General Election 2017 - Green Manifesto: Openness, compassion and cooperation

The Greens' manifesto must be read as what MPs will stand up for, rather than expect to implement.

At a modest launch, the Green Party put forward its manifesto for General Election 2017. The low-key event aligns well with the party's realistically focused, targeted election campaign.

The party's co-leaders, Caroline Lucas and Jon Bartley, have been at the forefront of calls for a Progressive Alliance and local Greens have worked to unite support behind the best placed anti-Tory candidates across the country.

Their own efforts will focus on a few constituencies, to concentrate on re-electing Lucas in Brighton Pavillion and putting some new Green MPs alongside her - such as Natalie Bennett in Sheffield Central, Molly Scott Cato in Bristol West and Vix Lowthion in the Isle of Wight.

So this manifesto must be understood in that context: these are the things that Greens will put on the agenda, that they will speak up for, fight for and vote in Parliament to defend. Openness and cooperation will be key to that effort.

Openness and cooperation appeared in Caroline Lucas' introductory speech, along with compassion, as the values that the Greens will protect. That theme runs through the pledges the party makes in its manifesto.

The headline pledges for the Greens are their commitment to a basic income trial scheme, a shorter working week and a £10 minimum wage. At the core, there is a lot of crossover with Labour: the living wage, higher tax for the wealthy and support for "small businesses, co-operatives and mutuals".

The party, of course, ranks addressing the environment among its highest priorities. There are commitments to fund a public work programme of home insulation to make energy use more efficient, to end fossil fuel subsidies and replace them with investment in renewables and community owned energy, and to protect green spaces.

There is also crossover with Labour here - who, in particular, have called for local public energy companies, with a focus on renewable energy, to compete with the big energy corporations to drive down energy prices.

The Liberal Democrats also share commitments here, to rolling out insulation, to invest in green energy and, with Labour also, to tackle air pollution and support new energy companies coming in and take on the "Big 6" - with a focus on how these efforts could all boost the economy and be the start of a job-creating clean industry in Britain.

These stand in stark contrast to the Conservatives, whose almost only reference to the environment was to offer its support to energy derived from shale gas - otherwise known by its more controversial name of fracking.

On health, the Greens continue their commitment to fighting against privatisation in, and of, healthcare services. They renew their commitment to passing their NHS Reinstatement Bill that would even restore dental services to public funding.

Their focus on support for matching the status of mental health to physical health matches with the Lib Dems and Labour, along with calling for increasing funding for the NHS and social care.

On other public services, the Greens go further than Labour, calling for energy, water, rail, bus and mail services to all be brought back into public ownership - and for an increase to local government funding to help authorities provide good quality services.

There are crossovers on education as well. Scrapping tuition fees has been committed to by the Greens and Labour - and still has support among Lib Dems. Restoring student grants is a Green and Lib Dem priority.

Restoring young people's benefits is a shared goal across the progressive parties. The Greens stand out on welfare, however, for their headline commitment to the basic income and to rolling out a trial scheme.

The Green Party commitments on house building align with all of the progressive parties and specifically matches Labour's commitment to 500,000 new social rent homes over the next five years. Along with the Lib Dems there are commitments to take action on empty homes and to scrap the Bedroom Tax.

Long shared with the Liberal Democrats, and being newly considered by the Labour Party, there is support for the much needed switch to proportional representation - to make votes matter, by making the votes people cast more clearly represented in how the seats in Parliament are distributed.

And not least there are commitments to the Human Rights Act and to the UK's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights - the Tory attitude to which has made this a high priority concern for liberals and human rights and civil liberties groups.

The Greens have only modest electoral ambitions for themselves. But in the face of the threat of a landslide Tory majority they have stressed the need for a Progressive Alliance - for progressive parties to come together to defend their shared values.

While they may be the most humble of mainstream progressive parties, their approach is grasping best the bigger picture. A Tory landslide would be a disaster - for the poorest, for transparency and accountability, for the values of openness, compassion and co-operation.

Whether a supporter of Labour or the Liberal Democrats, if the Greens are the best placed to defeat the Tories in a constituency, there is plenty of crossover to make voting Green tactically an easy decision.

The same extends in the other direction - Greens can find plenty of policies that align with their priorities in the manifestos of the Lib Dems and Labour. There is a real progressive consensus on many issues.

But it is only through cooperation and working together, by voting tactically and campaigning positively in collaboration with the best placed candidates, that progressives can fend off the latest round of Tory assaults on the rights, liberties and wellbeing of the most vulnerable people in Britain.

