situation (unless covered above) must depend on negotiation between the parties affected.” It is wilfully misleading to suggest these policies give the right to rural communities to refuse outsiders. As for the BNP comparison, are you really suggesting that the BNP agreeing with any of the priorities MG 400-405? (Including an amnesty for all illegal immigrants here for more than five years and letting all family members of British residents come to the UK with no restrictions).
As for ‘Grant British citizenship only to children born here’, NY 513-514 say:
“This legislation will ensure that British nationality is automatically received by:
a)All children born in the UK.
b)All children born overseas of British nationals normally resident in the UK.
c)All children of British nationals with no other nationality at birth.
NY514 British nationality will also be automatically available prior to their 18th birthday to all children of British nationals born overseas but now normally resident in the UK. Evidence of such residence would be required.”
I didn’t check further, since you are already 0 for 3 in your critique of Green Party policy, but I imagine the rest is much the same. Reading through their policies, there are any number of wildly unrealistic, reactionary and poorly thought through policies – why not try them rather than doing a lying-with-footnotes smear that they are like fascists?
I recall a similar side-by-side analysis comparing HRH Prince Charles Environmental views with those of the Nazis (the real kraut ones in the ’30s).
I read a Green Manifesto in ’95 and it was so full of terrible ideas it was compelling. Since then I have appreciated enormously quite what a risk to the world these deeply evil people are. Islam is merely grit in the vaseline. Greens are truly dangerous because everyone thinks them “nice”.
They are terrifyingly dangerous for the reasons Ron points out. This is the real fight. Forget the commies and the muzzies.
You may have noticed reports that offshore windfarms screw-up UK air defence radar. Ask a Green true-believer what they think about that. They’re pacifists. I bet they love it. Well, sort of pacifists, they’ll sling ya in chokey for all manner of eco-crimes.
Mr Johnston. That’s a brilliant article. It’s one I would have loved to have written but I just can’t. I get angry and sweary and start effing and blinding because to me these people are just a total anathema to my beliefs. even the commies thought they were building greater material wealth. No, I’ve had enough, I just can’t stick them. I really, seriously, can’t stick them.
They are going to make the lights go out all over Europe. Now, who were the last buggers to achieve that?
Greens are evil. Simple as. On the basis of complete irrationality they want to take us to a pre-industrial state. Oh, there’s some opportunists (Gore) and some useful idiots (Dave “Windy Miller” Cameron) and whatnot but hell, I’ve had gutful of this shite.
How do you figure that? All the ‘affected party’ (say the next door neighbour of someone who want to sell their house to a ‘townie’ or ‘darkie’) has to do is say ‘no’ in the ‘negotiations’ and so much for the right of two people to trade property.
Because Greens are like fascists in some ways (but frankly I am less concerned about where in the taxonomy of collectivist control freakishness they are best categorised). They allow a fiction of private property but only so long as you use it in a manner approved by political directives.
Greens despise social interaction (i.e. markets) with all those emergent consequences because people make ‘wrong’ decisions and Greens are obsessed with rules based political interaction controlling everything. You are free to conduct whatever behaviour is vetted by political processes (this is called making things “more democratic” because everyone gets a violence backed say via the mediated political system in what people are allowed to do). It is all about control.
Whatever colour they want to be. Such is the nature of libertarians.
I should have seen that coming.
Ah well, now to dream of technicolour libertarians…
Perhaps we could buy whatever they’re selling that we want, at a mutually-agreeable price, and the sellers can build whatever they want with the money received, and we’ll all invite greens and other fascists to go and piss up a rope and wrap it around their necks if they have a problem with it.
By the way, since we have some apparent greens in this thread…
I’ve got about six inches (and counting) of fresh global warming on my front lawn and driveway. Would one of you fascist bastards mind shoveling it so that my dog can figure out where to squat and the FedEx driver can make it to my front door to deliver imported air-freight stuff without going ass over teakettle on the ice?
Thanx.
So the Greens are against unsustainable immigration into Britain?
