Some thought my list as to the priorities people might have when considering who to vote for, which I published yesterday, was a little lacking on the environmental front. I did not list green issues as a priority in their own right. The suggestion that they are comes from articles like this, published in the Independent, yesterday:
More than half of people say climate change is such an important issue it will influence how they vote in the next general election, new research suggests.
Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of people believe politicians are not discussing the issue of climate change enough in the run up to the next national vote, the poll for environmental lawyers ClientEarth found.
Against a backdrop of protests by Extinction Rebellion and school strikers calling for urgent efforts to tackle rising temperatures, seven in 10 people think the climate emergency demands swifter action.
Don't get me wrong: I am delighted that this is true. And I have no doubt that for some this is the issue of the election.
I am also well aware that because an issue is the focus of a survey, and garners support as a result, does not make it the issue that determines all a person's actions.
I firmly believe in the importance of environmental issues. It is another of my reasons for suggesting that people vote ABC - Anything But Conservative. That is because I doubt their environmental commitment.
But for swing voters I also suspect that support for the environment alone is not enough. We are not in David Cameron's ‘hug a husky' era now. We're at the point where environment has ceased to be an option and is a life-changing agenda. And in that case people need to know that the environmental choice that they make is also the one that meets their other needs for good jobs, strong services, good housing, accessible and sustainable transport, manageable fuel bills, and more. They also need reassurance that the changes can be managed financially (which they can be).
This is why I focussed on these other issues yesterday. My point was and is that green issues are the priority for some, and that's good news. But what the Green New Deal does (and I did, of course, conclude with it yesterday) is make that green choice the rational, and best, choice for all those other reasons as well.
Maybe I am wrong to think green is still a choice, when it isn't because it is a necessity.
And maybe I am also wrong to think people don't realise and know that, although this poll seems to suggest most do.
But what I am quite sure of is that people do not know, as yet, that the Green New Deal not only gives them a chance in the future, it also gives them the best chance now. And that is why these other issues matter as well, because they show that to be true.
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Basically you are doing what Corbyn did the other day when he said that the election was about the NHS and stopping austerity etc.
He was trying to set the terms of reference for the election and take us back to other even more substantive issues that need addressing – never mind BREXIT.
He was right to remind people of this and you are right about GND. People will continue to see this as a BREXIT election and deride such attempts to pay attention to these issues. But they do matter and it’s brave and it must be done.
I am sure it must be done
I couldn’t agree more, but every UK general election is 650 local contests, despite the best efforts of the parties to promote clear, distinctive manifestoes. We are also in an era of massive voter volatility with a disintegration of the long-standing tribal instincts that the main parties relied on to maintain a core support. Furthermore, most voters who focus on political issues only in the run-up to an election – and then in many cases only when they’re about to cast their votes, tend to focus on one issue. Many issues may concern them; and their preferred resolutions of these issues may conflict or be contradictory – to the extent that no party or candidate will offer them. So they will tend to go for the party or candidate that they believe will address their main concern and provide some resolution of as many as possible of the other issues that concern them.
There is no conscious collective intelligence in this; it’s simply millions of people making their own decisions. But it’s the decisions of only some of these voters that are impactful in determining the outcome. And the impacts are revealed only in hindsight. But again the decisions of these voters tend to be determined by their focus on one main issue.
Typically at general elections impactful voters are either punishing an out-going government for its performance and behaviour by voting for an alternative or rewarding an out-going government in a back-handed way by failing to support the main opposition party as a credible alternative government. The impact of smaller parties and the issues they advance may blur this picture, but that is the essential feature and outcome of a general election. It may be seen most clearly in what might be considered extreme circumstances.
For example, in Ireland at the general election in 2011 following the GFC in 2008, a large majority of voters had only one thing on their minds. They were going to give a brutal electoral kicking to the out-going Fianna Fáil/Green Party coalition government that had presided over the run-up to, and during, the economic and financial bust. And so they did. But, almost inadvertently, they handed the main opposition parties (which formed a coalition) an overwhelming majority in the Dáil (parliament). However, at the next time of asking in 2016, enough voters decided that neither of the main parties would have sufficient seats to provide the basis for a majority coalition government. And so a mainly centre to centre-right minority government was put in place with a confidence and supply agreement from the main opposition party. Similar centre-right to centre-left governance arrangements are in place, or are emerging, in Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and, to an extent, in Italy. This arrangement is also evident in the composition of the new EU Commission.
It appears the UK is the exception that proves the rule, with Brexit being the dominant defining issue and the delivery of competent governance coming in second. I would see clear advocacy of the GND and a forceful demonstration of a capability to implement it as being the key features of competent governance. But I fear that not enough impactful voters will see it that way. Only a majority Labour government (or a minority government with a solid confidence and supply agreement) can deliver the GND. But Labour’s approach to Brexit will shut them out of government.
people have wanted change for a long time,
I’ve felt like this my entire life,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug