Book recommendation: "A Citizens' Income" Clive Lord

Given that Clive Lord is running for the leadership of The Green Party, I decided to read his book "A Citizens' Income" and was very impressed. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting an introduction to green political thought. He manages to explain some rather complex ideas in a way that is straightforward and understandable, which is no easy task.
The first part of the book deals with the ecological crisis facing the planet and why we need a complete 'paradigm shift' to have any hope of solving it, meaning a shift in the fundamental world view shared by a significant number of people. Lord explains the exponential principle underlying economic growth and how the main problem humanity faces concerns 'the tragedy of the commons'. Put simply the tragedy of the commons is the tendency of people to make rational decisions which are in their short-term self interest but go completely against our long-term interests and those of the planet. For example a situation where nations recognise the long-term dangers of climate change but each individual one is reluctant to reduce their emissions if it affects their individual nations' economic growth. Lord uses the example of Easter Island as an example of a society that went to pot because of the tragedy of the commons (hence the cover design showing Easter Island statues), where a once thriving community destroyed all of its trees and much of its wildlife and ended up in a state of perpetual war and cannibalism as a result. Lord elaborates on some of the possible future consequences of unfettered growth and environmental destruction in the disturbing chapter, "Racism and the Environmental Crisis".
That is not to say that the book is one long doom laden prophesy of a 'Soylent Green' future, far from it. The second part of the book offers an optimistic possible way out and route to achieving a 'paradigm for sustainability', meaning a cultural attitude shift in the direction of green living. Lord suggests that the establishment of a 'Citizens' Income' is essential to this. A Citizens' Income would be a guaranteed payment to everyone, regardless of whether they are in work or not and free from any means testing or penalties. Lord argues convincingly that this would break the link between providing people with the means to sustain themselves and endless 'job creation' which takes no account of whether the jobs are environmentally beneficial or destructive. Lord argues that a minimum wage does not work because it fails to break this link and also that means tested benefits simply mean that the poor are subsidised by the slightly less poor rather than the wealthy. He devotes several chapters to explaining the economic arguments behind this with much convincing data. Lord ends on a positive note:

"As long as there is uncontrolled expansion of either population or economic activity, the Tragedy of the Commons is in motion.... The escape plan set out here may be improbable, but it is possible. The same logic applied to both the slave trade and child labour. The first to renounce either risked putting themselves at a commercial disadvantage, but an overwhelming consensus nevertheless developed in each case and they did disappear". (Clive Lord "A Citizens' Income" , pub. Jon Carpenter 2003,  page131).

Clive Lord recommends the following books be read as well:

Colin Hines "Localization - A Global Manifesto", Earthscan, London, 2000.

Clive Ponting "A Green History of the World", Sinclair Stevenson, London 1991.

The Green Party's Future: Ecologist, Lib Dems on Bikes or Labour Lite?

The upcoming Green Party leadership election will, I suspect,  receive little national media attention until the result is announced. However I believe it to be one of the most important moments in the party's history and one which will decide the direction of travel which this party takes for a long time.
Unfortunately the decision by Caroline Lucas to announce her joint candidature with Jonathan Bartley before any other candidates had announced theirs risks creating a done deal, a fait accompli. Caroline is an MP and former leader who has a huge personal appeal and so other candidates will be reluctant to stand against her. This risks denying the party the internal debate which it needs as well as creating a situation where Jonathan Bartley could be elected joint leader not on his own merits but on the coat tails of someone else. This is not undemocratic but it does seem like a manipulation of the rules.
The Green Party stands at a crossroads and there are three main possible directions of travel. In my view only one of them is genuinely green and the dangers lie in the following two directions being taken:

1) Lib Dems on Bikes.

