Welcome, new Green Party Members

 

 Having been a Green Party member for about 36 years, I am awed by the recent surge in membership. We now have more than 45,000 members, overtaking not just UKIP but also the LibDems.

So, if you have just paid your £5-10 sub to the Green Party - Welcome.

Now what?

You may want to contact your local party for starters. First, a gentle word of warning - if you want a vibrant, far ranging discussion of the political issues of the day, you will not find it at a regular business meeting, which will be about arrangements for the coming General Election campaign. If you love committee meetings, then fine. If you don't, but are prepared to come and help with leafletting, canvassing and rallies, then just tell the local party so. Ask about Green Drinks social gatherings.

You probably want to find out what you have signed up to. There is a brief statement of our Core Values here, and for a longer statement, our Philosophical Basis is here.

Our full policy web pages are here. They contain an awful lot of detailed resolutions voted on and amended by Conference going back to our inception as the People Party (later renamed the Ecology Party) in 1973.

The main question that the party has to answer is,

"OK, you are strong on ecology, but how about your economic policies?"

One of the main themes of this blog addresses this question. I have 75 posts on economics, 94 on green economics, and 44 on the 2008 financial crisis.

Also, on my website I have a few essays on green economics, in particular an introductory Overview of Green Economics. This last needs updating, and I will try to do so in the next few days, and also will try to show how the necessity of ecological sustainability is interwoven with the need for equality and democracy.

Also in need of even more updating is the old classic Green Policies in a Nutshell http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/PoliciesNutshell.htm. 

The essence of green economics is that it is founded on ecology, in other words, the existence on the planet of a healthy, happy human population stands at the beginning of our thinking. Finance and money exist to serve that human life, not the other way round.

Therefore green economics  completely stands conventional economics on its head.  In this sense, green politics is revolutionary, but our revolution concerns thought and understanding, not hatred and violence.

So, welcome to all Green Party members. We hope we all have a long and happy life struggling for the Common Good - a better world for all living and sentient beings - even, I must add, for our political opponents and the functionaries who aim to exclude us from the TV debates.