To be 'progressive' is to be hopeful, but progress won't happen by itself: first, the Left has to reach out and connect

Politics returns to Westminster from recess today to a social atmosphere, in Britain and elsewhere, that has become toxic with the noxious fumes spewed by bitterly divided sectarian factions.

Westminster returns from its latest recess today, to a political mood that has rarely been more toxic. Last night's American Presidential debate captured well the noxious fumes, unconstrained by borders or languages, that have poisoned the political atmosphere (Krugman, 2016).

Ignorance and anger abound, and, what's worse, they're being exploited. In the UK, the Conservative Party Conference set official policy at a new low over the weekend when it proposed forcing companies to make open lists of foreign born workers (BBC, 2016; Syal, 2016).

Instead of abolishing ignorance with education and facts - instead of diffusing anger and bringing calm - instead of reasonableness - anger is being inflamed and ignorance reinforced. Politics has lost a sense of reasonableness.

Harsh rhetoric has driven out decency and moderation. Compromise and consensus seem further away than ever. From France to the United States, the political arena has been reduced to a vague political class circling the wagons to see off opponents stoking ignorance and anger to advance their agendas.

All the while, important matters are rendered impossible to address by the partisan impasse created by opposing outrages flung across wide gulfs of understanding between deeply entrenched factions. Whether Europe or America, people need access to affordable healthcare, affordable housing and affordable energy - and all of it stable and sustainable.

For progressives - whether radical or moderate - decency, reasonableness and respect for a plurality of voices aught to be at the heart of any method that pursues those objectives. So for those who cherish these things, the rise of narrow aggressive sectarianism has made politics in 2016 difficult to navigate and hard to bear.

But the only way is forward, and the only way forward is to reach out. At the Compass Progressive Alliance event, journalist John Harris spoke with passion about the people in the abandoned North who voted for Brexit. He said that:

"These are places characterised by fear. Yes, a fear of immigration and the idea that it might make opportunities even more scarce and wages even lower and put more pressure on already way overstretched services. But underlying this all is a very, very cold, frightening really, fear of the future. A fear, when you talk to people, even of tomorrow and next week.

Please, let's not think about the vast majority of the people I've talked about, who voted Leave, as stupid or deluded or bigoted and hateful... If you haven't got a progressive politics which speaks to places which embody the inequality we all fight against, its not worthy of the name."

Before progressives can reach out, they need to understand what it is that they themselves want, and why - and they need to understand what that will mean for the lives and livelihoods of the least well off. And if these two understandings cannot be completely reconciled, work has to begin on a meaningful compromise, on an inclusive next step.

To be progressive is to be hopeful - to believe in human progress, to believe that all people are capable of self-improvement. But it won't occur on its own. It requires defeating neglect with care & listening, ignorance with education & encouragement, despair with hope & opportunity. The norm is adversarial politics that divides to rule. The progressive alternative has to reach for something better.

Efforts to extinguish the light of human progress sometimes cause the candlelight to flicker, but it always burns the brighter after

Peace for Paris. Photograph: From Subjectif Art, design by Jean Jullien (License)

The world is moving inexorably forwards. More freedoms, more rights, more equality. That progress has been tempered time and again by horrifying bouts of violence and war, psychotic acts of terror and ruthless acts of sectarian cleansing. Yet humanity has continued to stumble its way out of the darkness.

Acts of violence, counter-revolutionary reaction and suppression by those would keep the world trapped in the darkness, rear up with each step forward. They attempt use fear to control and dissuade, to put out the light. Yet each act of violence has changed humanity. It forges an ever growing, ever spreading, solidarity against violence, ignorance and selfishness. It simply makes the case, and support, for peace, liberty and tolerance stronger.

Vaclav Havel was a writer and playwright who became a political dissident against totalitarian communist rule and went on to became the first President of the Czech Republic. At the height of the constant, suppressive, threat of arrest and imprisonment, Havel wrote The Power of the Powerless. In it, Havel described how under the rule of even the most desperate and tyrannical of police states, the light of dissent and liberty can flicker into life through simple acts of disobedience and the refusal to comply with the wielders of power and fear. That in these simple acts, an individual:

"...rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth."

For many, the events in Paris, or in Beirut, have extinguished their ability to see that light - or so dimmed their sensitivity to it beneath a howling storm of pain and loss that they may never see it again. For those people, there is perhaps little comfort in knowing that despite, and maybe in spite of, atrocities, the statistics say that there are only positive trends when it comes to human health and prosperity.

