Why I oppose the Green Party’s motion on Israel - Andy Brown

Anyone who claims that they agree 100 per cent with every line of every policy of the political party they are a member of can’t be trusted. They are either completely lacking in independent critical judgement or lying. Neither is a healthy characteristic.

Highly paid political commentators who earn a living criticising those who have the courage to stand for election have a nasty tendency of seizing on the least sign of disagreement within a party and claiming it is evidence of a dangerous split. It is actually evidence of honesty.

A couple of decades ago I joined the Green party because I thought the evidence that we were heading for increasingly severe climate change was compelling and I was also worried about the loss of nature and wildlife. I continue to think those are existential challenges that need to be front and centre of policy making if we are to have any kind of reasonable future.

That doesn’t mean that I agree with every policy the party puts out. It means that I believe that if a party championing the environment didn’t exist we would need to invent one.

Over the years the Greens have had some pretty daft policies and some very sensible ones. I have never liked our policies on obscure and I believe wrongheaded topics like basic income or modern monetary theory and retain huge doubts over well-meant policies like backing a complete ban on all animal testing. There would be no way to prove how damaging chemicals have been to the bees I look after if there was no scientific animal testing of those chemicals.

Other policies have been incredibly far sighted and would have saved this country and this planet a lot of pain if they had been adopted earlier. We could have cut the cost of living and reduced carbon costs if we had moved to powering homes and vehicles with wind or solar backed up by batteries more purposefully.

It is to our national shame that China has had fleets of electric buses for over a decade whilst we are still discussing with Donald Trump how much of our diesel reserves we can release to ease his election prospects.

I thought the Greens were wrong to oppose HS2 because we needed new rail infrastructure. Turns out the party was right to criticise an over engineered vanity project that was badly designed and badly managed from the start.

The Greens also called out lack of investment in our water companies at a very early stage. Instead of listening, successive governments allowed water companies to dump sewage into rivers and send the profits out of this country to foreign owners of our critical national infrastructure.

I also think the party has done well in placing the blame for decades of economic inequality and neglect of people in our inner cities on the shoulders of the billionaires who now decide so much of what happens to our lives. I don’t want to live in a nation where Elon Musk can lie about what is happening in our country and deliberately undermine the British government but our government is scared to tax or control him in case he spends even more of his loose change millions attacking them.

When it comes to foreign policy I continue to support the Greens for their clear recognition that Donald Trump’s US is no kind of ally of Britain. He is an enemy of all the good things this country stands for. Starmer shamed our nation by offering him a State visit.

I also supported the clear stance the party took on Hamas, on Gaza, on the West Bank and on Israeli government and Iranian government planned attacks on neighbouring countries. I think it has been important to have a clear voice stating the obvious truth that what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is collective punishment of an entire people for the outrageous murders of Jewish people attending a pop concert conducted by Hamas. I chose to call what was happening ethnic cleansing but I can completely understand why others described it as genocide.

I have no hesitation in continuing to hold that even handed line. Which is why I didn’t support the motion passed by a little over a thousand of our 200,000 plus members at the recent conference. Not everyone who believes that there should be a state called Israel is a racist.

I continue to believe that both Palestinian and Jewish people have the right to live in peace and freedom secure in their lives and property. It is important for all decent people to condemn the land theft of so-called settlers. It is also important for all decent people to recognise and articulate clearly that both Palestinian and Jewish people living in the region have rights. Equal rights. Regardless of race.

I believe that most members of the Green Party agree with me on that. The party allows any member to turn up at a conference and vote and that system over represents minorities of members.

I would therefore like to state that I oppose this motion and believe it made it easier for Benjamin Netanyahu to dodge responsibility for his crimes not harder.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley.