The Greens are coming?

I attended a Zoom meeting (organised by Jewish Voice For Labour, of which I am a supporter) asking whether socialists should join the Green Party. The speaker was Zack Polanski, who so far as I can gather wants to be the single leader of the Greens, rather than a co-leader. Polanski is a gay Jewish member of the London Assembly but not an MP. Some may argue that not being an MP is a disadvantage, but there is a simple two word riposte to that—Nigel Fartage. In fact, you could add Mark Carney’s name to the roster of non MPs who made it to the top, and indeed Trump became US president without any previous record of political service. Polanski struck me as very confident, but spent a lot of time mentioning his media appearances. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Perhaps if he was given as many opportunities to appear on the Beeb’s Question Time as Fartage has had over the years, his public profile would similarly improve. In an increasingly presidential system of electoral identification maybe he has the right idea as opposed to the Greens’ co-leadership model which leaves no-one very clear about the leadership at all.
 
Polanski referred to a couple of things which are worth considering as the Greens seek greater visibility. The first is that as he pointed out, their 2 million votes and parliamentary representation now mean they qualify for something like £1.5million in ‘Short Money’ (public money for opposition parties’ parliamentary work) which is probably more money than they’ve ever had. How they spend that money, e.g. on policy development will reveal much about their new found status, with four new MPs. Secondly, Polanski was keen to remind us that the Green Party does not exercise a whip over its MPs, and its grassroots democratic practice means that any 15 members of the party can make proposals for its party conference, and this is a measure of its bottom-up democratic principles. If the party continues to grow, I wonder how long that may last.
 
The Green Party will get more airtime. Like Reform it will get more scrutiny, and unpleasant realities will no doubt emerge. I wonder how many former Labour members it will attract. Some of them will surely be thinking (yet again) we need a new party of the left. Perhaps one or two Labour MPs will take this challenge on board, now that more questions are being asked about Starmer’s leadership which all but diehard loyalists think is dire. But the leader isn't everything. As somebody once said, it's not the personalities, it's the 'ishues.'