To those people, it may well be cold comfort that the light continues to flicker, let alone that it will grow stronger. Even so, we cannot give up on, or ignore, that flame. By its light, people have changed the world for the better with even the smallest acts of freedom.

Whether it's the struggle for human rights, civil rights and liberties, and democracy around the world, or their particular manifestations in the rising visibility of struggles for Women's rights, LGBT rights or for recognition that Black Lives Matter, the movement towards equality and respect is irresistible.

Cold, business-like, austerity narrative has a weakness: it leaves no room for compassion

David Cameron has tried hard to take for the Conservatives, from Labour, a reputation for a stern, serious, business-like approach to government. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron meets EDF workers, 21 October 2013 - Department of Energy and Climate Change (License)

At the Conservative Party conference On Wednesday, David Cameron gave a keynote speech described as that of a leader at the height of his powers (d'Ancona, 2015). That label suits the supreme confidence Cameron and the Conservatives are showing right now in their dominant austerity narrative (Jones et al, 2015).

So far David Cameron and George Osborne, his heir apparent, have controlled the political debate, making it all about fiscal responsibility. So confident are they in their position within that debate, they're now - apparently - trying to pitch their message to the centre and centre-left (Freedland, 2015).

However, the terms have started to change. The emergence of Jeremy Corbyn, and the popular movement surrounding him, has forced the addition of ethical and moral dimensions to the contest. The simple narrative of responsible versus irresponsible is now being clouded by a contrast being drawn between 'tough love' conservatism and the compassionate anti-austerity Left.

Since 2010 a political consensus has developed in the UK that focusses on Labour's alleged reckless profligacy and the resultant need for responsible management of the national finances - with the Conservatives pitching themselves as just the business-like grown-ups to save the country from the naive and reckless idealists.

But Cameron & Osborne might finally be overreaching with their effort to appeal to the centre and Left. While pushing austerity measures, originally pursued as merely corrective, into an extended and lasting policy, they seem to have forgotten how thin the support for their political 'consensus' is in reality.

In a country divided, where at least 34% chose at least a 'lite' alternative to austerity and 33% didn't participate, the remaining 33% who believed in further austerity, and so voted Conservative or Ukip, do not represent a consensus so much as the most well organised minority - with many of those who voted Conservative likely not to even consider themselves party supporters, let alone loyalists.

Those are shallow foundations from which Cameron is pitching to voters the idea that the Conservatives are the only party of the mainstream - laying claim to morality, nationality and sensibility as things represented solely by them. In itself, the attempt just reveals how far into right-wing territory the political consensus has swung.

Centrism is supposed to be about balance. It is supposed to bring together communities, individuals and traditions - appealing to democrats, liberals and conservatives alike - to create a society balanced between, and accessible by, all.

All Cameron's government has offered are right-wing solutions: restricting or taking away parts of the social security system, taking legislative action against strikes, and pushing market-based solutions wherever they can be forced onto public services. The Conservative brand of 'centrism' is profoundly unbalanced in favour of a meritocratic elitism, based heavily on the role played by wealth and competition.

As much as the Conservatives have made an opportunity for themselves out of the struggles of the Labour Party, they have left a door open for Labour to make a return to relevance. Corbyn's "We don't pass by" speech to the CWU's People's Post gathering, in Manchester last week, conveyed a compassion that is fast becoming the mark of the Left in opposition.

While junior doctors have struggled with their working conditions with an underfunded NHS, the Conservatives have turned a deaf ear. It has taken the threat of strike action, and the disruption it causes to 'efficient' services, to make the Conservatives take notice of their suffering.

Even then, the response has only been the offer of promises and guarantees that there will be proper monitoring, all while plans continue to be pushed ahead (Campbell, 2015). It was hardly a surprise, then, to see junior doctors taking their campaign onto the streets of Manchester alongside anti-austerity protesters.

Similar accusations regarding the lack of response by the political class to suffering have come from those warning of homelessness rising under conditions of increased debts, restricted welfare and a lack of affordable housing ((BBC, 2015; The Telegraph, 2015).

Hackney Council have come in for criticism for its handling of homelessness, after it threatened to criminalise homelessness and introduce fines for sleeping rough (Osborne, 2015). Singer Ellie Goulding has openly campaigned against the maltreatment of homeless people by London councils (Ellis-Petersen, 2015).

It aught to be a matter of concern for Cameron and Osborne that, despite Hackney Council being Labour controlled, in Goulding's campaign for better treatment of homeless people, it is to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour that she has turned, in search of someone to bring "some compassion back into politics".

