Green World Autumn 2014

Green World www.greenworld.org.uk

The official magazine of the

Green Party | GW86 Autumn 2014 | Price £2.00

National planning policy:

Bulldozing the future?

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editorial

GW86

Green Party, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT | Tel: 020 7549 0310 | www.greenworld.org.uk

Contents

This land is our land

04 Autumn Conference roundup 05 Conference vox pops Opinions on the decision to continue opposing nuclear power

06 STOP-TTIP Alliance 07 People’s Climate March More than 675,000 people demanded climate action

08 Fundraising: tips for successful events 09 Evidence: A love story Rupert Read argues in favour of the precautionary principle

11 Right to Rent – not Right to Buy Protecting at-risk families and increasing social housing

12 The National Planning Policy Framework Does the NPPF really encourage sustainable development?

Molly Scott Cato Green MEP for South West England

13 The Infrastructure Bill A veritable developers’ charter is going through Parliament

14 Green Party development policy Greens offer a genuinely sustainable alternative

15 Trouble on the Tyne Local resistance proves successful in Newcastle

17 Brighton & Hove City Plan Struggling for sustainability in the face of government diktat

18 Recovery of nature in a generation The Wildlife Trusts call for a nature and wellbeing bill

19 Opposing land grabs 20 Israel and Palestine: Policy into action What Greens can do to support Palestinian rights

22 Book reviews 23 Going it alone What it’s like to be the only Green councillor in the room

Credits Editor: Libby Peake editor@greenworld.org.uk Produced by: Resource Media Ltd Create Centre, Smeaton Road Bristol, BS1 6XN Advertising: advertising@greenworld.org.uk Bulk Orders: bulkorders@greenworld.org.uk Editorial Board: gweb@greenworld.org.uk Laura Burley (convener), Tom Williams, Nick Hales, Peter Barnett (GPEx rep) GPRC Reps: Iris Ryder, Nicole Haydock, Mike Shipley Thanks to contributors: Molly Scott Cato, Ricky Knight, Thomas Jackson, Paul Jenkins, Kate Honey, Brig Oubridge, Helene Albrecht,

Jurgen Huber, Laura Burley, Tom Harris, Steve Jordan, Tom Beckett, Rupert Read, Caroline Lucas, James Caspell, Sophie Wright, Jenny Jones, Sandy Irvine, Alex Bruce, Geoffrey Bowden, Paul Wilkinson, Derek Wall, Annie Neligan, Deborah Fink, Daniel Whittal, Tom Williams Photography: Creative Commons, Shutterstock, Tom Marshall, Emma Foulerton Books for review to: Book Reviews, Green World, Green Party, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London, EC21 4LT Printing and distribution: Printed on 100% recycled paper by Pensord, Blackwood, Caerphillly Copy Deadline for GW87: 5 Dec 2014 (tbc)

Please note: views in Green World do not necessarily express the views of the Green Party.

Products and services advertised in Green World are not necessarily endorsed by the Green Party.

Copyright-free except where indicated.

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he subtitle of my most recent book is ‘Land, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’. I used that phrase to draw attention to the central role that land plays in any economy. Although so many buy their food in supermarkets, a look at the countryside now, in the season of harvest, is a reminder of our total dependence on the land for our survival.

This raises questions about who has the right to own and control this land, which many libertarian philosophers have seen as a ‘common wealth’. Yet rather than asking large landowners to pay for the privilege of their access to land, we transfer money to them via EU farm subsidies; and the larger their farms, the more they receive.

During the latest round of changes to the Common Agricultural Policy system, this government ensured that many smallholders were actually prevented from claiming subsidies. At the same time, it abolished the Agricultural Wages Board, responsible for ensuring decent rates of pay and conditions of employment.

As well as supporting large landowners, the ConDem government has allowed property developers to write our planning law. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is a disaster for the countryside (see p12). It throws away 60 years’ worth of environmental protections and interprets ‘sustainable development’ as unrestrained growth.

So what can we do to reclaim our land? The attempt to introduce a Land Value Tax by Caroline Lucas in the Commons and Jenny Jones in the Lords is a long-overdue first step towards ensuring that the benefits gained from land are shared fairly. Resistance to destructive planning applications is also still possible. In Stroud, we recently defeated a planning application in the Slad Valley, my council ward and former home to poet and novelist Laurie Lee, by proving the value local people placed on the landscape.

The land is ours. If the law respected this, the land would be better cared for and used to provide for our needs rather than generate profits for the few.

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 3

Green Party News

Conference roundup This September saw a record number of Green Party members gather in Birmingham for the Autumn Conference. For those who couldn’t make it, Councillor Ricky Knight reflects on some of the many highs

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as this the best conference ever? Yes! (Until the next one, that is.) With applications pouring in, reflecting the surge in membership, no doubt, we nearly hit the 800-delegate mark, a scary but hugely gratifying accomplishment with implications for us in terms of future venues. As membership climbs inexorably towards 20,000 and beyond, the prospect of delegate conferences becomes a distinct possibility.

Perhaps the most positive statistic, though, was the fact that over 250 first timers registered. At the ‘first timer’ fringes, we usually get half a dozen or so turning up; this time we had to search for more chairs. We sent out a SurveyMonkey poll to all participants after Conference and received enough encouraging replies from 113 first timers to confirm that the experience had indeed been very worthwhile.

With apologies for any highs missed (Conference can be as frustrating as Glasto – which top acts do you miss because of the clashes?), let’s accentuate the positives: Ash and child chairing the first plenary, the voting sessions where the formal business of Conference takes place, was a bit of a short straw (for her), as the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) and the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC) locked horns on constitutional niceties – possibly not the best intro for first timers to the intricacies of Conference business.

Compensation was at hand, though, as delegates responded with such grace and diplomacy to a potentially seriously contentious issue in the debate on a lengthy Energy Policy rewrite that could have seen Greens officially support nuclear power (see vox pops on the facing page).

Many were expecting apoplexy and shouting matches, as some threatened to follow the Lib Dems (and Mark Lynas and George Monbiot) into the

‘Atomkraft? Ja bitte!’ lobby. But instead, there followed a calm, well-argued, responsible if passionate exchange, concluding with a vote that led to long-time GP activist Brig Oubridge leaving the hall with his well-travelled anti-nuclear banner flying high.

