Matthew Hull - Trade Union Liaison Officer

 What impact do you think the Green Party’s eco-socialist policies have had on the party’s growth and how can that be sustained?

Green Party policies that emphasise the decommodification of goods and services, and the transfer of production, distribution and exchange into democratic public ownership - these are undeniably popular and have contributed to the Green Party’s growth.

One of the biggest surges in Green Party membership took place from 2014 to 2015, when the party became a focal point for student and social movement energies in national politics. This increase in membership, prestige and connections in unions and social movement organisations has been essential. It has afforded us a footprint and resources without which our subsequent electoral progress would have been impossible.

Learning from this example, we should be unafraid to channel these energies. We must make the Party a natural home for trade unionists, the renters’ movement, social movement campaigners and all working people who want to challenge the capitalist system in ways that tangibly better their lives. Our most recognisably socialistic policies are crucial to this.

The recent Tory by-election defeats suggest the electorate are making their own decisions on strategic voting. How can the Green Party intervene to turn that to its advantage?

The Green Party’s priority in this regard must be to strengthen and develop our own power in England and Wales.

As Greens we are clear that we do not have a monopoly on political wisdom. We have no principled opposition to working in concert with others.

Any prospective cooperation must be founded on a sober assessment of the balance of political forces. At present, the Labour Party is determinedly against any formal political cooperation. Labour continue to see us as a threat, and want to see us squeezed at every opportunity. The Liberal Democrats are coonservative and politically unambitious.

The way to change this is to strengthen the Green Party until it cannot be ignored or squeezed. To this end, we must promote and support our own candidates.

Let’s take an example from elsewhere in Europe. In France, the NUPES political alliance was made possible because every party of the Left was persuaded - leadership and membership alike - that their political organ was best served by entering into the alliance. The Parti Socialiste had a big local and regional infrastructure, but no popular leadership; La France Insoumise has a popular national leadership in Jean-Luc Melenchon, but a comparably weak infrastructure that could not deliver parliament or premiership alone. Communists and Greens faced annihilation without the alliance.

If we want formal cooperation, we need to create the conditions in which it is basically possible. Until then, we can expect voters to make their own decisions on strategic voting.

What would be your priorities for campaigns outside election periods that would raise our profile in communities, engage our members and attract new ones? How could that be financed?

Campaigning outside of and between election periods is essential. As I suggested in my first answer, the Green Party has grown fastest in strength and influence as social movements have grown in strength.

Campaigns outside election periods need to be well-planned and well-financed. Planning and financing must be supported by the party’s centre, but local and regional parties must be empowered to shape campaigns and deliver them according to their local context.

Stronger relationships with trade unions, from the local to the national level, could help campaigns to find a new audience and even funding from sympathetic unions. This should be a task the TULO and party leadership take up with relish.

An example could be, for example, supporting the development of just transition or Green New Deal plans for a particular region, local area or industrial hub. Using research already available to us, produced by the Green House think tank, we could publish and campaign on locally-specific plans for a regional just transition that shows how many good and sustainable jobs such a transition could create. Union support could be sought for this plan, branch by branch and workplace by workplace.

This is just one example of the kind of campaigns that could not only build support for the Green Party, but as a result help us to win more support in elections. Our campaigns and elections work should be mutually reinforcing.

How can the Party improve the way it communicates its policies to the BAME and white working class?

The position of Trade Union Liaison Officer is crucial to this.

Building support among working class communities and people of colour is not just a matter of finessing communication. Changing our manner of communication, without revolutionising who we are communicating with and to what end, will have an important but limited effect. To my mind, this is about building durable relationships with the organisations and institutions, which these communities own and operate and trust for political leadership.

This means we need a plan to work with trade unions, build ‘cores’ of Greens in different unions and sectors and establish ourselves as a credible and consistent voice for the working class. We need to work with renters’ unions to build trust, until every renter knows we are the party that can be relied upon to deliver for them. We need an action plan to support and work closely with movement organisations, community groups and other networks in communities of colour.

In all this, we must ensure we communicate the policies that speak directly to the needs of these classes and communities. Low pay, bad working conditions, poor living conditions, and the everyday indignities we face under capitalism - these are examples. We must not allow our priorities to be decided by our own fashions or habits.

These are just brief examples, but I hope they serve as a guide to how I would want our party to approach this question.

Should the Green Party review its policy on NATO in the light of the current conflict in Ukraine and what would be your approach?

To my knowledge, the Green Party’s policy towards NATO is decided principally by policy statements issued some time ago. I can imagine there would be some use in updating these for 2022 and making them more detailed.

My view is that the Green Party should not support UK membership of NATO and should seek for the UK to leave it.

In an important sense, assessing the UK’s continued NATO membership chiefly in the light of Russian aggression in Ukraine is a red herring. That is to say: the UK could support Ukraine in more or less whatever way it wished, without being a member of NATO. Indeed, NATO members differ greatly in their approaches to the ongoing conflict in Russia. Different NATO member states are promoting different potential resolutions to the conflict, for different reasons.

