Green Party disintegration / split

L1011

In the last few days, the heads of the Green Partys Youth and Queer divisions have resigned, and a high profile Councillor in Cork (Lorna Bogue, 5.5k FPV in February) has left the party

They also lost the very high profile, albeit serially unelected Saoirse McHugh over the summer.

There is also the "Just Transition Greens" grouping, currently still affiliated to the party, which formerly contained some of those overboard.

Is there an actual split in the offing? The formation of a SocDems equivalent for disenchanted reps is something I could easily see happening but four months in Government is a bit quick for such a split.

They've a lot smaller of a base to collapse from than Labour's serial resignations from 2011 onward; and the Government has a much smaller majority than in that case too.

StackSteevens

Although they're unlikely to say so in public, I'd see it as great news for the mainstream Greens that a pair of complete and utter mé féiners like McHugh and Bogue have jumped overboard. I seriously doubt that the loss of the two of them will cause Eamon Ryan too many sleepless nights.

astrofool

This is the Greens splitting into two left of centre/very left of centre parties, and will probably highlight those who aren't really about the "Green" part. The very left of centre part will probably split in a few years again into a vegetarian/vegan split, and get sillier from there.

CrabRevolution

astrofool wrote: »

This is the Greens splitting into two left of centre/very left of centre parties, and will probably highlight those who aren't really about the "Green" part. The very left of centre part will probably split in a few years again into a vegetarian/vegan split, and get sillier from there.

I posted something along that vein when McHugh left; that there appeared to be a few people in the Greens who are concerned that the party wasn't far enough to the left and needed to be focusing less on the environment and more on social issues.

You'd have to wonder then why they bothered joining the Greens in the first place? We have innumerable left wing groups more fitting their views that they could have joined instead. Did they think the "Green" label was more electable and that they could piggyback on this to reshape the party more to their liking?

awec

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I posted something along that vein when McHugh left; that there appeared to be a few people in the Greens who are concerned that the party wasn't far enough to the left and needed to be focusing less on the environment and more on social issues.

You'd have to wonder then why they bothered joining the Greens in the first place? We have innumerable left wing groups more fitting their views that they could have joined instead. Did they think the "Green" label was more electable and that they could piggyback on this to reshape the party more to their liking?

Yes, exactly this IMO. There are some that though the Green Party would be a way to get left-leaning policies in through the back door without anyone noticing.

The determination of some to not go into government was infuriating as a Green voter. An unwillingness to compromise, a clear sign of immaturity within the party.

Harry Palmr

It's often said "scratch a Green - find a red" and they do attract some fairly 'looney types' who are not psychologically predisposed to party discipline.

Robert McGrath

Harry Palmr wrote: »

It's often said "scratch a Green - find a red" and they do attract some fairly 'looney types' who are not psychologically predisposed to party discipline.

“Watermelons” is the term, I believe

L1011

Mark Cagney on Newstalk last night claimed that there was a TD about to walk, clearly no names given.

Brussels Sprout

L1011 wrote: »

Mark Cagney on Newstalk last night claimed that there was a TD about to walk, clearly no names given.

Neassa Hourigan appears to be the one most aligned with the people who have departed (and didn't want to go into government) so my money would be on her.

I voted for Bogue in the past two general election and the local & european elections in 2019 but her actions and statements since becoming a councillor have been irritating. Her very first action was to suggest that the city council meetings (which hardly anyone from the public attends) should have someone signing in case any deaf people wanted to show up. That pretty much sums her up - fighting pointless battles for fringe issues rather then focusing on the very real climate and environmental issues all around.

What really annoyed me though was after the government was formed and the ministers were announced. When she learned that Hourigan would not be a minister (presumably since Hourigan had herself campaigned against going into government) Bogue tweeted out this was surely down to misogyny. She might have had a leg to stand on if half of the Green's ministers at the cabinet table (Martin & Hackett) were not women.

I had already decided not to give her my first preference in future elections so I'm delighted she's gone so my Green vote can go to someone else.

Rodney Bathgate

I’m not a fan of TDs jumping ship (or being pushed) and retaining their seat as if nothing has happened. (For any party before anyone asks.)

If a TD leaves the party they got elected under for any reason then there should be a by-election for their seat.

Same applies for splits among PBP/RISE/Solidarity or whatever names they are going by today.

boardise

astrofool wrote: »

This is the Greens splitting into two left of centre/very left of centre parties, and will probably highlight those who aren't really about the "Green" part. The very left of centre part will probably split in a few years again into a vegetarian/vegan split, and get sillier from there.

The competition to find the purest ,most incorruptible Green in Ireland should be fascinating ........ or maybe not.

Rodney Bathgate

boardise wrote: »

The competition to find the purest ,most incorruptible Green in Ireland should be fascinating ........ or maybe not.

My money is on the fruitarians winning.

lalababa

If there is a pronounced split ,then I would see the jumpers as pathetic.
I'm not familiar with the party's , for want of a better term, 'mission statement, but the greens should be hell bent on the improvement of the environment and rally to that particular call and only that.

CrabRevolution

lalababa wrote: »

If there is a pronounced split ,then I would see the jumpers as pathetic.
I'm not familiar with the party's , for want of a better term, 'mission statement, but the greens should be hell bent on the improvement of the environment and rally to that particular call and only that.

I can't say I give the Greens too many high preference votes, but have a bit of sympathy when people come out with this as they can't win either way.

Focus 100% on nothing but the environment and people will say they are unrealistic idealists and they won't vote for the Greens because they don't even have plans for how to run the rest of society.

On the other hand when the Greens start fleshing out their policies to include other non-environmental causes they get accused of focusing on the wrong areas and should stay in their environmental box.

coylemj

CrabRevolution wrote: »

On the other hand when the Greens start fleshing out their policies to include other non-environmental causes they get accused of focusing on the wrong areas and should stay in their environmental box.

The problem a lot of people have with the Greens post-election is that while a lot of them were elected in middle class areas, no sooner have they secured their seats than we're hearing about their sudden conversion to 'social justice'.

Meaning that you vote for ecologists and what you get is a bunch of closet communists.

VinLieger

coylemj wrote: »

Meaning that you vote for ecologists and what you get is a bunch of closet communists.

But they aren't even communists they are just woke justice warriors who quit at the first sign of a difficult decision and its becoming more and more evident every day that they didn't really understand the issue in the first place.

StackSteevens

coylemj wrote: »

The problem a lot of people have with the Greens post-election is that while a lot of them were elected in middle class areas, no sooner have they secured their seats than we're hearing about their sudden conversion to 'social justice'.

Meaning that you vote for ecologists and what you get is a bunch of closet communists.

If you look at the professions that some of them had before becoming TDs it's easy to see where their sympathies lay. Quite a few well paid quango bunnies and bleeding-hearters in the mix. When I lived in Fingal, I used to give Trevor Sargent my no. 1 - but wild horses wouldn't get me to vote for his 'woke' replacement.

L1011

There's continuing claims of sexual harrassment and a toxic environment for female members coming out - seeing as many of the TDs that are most likely to leave are women this could end up getting quite messy.

I suspect the same could be said of many other parties, and indeed has been said about some others recently, but when the spotlight is already on its harder to wave away

astrofool

This probably sums up their problem:
"I think I was hoodwinked, we were told we were joining a left party, and maybe I should've known better. I can't jump into another party, as I don't feel any of the others know enough of about climate."

You can't really go further left than they are and keep the priority on the environment, the two are kind of incompatible (as efficient as socialist states have shown themselves to be in the past...).

Brussels Sprout

Patrick Costello announcing that he will not support the Government on an upcoming bill. As far as I recall, both himself and his wife (Hazel Chu) were against going into government:

https://twitter.com/Costellop/status/1338455968724738054

L1011

This is likely to just be "addressed" by a fudge where the rostered Green TDs to vote (3/12) are Not Him / the others that are with him on this. Allows a pretence of "well, *I* didn't support it..."

James Brown

coylemj wrote: »

The problem a lot of people have with the Greens post-election is that while a lot of them were elected in middle class areas, no sooner have they secured their seats than we're hearing about their sudden conversion to 'social justice'.

Meaning that you vote for ecologists and what you get is a bunch of closet communists.

It's the leadership changed. The Greens campaigned against this trade deal and it was not agreed upon for the program for government. These two Greens are the only ones who seem to be sticking to what they got elected under.

Geuze

What is wrong with CETA?

Will they also vote against the EU-UK FTA?

Leonard Hofstadter

Exactly. What a stupid thing to walk on. If they can't back a deal agreed with a liberal, centre left Government like Trudeau's, who can they back?

I cannot see what is even remotely controversial about it - then again, as we've seen with some of the Greens' opposition to coronavirus restrictions, the Greens only believe in following the science and the facts when it comes to making the lives of motorists miserable:rolleyes:.

Triangle

Bowie wrote: »

It's the leadership changed. The Greens campaigned against this trade deal and it was not agreed upon for the program for government. These two Greens are the only ones who seem to be sticking to what they got elected under.

I don't know the exact details of CETA, but what I'm hearing is that European Greens were against it, but after amendments were made to it - its now in line with the Paris agreement.

correct horse battery staple

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

Exactly. What a stupid thing to walk on. If they can't back a deal agreed with a liberal, centre left Government like Trudeau's, who can they back?

I cannot see what is even remotely controversial about it - then again, as we've seen with some of the Greens' opposition to coronavirus restrictions, the Greens only believe in following the science and the facts when it comes to making the lives of motorists miserable:rolleyes:.

The Greens and Science don't belong in same sentence


Current Science and Engineering would allow climate change to be solved in a few decades for example by using existing nuclear fission technology to buy countries around the world a few decades to build up renewable production capacities and better grids and more importantly invent energy storage tech which is currently still expensive (but improving)

We could have been half way along in this transition to a green economy by now

Instead the environmental movement 30 years ago demonised nuclear, with the result being decades of energy needs being met by coal, oil and gas and only now very small steps being taken in the direction i described above because only now some of these green technologies have become somewhat useful.