They’ll get my vote if that’s the case.
Mola mola,
You are so wrong. You are a policeman and therefore a fascist imposing the patriachal social order. You import goods? Well, that makes you evil, clearly. You know every time you buy something from outside of Colorado the Goddess has to personally strangle a lovely little bunny rabbit don’t you? She doesn’t want to but you make her do it. You do you know.
You are utterly complicit in the rape of Gaia so that you can have a house and a car and a PC (and no, your use of Linux, doesn’t get you off on that one). You must only use public transport and that only when absolutely necessary like when you have to have your aura read. You must only consume locally sourced produce within season. Yes, that Floridian OJ you had with breakfast is taking Gaia up the Gary. I don’t care if you bought it by the sweat of your brow enforcing the fascistic tyranny of capitalism on the Flower Children and frankly I don’t care if Floridian Orange growers all go bust (because they’re killing the planet too). You must only consume fresh, local, organic, regional produce. Going hungry because of that? Well you should have thought about that before you bought a car because you, yes YOU, driving that unsustainable vehicle is what has caused the climate chaos that means there is nothing to harvest in Colorado in February. At the least you should have adapted to the filth-nest you’ve created for all life-forms and planted a popsicle tree in October.
If you lived in the correct manner, like the First Peoples, in a teepee then Gaia would be kind and the trees of the great eco-state of Colorada (we can’t be having that paternalistic “o” ending because it is an afront to the Goddess) would be heaving with fruits and nuts right now.
As it is there is only organic, Fairtrade granola, and it’s supporters who are, of course, all fruits, nuts and flakes which is fitting.
/insanity
Hell, I went to school with an eco-nut. She didn’t wash her clothes or herself. She might have improved the water quality of the river Tyne very, very slightly but she did nothing for her fellow pupils quality of environment. The Dame Judi was unbelievably. Helping tench at the cost of stench!
Jacob,
Define “unsustainable”. The Greens define a sustainable business, for example, rather differently than I do. I regard a business that clicks along without subsidy as “sustainable”. They disagree and drag out some effing voodoo eco-babble. In what way is wind-power sustainable when it costs at least twice what nuclear does. At least twice. Why do they hate nuclear? Well, why? Is it ‘cos they associate it all with Hiroshima and therefore the Great Satan, USA? Is it because none of them have the slightest bloody idea how it works? Well what is it?
As regular readers know I have a background in physics. Greens always diss that. Ignorance=Strength.
I love that “directly”.
Define ‘background in physics’. Is it A level? That lets me in. As it happens one of the strongest anti-nuclear campaigners I have met had a degree in nuclear engineering.
Mr donpaskini is reading the vague generalisations contained in the Green Party Manifesto “peace, love, harmony, equality, free energy” etc etc and ignoring the ACTUAL firm policies.
The BNP also says it is not racist and wants “peace, love & understanding.”
Green Party MG207 says explicitly that local communities have the right to reject incomers on grounds of public safety. MG204 forbids migration that would adversely affect indigenous communities.
On nationality:
NY515 British nationality will not be automatically available to children of British nationals settled elsewhere, unless the country of birth did not provide them with a nationality or they move to the UK to reside before their 18th birthday.
i.e. No automatic citizenship for children of British nationals born overseas.
Get your facts right donpaskini!!
BSc (Physics), MSc (Astrophysics), PhD (Astrophysics) (abandoned)
Yeah, I got an A-level too.
Oh, Ian, here was clearly a twat.
The UK Green Party is much like the SNP in the 1950s – a host of disparate people with really only one thing in common, compounded in the case of the Greens by a profound inability to agree on what that is. There are probably as many flavours of green thinking as there are of libertarian. Some green thinkers would fit quite happily into a libertarian society.
The article though hides some dubious fast footwork. From previous discussion threads it appears that most people here accept the concept of Home Owner Associations, that can set local rules and regulations. The general position also seems to be against anti-discriminatory legislation.
