Letter: Why bother with the Greens?

The question and answer piece on the Greens and Labour (Solidarity 765) doesn’t really explain why working and discussing with young Greens requires joining and voting for their party. It is constructed as a dialogue with an imaginary opponent who doesn’t see the point of still bothering with Labour now that the Greens are doing well electorally and have a new, left-wing leader. It might also ask why we should bother with the Greens when Labour still exists as a relatively open trade union based party on much the same political ground.

I don’t think it’s stretching things too far to compare the Greens now with the Lib Dems of the early to mid noughties, when they had a new, progressive leader who opposed tuition fees and the Iraq War, and attracted votes from young, left-leaning people, especially in constituencies with a large student and/or Muslim population (the parallel also extends to how they face different ways in different parts of the country and their largely apolitical tactics in by-election campaigns).

Matthew Thompson, Greater Manchester