Green movement like socialists are so driven in their pursuit of their "ideal" vision and **** on anyone who proposes anything remotely pragamatic but is not 100% clean that they forget that politics is also about compromise and realism

listermint

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

The Greens and Science don't belong in same sentence


Current Science and Engineering would allow climate change to be solved in a few decades for example by using existing nuclear fission technology to buy countries around the world a few decades to build up renewable production capacities and better grids and more importantly invent energy storage tech which is currently still expensive (but improving)

We could have been half way along in this transition to a green economy by now

Instead the environmental movement 30 years ago demonised nuclear, with the result being decades of energy needs being met by coal, oil and gas and only now very small steps being taken in the direction i described above because only now some of these green technologies have become somewhat useful.

Green movement like socialists are so driven in their pursuit of their "ideal" vision and **** on anyone who proposes anything remotely pragamatic but is not 100% clean that they forget that politics is also about compromise and realism

Tbf cart horse.

If nuclear was taken as common place then renewables would not have gotten serious investment and we probably wouldn't be where we are now with it.

Additionally we'd have a bucket load of spent nuclear waste to deal with and the higher chances of more Fukushima.

And I'm not totally against nuclear but it's not a Panacea

correct horse battery staple

listermint wrote: »

Tbf cart horse.

If nuclear was taken as common place then renewables would not have gotten serious investment and we probably wouldn't be where we are now with it.

Additionally we'd have a bucket load of spent nuclear waste to deal with and the higher chances of more Fukushima.

And I'm not totally against nuclear but it's not a Panacea

I dont agree, there are countries in Europe such as France and Finland that are not radioactive wastelands and are already the greenest co2 wise, and are now actively building up their renewables to replace their nuclear plants in a couple of decades.

Waste is only an issue because old reactor only "burn" a small percentage of the fuel, the reasons for that are to do with most countries using their reactors for nuclear weapons production as their primary reason for existance not electricity production, RMBK reactors in Chernobyl were not shielded and specifically designed for plutonium production, electricity for Soviets sitting on a continent of carbon fuels was a nice side effect. ****ushima was one of the oldest reactors in Japan days away from decomissioning when a natural disaster struck.

Neither do I agree with argument about no serious investment, most of the investment since 90s ended up going into coal/oil/gas, only in the last decade has a small fraction of this investment went to renewables and only now rising. This would have happened earlier if there was not as much need for coal/oil/gas

Finally I am not anti Green tech, i have solar water and PV and storage battery on the roof above my head (doing sweet f'all last couple of months as it was so dreary)

I am a pragmatist, i think the environmental movement in its ideological "purity" ignored and demonised science and engineering in the process harming the environment. We could have been half way to a green zero emmissions world by now if it was not for politics of fear and fud.

Leonard Hofstadter

Yup we could have adopted E85 flexi fuels (as used in Latin America for decades) en masse and instantly cut the carbon footprint of the car fleet but they decided that was a bad idea.

The Greens are ideologically anti-car, anti-private enterprise. It's true what's been said before, scratch away a Green and you get red - or socialism and all the drawbacks that brings.

As a scientist by profession of course I believe in the facts and of course I acknowledge climate change is real, and that we need to do something about it - but the Greens and the left just want to use this as a trojan horse to make our lives more miserable, hence why they want lower speed limits, higher carbon taxes, etc. And now we've got the latest thing, net zero apparently isn't good enough any more, I mean FFS the planet doesn't care how or where the carbon is created so if there is a net zero well then that literally means what it says - no emissions.

Seth Brundle

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

As a scientist by profession of course I believe in the facts and of course I acknowledge climate change is real, and that we need to do something about it -

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

but the Greens and the left just want to use this as a trojan horse to make our lives more miserable, hence why they want lower speed limits, higher carbon taxes, etc. And now we've got the latest thing, net zero apparently isn't good enough any more, I mean FFS the planet doesn't care how or where the carbon is created so if there is a net zero well then that literally means what it says - no emissions.

These two halves to your paragraph are contradictory.
You either believe the evidence and want to do something about it or you dispute it, blaming the greens suggested approach to overcome the issue rather than you actually wanting to solve the problem.

Brussels Sprout

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

The Greens are ideologically anti-car, anti-private enterprise. It's true what's been said before, scratch away a Green and you get red - or socialism and all the drawbacks that brings.

...and yet the actual hard-left derisively refer to them as "blueshirts on bikes"

In a cack-fisted attempt to appease everyone they seem to instead have alienated everyone.

Leonard Hofstadter wrote: »

- but the Greens and the left just want to use this as a trojan horse to make our lives more miserable, hence why they want lower speed limits, higher carbon taxes, etc.

I'm all for a bit of green party-bashing but that's a ridiculous statement. Nobody goes into politics with the goal of making others miserable. It's fair to question their decision making but not their primary motives if you think that's what drives them.