Putting these together would create the sort of situation where a local community could do exactly what is being decried by the author of the post and most commenters – preventing someone moving in because they don’t ‘fit’.
Assuming you mean the twat was my colleague, your bald statement Greens always diss that. doesn’t stand up.
If it is directed at me, then your academic training hasn’t stood you well in the conduct of an argument
You’d expect their policies to be broadly similar.
BNP = National Socialist.
Greens = International Socialist.
I don’t want anything to do with either flavour.
Tanuki, I’m afraid you’re not keeping up with the times (and apparently didn’t read the post). The greens in some places are international socialists. Since they became isolationist and protectionist, they can only be described as being on the national, or in-one-state side today. Very few Trotskyites (Trotskyites trend right these days).
There is, to be fair to my brother and sister in law (in a month), a couple of marked differences between the two. Firstly, the BNP have the shockingly nutso belief that they should get rid of the inland revenue and replace it with massive tarrifs, giving the revenue accountants guns and making them man the border. Sometimes it sounds as if this is intended in part to punish the revenue employees.
Secondly, the BNP believe in having a lot of well paid guys in the military, with lots of neat stuff. Green’s defense policy revolves instead around town twinning and pen pal schemes. Seriously. Please, look it up. Funniest shit ever.
While there is much in their platform that would endear them to any thoughtful Nazi, the greens platform on violence is a serious problem for those trying to label them blackshirts. I don’t know Hitler’s policy views regarding town twinning (although I suspect he was in favour, since he liked a lot of that sort of municipal ceremony and symbolism), but I do feel confident that he would not have considered for a moment allowing it to replace even a portion of his military as a tool of foreign policy.
ian, wtf?
Anybody who is totally against nuclear technology and has studied the subject is quite obviously a twat.
Then I think you are mistaking the wig for the lawyer. The hallmark of any totalitarianism is not what it does (stomp on this group rather than that group, sing the Internationale or the Horst Wessel Lied) but how total its control is. Both see pervasive control of several action as the norm and whilst both would allow nominal ownership of the means of production (which makes them economically more fascist that Marxist), everything ‘private’ is subject to political control. And if you think a ‘Green’ Britain would be ‘softer’ than a BNP Britain, I would suspect non-compliance would be treated in exactly the same way by both. A BNP Britain might be more threatening to Britain’s neighbours but I doubt there would be a whole lot of difference for people within the Sceptic Isles themselves.
Execellent article. I would like to add 1) There are Greens in Germany that own up to their Nazi-roots, e.g. one of the leading Green thinkers, Carl Amery, claims in his 1992 book ‘Hitler as Predecessor’, published in German only, that the Nazi leader was the first true environmentalist. 2) the foundation of the German Green Party was laid by former Nazis (Gruhl et al.) which were only later excluded. I joined the Green party in the 1980s only to fight the Nazis in the party.
Fred Hansen, Melbourne Australia
Nick M:
Precisely so. I am actually horrified at the reactions I get whenever I try to argue against any part of the modern environmentalist creed in any company except libertarian sites like this one and a few exceptionally open-minded and non-judgmental personal friends. What horrifies me the most is the fact that as soon as people detect a negative attitude towards some environmentalist fad or popular misconception, they immediately get an extremely negative moral view of you.
More and more environmentalist beliefs are becoming a part of those modern dogmas that, regardless of whether true or not, are simply not supposed to be questioned in polite society, and if someone does question them, one is morally required to react with contempt and indignation and engage in character assassination rather than addressing the stated argument. On top of it all, there is the omnipresent conviction in the general population that environmentalist beliefs are a product of pure and unadulterated science, so that regardless of how much zealotry and close-mindedness one displays in defending and promoting them, one can never be accused of irrationalism.
Oh Ivan, I know!
Any criticism or indeed even questioning of Green Dogma means a great many people think you personally drown cute little Polar Bear cubs.
I thought I was a socialist tool forcing pc-ness on people. Or is that during odd months?
That would be the first time I’ve ever successfully made a woman do anything. How do I make the Goddess bring me the bunny when she’s done with it? It’s been a long night and I’m hungry.
