The Green party has done well at the local elections, making dozens of gains across England. But do those who voted Green, perhaps for the first time, realise what they have done? If not, they will spend the next four years regretting their vote. Perhaps the party’s name led them to naively conclude that the Greens are an organisation focused solely on caring for the environment. They thought their vote was about protecting England’s green and pleasant land. But they have been deceived.
This so-called ‘nice’ party can be rather nasty
The truth is that the Greens sometimes appear more eager to talk about a trans person’s ‘right’ to use the ladies’ loo than defend our countryside. This is a party that still, remarkably, appears unable to answer a simple question: what is a woman?
Following the Supreme Court’s verdict on that question last month, many politicians – including even Keir Starmer – finally regained their common sense. The Prime Minister, who had once said that 99 per cent of women don’t have a penis, said he does not believe transgender women are women. About time!
But instead of confronting reality, the Greens doubled down on their gender woo woo. Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader, continues to insist that: ‘Green party policy is clear that trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities exist and are valid.’
To those who have followed the party in recent years, Denyer’s stubbornness was no surprise. But some of the Green party’s new supporters – who presumably thought they were voting for a party whose activists like hugging trees – are in for a shock.
In recent years, the party has gone bonkers: it has become obsessed with supporting policies likely to appeal to idealistic, upper-middle-class sixth formers before they grow up.
Green party candidates have said they want to decriminalise the entire sex trade. The party also wants guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling to be withdrawn. Denyer told the BBC this week that the guidance puts trans people at risk of discrimination. But what about women?
I’ve long known that the Green party is no friend to women. There was a period when former leader Caroline Lucas was on the side of the righteous: Lucas used to support the Nordic model which seeks to abolish the sex industry. But after being tackled on the subject by Paris Lees (a trans activist who dismisses those of us who are against prostitution as ‘white feminists’), Lucas changed her tune: she has since supported the campaign to decriminalise pimps, brothel owners and punters.
That was back in 2016. A lot has happened to the Greens since, all of it bad. So much so, that a vote for the Greens should now be something sensible people regret.
The Green’s record on women’s rights is disgraceful. In 2019, its Regional Council (GPRC) announced the appointment of two co-chairs, describing them as ‘Self identifying Non-Male Co-Chair: (female)’ and ‘Self identifying Non-Female Co-Chair: (male)’.
The party explained that ‘to specify that the chairs must be a “man” and a “woman” would exclude people who have non-binary or other identities, and we want the roles to be open to everyone.’ I asked if they would also advertise for ‘non-male non-heterosexuals’, to ensure that lesbians were not excluded. I’m still waiting to hear back.
The Green party leadership has long capitulated to the trans Taliban. But, in the process of doing so, it has forgotten its original purpose: to protect the environment.
‘The planet is burning,’ a senior Green party member told me, ‘but you would think they would pay more attention to that than bloody pronouns.’ Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case – as the Green’s new supporters are about to learn the hard way.
If only the rights of half of the planet’s population were deemed to be as important as trans rights. But perhaps we can take some comfort from the fact that, according to one recent survey, 94 per cent of people were in agreement with the Supreme Court’s decision that the definition of a woman is a matter of biology rather than imagined identity. Meanwhile, the Green party is left banging the drum for the four per cent.
It isn’t only on gender that the party has forgotten itself. This time last year, the Greens secured victory in the Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds, where its new councillor shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ to celebrate. Mothin Ali subsequently apologised after he was criticised for calling his local election victory a ‘win for the people of Gaza’. Surely, he meant that it was a win for environmentalism?
Whether it’s gender or Gaza, ideology always seems to take precedence for the Greens. Take childbirth: in the run-up to the 2024 election, the Greens vowed to ‘work to reduce the number of interventions in childbirth and change the culture’. After a backlash, the party saw sense: shelving a pledge to reduce the number of medical interventions at childbirth. But why did it want to implement a policy that might put mothers at risk in the first place?
Whatever the reason, the Green party has missed its calling. We live in an era in which most people care about about the environment and want to protect the planet. But instead of restating that simple mission, the Greens have been too busy playing politics and meddling on issues where it has no right to do so.
Earlier this year, Owen Jones said that ‘the Green party’s time is now’: ‘Their strength is their weakness,’ he wrote in the Guardian, ‘the Greens are too nice. The party brims with confidence in the moral righteousness of its cause, and seems to believe it can advance by patient persuasion.’
Not for the first time, Jones was wrong: this so-called ‘nice’ party can be rather nasty. It has given the boot to both women and men who dared question its cult-like adherence to gender ideology.
Greens see themselves as progressives, yet their policies are a mass of contradictions. If they were to ever win power, I fear for the women of Britain. Thankfully, the stakes are low in these local elections. Hopefully those who have endorsed the Greens this time will discover what the party really stands for – and think twice before voting Green again.
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