We now have three MEPs! Three cheers for Molly Scott Cato, joining Jean Lambert and Keith Taylor, a real benchmark of success for us. They were joined by a triumvirate of leaders too, as Natalie Bennett is now supported by deputies Amelia Womack and Shahrar Ali, whose polemical inaugural speech was an inspired piece of motivating theatre – rarely has a speaker had to ask Conference to cut short the applause, as it was adversely affecting his time allocation! Shahrar is going to be a fantastic magnet for potential members, voters and media attention, not to mention flagging long-timers.

The food was good, with few queues (there was always the brilliant vegan stall to supplement any hunger pangs); the stalls were myriad, visible and well-supported; the accommodation on site was excellent; the Hardship Fund, set up to improve accessibility for members who would otherwise be excluded due to costs, worked better than last time, as individuals become more aware of its existence; and the weather couldn’t have been better, much to the discomfort of the Greenpeace Polar Bear, who, along with Friends of the Earth and the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), was button-holing delegates as they meandered to and from venue to Great Hall.

There were also plenty of great ‘extra-curricular’ activities, too – socials and fringe events that are not part of the formal business of Conference – and mega-thanks must go to World Animal Protection and to their charming parliamentary representative Josh Kaile for so generously funding the Friday night reception; the 38 Degrees TTIP fringe event was top-notch; and full marks go to the ‘Living Streets’ fringe for providing such a fantastic lunch spread to complement their cogent political message. The Young Greens’ quiz rocked again, and the open mic had 23 acts – sensational!

Ricky Knight is Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North Devon and the Convenor of the Conferences’ Committee.

More information on how Conference works can be found at greenparty.org.uk/conference.html

4 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

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Conference vox pops While an amendment to the Energy Policy to support nuclear power clearly fell in Conference’s voting process, a large minority of members supported it.

Green World was on the floor to gauge the feelings on the controversial subject

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absolutely think nuclear energy shouldn’t be supported by Green Party policy. If you’ve got civil nuclear power, you can manufacture nuclear bombs, so the more civil nuclear power there is, the greater the danger of nuclear war. And no nuclear facility can be made completely safe from modern bunker-busting shells.

Another reason is it does take all these thousands of years to disintegrate, and how can you saddle future generations with that burden? And, whatever you say, there is nothing humanity can do to make it completely safe, and if there were an immense nuclear catastrophe in a country as small as Britain, it would be such a terrible thing. How can we take that risk? It’s crazy, especially when there are much better and much cheaper forms of energy that we could use. I’m absolutely astonished that well-known climate campaigners like George Monbiot say that realistically you’ve got to have nuclear. I think that’s complete nonsense. I think that renewables could do the job, very easily.

Thomas Jackson, North West

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here are only two countries that have decarbonised their electricity supply at anything like the rate that we and other developed countries need to. Those countries are France and Sweden. France did it with about three quarters nuclear and most of the rest hydro, a bit of tidal, a bit of wind. Sweden did it with about 50 per cent nuclear and 50 per cent hydro. There is no country that has decarbonised with intermittent renewables.

Nuclear is our biggest producer of low-carbon electricity.

Today (6th September) it is producing 20 per cent of our electricity and wind is producing less than two per cent.

To ditch nuclear power at a time when we’re trying to cut emissions, to ditch our greatest source of low-carbon electricity, is just going to come across like we don’t take climate change seriously. If we’re serious about getting our emissions down, we’ve got to back all low-carbon sources, and particularly the one that is providing most of our lowcarbon electricity at the moment.

Paul Jenkins, Southwark

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am undecided about nuclear power.

I think that it’s obviously a very emotional issue for the Green Party, and I think there are very strong arguments about nuclear waste lasting so long. Some nuclear waste has a half-life of many millions of years, and that’s quite frightening, and could endanger future civilisations. At the same time, I think that while it would be ideal to have all renewable energy, we don’t want to risk the potential for four degrees of warming because, for an ideological reason, we said no to some of the relatively safe nuclear technologies. Rather than firmly coming down on the yes or no side, although I’m tending towards being more positive towards it, I’d say that the Green Party needs to have more considered debate about the issue, particularly taking into consideration how the technologies have evolved and how some nuclear waste lasts less long and so on.

Kate Honey, Cambridge

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hirty years ago, I presented the party’s evidence to the Sizewell B public inquiry, the most exhaustive inquiry there has ever been into a nuclear power project. Our evidence concerned uranium mining – the forgotten end of the nuclear chain – and showed that for each year of its operation, Sizewell B would, in the long term, cause at least 1,000 lung cancer deaths from radon gas released from uranium mines alone.

From Windscale in the 1950s, Three Mile Island in ’79, Chernobyl in ’87 and now Fukushima, we know that no nuclear power station is immune from the dangers of materials failure, human error or natural disaster. As this party also showed in a report we published as long ago as 1981, they are similarly vulnerable to war, terrorist attack or an aeroplane crash.

In all this time, the waste problem has remained unsolved, with a million-year deadly legacy continuing to leak from Sellafield and now threatened by rising sea levels. And the deadliest by-product of all from nuclear power is plutonium, adding to the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation.

These are risks we do not need to take. Demand reduction and sustainable renewables can meet our needs without either nuclear power or fossil fuels.

Brig Oubridge, Salisbury Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 5

Green Party News

TTIP, CETA and the ECI: Yet another stalemate Helene Albrecht

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n their opposition to the proposed free trade agreements the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (see GW84), between the EU and the US, and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), between the EU and Canada, green-minded European citizens have tried to launch a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). ECIs are meant to increase democracy by allowing citizens to invite the European Commission to propose legislation on matters where the EU has competence to legislate.

An alliance of 240 organisations from 21 European countries, the STOP TTIP Alliance, submitted an ECI that invited ‘the European Commission to recommend to the council to repeal the negotiating mandate for…TTIP and not to conclude…

CETA’. However, the Commission refused,

claiming it ‘falls manifestly outside the framework of the Commission’s powers’.

The refusal raises concerns for several reasons: TTIP, CETA and the need for an ECI point to the fragmentation of international law, from economic and public to environmental and human rights, which for some time has been criticised by leading academics, respected trade experts and lawyers alike. This fragmentation not only undermines the original aspirations of the EU, but also ambitions of fairness and a raised standard of living for all. Preferential and bilateral treaties, such as TTIP and CETA, are particularly controversial, as they serve to protect the rich economies and avoid the real need for global economic reform.

