Lisbon Treaty: How green was my party?

On Saturday 19^th Green Party members voted in favour of supporting the Lisbon Treaty in the forthcoming referendum, but fell just short of the required two thirds majority.

This was taken to means that the party itself will not take a position, but that individual members will be free to support whichever side they wish.

195, or 63%, of the 318 delegates voted to support the Treaty, while 117 (27%) were opposed.

What the vote actually means is that the Greens will enthusiastically support Lisbon, which stand in contradiction to all their declarations in defence of the environment, while a few ‘left’ figures will trumpet their opposition, thus helping to hold the shrinking radical base with the party and thus defend the Greens and, by extension, the coalition government that is pushing Lisbon through.

A leading opponent of the change in policy, former MEP Patricia McKenna, said she was 'over the moon', as she had feared the party leadership would secure the two thirds majority. As things now stand she will be perfectly comfortable in the new reactionary party and happy to support it.

So far so standard – fake radical party moves right. What role should socialists play? In the past that would have been straightforward. We would have wanted to break workers from the Greens and we would have lent hard on the leftists, urging them to put up or shut up. In a party supporting outright reaction their place was outside the party.

How likely is that? To ask is to answer. Patricia will be gracing the platform of the endless variety of micro campaigns opposing Lisbon, all fronting for one small left group or another. While they cut each others throat to prove their role as the true opponents of European capital they will, through Patricia, be one step away from the Green party and the capitalist reactionaries pushing through the Lisbon treaty!