BUILDING A PROGRESSIVE POLITICS IN LONDON

Those who attended the first London Green Party Conference on 10 May were treated to a truly inspiring event. One of the themes was the way in which elected Green representatives could influence decision-making despite being only in a very small minority. Benali Hamdache, leader of the Greens and Independents Group on Islington Council, told how they had been able to press the Council to make Council tax fairer and start the pension fund disinvesting from arms companies. Zoe Garbett explained how Greens on the London Assembly had been able to persuade the Mayor to set up a fund dedicated for youth provision and a programme of investment in public toilets.

There were exciting results from a private poll commissioned by London Greens. 40% of Londoners would vote Green if they thought we had a chance, they vote for us despite not knowing who are leaders are, and the issues we should campaign on are left-wing positions on housing and economic justice. In Southwark we are the borough with the second highest level of ‘latent favourability’!

Another theme was the importance of working with other progressives. On the conference platform alongside our Zack Polanski was Faiza Shaheen, the economist who was shamefully deselected by Labour just before the election when she would have beaten Ian Duncan Smith. We also heard from the independent candidate Andrew Feinstein who cut Keir Starmer’s majority from 28,000 to 12,000 in Holborn and St Pancras and from two French politicians who taught us how the left built a coalition to defeat the far right last year. Now that the Labour Party has shifted so far to the right, we can unite the left behind us with a programme that includes a universal basic income, the 4-day working week, reducing defence expenditure, control of prices, nationalisation of public service companies and progressive taxation.

George Grime

Policy Officer