In opposing TTIP and CETA, Greens are responding to the corporate takeover

of our democratic institutions and are demanding transparency in negotiations.

We want fair trade between all countries to enable the growth of sustainable production and manufacturing that meet human needs. In the face of climate change and growing social injustices, we don’t want business as usual between a few rich nations. We want the power of trans-national corporations to be brought under democratic control.

Even though they have blocked the ECI for the time being, they will never silence us. Indeed, an independent ECI is to be launched on 11 October to gather one million signatures. Information will be available on the Green Party website.

For more, visit: stop-ttip.org

An energy neutral 1920s terrace house London Jurgen Huber

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he story behind the conversion and materials used to make a 1920s terrace house in London carbon neutral can be found on the SuperHomes website, but, in a nutshell, the owners spend as little as £4,000 and a couple of hundred hours’ work to increase energy efficiency by over 60 per cent, while the bank financed a PV solar system.

There is no gas connection, an instantaneous water heater heats only the water needed, there is an energyefficient induction cooker and an easyto-fit inverter air-to-air source heat pump, energy-efficient electric underfloor heating and a decorative wood burner for room heating. Cooking and heating with electricity may seem at first wrong, and is certainly wasteful if it is produced conventionally, but if the electricity produced comes from genuinely 6 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

renewable sources such as wind and solar, there is no problem. Data from Germany shows that wind and solar in fact complement each other, and all we need for the near future is more of both and, importantly, a grid that can distribute the electricity efficiently. Denmark harvests some 35 per cent and Spain over 20 per cent of their electricity from wind, all installed in one decade.

It’s remarkable that the 3.34-kilowatt PV system produces in nine months of the year more electricity than a family of four uses; even on cold, sunny winter days the system produces enough to cook and heat. This is with a panel efficiency of 19 per cent; now imagine something like 37 to 44 per cent, as has been achieved with developing concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) technology.

Because the owners buy their energy

from a renewable-only electricity supplier, they live in a truly energy/carbon neutral way. To find inspiration and ideas on how to get your place more energy efficient, reduce energy usage and costs (and by doing so help us all), check out SuperHomes.

For more, visit: www.superhomes.org.uk/ superhomes/london-du-cane-road/

GW86

People’s Climate March comes to UK Laura Burley

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n Sunday, 21 September, more than 675,000 people in cities across the world marched to demand that world leaders take serious action on climate change. Almost 3,000 events took place in 166 countries. More than 40,000 people took to the streets in London, alongside 300,000 in New York, 25,000 in Paris and 30,000 in Melbourne.

Among the London marchers were actress Emma Thompson and singer Peter Gabriel, as well as hundreds of Green Party members including human rights activist Peter Tatchell and Caroline Lucas.

Protests took place ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, part of several rounds of negotiations in the run-up to settling a proposed agreement on reducing carbon emissions by the end of 2015.

The mood from the London march was hopeful, with many wondering if these protests could signal a new wave of action on climate change. One speaker from

the Centre for Alternative Technology emphasised how the technology to move towards a low-carbon future is in place, it’s just the political will that is missing.

However, reports from the summit indicate that politicians have failed to deliver, holding back on guaranteeing climate aid to poorer countries or even signing up to a significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Barack Obama, François Hollande and David Cameron were among those who talked of the ‘grave threat’, but without the promise of stringent targets and little financial aid, it’s hard to have much faith in their words.

But with so many people demonstrating, we

form too large a voice to ignore.

Concern has spread outside of the green activist community, with thousands of ‘ordinary’ families, flood victims and young people taking part. Let’s hope that the energy and inspiration from the largest People’s Climate March in history builds into an unstoppable movement on climate change.

Peter Tatchell and Emma Thompson at the march. Image by Chris Smith

Referendum sees surge in Greens

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he Scottish Greens are thanking over 3,000 new members who have joined the party since the close of the Scottish referendum polls, taking total membership passed the 5,000 mark.

Recent opinion polls have put support for the Greens on 10 per cent on the Holyrood regional vote, suggesting 11 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), which would make the

Scottish Greens the parliament’s third largest party, one MSP ahead of the Conservatives.

Commenting, Scottish Greens coconvenor Patrick Harvie MSP said: “I want to thank the vast number of people who have been in touch over recent days to offer support, share their thoughts about the Green Yes campaign, and to join the party in their thousands – including those who voted Yes and No. We’ll be going into the next election as a much bigger party than we could have imagined, and the potential clearly still exists for a dramatic realignment of Scotland’s political landscape.

“There are many ideas being debated about what that realignment will result in, but the Greens

have never been the kind of party where a handful of people in leadership roles impose their own decisions on the rest.

Our local branches are currently debating the next steps… and our members new and old will meet at our biggest conference ever on October 11th to start making our decisions together.

“One thing is very clear to me. As well as the huge numbers of Yes voters who sought the kind of radical change that Westminster is unlikely to deliver, there are also many who voted No but who share our commitment to a sustainable economy, a fair and equal society, and a renewed democratic culture.

“Making that happen will mean finding ways to work together. We have always been a party that seek to work with others where common ground exists, while still offering a robust challenge where we must on the core principles of the Green agenda. I’m very excited to know that we’ll be doing so as a far bigger party in future.”

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 7

Green Party News

Local party fundraising events Tom Beckett

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vents can play an essential role in local party fundraising and don’t have to be expensive. They can attract different types of people, building our volunteer, supporter and member base, and showing that we’re a serious, growing party. They also allow us to be seen in every element of life, from clubbing or comedy nights to coffee mornings, village fêtes and informative lectures.

I have recently met two people who did very different things to fundraise for the Green Party: one who cycled from John O’Groats to Lands End in aid of Caroline Lucas; the other whose party uses a

version of a coconut shy with pictures of well-known politicians on the coconuts.

Both of these were highly successful and didn’t cost much.

The important thing is advertising our events to people outside the Green Party while also tapping into our network to get more people along. To attract new people, avoid branding events so people from every political background will come – then realise later when they’re enjoying themselves that they’re supporting the Green Party! Use the right channels to advertise – Facebook events, and posters and leaflets that local members can

distribute at their work places, local shops and so on. Use your local party as a problem-solving group, too – set up a team to help deliver your event and get support.

Momentum will keep your local party going, so why not consider that by doing something fun that can raise both money and our profile?

Tom Beckett is the Green Party’s Fundraising & Operations Director.

For more local fundraising ideas, visit the ‘Party in a Box’ section of the members’ website

Green Party Executive election results Tom Harris

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he results of the 2014 GPEx elections are as follows: Several candidates were successful in being re-elected, including Natalie Bennett as Party Leader, Richard Mallendar as GPEx Chair, Howard Thorp as Campaigns Co-Ordinator, Mark Cridge as Management Co-Ordinator and Romayne Phoenix as Trade Union Liaison Officer.

Sam Riches was returned as Policy Co-Ordinator, now in a job-share with Caroline Bowes. Judy Maciejowska has become the Elections Co-Ordinator and Martin Collins is the new Publications

Co-Ordinator. Penny Kemp was returned as External Communication Co-Ordinator, now in a job-share with Clare Phipps and Matt Hawkins.

Following a constitutional change in 2013, two people of different genders were elected as joint Party Deputy Leaders, Amelia Womack and Dr Shahrar Ali. Once again, I would like to thank all of the members who kindly volunteered to help at the count, which was a very long and demanding day. It is my intention to introduce electronic voting for the GPEx elections 2015, so please watch this space for further details.

Natalie Bennett with Deputy Leaders Amelia Womack and Shahrar Ali

Cllr Tom Harris is the Green Party’s Electoral Returning Officer

Rita Wood remembered Steve Jordan

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ita Wood sadly passed away on 14 May 2014, and she will be greatly missed by all of the members of the South East Essex Green Party.

8 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

The Green Party was important to Rita, and as the local membership secretary, she stood several times for election for Westborough ward. Rita kept in touch with everyone, and reminded us

that it is important to get together and share our time with each other.

Rita was always thinking of others, she remembered when you had not been well or had other worries, and she was the heart of the South East Essex Green Party and will be deeply missed by all of us.

Opinion

GW86

Evidence: A love story We can all agree that a strong evidence base makes the best policy. Or can we?

Rupert Read argues that precaution would be even better

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have a proposition to put to you. Our society, and even our wonderful party, are too in love with the concept of evidence.

Perhaps this surprises you. Maybe you’re thinking: ‘If only!’ If only enough attention were paid to the massive evidence that dangerous climate change is happening, and that it’s humantriggered. Or: If only the epidemiological evidence marshalled by Wilkinson and Pickett – that more inequality makes society worse in almost every conceivable way – were acted upon.

But actually, even in cases like these, I think that my proposition is still true.

Take human-triggered climate change.

Yes, the evidence is strong, but a ‘sceptic’ can always ask for more/better evidence, and thus delay action. There is something stronger than evidence: the concept of precaution.

A sceptic, unconvinced by climatemodels, ought to be more cautious than the rest of us about bunging unprecedented amounts of potential pollutants into the atmosphere! Any uncertainty over the evidence increases our exposure to risk, our fragility.

The climate sceptics exploit any scientific uncertainty to seek to undermine our confidence in the evidence at our disposal. So far as it goes, this move is correct. But our exposure to risk is higher the greater the uncertainty in the science. Uncertainty undermines evidence, but it doesn’t undermine the need for precaution: it underscores it!

Remember how high the stakes are.

Think back to the great precedent for the climate issue: the issue of smoking and cancer. For decades, tobacco Beware of black swans: events with unforseen consequences

companies prevaricated against action being taken to stop the epidemic of lung cancer. How? They demanded incontrovertible evidence that smoking caused cancer, and they claimed that until we had such evidence there was nothing to be said against smoking, health-wise.

They deliberately evaded the employment of the precautionary principle, which would have warned that, in the absence of such evidence, it was still unsafe to pump your lungs full of smoke, day in day out, in a manner without natural precedent.

We ought to have relied more on precaution and less on evidence in relation to the smoking-cancer connection. The same goes for climate.

“The absence of evidence that something is harmful must not be confused with the evidence of absence of potential harm” And also for inequality: Wilkinson and Pickett are merely confirming what we all already ought to have known anyway: that it’s reckless to raise inequality to unprecedented levels, and so to endanger society itself – for how can one have a society at all, when levels of trust and of co-mingling are ever-decreasing?

The same goes for advertising targeted at children. It’s outrageous to demand evidence that dumping potential toxins into the mental environment actually is dangerous; we just need to exercise precautious care with regard to our children’s fragile, malleable minds.

And also for geoengineering: There’s no evidence at all that geoengineering does any harm, because (thankfully!) it hasn’t

been carried out yet. In this case, we must be ‘precautious’, for, by the time any evidence was in, it would be too late.

The same goes for genetically-modified (GM) crops. There is little evidence of harm, to date, from GM, but evidence is the wrong place to look: one ought to focus on the generation of new uncertainties and of untold exposures to grave risk that is an inevitable consequence of taking genes from fish and putting them into tomatoes, or on creating ‘terminator’ genes, et cetera…

The absence of evidence that GM is harmful must not be confused with evidence of absence of potential harm from GM. We lack the latter, and thus we are direly exposed to the risk of what my philosophical colleague Nassim Taleb calls a ‘black swan’ event: a massive known or even unknown unknown.

So: let’s end our love affair with evidence. Yes, being ‘evidence-based’ is usually (though not always!) better than nothing. But there’s nearly always something better still: being precautious.

(And, what’s more, being precautious makes it easier to win, and quicker.)

This is the unique contribution that Greens can offer to public debate.

Rupert Read is a philosopher of science, and chairs Green House: www.greenhousethinktank.org He is hoping to stand in Cambridge at the General Election

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 9

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GW86

Planning for people and nature Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion

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ne of our most precious wildlife sites is under threat. Lodge Hill in Kent is home to nightingales and other scarce, declining and protected species.

Medway Council recently approved a major mixed-use development, which would destroy this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and damage nearby ancient woodland. The development would destroy more habitat in one go than the total loss of SSSIs to development in the last seven years.

Lodge Hill is a nationally significant site for nightingales and other wildlife. Moreover, it’s a key test of the government’s claim that the planning system contains a strong presumption against developing SSSIs. If the

development goes ahead, it would set a dangerous precedent for the protection of England’s most precious wildlife and woodland sites.

So, it’s crucial the government ‘call in’ this application, to allow a proper public inquiry and for the presumption against developing on SSSIs to be upheld.

