Here's Why the Greens Flopped in the EU Election
The Greens are down from 4th to 6th place in the EU elections in a time of climate collapse. Here are three reasons why:
1. They are not telling the truth for the sake of telling the truth. Last week a world expert suggested that we have a 40% chance of losing European civilisation in the 2030s because of the AMOC collapse. There needs to be a different tact - the situation cries out for raw emotion and real realism. No more being nice.
2. Greens support the status quo. Whatever they say otherwise, you can feel it. They are born out of the system (i.e., university-educated). Instead, they need to name the beast - capitalism - which is going to destroy itself and take us down with it. They need to say "Over our dead bodies will ordinary people pay for the emergency transition. It is the rich and powerful who got us into this total mess in the first place and they should pay". And they should sound like they fucking mean it.
3. They should stop being a traditional political party and become a social movement that stands in elections. They should use community assemblies to choose policies and candidates including working class and people of colour communities. Then they come from the people and look like they come from the people. They should never go into alliance with social democrats and the other carbon legacy parties. And never should they be “responsible” and vote for budget cuts for their communities.
Of course, this won't happen - most Greens still want to have their cake and eat it. Maybe that was true in 2000, just possibly in 2010, but not a chance in hell in 2024. It's 1.6C - we will be over 2C in a decade, all hell is going to break loose, and the neoliberal regimes will collapse. Strangely, the Greens are the biggest climate deniers.
What we need is a whole new political system and revolutionaries to create it, who enjoy telling the truth and acting as if it's real because, at this point in history, they find expediency existentially repulsive (i.e. full of shit).
I know at least a few Greens out there know all this - so...?
Ajit Niranjan
I've got two focuses:
- Revolution - Building social formations to create revolution and guide moments of social disruption.
- A Balanced Society - Building a new civilisation based on a new balance of deliberative democracy, compassion, and limited consumption.
Want to join me? Sign up to my monthly Zoom call. (More info here)
Sign up for nonviolent civil resistance with Just Stop Oil in the UK or via the A22 Network internationally.