It is in that contest that the Conservatives' self-assigned 'pragmatism' may finally count against them. A shift in the debate to include compassion will hurt a government that has chosen to bet the house on a cold lack of concern beyond a financial, profit-making, statistical assessment of economic 'success' which does not factor in the impact on individuals or communities.

With an increase in working poverty, linked directly to changes being made by Cameron's government (Wintour & Watt, 2015), the dominant austerity narrative in which Conservatives have shown such confidence is being exposed for its lack of human warmth.

All of a sudden, Corbyn looks to be exactly the opponent, with exactly the right tone, to trouble the Conservatives' thin hold on power. The Conservatives have tried so hard to take from Labour the reputation for serious prudent economic focussed politics. It would be a tremendous irony if, with the party strutting around as if it has finally assumed that mantle, the poisonous flaw in that reputation might just have been discovered.

A sudden, stark and tragic turning point for our common humanity

Yesterday, the British media at large made a dramatic U-turn. After years of pushing aggressive and insensitive attitudes towards migrants of all kinds, the death of one small boy - an image thrust right into face of people across the UK - has produced a dramatic volte face (Wintour, 2015).

Suddenly, the reality of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Syria and by the other ongoing conflicts in North Africa - such as in Libya and Iraq - was out in the open. These people were no longer dehumanised 'immigrants' out to steal jobs. They were human beings again, terrified strangers fleeing for their lives.

With the apparent shift in public opinion represented by the change in the media's tone, David Cameron's Premiership is suddenly under substantial pressure (Wintour, 2015{2}). While Cameron has stood resolutely aloof, governments across Europe have at times creaked with the strain and ordinary people have taken the responsibility upon themselves to save lives and to shelter them (Duffy, 2015; Moore, 2015).

The shift in the media tone may well be the signal for the government to now alter its policy with regards to the crisis - in particular accepting more of the refugees from Syria. But, behind the present crisis, there is a dangerous matter just as large that the shift in tone may begin to address. And that is the dehumanisation that has crept into public attitudes over the last decade (Kingsley, 2015).

Those attitudes, of reducing human beings to crude caricatures based on simplistic, grim and derogatory terms, posed as much of a threat to the internal workings of British society as it did to outsiders unfortunate enough to cross paths with it. It turns people cold towards outsiders of all kinds - including the least fortunate in their own communities, who find themselves suffering from cruel stigmas and draconian crackdowns in addition to poverty and homelessness (Sparkes, 2015).

Hopefully - and it should be stressed that this is hope - this one tragedy, and the sudden stark turning point it has made possible, can at least have a decisive impact and force a step forward in the recognition of our common humanity.

The referendum in Greece is asking a deeper question about dissent: do we have to conform in order to belong?

Protesters gather on Syntagma Square in the centre of Athens. Photograph: Syntagma sqr @ 3-Jul-15 via photopin (license) (cropped)

Last week's deadlines for Greece to secure the money it needed, to pay what was due to its creditors, came and went without a deal (Traynor et al, 2015). Even with the deadlines being pushed back, and the future of the Eurozone in the balance, no agreement was found.

Without alerting his European creditors first, Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras, of the Radical Left Syriza party, subsequently announced his intention to hold a referendum on whether Greece should reject or accept the austerian terms to which Greece have been expected to conform (Traynor, 2015). It was a decision that has been treated as controversial by those who reject his party's anti-austerity agenda.

But this referendum stands for even more than whether to say no, or say yes and submit to austerity. The big question that will hang over the whole referendum concerns the right to dissent.

Syriza's election victory, on a manifesto that promised an end to austerity has already been opposed by Europe's economically conservative elite (Lapavitsas, 2015). Pressure has again now been exerted by them to ensure a result favourable to their priorities at the referendum (BBC, 2015).

This struggle between Greece and its creditors - between their conflicting ideological aims - forces us to ask whether, in order to belong and take part, must we always toe the same narrow line as everybody else, or do we have the right to disagree and yet remain?

There is a strong feeling on the Left think that, as far as the Right are concerned, the answer they're receiving is no. Voices on the Left have criticised Eurozone policy towards Greece as an ideological crusade designed to inflict humiliation upon a country for deviating from, and posing a threat to, a particular political script (Williams, 2015). The Left have also faced opposition within Greece, where former Prime Ministers have joined the Yes campaign (Smith, 2015).

Meanwhile there has been support from the Left for the difficult game that Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are playing (Elliott, 2015), presenting themselves as reasonable, responsible reformists. Back in 2013, Tsipras made clear his wish to save Europe, to reform it back onto its old path of democratic co-ordination and co-operation (Horvat, 2013; Tsipras & Zizek, 2013).

