Went along this Saturday to GPEx, the national executive of the Green Party, meeting at Birkbeck College. I had gone to discuss Stop the War Coalition, but in the event, after a short report from the International Committee, the issue did not arise. There were a number of nitty gritty organisational matters discussed dealing with staffing issues, expenditure, membership databases etc, much the same as at any management meeting. The good news is that there has been a big increase in membership, especially over the European election period, but it is often the case that elections mobilise people and they decide to join up. At least the trend is in the right direction, whereas the trend in the Labour Party is steadily downwards for example. Not sure how the others are doing, although there is always a tendency for some people to join the party which is expected to be in power next, so it might be illuminating to compare figures for the Lib Dems and Conservatives. The general trend though is for the membership of all political parties to decline.
The other piece of good news is that the party will have a new office by the autumn. This move has been long overdue and I have been campaigning, along with the current and previous Disability Spokespersons for a fully accessible national office. I flagged this up again on Saturday in relation to the new premises, wherever it will be. It is simply not acceptable years after the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act for the issue of disabled access to be left further down on any list of priorities. The new office will be somewhere central and accessible by public transport in central London. There are also lots of new people joining the staff team and the membership database is finally being replaced - another task long overdue and something which I voted in favour of when I was on last year's Executive, and which will assist considerably the hardworking staff at party office.
One of the intriguing questions at present is if the Electoral Commission's recommendation that the £500 deposit for general election candidates is dropped. This would make it far easier for a small party like the Greens, in a country without state funding for political parties, and without the corporate sponsorship of the big three, to stand candidates in the forthcoming general election. Brown's government has claimed that they intend to introduce major reforms to the workings of the body politic, but this is a fairly small reform and would improve democratic involvment in the politicial process so much. Personally I am in favour of the state funding of political parties, which is the system in most of the EU, including the Irish Republic and I supported a motion on this at party conference last year. This should be accompanied by rigorous rules banning corporate sponsorship. In this way a level playing field would be created and a lot of the sleaze and corporate lobbying would come to an end. With only months to go before a general election it really is important that this last hurdle to electoral involvement is removed.
Nominations for GPEx are in full swing and it is important that good and capable people stand for these positions, as well as being people with a political vision. Doing the job seriously and professionally does take a great deal of time and energy, and we owe people who do it a debt of thanks as these are unpaid positions. I look forward to seeing this year's nominations.
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