the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Remember how back in 2002 , the former PM, Theresa Cornfield, warned the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth that they were seen as the “nasty party? The evidence for this was, she claimed among other things, a narrow voter base, lack of sympathy for minorities, internal feuding, and public perception of being out-of-touch?

So what would she call the Greens? Because everything she claimed made the Torys ‘the nasty party’ has been magnified by the Greens. Much has been made of the rapid increase in membership since Repulsion came to power. But less though about who they are. How they all seem to be share not just an incredibly rigid set of beliefs, but also a refusal to accept that anyone has a right to disagree with them. These newer members are less concerned with saving the planet and more with saving one tiny part of it whilst erasing another one. Who are obsessed with demonising one minority, holding everyone in it to be uniquely guilty by association. Complicit in something that only exists in their fevered imaginings of their WhatsApp group chats.

And as for internal feuding? The Greens make one almost nostalgic for the interminable arguments that convulsed the Tory party over Europe during the 1990’s. They seem polite and good natured when compared to the current temper-tantrum being waged against Caroline Lucas by the Greens for Palestine faction. A well known fire-brand, she is accused of being ‘toxic’, ‘divisive and of ‘bringing the party into disrepute.’ Her crime? Not agreeing with them. Not believing that ‘Zionism is racism’. Not believing that the motion to adopt it at the recent party conference should never have been tabled let alone passed, or that the leadership didn’t show any.

The thing is, when it comes to accusations of bringing the party into ‘disrepute’, then the Greens for Palestine group are more deserving to be expelled from the party. I think that they are all too aware of this, so are busy getting their retaliation in first, hoping that she and not them will become the focus. But aside from the recent motion, which should’ve been flushed down the nearest toilet, there is the deafening silence from them about the cancelled presidential elections in Palestine. Not just from them, but from the entire leadership. This represents a more fundamental threat.

One might be forgiven for thinking that for a party whose entire political offering is predicated upon the idea that Israel is the the only reason that there isn’t a ‘Free Palestine’, such a silence might be problematic. One might then also consider why the Greens are so keen to advance the narrative of Israel being the root cause of every misfortune that befalls the Palestinian people? Could it be that their hatred of Israel blinds them to a more proximate impediment to a ‘Free Palestine’?

That the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 20th year of his 4 year term, in cancelling the elections yet again, is more of a threat to the idea of a “Free Palestine than Israel.  Or that Hamas, having won the 2006 legislative election, promptly changed the rules and have practiced a non-existent version of democracy in Gaza ever since.

Perhaps thats why the Greens lost in Holborn and St.Pancras. Because they’re not Green anymore. Because the more that they claim to represent a newer way of doing politics, the more apparent it is that they’re just repackaging the worlds oldest  hatred. That they seem incapable of championing anything beyond the ideological inconsistencies of their newer members.  To be at the mercy of the the very toxicity and divisiveness that some claim Caroline Lucas to be guilty of. To appease it, to pander and legitimise it and to eventually normalise it. Its not Caroline Lucas that is bringing the Greens into disrepute.

They’re doing it themselves.