Even with the referendum looming, Greece's leaders have continued to try and squeeze out a negotiated deal (Rankin, 2015). As they have struggled to find a deal, there has been a show of support even in the UK, which has seen anti-austerity protests in solidarity with Greece and the creation of a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a bail out (The Guardian, 2015; Feeney, 2015).

There have also been efforts to demonstrate the theoretical validity of Syriza's position of opposition to austerity, by exposing the failures of the austerian approach (Fazi, 2015). Even the IMF, one of Greece's creditors, has admitted that the debts of Greece are unsustainable without greater support and, effectively, and end to the pure austerity approach (Khan, 2015).

In the face of these arguments, there have been the first signs of a softening towards the hardship in Greece from their major opponents, represented by the German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble who said that Greek people would not be left 'in the lurch' (Hooper, 2015).

However, compassion in the face of suffering is one thing - and important. But tolerance and acceptance of difference is also essential. Greece has a right to dissent that has not been respected - a right to refuse the conditions with which it has been presented and yet remain a part of the Eurozone, and the European Union.

Underlying this referendum will be the question of whether the European powers will respect the democratic will of the people of Greece should there be a no vote - and austerity be again rejected. If that decision is respected, then there may yet be hope for Europe. It might still become a truly democratic place, with the necessary space for dissenting and alternative voices.

Conservative meritocracy is leaving British society feeling cold and lacking in kindness

The front page of the Conservative Party's 2015 manifesto made some pretty bold statements. It promised, in stark colours, a 'clear economic plan', and a 'brighter, more secure future'. Once David Cameron had secured a majority, he stood outside of Number 10 Downing Street and compounded that message by committing his party to running a 'one nation' government (Stone, 2015).

One month into Cameron's second term as Prime Minister, it is still hard to reconcile those statements with the party's intent to dismantle the UK's social security apparatus (Keegan, 2015). Through the Right-to-Buy scheme, the reserve of social housing looks like being further depleted (Helm & Boffey, 2015) and further cuts are expected to be coming for the welfare support and services depended upon by the most vulnerable (Stewart, 2015).

Whatever the, allegedly existing, plan that is supposed to secure this bright, united future will actually involve, it appears to be very much embedded within the Conservative meritocratic attitude (Watt, 2015) - an attitude that has underwritten their strivers & skivers rhetoric (Williams, 2013). That attitude itself already has questions enough to answer in the name of proper scrutiny: what is considered worthy of merit? On what playing field is merit earned? And, what happens to those considered to be without merit?

However it is the third question in particular that is perhaps the most revealing, exposing a kindness deficit every bit as serious as the fiscal one.

The last five years have proven tough for the most vulnerable, with visits to food banks growing drastically in number (BBC, 2015). That pressure, a crushing weight upon the poorest, has not been alleviated over the past few months with councils behaving unconscionably towards the homeless - by criminalising sleeping rough (Sparkes, 2015) - and earning the disgust of celebrities in the process (The Guardian, 2015).

While the government might feel able to distance itself from the actions of local councils, it is much harder for the Conservatives to separate themselves from how their welfare policies are being implemented. Government delays in the payment of benefits to people with disabilities have been ruled unlawful (The Guardian, 2015{2}). And news for the most vulnerable doesn't get much better with the Prime Minister not ruling out the possibility of more cuts to disability benefits (Watt, 2015{2}).

This coldness all seems to be part of an attempt at reshaping the British state. Policies like selling off state assets, from social housing to the Post Office (Wintour, 2015; Macalister, 2015) - being as they are only one-off and short term ways of raising funds - are not much use in addressing the deficit. But what they do reflect is a determination to shift social responsibilities away from the state - acting on behalf of a society that contributes its fair share to a collective public service - and onto the individual.

That shift, which comes hand in hand with the mean and cold Conservative meritocratic attitude and its policy of austerity, has taken to treating vulnerable people like errant Victorian children - to be disciplined through a Gladstonian frugality while being pontificated to on the values of the ruling elite. That attitude is exemplified by the Tory anti-liberal attitude on security. The Prime Minister has suggested that Britain has for too long had a 'passively tolerant society', standing 'neutral between different values' (Stone, 2015{2}).

In the face of this Tory calculated coldness, in the pursuit of an ideologically redrawn society, it is important for the opposition to make kindness a big part of their approach. The Left opposition needs to do more than just oust a ruling party. It needs to confront and expose an an unkind vision of society, and to develop an open, compassionate and liberal alternative in the name of the common good.