We need new homes, but less environmentally destructive locations can, and must, be found. In Brighton and Hove, the city plan identified potential sites for over 11,000 new homes, whilst protecting green areas. But the Government’s Planning Inspectorate ruled more sites had to be earmarked, putting allotments, the national park, meadows, and potential nature reserves in the frame. Non-cooperation from the

city council will result in a free-for-all land grab for developers (see p17).

Both examples illustrate the need for serious changes to the planning system so it works for people and nature. And we shouldn’t stop at protecting our existing green spaces. A stronger, more accountable planning system, with local people at its heart, can deliver homes in the right places, whilst creating and connecting new wildlife sites, woodlands, wetlands and other green spaces. This, in turn, will help cut air pollution, reduce the local intensity of heatwaves, provide natural flood defences, outdoor spaces for children to play, and wildlife corridors to help species cope with our changing climate.

I’ve written to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government urging him to save Lodge Hill and protect the UK’s most special wildlife sites; see http://bit.ly/XtLFyb. Please ask your MP to do the same.

Right to Rent – not Right to Buy James Caspell

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early seven out of 10 homes in the UK are owner-occupied. Almost 30,000 homes were repossessed in 2013 alone, with over one in every 100 mortgaged homes in arrears of at least 2.5 per cent of the value of the loan. Families – particularly those with children – are more likely to be impacted by mortgage repossession, having indeterminable impacts on the education, health and employment prospects of the whole household. Moreover, the cost to local authorities to house homeless families has risen to over £500 million per year.

The Green Party proposes that people facing severe difficulties with paying their mortgage and facing repossession should have a ‘Right to Rent’ their existing home as council housing – a policy analogous but opposite to ‘Right to Buy’.

Homeowners unable to meet their mortgage payments and under threat of repossession would have a right to

transfer ownership to the council, at less than market value, in exchange for the right to remain in the home and pay rent as council tenants.

There would be limits on the size and value of houses covered by this policy, and it would only apply to houses owned and occupied by a family or individual.

The local authority would be obliged to pay the remainder of the mortgage off, in return for taking full ownership of the property, although the cost would be covered by government grants or public loans. The local authority would benefit through inheriting outstanding equity, the increasing value of property, and future rental income.

Banks would get a guaranteed return on their capital, with interest and early release charges payable as per the terms of the original loan. The transfer of remaining, or at least substantial amounts of, equity to the local authority removes

any incentive for a household to default on their mortgage simply to benefit from social rent.

Whereas Right to Buy has decimated the quantity and quality of social housing, Right to Rent would provide a safety net for thousands of families struggling with ownership – and guarantee that they can keep their own roof over their heads.

Social housing: a social good, not a social problem

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 11

Feature

Evaluating the NPPF Sophie Wright considers whether the government’s ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ is compatible with the actions of the greenest government ever. (Spoiler alert: it’s not) “I want us to be the greenest government ever – a very simple ambition and one that I’m absolutely committed to achieving.”

– David Cameron, 2010

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ithin a year of their pledge to be the greenest government ever, the Coalition introduced the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This legislation simplified the planning system and introduced a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’. According to the government, this placed sustainability at the heart of planning decisions.

This presumption in favour of sustainable development fundamentally affects how local councils put together their local plan – the key local document that sets out what kind of development they would support and where. However, in order for a local plan to be legal, the government requires councils to identify enough development sites to meet the ‘objectively assessed needs’ for housing and business in their area, irrespective of local constraints. In this scramble for growth, few areas are deemed worthy enough of complete protection from development, including green belt sites, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest. In some cases, even ‘irreplaceable habitats’ could be developed.

Despite making some positive noises, the NPPF effectively establishes a laissez-faire planning system, which, combined with budgets cuts to organisations such as Natural England and the Environment Agency, has served to prioritise economic growth ‘unless any adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits’. This high bar for refusing development effectively gives many developments the go-ahead – even if they are environmentally or socially unsound, and have hard-to-measure impacts such a biodiversity loss, climate change and loss of green space.

12 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

Local councils are left with little choice – either plan for potentially inappropriate economic growth, or face having their decisions overturned through the costly appeals process. Of the estimated 85 per cent of councils that are still struggling to get a local plan rubber-stamped by the government, many have seen planning decisions, such as controversial ‘off-plan’ developments, bypass the local democratic process.

Such off-plan developments that are not planned for locally may not work well with existing towns or areas, or could be built without basic services. They could also increase reliance on cars and further fragment ecological networks. Worse still, the NPPF’s obsession with economic viability has meant that potential social and environmental gains from development, such as new publicly

“Few areas are deemed worthy of complete protection” accessible open space or affordable housing, have for many sites been reduced or even dropped entirely.

Needless to say, this is not a form of ‘sustainable development’ that many people, let alone Greens, would recognise. Many commentators have observed the Orwellian use of the word ‘sustainable’ as a way of sugar-coating what is otherwise widely considered a ‘developers’ charter’. It’s a far cry from the intentions of the Brundtland or UK Sustainable Development Strategy definitions of sustainable development, which, although mentioned in the NPPF, do not form official policy.

This process also disregards the so-called ‘triple bottom line’ definition of sustainable development, where, in the words of the NPPF, economic, social and environmental gains ‘should not be undertaken in isolation, because they are mutually dependent’.

Finally, but by no means least, limits to growth are not considered within the NPPF, which ultimately is more concerned with sustaining development than sustainable development.

While the planning system under the previous government was also economically focused, at least there was a presumption against off-plan developments and a national brownfield target.

It was also much harder for developers to wriggle out of meeting essential social and environmental requirements than now, thanks to the government’s prioritisation of profitability for developers over all other factors.

Taking into account the impossible choices councils now face, the outcry from environmental and affordable housing campaigners, the fall in affordable housing standards and quantity, and the loss of environmental protections, it’s fair to conclude that David Cameron is very much alone in believing his is the ‘greenest government ever’.

GW86

A new developers’ charter The proposed Infrastructure Bill has been criticised as a (new) ‘developers’ charter’ and ‘a legal duty to maximise greenhouse gases’. With the bill currently in the committee stage in the Lords, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb reflects on the havoc it could wreak

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he government’s Infrastructure Bill may appear innocuous at first glance, but delve deeper and details emerge that show how harmful and regressive it could be. Its general aim of shaking up the way we fund, plan, manage and maintain our national infrastructure may sound rather ambitious for one single bill. However, in reality it covers even more than that and is so wide sweeping that it’s hard to list all its negative implications. In June at its first reading in the Queens Speech debate, I addressed the Lords to speak about some of these.

