Should the Green Party disband?

After calling on Sinn Fein to take up its seven seats in the House of Commons to defeat the Government on Brexit, left-wing campaigners for a “progressive alliance” have turned their attention to the Greens.

Guardian columnist Owen Jones is the latest to urge the Green party to call it a day and join forces with Labour.

He argues that this would “unite the English and Welsh left under one banner, bring one of the country’s most inspiring politicians [Green MP Caroline Lucas] into the spotlight, and reinvigorate the cause to save the planet from environmental destruction”.

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Party realignment

The idea of a progressive alliance to unite the left gained currency after the 2010 general election, when Labour supporters wanted the Lib Dems to go into government with their party rather than the Conservatives.

During election campaigns in 2015 and 2017, they pointed to polls showing a ‘progressive majority’ in Britain, spread among several left-of-centre parties, including Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

In 2017, the Greens stood down candidates in two-way constituencies to avoid splitting the left-of-centre vote. This was credited with boosting the number of Labour MPs elected, depriving the Tories of a majority.

But many on the left want this temporary alliance to be made permanent, or even to see the Green Party subsumed into Labour.

“In the political era before 2015 the Greens functioned as a leftwing alternative to Labour,” says Jones, “but the ascent of Corbynism has rather dented that purpose.” Labour’s leftward march has left the two parties’ major polices now pretty much indistinguishable.

Some point to the arrangement that has existed between Labour and the Co-operative Party since 1927 as a possible blueprint for cooperation.

Under the ‘Cheltenham Agreement’ the Co-operative Party continues to be an independent political party, registered with the Electoral Commission, with its own members, party conference and policy agenda.

But it also allows Co-operative members to join the Labour party and for MPs to stand on a joint platform. There are currently a record 38 Labour & Co-operative MPs in Westminster as well as Peers and MSPs.

Yet not all agree, including many in the Green party itself. “Many view Labour’s policies on everything from nuclear weapons/power to electoral reform and polluting industries as being way out of step with the Greens’ vision of society,” says Left Foot Forward.

Members too are vehemently opposed to any idea of a merger and are submitting an emergency motion to Green Party conference next month explicitly rejecting the proposal.

Electoral maths

Others question whether the alliance would even have the desired effect. Split into two tribes, one right-wing and one left-wing, the right-wing alliance would have done better in recent elections, says Politics.co.uk. And the fall of Ukip has left the Conservatives largely unopposed on the right.

Instead of electoral victory, the website says, the progressive alliance is about party management. “The idea of all these initiatives is that it's easier to put Labour's fractured electoral coalition back together through informal co-operation and non-competition rather than aiming for formalised unity at party level,” the website says.