What the Green Party needs to do now
The Green Party must stop relying on electoral politics alone and start building a mass movement for real democracy. Here is a concrete plan to mobilise people and put power back in the hands of ordinary people.
In the recent Camden by-election only one in seven voters felt motivated to vote for Labour’s “winning” candidate. Six in ten voters, presented with the options of voting for two “Left” parties (in one of the most radical constituencies in the country) decided not even to vote. This, in the context of the greatest destruction of life in human history due to the refusal of the political class to slash emissions, and fascist parties waiting in the wings to exploit the inevitable social chaos which is now locked in.
This is what the Green Party should do: drop the warm words and focus on following concrete action:
- Zack should cut down on doing national media and instead do four offline public meetings every week with 200 plus hours of publicity done by local members (1000 posters, 10,000 leaflets, and 10 days of street stalls) building up to getting 300 people in the room each evening. He should ask people to help publicise future meetings. When we did this recently in Hackney 80% of people came to the front to fill in forms to commit themselves. Half of these people came to a social a week later and started doing the work.
- These mobilisations should lead to monthly assemblies of local residents to create 101 demands of the government - 100 policies and one extra demand that the decisions on these demands are made by legally binding citizens assemblies not politicians. This leads to a series of demonstration days happening all around the country. Three people started this process in France in the summer and with only 20,000 euros they got 140,000 people into the streets three months later.
- Along with similar events in many other western democracies, a massive national assembly should be held in March 2027 to decide on the 100 demands to go with the one demand for political revolution - that the people decide not the political parties. This creates the momentum for a social coalition to get one million people demonstrating from 3rd July - the start of international days of action all around the world. People go to the streets each day until governments give up power to ordinary people in citizens assemblies.
- The local assemblies also need to lead campaigns to recruit local residents in all the wards of a borough/county, selected randomly, to participate in permanent community assemblies to challenge local councils. This is happening in Lambeth - it has been organised through 25 hours a week of canvassing and leafleting in just seven weeks. These assemblies become the voice of residents and community organisations - not the councils.
- In local elections next year the Greens work with these assemblies and community groups to put up joint green/community independent candidates - which are selected by ward community assemblies which decide on local programmes. Winning candidates agree to follow the outcomes of the borough/county community assemblies, not any political party. The organisation we co-founded in January this year, Shake It Up, went from zero to running assemblies in Lambeth which selected six working class candidates, all from migrant communities, in a matter of weeks. We motivated over 100 people to knock on 10,000’s of doors in six wards. This process has to be replicated all around the country in the May elections next year.
The former leader of Lambeth Green told us that “the community comes before the party”. After a decade of doing this independents in Frome were getting 70% of the vote in local elections. Compare that with this week’s Camden by-election results.
This is the future of democracy in the 21st century - Real Democracy - meaning what the word actually means: rule BY the people - not rule (supposedly) FOR the people. Our teams and networks include many of the best campaigners in the country. We have mobilised hundreds of thousands of people into social movements. We know how to do it and we are going to do it again. We want to be in service to a Green Party that is in service to the community - that follows the science on how to mobilise effectively.
We warmly invite Green Party members and anyone interested in a concrete plan to create a real democracy to come to the online call where we will go through details of how to build the mass social movement/party we are all crying out for.
What the Green Party needs to do now:
Sunday 25th October 6pm: What the Green Party Needs to do now with Ruby Bukhari and Roger Hallam
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Ruby Bukhari and Roger Hallam
Co- founders of Shake It Up and Mobilising Communities