The Infrastructure Bill, I highlighted, gives new freedoms to the Highways Agency for road construction and introduces planning changes to fast-track developments. It seems to offer assistance to big oil companies and house builders, rather than to hard-pressed householders. It builds on the tax breaks that fossil fuel companies have already been given in the hope that they will find gas and sell it cheaply to bring down bills.

It introduces a legal requirement for the government to boost income by maximising the recovery of petroleum from the UK’s dwindling resources.

The environmental impacts of these things will be clear to you all. To me, this bill shows strong indications that the government has given up all hope of meeting carbon reduction targets. This is not only dangerous and irresponsible in terms of safeguarding our future, but breaks our obligations under international law.

In addition to the environmental impact of this bill through the fast tracking of new road developments and facilitation of the growth of fracking in the UK, this bill also poses a huge threat to the rights of UK homeowners.

In order to further facilitate fracking in the UK, the bill would exempt fracking companies from trespassing laws to allow them to run shale gas pipelines under private land without seeking the consent of homeowners. This is a gross invasion of private property and passes yet more power into the hands of

vested interests. It’s hardly surprising that three quarters of the population oppose changes to the trespass law.

Finally, this bill would potentially re-open the can of worms that was the sale of public forests. It proposes that the Secretary of State can hand over control of public land to the Homes & Communities Agency. The Homes & Communities Agency then has the right to hand it over to developers. In this case, the local authority planning processes can be bypassed and the Secretary of State will be able to give permission to developers after consultation with a panel consisting of just two people.

In response, Caroline Lucas has proposed a Green rewrite of the bill, to focus on five key areas: • making energy efficiency the number one UK infrastructure priority; • investing in a transition to zero-carbon renewables; • investing in public transport systems and local road maintenance; • strengthening the UK’s resilience to flooding and climate impact; • major investment in a zero-carbon council and social housing programme.

I’m proud to be able to take a place in the House of Lords, alongside Caroline in the Commons, to try to point out the absolute madness of this government. I often find myself as the go-to opposition figure in the Lords, and am sometimes the only person to speak out on some issues, for example, fracking.

A briefing on the impacts of the Infrastructure Bill can be found at: www.cpre.org.uk/resources/transport/roads/ item/3658-infrastructure-bill-briefing For more on Jenny Jones’s work in the House of Lords, visit: jennyjones.greenparty.org.uk To arrange a free a tour of Westminster, please get in touch at jonesjb@parliament.uk

The Infrastructure Bill would favour big oil companies, especially those that frack, and house building companies, as well as giving new freedoms for road construction. It could also see public forests sold off

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 13

Feature

Better instead of more Although we live on a small and densely-populated island, there’s still room for all of us to live while preserving the invaluable natural environment. Sandy Irvine explains how Green Party policy emphasises development for the common good

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Particular problems call for carefully targeted measures. One is arge parts of remaining countryside are threatened by a homelessness. The London Assembly Housing Committee, chaired tidal wave of sprawl, backed by arguments that there is by the Green Party’s Darren Johnson, has given a good lead. More no alternative but to build on ‘green spaces’, much of it generally, we need raised borrowing powers for councils to allow designated green belt. Proponents of such development dismiss for more council housing (with high sustainability specifications, opposition as selfish and reactionary. Expanding the current builtfollowing the precedent of Parker Morris Standards, which up area is, however, simply not a sustainable option. Fortunately, determined space requirements in public housing as long ago there is another way. as the ’60s). Also needed are controls to ensure fair charges and The Green Party starts from the core issue of sustainability. It proper maintenance for private rented property. Last but not least, recognises the already unsustainable ‘ecological footprint’ of our Greens back housing associations, co-ownership and self-building. towns and cities, one that impacts well beyond their borders.

Part of the problem of housing affordability is the supply of Those who argue that the built-up area is still small (and therefore bedrooms rather than the absolute number of homes. can be expanded without real problems) miss this critical Many older people live in properties too big for point. them, for want of attractive alternatives. More Both ecosystems and the human community in-town homes suitable for downsizing are already under too much pressure. More might free up property for younger careful planning alone cannot reduce families. it. Only a sustainable, steady-state There are actually big financial economy can do that. Even a 100 per savings in the Green emphasis cent concentration on brownfield on adaptation and in-fill. sites only buys time before on-going Outward sprawl requires more growth brings back the pressure to costly infrastructure provision. find yet more land on which to build.

Accompanying economic policies However, in the here and now, there would include the abolition of VAT are several alternative options: on building repair and ‘recycling’ to • sustainable redevelopment other uses. We also need strongly of the existing built-up area, Shirley Ford (left) and Alison Whalley, Green regional policies to reduce the with full protection from urban Party candidates in 2015 Euro elections at unsustainable imbalance between encroachment of other lands, not Sinclair Meadows in South Shields, social the ‘overheated’ South East and the least green belts; housing built on a brownfield site to high rest of the country.

• reuse of derelict land, empty properties sustainability specifications We need vibrant neighbourhoods, and large car parks, with use of including ‘streets for people’. compulsory sale orders plus a Housing Land Corporation to oversee the supply of appropriate land; We should go for local access over long distance driving (the • use for accommodation of space above shops, hospitals etc; ‘20-minute city’). We must promote sustainable construction methods. We want dense networks of pedestrian and cycle • reduction of land now scheduled for office development; paths throughout, with electric/biogas buses and rapid transit • a major drive to harness a huge wasted resource: roofs and for longer journeys. We need rainwater harvesting, rain gardens, walls; bioswales, porous paving for stormwater, low-flow fixtures • recovery for family housing of property now sublet for in buildings and no- or low-irrigation landscape design. That’s students, with a construction programme of high standard a start! halls of residence (e.g. Bradford University’s ‘green village’); All the above need government to take a proactive role. Today’s • tight limits on second homes and purchase of property by housing problems show the shortcomings of the ‘market’. non-nationals; Fortunately, there are already exemplars that demonstrate that • ‘greening’ of the green belt, with schemes to create new we can plan development for the common good of everyone and nature reserves and wildlife corridors; of the ecosystems on which we depend.

• scrapping of the National Planning Policy Framework with a switch to eclogically-driven land use zoning and a land value tax system; References and further resource relating to the above • mixed use zoning and a tolerable degree of ‘densification’, can be obtained from Sandy by emailing him at: with in-fill and ‘small parcel’ schemes as well as ‘ecoSandyirvine45@gmail.com industrial’ parks.

14 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

GW86

Trouble on the Tyne Alex Bruce explains how campaigning forced local councils to revisit and improve their development plan, and offers advice for others looking to oppose unsustainable developments

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nlike most authorities, those of Newcastle and Gateshead decided on a joint development plan. Like many councils, both authorities went ahead without prior public engagement. Behind the scenes, they produced a plan that reflected the volume builders’ preferences for greenfield sites.

Thanks to a wave of protest, an extension to the consultation process was forced on the council. Over 14,000 comments were submitted, mainly objecting to the then draft plan. While Green Party (GP) members were involved from the start with a series of formal submissions made in the party’s name, broad opposition was needed. It was also important to pose positive alternatives – otherwise, the councils and developers would make accusations of ‘Nimbyism’. A coalition, ‘Cities4People’, was formed bringing together a range of objectors.

It was agreed to reject the whole plan, not least to avoid being split by selective concessions by the council. Such a position would also likely force bigger concessions. Widespread leaflet drops, petitions, and stalls backed up this stance. We also found that it pays to approach all possible allies, from golf clubs to parents at school gates.

Public meetings still count. One, protesting against a housing development proposed next to Gosforth Nature Reserve, attracted over 400. A follow-up march was attended by over 600. Vivid slogans and imagery were important. The core poster featured a red squirrel threatened by bulldozers, as the reserve is the site of the last urban colony of this popular species. Some badger setts were also threatened, and the march was led by a GP member in a badger outfit (pictured, above). This all helped to get good media coverage, an essential ingredient for a successful campaign.

There were regular freedom of information requests to dig out details of what really was being planned. The more specific they are, the more likely they are to be productive. There are several good guides to the planning system, not least from the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

In due course, a revised plan was produced. Thanks to intensive campaigning, there were considerable reductions in planned new builds, including the dropping of the Gosforth site.

Protestors against the North Tyneside development plan

However, the battle still goes on, taking different forms. Although the formal planning process is critical, the contest to win public backing cannot be neglected.

Different arguments are necessary for different arenas. Even the most eloquent oration about the loss of a treasured open space will cut no ice with a planning inspector tasked to apply only certain criteria. Despite claims about ‘evidence-based’ policymaking, the planning process is not some neutral ‘science chamber’, but a conflict of competing values, goals and priorities.

It is important to make formal objections to specific plans and speak out at public consultation events. Even more important, however, is active participation in the debates during the Examination in Public (EiP) hearings. It is easier to speak in public in front of their ‘experts’ if you have, say, just one or two points to make.

Here, it is vital to challenge inflated projections, showing that claims from the ‘sprawl lobby’ are not sound. Council ‘evidence’ often draws on out-of-date Office of National Statistics data.

Many plans are also based on the highest possible projections from past trends. Coming years are likely to be very different, so such planning is scarcely ‘future-proof’.

Similarly, it is important to spotlight missed opportunities, challenging claims of ‘positive planning’. Finally, greenwash about ‘sustainable development’ must be challenged, not least where there is hard evidence that, for example, total greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants will rise if the plans go ahead. Promises about community infrastructure levies should be checked against real long-term costs. Similarly, there should be deep scepticism about ‘biodiversity offsetting’.

The Green Party can play a very distinctive role, making links between otherwise compartmentalised issues. It can also pose a general alternative, instead of just opposing specific proposals.

Ultimately, the real battle is for new goals and sustainable criteria for decision-making. As in Tyneside, major achievements can be accomplished with dedication and creativity.

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 15

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Feature

GW86

The reality of localism Geoffrey Bowden describes the struggle by Brighton & Hove’s Green administration to develop a truly local (and sustainable) city plan in the face of government’s ‘growth at all costs’ obsession

The council supported transforming the Open Market into a state-of-the art facility with 90 homes and 45 business spaces, and has given permission for a derelict site at Circus Street (right) to become community, business, residential and student facilities

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ver the past two years, the Brighton & Hove Green administration has been reviewing and rewriting Brighton & Hove’s ‘City Plan’, updating the previous Conservative administration’s local planning document, to set out what kind development we want to see and where it should be located.

The context is daunting. Brighton & Hove is geographically constrained by the sea to the south and a national park to the north. Combined with our close proximity to London, land is at a premium. We have a severe shortage of suitable sites for housing with 18,000 households on the waiting list. A huge amount of housing stock within the city is owned by private landlords renting out properties, some in appalling standards, at very high rent levels. Meanwhile, many small and medium sized businesses, the lifeblood of our economy, are struggling to find start-up spaces, as government encourages available spaces to be converted into housing.

At the same time, we want to see the principles of our ambitious ‘One Planet Living’ programme – including zero waste, sustainable transport, and supporting biodiversity – embedded in all new developments.

Our draft city plan aimed to take all of these competing demands into account. We set out ambitious plans for a major new ‘One Planet’ level development, 97 per cent of new housing being put on brownfield sites, and proposals for all new buildings to meet national sustainability targets ahead of the government’s timetable.

However, the government’s new rules require all local plans to fit in with its controversial National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (see p12) in order to be rubber-stamped.

This undemocratically dictates what local communities must accept – increasingly prioritising developers’ profits above community value. Developers’ biggest margins are on poorlybuilt residential properties squeezed onto greenfield land and let out at high rents – precisely what Greens don’t want.

But a local plan that the government won’t sign off on isn’t just worthless, as, in its absence, new applications are dealt with under the government’s laissez-faire NPPF instead.

Every month we continue without a local plan, development

continues largely unfettered thanks to the government’s carte blanche for developers.

So, we’ve reluctantly reduced some aspirations to try and make our plan acceptable to the planning inspector, who earlier this year asked us to look again. One of the inspector’s demands is causing much soul-searching: to be convinced that we’re seriously trying to meet the need for housing, we must show we’ve looked at all available land – including the remaining pockets of urban fringe along the borders with the South Downs National Park. Much of this is privately owned, with no guarantee that anything could be built there.

However, by including it in the plan, we are able to stipulate very high standards for any future developments and we must show that we’ve considered it, otherwise all protections and requirements disappear citywide.