The danger of putting too much emphasis on a 'professional' media image and talking from a script approach is that the party ends up with a vaguely left of centre liberal ethos which amounts to little more than wishy washy rhetoric about 'fairness' and 'internationalism' and a policy approach similar to the Lib Dems when led by Charles Kennedy.  There is of course also a danger that a kind of Green Blairism takes hold with a slick, centrist careerism and a centre-right approach however I believe that the former scenario is more likely. There is an element within the party who are very Lib Demmy in their approach: vaguely interested in social justice, very pro-EU, liberal on social issues and refugees but hostile to the idea of serious redistribution of wealth, trade unions  and the Labour left as personified by Jeremy Corbyn.
While I accept that many of this grouping have genuine environmental concerns, this seems to be confined to a light green approach of wishing to promote cycling, cleaner air, growing your own food, eco-friendly consumerism and so on. There is no sense of any desire for a serious and radical change in the direction of the UK or the world or for seriously challenging the assumptions behind endless economic growth and the destruction of the countryside. Many seem to believe that the planet can be saved if individuals just make the right choices in the marketplace and buy Ecover washing up liquid instead of Fairy Liquid.
I also accept that this is coupled with genuine concerns about social justice however this is seldom coupled with any radical critique of the neo-liberal economic system which creates inequality and erodes working-class living standards. It seems more about a rather namby pamby sense of niceness involving doing a lot for charity and worthy causes but remaining averse to paying more taxes or supporting trade unions when they stand up for the pay and conditions of their members.

2) Labour Lite

On the other hand there is also the danger that the Green Party could ends up as little more than a left-wing offshoot of the Labour Party which attempts to 'out-Corbyn ' Corbyn. Much of the Green surge of 2015 was due to younger people looking for a left-wing alternative to New Labour and a feeling that so-called 'Red Ed' was both uninspiring and not very red at all. This approach, which can be found on the Bright Green website and is personified by members such as Adam Ramsay, tends to combine a thinly-veiled contempt for ecological Greens with a radical left-wing social agenda involving redistribution of wealth, equality for 'Liberation Groups', anti-austerity and an obsession with bureaucracy and taking over the party structures.
However this is a new left devoid of the sort of class-war rhetoric or support for trade unionism found within the SWP or old Labour . It is Socialism-lite for the Facebook generation which shuns anything rooted in the history of the labour movement, Marxism, syndicalism or anything that smells of the organised working class. It has more in common with the new-left of the late 1960s and early 1970s although lacking that era's utopian visions, radical edge or cultural backdrop.

THE DANGERS

The Green Party is a broad church and there is room for people who share both of the above approaches . The dangers lie in either of the two above groupings gaining ground and becoming the dominant force within it. That is because the end result could well be a Green Party in name only.

The 'Lib Dems on Bikes' approach may well win us a few more seats however it would alienate many people who joined the Green Party for a radical alternative to the grey parties. The left of the party would clearly be alienated but also this approach would replace a genuine ecologist or green ethos with something barely distinguishable from the Lib Dems. Any centrist politician can be vaguely pro-green so why would anyone bother supporting a Green Party that has no radical ecologist agenda when this is no different from other parties? I didn't join the Green Party because I want people to see me as 'nice', I joined the Green Party because it is the only political party which has ecological concerns at the core of its origins and ethos as well as a radical approach to social justice.

The 'Labour-lite' approach would narrow our appeal, prevent us winning seats and change the party into a left-wing talking shop. There are many areas of policy where the ecologists and much of the Labour left disagree such as their commitment to economic growth and their desire to build, build build over our countryside. Even a basic knowledge of socialist history in Europe shows that while there are those on the left that have been strong on green issues, there are many more who have not. The Soviet Union was an ecological disaster.
Clearly it is possible to be an eco-socialist and to fight for a radical green agenda and socialism at the same time. However the Green Party can never win elections just by poaching voters from the Labour Party. It will never be able to take enough as many Labour voters will still stay with Labour, no matter how right-wing it goes, as they did under Blair. To win, the Green Party needs to be broad enough in its appeal and rhetoric to take voters from all the other parties, including even the Conservatives and UKIP. An overly leftist image might perform well in a university campus context but not in wider society.

THE FUTURE MUST BE ECOLOGISM

The Green Party cannot just be a single issue party and where I do agree with the Bright Green grouping is that we can't just talk about the environment and nothing else. We have to have a range of policies including those that promote equality and stand up for public services and the socially disadvantaged and excluded. Also this should mean something in real terms and in our policies, rather than just being a vague, namby pamby, bleeding-heart,  Lib Dem sense of civic niceness which doesn't amount to much in reality.
However if we downplay our commitment to environmental issues we will lose our soul and lose our purpose. We need to re-assert our ecologism.
The Green Party was founded in 1973 as PEOPLE (later renamed The Ecology Party in 1975) with ecological concerns at its heart. Its founders were inspired by The Limits to Growth, a 1972 book about the computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies. Ecologism is not a centrist approach, rather it challenges all of the assumptions of neo-liberal politics; the need for economic growth, centralised decision making, increasing consumption and global inequality.
Green issues can win us support from across the political spectrum. Many voters are worried about the countryside being concreted over with huge housing estates. They are fed up with seeing their towns grow without a corresponding investment in infrastructure. Issues such as climate change, world population and pollution are concerns for everyone regardless of political background.

We need to end the watering-down of the Green Party's ecologism and to re-assert The Limits to Growth in our party's philosophy.

THE NEXT GREEN PARTY LEADER

Whoever is elected as the new Green Party leader or leaders needs to be rooted in ecologism. Yes the party is a broad church and can have within it watermelons, centrists, people here for the social events and so on. However the leader should be someone rooted in the core ethos of the movement, someone to take us in the right direction. Yes they also need to be media savvy but not to the extent of being someone who is presentable precisely because they don't believe in the party's values like Tony Blair was in relation to Labour.
It would also be a mistake to elect a watermelon leader whose aim is to slowly peel off their outer skin until all that remains is the red.

The next leader needs to be Green rather than Lib Dem or Corbyn lite. Otherwise the Green Party could well be on the road to nowhere.

Natalie Bennett & Shahrar Ali Conference Speeches March 2015

The Books Which Inspired The Founding of The Green Party

What is now The Green Party of England and Wales was founded in 1973 as The PEOPLE Party. In the summer of 1972 Lesley Whittaker a surveyor and property agent bought a copy of Playboy magazine in which there was an interview with Dr Paul R. Ehrlich about overpopulation and how he and his wife were giving up two years of their lives to the cause. Erhlich had recently published a book about population growth entitled "The Population Bomb", which the article was about. This article inspired Whittaker and her husband Tony to form a small group of professional and business people 'Club of Thirteen', so named because it first met on 13 October 1972 in Daventry. In November 1972 the Whittaker's, Freda Sanders and Michael Benfield agreed to form 'PEOPLE' as a new political party to challenge the UK political establishment. Officially formed at the start of 1973, The PEOPLE Party produced a Manifesto for a Sustainable Society as a background statement of policies. This was directly  inspired by "A Blueprint for Survival" (published by The Ecologist magazine). The editor of "The Ecologist" magazine, Edward 'Teddy' Goldsmith, merged his 'Movement for Survival' with PEOPLE. Goldsmith became one of the leading members of the new party during the 1970s.
The third book which inspired the founders of PEOPLE was "The Limits to Growth". Commissioned by the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.

Themes: Population and Economic Growth

The major theme of all of these books is the alarming rate of global environmental degradation resulting from human activity. They warn against the effects of unlimited economic growth and population growth on the world's resources, biodiversity and human well being. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to criticise these books, particularly The Population Bomb, for getting the timings wrong and predicting that utter disaster would happen before the end of the 20th century. However while the timescale may have been over the top, the essential warnings within these books remain starkly convincing. Moreover they show that ecological concerns were the main reason that what became The Green Party was founded in the first place. The key point stressed in The Population Bomb is that it took from the evolution of humanity until 1830 for the population to reach one billion. The next billion took only 100 years. The third billion took 37 years. The fourth billion took 13 years. And so on. The cause is not just too many births it is also the falling death rate. The world's population will continue to grow as long as the birth rate exceeds the death rate, it is as simple as that. When it stops growing or starts to shrink , it will mean either the birth rate has gone down or the death rate has gone up or a combination of the two.
My problem with those optimists who now criticise these books  is that they see the pattern in the West as a universal one (that increasing prosperity lowers the birthrate) regardless of cultural, religious or traditional factors. It also tends to fly in the face of the majority of the span of human history. Ehrlich says of the optimists in, The Population Bomb:

"They are a little like a person who, after a low temperature of five degrees of frost on December 21st, interprets a low of only three on December 22nd as a cheery sign of approaching spring."

It fails also to take into account that the death rate will continue to fall. Even the optimists accept that the population could be 11 billion by 2100. Given the likely increase in world consumption as consumerist lifestyles spread along with urbanisation, the result may well be that by 2100 the rain forests have gone, adding to global warming and we will have passed the point of no return. Also by then loss of habitat will have resulted in the mass extinction of tigers, elephants and a mass of other species, in the wild . The best hope is the reduction in world poverty, as economic security is the best chance for lowering the birthrate. Also the emancipation of women. However both need to be accompanied with an acceptance of the issue.

The Subsequent Development of The Green Party

In 1975, PEOPLE was renamed and relaunched as The Ecology Party. Then in 1985 it became The Green Party of Great Britain. In response to the rumours of a group of Liberal Party activists about to launch a UK Green Party, HELP (the Hackney Local Ecology Party) formally registered the name The Green Party, with a green circle as its logo. The first public meeting, chaired by David Fitzpatrick (then an Ecology Party speaker), was 13 June 1985 in Hackney Town Hall. Paul Ekins (then co-chair of the Ecology Party) spoke on the subject of Green politics and the inner city. Hackney Green Party put a formal proposal to the Ecology Party Autumn Conference in Dover that year to change to the Green Party, which was supported by the majority of attendees, including John Abineri, formerly an actor in the BBC series Survivors who supported adding Green to the name to fall in line with other environmental parties in Europe.

Finally The Green Party of England and Wales was created in 1990 when the former Green Party split into separate parties: Scottish Green Party, Green Party in Northern Ireland, and England & Wales.

Open Meeting: THE NHS

The next open meeting organised by Colchester Green Party will be next Monday 2nd February and the discussion topic will be the NHS. The speaker is Chris Flossman from Essex Young Greens. The meetings are held in the back room of the New Inn pub, South Street Colchester, 7.30pm -9pm. A choice of real ales are available from the bar. All welcome including new people and non-party members.

Why I Would Not "Put the Queen in a Council House"

I'd just like to reassure my blog readers that I do not endorse any proposal to re-house the Queen in a council house. The main problem with any proposal to abolish the monarchy is the question of what to replace it with. An elected president is the obvious alternative, however such a role would be inevitably political and would lend the Head of State role, which carries a degree of assumed respect, to a political figure. Think of the kind of people who would stand; Tony Blair springs to mind.
Personally I enjoy the spectacle of the monarchy and anyone who knows me is aware of my Ricardian leanings (I belonged to the Richard III Society for a number of years). Therefore the Queen, Prince Philip and the corgis can stay where they are as far as I'm concerned.
I do hope our leader doesn't end up in the tower......

Why The Green Party Should Not Join a Coalition Government

I welcome and fully support Green Party leader Natalie Bennett's recent statement in an interview that the Green Party will not join a coalition government after the election on May 7th. Rather we would consider each legislative proposal on a case by case basis and then decide whether to give our support. Clearly some readers of this blog will be thinking that we won't win many seats anyway, however I believe that they are mistaken. The Green Party currently has more members than either the Lib Dems or UKIP and we are currently the most rapidly growing party in the UK. However I can see very little benefit either to our growth as a party or, more importantly, our cause from joining any coalition government.
Firstly we need look no further than the current state of the Lib Dems to see the problem. Their low poll ratings and poor performance in the 2014 European and local elections is a direct result of their coalition deal with the Conservatives. Promises that they had made to the electorate, such as the tuition fees pledge, rolled easily away like water off a duck's back. Rather than draw lines in the sand and negotiate hard, they let the Conservatives set the agenda, either because they actually shared that agenda or they felt that they must defer to the bigger party. Moreover they have been used as a shield ever since by David Cameron in order to take the flak for the most controversial coalition policies. Whenever a massive cut to benefits or an NHS reform was announced it was more often than not a Lib Dem minister such as the hapless Danny Alexander who was offered up like a sacrificial lamb to appear on BBC Question Time to defend it. As a result the Lib Dems became more and more hated, while teflon Dave sat back and enjoyed the consequences.
The last thing the Green Party needs is to be used and manipulated in the same way by either of the grey parties. In the event of a Green-Labour coalition we could find ourselves in the position of being used on TV and radio to justify every controversial Labour tax increase or privatisation proposal and in doing so we would lend legitimacy to policies which go against either our interests or the views of the electorate. In the event of a Conservative-Green coalition we become Lib Dems mark two.
Secondly, we need to ensure that the voters know that when they vote Green Party they will advance our policies. That is that either the other parties adopt some of our ideas in fear of losing votes to us or that our elected MPs pursue a Green Party agenda. Making an overly compromising  coalition deal and following another party's agenda would only serve to create the impression that a green vote is a wasted vote.
Thirdly in order to keep winning seats we must present ourselves as a broad based party that is capable of taking votes from across the political spectrum. It would be a huge act of folly to ally ourselves too closely with any of the grey parties as we would alienate a section of our prospective voters for a generation.

The Ongoing Rise of the Greens

Not since the 1989 local elections, when the Greens polled 15% of the vote, has it been a better or more exciting time to be a Green Party supporter. In the local elections this May the Green Party increased its vote across a range of Colchester wards, including my own New Town. Nationally, Green Party membership has increased by 28% this year alone and our youth wing is up by a colossal 70%. We are fast becoming the party of the youth of Britain. In a recent poll of voting intention by IpsosMORI we came in at 8%, level with the Lib Dems and a big increase from 2010 when only 1% voted Green.

Why the Green Party's Citizen's Income Would Benefit Us All

Given that it is almost impossible to pick up a copy of one of the tabloids without reading some or other article about 'scroungers', 'dole spongers' or 'benefits cheats', it might seem that the Green Party's promise of a guaranteed income for all is a hard policy to sell to the voters. However, despite the context of condemnation of the disadvantaged and the 'Benefits Street' poverty porn demonisation of the poor, its high time to shout as loud as we can about a policy that will actually bring positive advantages to everyone. Green Party policy states:

EC730 A Citizen's Income sufficient to cover an individual's basic needs will be introduced, which will replace tax-free allowances and most social security benefits (see EC711). A Citizen's Income is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship. It will not be subject to means testing and there will be no requirement to be either working or actively seeking work.

It may seem on the surface that offering a universal basic income to everyone, including those who do not seem to be making the effort to look for work, will just encourage people to put their feet up and live off the taxpayer. This is what the tabloids would shout from the rafters. However this superficial emotion-based argument completely misses the point about how to encourage people into work. It is not whether or not people have an income or not that counts it is whether work pays ie whether you earn more if you work than if you don't. It is the gap that matters. At the moment we have thousands of people stuck in what is termed the 'poverty trap', meaning that their various benefits give them a higher income than getting a job would. This is indeed untenable and needs to change. However the primary cause of it is not generous benefits but the fact that we live in an economy based on low pay ie a minimum wage that is not a living wage, zero hours contracts with no guaranteed income and the importation of the cheapest labour from the EU in order to keep wages down. As a result, the taxpayer has to fork out millions to top up the earnings of the low paid in order to subsidise their exploitative employers and private landlords who are making money out of this crazy situation. Meanwhile for many facing a choice between working for a non-living wage or living on benefits that are slightly higher, the latter is the obvious choice.

The Citizen's Income however would be a major step to solving this. For a start, in order to attract a workforce, wages would have to rise to a higher level than the income. The higher the Citizen's Income is then the higher the minimum wage would have to be, its as simple as that. Clearly it would have to be paid to EU migrants as well (and the tabloids would howl) or free movement of labour in the EU curtailed, however the result would be that wages for those in work on the lowest incomes would have to rise as a result of the guaranteed income. Without the ability to keep a pool of people in total poverty as a means of threatening the poor into accepting the lowest of wages, and without the ability to use people from Eastern Europe to work for next to nothing then wages in general would have to go up. And this benefits us all.

It benefits us all in less obvious ways. For a start it would reduce crime. The main reason why it benefits the middle classes to have a benefits system for the poor is that you are less likely to get your house burgled or your car stereo pinched. If people have no income then their choices are crime, charity/food banks or prostitution. Threatening to remove the benefits of those, 'not actively seeking work' always was a tabloid headline grabbing fallacy that is causing far more social problems than it solves. Who wouldn't rather burgle a house than starve? The Citizen's Income would guarantee everyone a basic income without any moralistic caveats or attempts to distinguish the 'deserving poor' from the 'feckless' and as such would mean that there is less need for not but food banks but also petty crime. I'm not suggesting that it would solve all petty crime, where people have already built up patterns of behaviour, but it would surely have some effect. Coupled with a serious attempt (backed up with serious government spending) to get people off hard drugs, I suspect it could have a major effect.

