Stop doing 'climate populism' wrong - thoughts on the Green Party leadership election
The Green Party for England and Wales is soon to elect a new leader. Several established figures in the Green Party - Caroline Lucas, Jenny Jones, Rupert Read - are backing the joint bid by Adrian Ramsay MP and Ellie Chowns MP who look like strong favourites.
However - and healthily - London Assembly Member, Zack Polanski has stepped up to challenge the status quo. The status quo is a bit nervous.
Polanski is courting the Novara media side of the Left, i.e. those who are disillusioned with the Labour Party (more disillusioned - and appalled by - than ever before). This does not appear to be a cynical or opportunistic move, I think he genuinely feels at home there. This strategy may or may not work electorally for him now, or for the Green Party in the future – it's the latter that worries Ramsay and Chowns and their supporters.
Polanski's approach is a bit, 'send it': go big or go home; it could go either way. If he wins the leadership, he might crash and burn the Green Party, but then again, he might launch it to unprecedented new heights. He's very much the high risk, high reward candidate and revelling in it. It certainly differentiates him from Chowns and Ramsay, who are seen as the safer pair(s) of hands, which makes for an interesting race.
Going on in the background is a debate about a big idea: climate populism (or popularism – choose your own preference). It is advocated for by Rupert Read, who has been joined by Caroline Lucas, and Polanski has cottoned on too. He cited 'eco populism' as his strategy for the Green Party when he announced his Leadership.
However, Read thinks Polanski is doing climate populism wrong, and outside the Green Party, figures like Joseph Gelfer argue that Greens, full stop, are offering a mere ’cosplay’ version of climate populism – he doesn’t think it is something Progressives can truly offer. I think he has a point, but I think Gelfer, Read, and Polanski are all missing something crucial about what might actually be popular in these times – more on that in the final section.
Read and Lucas – while being supporters of Chowns and Ramsay – are, I expect, seeking to encourage them (and The Green Party) to adopt a climate populism strategy. Chowns and Ramsay do not, however, seem that well suited to the role of ‘populist leader’, neither the Read nor Gelfer version of it (see Gelfer’s 10-point guide to authentic climate populism). This is because, whether Chowns and Ramsay like it or not, they are too easy to characterise as the sort of progressive elite insiders that populist leaders swoop in from the outside to oppose.
I think they recognise this, their mantra is "credibility" and as Adam (n.b. not Adrian) Ramsay has pointed out, Chowns and Ramsay want to be - and want the Green Party to be - "credible in the eyes of the system", the Westminster system. Adam (who offered his critique via Novara) doesn't criticise Chowns-Ramsay for adopting this approach (it is the logical one for them to pursue if they want to win the leadership contest), what he is criticising is "credibility" as a strategy for the Green Party. He argues that:
'credible in the eyes of the system... ultimately means ‘we’ll go gently, and avoid upsetting the media and political class’. For Greens, the options for media coverage are either to be controversial or to be ignored, and “credibility” is code for the latter.’
Like Gelfer, he also has a point.
Polanski is seeking a different form of credibility. It is less easy to paint him as an elite progressive insider. Polanski is a more credible potential leader of the broad and growing constituency of disenfranchised, marginalised, and scapegoated voters. These are people who aren't just sick of, or jaded by, Westminster politics, they are people who are actively hostile towards it – they want to tear it down.
Polanski identifies with that and while he doesn't have all the qualities required to attract those voters to the Green Party (and away from Reform), Zoe Williams uncovered in her interview with him, that he does have some of what’s required. Polanski therefore stands a chance of being a credible populist leader; he might just be capable enough of doing something big – he *could* turn a game-changing amount of people Green. But it is a definite 'could' – he's high risk, high reward.
So, what of climate populism itself? Is it worth taking a punt on? I think it could be if it speaks to that missing crucial thing I trailed earlier, the ‘something’ that might prove popular in these times. Here goes then, this is where I start doing climate populism wrong (shoot me)…
Firstly, I get the basic starting point – appeal to ordinary people who feel disregarded by the elite – that is at the heart of populist strategy. The gradual centralisation of power in the hands of elite politicians, who are welded to various – often opaque – vested interests more than they are to ordinary people, has been disastrous and is detested by millions. Polanski gets that, Read and Lucas get that, Joseph Gelfer gets that (… and so does Nigel Farage - but that doesn't make it wrong).
However, what I'm not hearing enough of, from any of the champions of climate populism, is how they intend (or whether indeed they do intend) to *give power to* the 'ordinary people' they want votes from. This is the crucial something that’s missing in the climate populism rhetoric. For me, what should differentiate Green 'populism' from Reform 'populism' is this:
Reform appeal to ordinary people so that they can rule those people and govern *for* them (it is elitist, paternalistic, an attempt to even further centralise power, and a confidence trick – see Trump).
To be different, Greens need to show how they are winning power for us (us ‘ordinary people’), so they can govern *with* us.
These are two very different stories. To borrow Adam Lent's language, this would be a 'Do with' versus 'Do to' battle, which I think is the battle of our times. The advantage here, for the Greens, is that Labour, Tories, and Reform are all in the 'Do to' paradigm, so all three can be fought simultaneously. The Greens have the opportunity to offer something truly unique and are pretty well positioned, already, to do so.
The Green Party is far closer to the 'Do with' paradigm than any other political party. A ‘do with’ philosophy can be detected in how The Green Party runs, in its values, and in how it is structured. But it does not really communicate this, Greens don’t lean into their ‘do with’ ethos as a selling point. As a party it should because:
(a) it might make the party more attractive to new voters (a lot of new voters), and
(b) because if it doesn’t, any latent ‘do with’ spirit could wither away. The Green Party cannot allow itself to become yet another political party that has a Westminster ‘establishment’ that is detached from its membership and its voters.
To finish, here’s a final twist. I don't think you have to be a populist leader to be salesperson for 'Do with' politics. Anybody can be a credible 'Do with' leader. How? By 'doing with' at every opportunity - in your constituency, in your workplace, in your community, in your electoral campaigning. Chowns and Ramsay could 'do with', and so could Polanski.
Come August, when voting opens in the Green Party leadership election, whoever has sold me 'do with' politics most convincingly will get my vote. If neither campaign does, I’ll probably just abstain (and I won’t be the only one).