Caroline Lucas should be the luckiest woman in politics. More than 20 years ago she joined a minor, leftfield party: today its defining issue has become the biggest political issue in the world. Bingo! Only politics, of course, is not that simple.
As Winston Churchill famously pointed out, democracy has been described as “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried”, and if you really want to see what he meant, spend an hour with the leader of the Green party.
European elections
Less than three weeks away from the European elections, the dilemmas facing Lucas are daunting. If she campaigns on climate change alone, she demotes her party to the status of a single-issue outfit. However, if she broadens its platform with a comprehensive policy package, she risks exiling it to the unelectably leftwing wilderness.
If the Greens ditch some of their policies in the interests of electability, they sacrifice their unique claim to integrity, and begin to look just like every other party. But their integrity is so precious to them that they have wasted the last 20 years fiddling over whether they can compromise their principles by putting on a suit and electing a single leader, while the planet has been burning.
They believe that only government action can save the planet now, so they are pinning all their hopes on Lucas taking the party’s one winnable Westminster seat, Brighton Pavilion, at the next general election. But even if she wins, does the party have enough time left to build a parliamentary movement? Probably not.
Climate change matters
Our electoral system makes a Green government all but unimaginable, and their core issue – climate change – is a nightmare to campaign on. No party has ever won by telling the country it can no longer enjoy the life it has taken for granted, and if Lucas tells voters the truth – that beating climate change means more than recycling plastic bags – she risks making her message disastrously unpopular.
What Lucas says about the environment must be pitched at voters who know that climate change matters, but still hope it can be tackled with some minor lifestyle adjustments. Her manifesto pledges a million new jobs in the green industries, in a more localised, low-carbon economy.
From The Guardian
Full interview with Caroline Lucas
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