The Citizen's Income would benefit the taxpayer in the long run by reducing the need to subsidise the wages of the low paid with umpteen other benefits because their wages themselves have risen, especially when coupled with the Green Party policy of raising the minimum wage to a living wage. It would reduce the need for food banks and the constant fear of petty crime which exists in certain areas of our major cities. Above all, it would ensure that wages in general would have to increase and that brings benefits to far more people than those at the very bottom of the pile.

Natalie Bennett Announces Living Wage Policies at the Green Party Autumn Conference

The Green Party of England and Wales autumn conference is underway and our party leader Natalie Bennett has announced plans to create a 'living wage' by raising the minimum wage to £10 per hour by 2020. At the moment the minimum wage (as of next month) is £6.50 for those over 21, £5.13 for those aged 18-20 and £3.79 for those under 18. The problem is that with the cost of living rising due to increasing rents and utility bills, among other costs, the minimum wage is often not a 'living wage' which is defined as the amount needed to meet the basic cost of living in the UK ie food, clothing and shelter. Currently the living wage in the UK is calculated as £7.65 if you live outside London and £8.80 inside London.

How the policy would work is that the minimum wage would rise in stages by £1.15 to £7.65 an hour next year and then in further stages until reaching £10 in 2020. To help pay for this, those with more than £3million in assets will pay an annual levy of between 1% and 2%, amounting to £30,000 - £60,000 a year.

In addition to this, Natalie Bennett also promised to abolish zero-hours contracts in her speech to conference. She said:

"We’re also backing a complete ban zero-hours contracts. No employer should be able to hold their staff captive in a life of uncertainty and fear, subject to the whims and favouritism of managers, with no way of planning how to pay their bills. The zero-hours contract is the return of the Great Depression’s street corner queues for work – and we say NO!"

As for rent costs, she outlined plans for both rent capping and an end to short-term contracts:

"And we’ll ensure that private landlords are NOT allowed to continue to charge extortionate rents for rabbit hutches. Our smart rent cap, combined with long-term rental contracts, will keep rent rises down. And we’re demanding a living rent commission, to work out how to bring rents back in line with incomes."

The Myth of Green Consumerism

I have a confession to make, well several in fact. I have never in my life bought Ecover washing up liquid or any other Ecover product for that matter. I pay no regard to how many toxic chemicals are in the washing powder I buy or the shampoo I use. I don't make the effort to buy food that has minimum packaging and most of the time I visit a supermarket I don't take a 'bag for life' with me but get new plastic bags in store. 'Green' liberals may already be tutting away reading this and wondering how I could be so irresponsible, sitting here gloating at my thoughtless consumerism. However lets think for a minute about the wider context of 'green consumerism', 'ethical shopping', 'moral purchasing' or whatever you want to call it.
The thinking behind all of this is that individual consumers, by making a 'positive lifestyle choice' and buying the likes of Ecover products over standard washing up products can effect a positive change in society. If enough people make this choice, so the thinking goes, then the market will respond. More Ecover type companies will spring up and the old ones will either have to change their products or decline and go bust. The underlying assumption behind all of this is that the free market knows best and that empowered consumers imposing their moral boycotts and making ethically informed choices can change society. Well this is just plain guff.
For a start, for any real effect to result, a large proportion of consumers would need to switch product, not just a small number of niche greens. This is virtually impossible to achieve once a brand product is already established and a pattern of consumption is established. Yes consumer pressure can work when its something new that is on offer such as GM food and there is massive consumer resistance and suspicion. However once a product is established and people have been buying it for years, then its almost impossible to persuade a large enough chunk of its purchasers to stop or to switch. Obviously I'd rather people did just stop buying the really dangerous and damaging stuff such as garden pesticides and insecticides, however I am realistic enough to know that my efforts to persuade will fall on deaf ears apart from a few green-minded people.
Secondly, the danger with green consumerism is that greens themselves think that they have 'made a difference' by buying their packaging free carrots or ethical chocolate and so that is that. Job done. Feel good about yourself. In fact nothing has been achieved at all as the products which you are boycotting will still sell in droves and most likely be increasing their sales as the economy recovers.
Thirdly, the system itself is designed so that you won't make a difference. Green products are almost always more expensive than the standard ones for example and as a result the majority of cash-strapped purchasers are unlikely to switch in a free market. Also the system panders to our inherent weaknesses and laziness. It offers me new plastic bags whenever I go shopping so that I don't have to bother taking one with me, after all pandering to the lowest common denominator tends to work in maximising profits. It is completely idealistic to expect the majority of the population to operate at all times by the best ethical standards and green concerns. Supporters of the system do not want green consumerism to ever achieve something, it is the last thing they want. They want people to buy masses of pesticides, herbicides, plastic food packaging, products made in sweatshops because it increases profits. If everyone stopped then it might threaten the great god growth. Liberal supporters of the system will of course often fully support green consumerism; this is because as long as it remains a niche market within the system then it is safe. The last thing these people want is for ethical purchasing to actually work and for sections of the economy which are unethical, such as those based on live animal exports or sweatshop labour to collapse.