NATO membership should be opposed by Greens for many reasons. NATO membership commits us to spending minimum 2% of GDP on planet-wrecking military expenditure. It requires that UK military personnel, equipment, estate and other resources are put at the service of other militaries - chiefly the United States. NATO requires UK participation in vast military exercises across the globe. It puts us at risk of being led into war to defend US and European imperial interests - interests a Green government would surely oppose.

NATO membership, then, constrains and even determines UK government policy in ways that are incompatible with Green policy aims. Opposing it is a ‘no-brainer’.

The 24 hours news cycle means that contributions from our spokespeople have to be rapid if they are to be given media space. How can we manage that whilst maintaining democratic accountability?

Rapid contributions from spokespersons are, as the question suggests, essential.

These contributions must be subject to regular and consistent scrutiny. One of the best ways of doing this, in my view, is to try and ensure reactions to certain issues are guided by clear core messaging that covers all key issues. This core messaging must be subject to scrutiny by bodies with democratic accountability - bodies like the Green Party Executive and GPRC. Liberation and ‘special interest’ groups must also have a clear role to play in this.

As Trade Union Liaison Officer, I would work closely with the External Communications Coordinator and others to do my part in this. As Chair of the Trade Union Group, I have already done some of this - helping to shape how the party has communicated about NHS workers’ pay, for example, and about RMT strike action this summer. 

As TULO, I would have more influence and a far greater mandate to do this work and keep pushing the Party to communicate the party’s policies effectively and faithfully.

I will not stop, for example, until the party fully and straightforwardly delivers on the wish of Autumn Conference 2021 to support a £15 minimum wage for all workers irrespective of their age. Electing me as TULO would be a statement that the party’s communications need to be more accountable to the membership, not less.

Given that some Government policies such as privatisation and reducing rights are a thread crossing different sectors, how can spokespeople cooperate on our overall messaging to ensure this is addressed?

Following on from my answer to question six, I think building structures that effectively maintain clear ‘core messages’, which are founded in and consistent with Green Party policy, should be our primary task here.

As the question suggests, many policy themes and practices cut across different policy ‘areas’. This is the case, for example, with Government policies, which tend towards the privatisation of public services. Conversely, it is also the case with Green Party policy on public services, which leads towards public democratic ownership.

Another key example in our current political moment is the broad Conservative attack on our individual and collective rights. Tory anti-union and anti-strike proposals are of a kind with the Tories’ other proposals to restrict protest rights, for example. Green spokespeople should be given necessary guidance and assistance to ensure that they are comfortable drawing these links, presenting Green alternatives and making the through-lines in Green Party policy clear in their communications work.

How would you raise the international relevance and profile of the GPEW? 161 words

I would like to help the Party - working with the International Coordinator - working closely with the ITUC.

Building international solidarity between workers is really vital. It helps to delegitimize, in the minds of all, the unjust structures that keep us apart and to see that workers globally shared interests in overcoming capitalism and winning climate justice.

I have been active, for instance, in Labour Movement Solidarity with Hong Kong, helping to raise the voice of independent trade unionists in Hong Kong suppressed by the region’s infamous National Security Law.

In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, we could shine a light on the continued attempts of the Ukrainian state to constrain worker organisation and also on the Russian state’s brutal suppression of independent trade unionism within its own borders.

These are just examples of how we could act internationally. In terms of the Green Party of England and Wales and our profile - this is something that would follow as a result of the good work we do.

The Green Party has recently encountered difficulties in maintaining a respectful and comradely debate on issues where there has been sharp disagreement. What would be your approach to improving the atmosphere in which these debates take place?

Since this question is very general, I am going to answer it in very general terms.

We need to provide spaces where comradely discussion can take place, where people can learn and where political questions can be worked through. This is a core component of party-building and political education at its best. Done well this process will help the party become stronger and more resolute in its aims to bring about progressive social change. I would support the creation of such spaces.

To do this, we need a clear and faithful commitment to the truth. If smears and untruths about people and about whole communities are allowed to go unchallenged, the possibility of comradely discussion is extinguished from the first. The process of discussion and resolution requires everyone who participates in it, either: to agree on some fundamental bases for the discussion; or to be prepared to abandon mutually incompatible positions in search of a compromise position. This is the case even if that compromise position is merely an agreement to move on.

On some issues, this will be possible; on other issues, it may not be possible or even desirable for a compromise position to be reached.

How can we ensure a level playing field in internal elections when some candidates have the advantage of access to a national platform and networks?

We need to reform internal elections so that all candidates can communicate with party members, clearly and effectively. When the Party communicates with members as part of an internal election process, it must show no preference for any particular candidate.

As someone who works as a membership officer in a membership organisation, I know how important a well-contested and vigorous internal democracy is. Turnout in party internal elections is currently far too low. I would expect the party to facilitate a suite of email and other communications. I would like the party to consider ways to increase member participation in internal elections, including postal and SMS communications where necessary and effective.

All candidates should be free to use their personal platforms to promote their own campaigns. Some candidates naturally have larger personal platforms than others, as a result of work they have done in the past. This doesn’t make their own personal campaigns in party elections less legitimate than any other member’s.