In the absence of that essential network, and it pains me to say this, I find a revitalised Labour Party under Burnham, with his Israel and private sector links, more structurally worrying than one additional Reform seat in Parliament.
In the London Borough of Brent, which recently elected a hung council, the Labour councillors have just formed a ruling coalition with the Conservatives ie ruling from the 'extreme centre.' They were apparently instructed by Labour's NEC against forming a ruling coalition with the Greens under any circumstances. So clearly Starmer et al think they have much more in common with the Conservative than with the Green Party. It's not an ideal situation in the Makerfield by-election but then the situation is rarely ideal anyway. So under the circumstances I think the best we can do is call for a critical vote for the Green candidate.
Confronted with this, if I were in that constituency (I'm not), this would be my 'No suitable candidate' entry across my ballot paper. Have done it before, would do it again. Not a member of a political party, not subject(ed) to Starmerism.
The FT reported this evening that Andy Burnham cancelled a call with hedge fund managers during the campaign, hosted by political advisory firm Signum Global Advisors, which was due to discuss fiscal policy and the bond market. His spokesperson said he cancelled it to focus on meeting voters in Makerfield. This is the Blunkett playbook operating in real time: one audience on the doorstep in Wigan, another audience on the end of a phone in the City, and the skill is in making sure the two never quite meet. He previously promised not to be 'in hock to the bond market.' He cancelled the call, not the relationship.
The tactical Labour vote in Makerfield is understandable but it concedes the argument before the campaign starts: it accepts that the only question is who holds the seat rather than what gets built in the constituency. Burnham has already shown in a single week what holding that seat will mean. The propaganda campaign has the opposite problem: it treats the election as an opportunity to explain the full Green programme to people who are not yet asking for it, which is how you get a creditable vote share and nothing else to show for it on 20 June.
Agitation is different from both. It means finding the single demand that connects with the specific material conditions of Makerfield's working class right now, the two-child benefit cap is perhaps the strongest candidate, and using every doorstep conversation and campaign event to build the relationships around that demand that survive the count. The vote is a byproduct of that work, not its purpose. What matters is whether there is an organised group of people in Makerfield on 20 June who trust each other enough to keep meeting. That is what Reform has been building ward by ward for two years. It is the only thing that beats it.
I'm conflicted here. As a Green Party member I think we should stand, and use it as a propaganda campaign from the left. On the other hand seeing the polls, and the Reform candidate, if I lived in Makerfield, honestly I might vote Labour tactically on the day. Its a really tough one. Both positions have merit.
I think neither approach is right. The broad vanguard needs an agitational approach, not propaganda or party building, and the goal has to be to use the election to build a campaigning group on what I call the terrain of survival.
Is absolutism the answer to anything? I used to be a Green Party member but it's pretty unrecognisable now, taking on the issues that energise the left fringe but barely registers with anybody else. What the far right Israeli government has been doing is unconscionable, and trans people should be able to live free dignified lives but does it really move the UK political dial?
There is no absolutism here: the article's actual position is 'with them when possible, without them when necessary', which is the opposite of absolutism. It is a conditional tactical assessment, not a permanent alliance.
On the Greens being unrecognisable: the more interesting question is who has moved. The Green vote is now broadly comparable to Labour's nationally. That does not happen because a party has retreated to the left fringe; it happens because a significant layer of the electorate has moved toward it. The people moving are worth taking seriously even if the party vehicle is imperfect.
On Palestine and trans rights not moving the dial: the postscript's actual argument about Makerfield centres on the two-child benefit cap, not on either of those issues. The survival terrain in a post-industrial owner-occupying constituency is benefits, public services, and precarious work. That is where the piece argues the left should be raising demands. If the Green campaign in Makerfield leads with Palestine and trans rights rather than the two-child cap, that would be precisely the failure the article identifies: importing city-centre policy register into a constituency that requires something different.
The harder question your comment raises, and one the article does not fully resolve, is whether the Greens' current leadership and membership culture is capable of making that adjustment. That remains genuinely open.
Shouldn't the Greens be leading on the environment? 32 degrees in the North West of England doesn't feel normal to me. And who will suffer the most from climate breakdown?
Thirty-two degrees in Manchester today makes the environmental pitch more plausible than it would normally be in a constituency like Makerfield, but only if it is translated into immediate material terms: the warehouse with no air conditioning, the uninsulated house that becomes a heat trap, the energy bill that went up forty percent. Lead with the planet and Reform's counter-narrative eats it alive. Lead with the specific conditions of this working class in this heat and it might land differently. Honestly though, the only way to find out is to do the work on the ground.
In the absence of that essential network, and it pains me to say this, I find a revitalised Labour Party under Burnham, with his Israel and private sector links, more structurally worrying than one additional Reform seat in Parliament.
In the London Borough of Brent, which recently elected a hung council, the Labour councillors have just formed a ruling coalition with the Conservatives ie ruling from the 'extreme centre.' They were apparently instructed by Labour's NEC against forming a ruling coalition with the Greens under any circumstances. So clearly Starmer et al think they have much more in common with the Conservative than with the Green Party. It's not an ideal situation in the Makerfield by-election but then the situation is rarely ideal anyway. So under the circumstances I think the best we can do is call for a critical vote for the Green candidate.
Confronted with this, if I were in that constituency (I'm not), this would be my 'No suitable candidate' entry across my ballot paper. Have done it before, would do it again. Not a member of a political party, not subject(ed) to Starmerism.
The FT reported this evening that Andy Burnham cancelled a call with hedge fund managers during the campaign, hosted by political advisory firm Signum Global Advisors, which was due to discuss fiscal policy and the bond market. His spokesperson said he cancelled it to focus on meeting voters in Makerfield. This is the Blunkett playbook operating in real time: one audience on the doorstep in Wigan, another audience on the end of a phone in the City, and the skill is in making sure the two never quite meet. He previously promised not to be 'in hock to the bond market.' He cancelled the call, not the relationship.
The tactical Labour vote in Makerfield is understandable but it concedes the argument before the campaign starts: it accepts that the only question is who holds the seat rather than what gets built in the constituency. Burnham has already shown in a single week what holding that seat will mean. The propaganda campaign has the opposite problem: it treats the election as an opportunity to explain the full Green programme to people who are not yet asking for it, which is how you get a creditable vote share and nothing else to show for it on 20 June.
Agitation is different from both. It means finding the single demand that connects with the specific material conditions of Makerfield's working class right now, the two-child benefit cap is perhaps the strongest candidate, and using every doorstep conversation and campaign event to build the relationships around that demand that survive the count. The vote is a byproduct of that work, not its purpose. What matters is whether there is an organised group of people in Makerfield on 20 June who trust each other enough to keep meeting. That is what Reform has been building ward by ward for two years. It is the only thing that beats it.
I'm conflicted here. As a Green Party member I think we should stand, and use it as a propaganda campaign from the left. On the other hand seeing the polls, and the Reform candidate, if I lived in Makerfield, honestly I might vote Labour tactically on the day. Its a really tough one. Both positions have merit.
I think neither approach is right. The broad vanguard needs an agitational approach, not propaganda or party building, and the goal has to be to use the election to build a campaigning group on what I call the terrain of survival.
Is absolutism the answer to anything? I used to be a Green Party member but it's pretty unrecognisable now, taking on the issues that energise the left fringe but barely registers with anybody else. What the far right Israeli government has been doing is unconscionable, and trans people should be able to live free dignified lives but does it really move the UK political dial?
There is no absolutism here: the article's actual position is 'with them when possible, without them when necessary', which is the opposite of absolutism. It is a conditional tactical assessment, not a permanent alliance.
On the Greens being unrecognisable: the more interesting question is who has moved. The Green vote is now broadly comparable to Labour's nationally. That does not happen because a party has retreated to the left fringe; it happens because a significant layer of the electorate has moved toward it. The people moving are worth taking seriously even if the party vehicle is imperfect.
On Palestine and trans rights not moving the dial: the postscript's actual argument about Makerfield centres on the two-child benefit cap, not on either of those issues. The survival terrain in a post-industrial owner-occupying constituency is benefits, public services, and precarious work. That is where the piece argues the left should be raising demands. If the Green campaign in Makerfield leads with Palestine and trans rights rather than the two-child cap, that would be precisely the failure the article identifies: importing city-centre policy register into a constituency that requires something different.
The harder question your comment raises, and one the article does not fully resolve, is whether the Greens' current leadership and membership culture is capable of making that adjustment. That remains genuinely open.
Shouldn't the Greens be leading on the environment? 32 degrees in the North West of England doesn't feel normal to me. And who will suffer the most from climate breakdown?
Thirty-two degrees in Manchester today makes the environmental pitch more plausible than it would normally be in a constituency like Makerfield, but only if it is translated into immediate material terms: the warehouse with no air conditioning, the uninsulated house that becomes a heat trap, the energy bill that went up forty percent. Lead with the planet and Reform's counter-narrative eats it alive. Lead with the specific conditions of this working class in this heat and it might land differently. Honestly though, the only way to find out is to do the work on the ground.