So if green consumerism is unlikely to stop unethical trade or environmentally damaging retail practices, then what will? Well as I can see the only thing that can work is government intervention or intervention from some other authority such as the institutions of the EU. If you want to stop people buying childrens' toys manufactured in sweatshops then campaign to get the importing of them banned. If you don't like the chemicals in your washing up liquid then campaign to get them banned. If you disagree with live animal exports then protest about it and demand that it be declared illegal. Campaign for supermarkets to be forced to only issue reusable plastic bags and for food companies to have to reduce packaging by law.
Of course the liberals will whine and wail that this is the 'nanny state' interfering with consumer choice. Exactly. It works, which is what the supporters of the system don't want.

How the Greens can Learn From Both the Lib Dems and UKIP

The Greens do have much to celebrate in Colchester. Our overall percentage share of the vote has increased from that of 2012 and has significantly increased in several wards. In New Town the green vote has increased by nearly 80 votes, pushing the Conservative Party candidate into last place. These are real achievements however much work remains to be done. It is clear that the Lib Dems remain the main winners in Colchester, despite their overall voter share falling by nearly 10%. UKIP are still on the rise (by 13%) despite not winning a single council seat.

There are lessons to be learned by the Greens from both the Lib Dems and UKIP in terms of campaigning. The Lib Dem grip on Colchester is based on their work on local issues and the Bob Russell factor. The Lib Dems concentrate their leaflets and publicity on local concerns, from the perennial dogs fouling pavements and pot-holes to issues surrounding the jumbo tower. They have built up an image of being hard-working locally. This despite the fact that in reality the Morant Road, Artillery Street and King Stephen Road area still has such a problem with dog fouling that the residents have resorted to circling the turds with chalk and writing 'Please clean up after your dog' next to them. It is the perception that counts not the reality. Therefore we, as greens, need to focus our campaigns and our literature on more local matters as well as ensuring that we do match perception to reality. Secondly we must publicize to the voters our wider policies beyond those of the environment. 

From UKIP, there are lessons to be learned about presentation, image and communication. UKIP strike a chord with many voters who feel disengaged and alienated from the political process. This is not only because of the perception that they are the only party listening to concerns about immigration, it is also because they appear not to talk down to voters from the lofty heights of a political ivory tower. They are, in that sense, anti-establishment. Nigel Farage has an excellent manner and approach as leader, down-to-earth, straight-talking, an every man necking a pint of beer. In the modern world image does matter. A leader that appears too intellectual, po-faced and odd-looking, which is how many perceive Ed Miliband to be, will inevitably lose votes. It is self-defeating for Greens to shout 'racist' at UKIP voters, insist that image doesn't matter or look upon UKIP voters as the barbarians at the gates. We must engage in an adult way with all of these things. Greens must take on board the fact that many voters have genuine concerns about levels of net migration and the resulting impact on wage levels, housing demand, school places and over-development. Most UKIP voters are not racist and some of UKIP's posters and Nigel Farage's rhetoric about Romanians moving next door would have gone too far for them. However to win these voters away from UKIP will require real engagement with the issues rather than attacks. Greens must also work on the image. We must change the public perception that Green candidates are all bearded old hippies who look like former members of Jethro Tull or are middle class people with no understanding of life on the breadline in modern Britain.