They already are. It’s tourist season.
I should try that sometime. Especially since I’ve got this white wine and sour cream sauce recipe to try and the Goddess Gaia hasn’t brought me that fluffy little bunny that she choked.
The Greens don’t think the “working classes” should be able to afford to travel abroad as they should be staying in the UK to support their brothers in the various dumps along the UK coast that claim to be “holiday destinations.”
Is this where I remind people that the NAZIs had deep links to the “back to nature” movement of the late 19th century/early 20th century Germany?
This articles is definitely in the running for hatchet job of the year.
If you want some facts in some sort of sensible context, you might like to know that the same Green Party today passed two important motions at its spring conference:
1. Opposing the making of asylum-seekers destitute, as the government is now doing to somewhere between 200,000-500,000 in the UK.
2. Opposing any attempt to send failed asylum-seeking children back to their original states before the age of 18.
Both motions were produced after extensive consultation with groups representing refugees and asylum-seekers – including that discussion that you talked about as “led by a white woman” – who happens to be our London mayoral candidate, indicating that the issue was regarded as an important one.
Perhaps you have missed the main point of the article, Natalie. It is that the consequences of Green policies are the same as the BNP, not that they overtly want the same things as the BNP.
However my opinion is that the Green world view is just as dystopian as the BNP one.
So, by your reckoning, Anita Roddick was a bit of a Nazi then…
Sorry, not buying it.
No, but pretty much as bad when you decode the language. It really doesn’t matter what colour the armbands are, both the Greens and BNP want a far more politically controlled Britain. You look in the mirror and see a good guy fighting for the planet. I look at a Green and I see a force addicted control freak pathologically incapable of leaving other people alone to live their lives. Every political Green is like that because the entire world view is based on pervasive collectivist coercion.
But you’re not our target market. We are ‘outing you’, not trying to sell you anything.
Nice that Natalie Bennett was paying so much attention at the Green Party Conference.
The discussion group on “Issues faced women from ethnic minority communities” was NOT chaired by the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London. It was chaired by … Natalie Bennett.
Also, the Green Party’s proposal to be nice to asylum-seekers will be pretty damn meaningless when all that “unnecessary” air and lorry travel come to an end!
It’s interesting that the modern political green movement started in Germany with much of the same language used by national socialism. See ‘Ecology’ and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-right by Janet Biehl at
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/janet.html
Mike H.
(Sorry about the terribly vulgar URL !)
It seems to me Natalie that this motion could be compared to that most humanitarian of gestures practiced on convicts sentenced to the death penalty. If you are sick don’t worry the state will nurse you back to health and then execute you. After all it would it would be most inhumane to execute a sick or dieing person.
Just a quick rebuttal. It’s environmentally better, from GP policy, to buy from a black farmer in say Morrocco than to buy from a white farmer in, say, Australia.
However you may be hard pressed to find all that many black farmers in Morocco, Jeff.
Quelle surprise, Rob also writes for Spiked, the right-wing libertarian successor to those crazies in Living Marxism. No wonder he’s writing such swivel-eyed paranoid nonsense about the Green Party.
The Green Party has nothing in common with the BNP, we despise fascism. This is just a lazy smear. Speculating that the Greens have a “canteen culture” akin to that in the Police is breathtakingly ill-informed. Have you ever actually met a Green Party member?
The comments saying that we’re evil and dangerous made me smirk. Next you’ll be saying that Caroline Lucas is the Anti-Christ. You lot all need to grow up.
Very few of the commenters, especially “Matt” actually read the article, it seems.
Coming from the perspective of a liberal, as I’m sure the author is (not sure what you mean by a “right-wing libertarian” — a liberal who believes in individual rights?) the Green Party, in advocating many positions that emulate, are consistent with, or go beyond the positions of the BNP, a quasi-fascist party, certainly have things in common with fascism.
To deny it is to lie through one’s teeth, or to demonstrate either gigantic ignorance or stupidity.