Where land is council-owned, we’re exploring the option of a Community Land Trust, which will hold the land in perpetuity, to provide affordable housing for the people of the city.

Importantly, this will put it beyond the reach of the Tory and Labour right-to-buy policy, which has stripped low-income families of roofs over their heads.

So before us is a Hobson’s choice: if our city plan doesn’t sufficiently meet government requirements, it will be thrown out in its entirety, allowing low-quality development on sensitive sites to go ahead. It will be a developers’ free-for-all if we cannot get cross-party agreement for the amended draft plan this autumn.

Let us not forget how we came to be here – Eric Pickles’s pursuit of development at all costs. However, we have a chance to fight back against the lowest common denominator, and fight for affordable housing, balanced development, protected and accessible green space, and low-carbon buildings. For that, we need the protections and ambitions of an agreed city plan.

Cllr Geoffrey Bowden Chairs the Economic Development & Culture Committee on Brighton & Hove City Council

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 17

Feature

Recovering the natural world Paul Wilkinson, The Wildlife Trusts’ Head of Living Landscape, describes why a healthy environment is the foundation for everything of value – and what we need to do to preserve it

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he natural world is the cornerstone to the health of our nation, and its health should be at the very top of every agenda.

It is under more pressure than ever before from development, a changing climate and the demands of a growing population. Sixty per cent of UK species we know about are in decline, according to the ‘State of Nature’ report.

Many of the natural environment’s ‘free’ valuable © Tom Marshall services it provides are also under threat, such as clean water supply, crop pollination, resilience to flooding and food production. And, despite existing legislation and policy, society continues to unsustainably use many natural assets, putting our long-term economic prosperity at risk.

The lack of recognition that a healthy natural environment is the foundation for everything of value to us has serious implications.

We’re experiencing increasing levels of obesity and physical inactivity, and one in four of us will experience mental health problems at some point in our lives. Any causal links between nature’s decline and society’s decline will be hard to prove. But let’s be honest: we’re not separate from nature; we’re part of it.

Although we have important UK and European laws to protect nature, we now need to create modern legislation – a nature and wellbeing act – for nature’s recovery and society’s wellbeing, which can operate in much longer timeframes than governments do.

“We must stop seeing nature and green infrastructure as optional – it is essential” All of the evidence demonstrates that where the natural environment is put at the heart of planning decisions, people’s quality of life and the value of their properties is far higher. Wellsited and designed developments can be good for people, wildlife, business and the economy – they must go together.

Planning consent was granted at Port Marine in Portishead near Bristol for 2,550 homes on condition that developers designate a nature reserve at Portbury Wharf on adjoining land (pictured, right). Enjoyed by local communities, it’s quietly working hard for 18 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

them too; the habitats and wetlands act as a sponge, absorbing run-off from the development, filtering pollutants and providing flood protection in the event of a breach of the sea wall. Places such as this, where people live, relax, explore and exercise, perform acts from which we benefit on a daily basis.

It’s not ‘environment versus economy’. It’s not ‘people versus wildlife’. As Port Marine illustrates, it is possible to secure successful solutions that integrate development and wildlife for the benefit of everyone.

Yet, despite positive approaches by some local practitioners, astonishing decisions continue to be made with houses being built on flood plains, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) set to be divided by HS2 and so on.

The recent approval to build 5,000 houses on Lodge Hill in Medway, Kent, an area officially recognised for its wildlife value, and designated as an SSSI, will see environmental destruction on a scale not seen for more than 20 years, since that which resulted from the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act of Parliament in 1993.

The need to develop major infrastructure is recognised, but not at the expense of internationally important wildlife sites, a principle enshrined in planning policy and legislation. Respect for this framework was recently demonstrated as plans for ‘Boris Island’ were refused due to significant environmental concerns and huge costs.

However, in Wales, the M4 proposal, which will cause irreparable damage through the heart of the Gwent Levels – at a cost of £1.25 billion – continues to be fought.

Bad decisions lead to wholly avoidable and unacceptable impacts on people, business and the natural environment.

We must stop seeing nature and green infrastructure as optional – it is essential.

We need a large-scale recovery in our natural environment now, more than ever before. That’s why The Wildlife Trusts and RSPB are calling for a nature and wellbeing act to go beyond Portbury Wharf current policy and legislation. © Emma Foulerton We must seek to meet the needs of the future.

You can find out more about The Wildlife Trusts’ calls for manifestos at www.wildlifetrusts.org/election For more information about RSPB’s manifesto proposals, please email richard.benwell@rspb.org.uk

GW86

Opposing land grabs Derek Wall, the Green Party’s International Coordinator, looks beyond our borders to describe the devastating impacts of more aggressive land use changes imposed on indigenous populations around the world

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Malaysia, palm oil production on land from rainforest has n recent years, more and more land, whether in Africa, Asia had devastating effects. or Latin America, has been seized from local people. We have Land grabs have negative effects in terms of both human also seen this in Europe with Sami, indigenous in Finland, rights and animal rights. The Penan people of Sarawak have legal Sweden and Norway, losing land to mining corporations. Rising food prices over recent years have made agricultural land an increasingly valuable asset, so companies and even countries have been trying to acquire land across the world. Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Middle Eastern states like Qatar have been buying up large areas of Africa. Typically, in Ethiopia, former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi planned, before his death in 2012, to resettle 1.5 million people so land could be leased to foreign investors. Over 125 million acres of land in Africa have been sold or leased, rights to land they can prove they have occupied since the 1950s. often taken from the people living on However, the surrounding rainforest, which they need to survive, it. In 2009, the South Korean company is being sold off. An investigation by Al Jazeera found that corrupt Daewoo tried to buy 2.9 million acres officials were selling the rainforests in Sarawak. Deforestation in of Madagascar, but this resulted in Sarawak is thus fuelled by land grabs, which is also increasing the riots that led to the overthrow of the threat of extinction to orangutans. government.

Another example is the West Bank, where Israel has recently Much of the land seized is owned announced that it will simply take from Palestinians nearly a collectively as ‘commons’, and such thousand acres of land from the Etzion settlement forms of communal property rights bloc near Beit Lahm. Land grabs are a multiare often misunderstood. There is faceted threat that demand challenging. a long history of commons being The Green Party has a policy of opposing enclosed and taken from commoners land grabs and has also gained the support both within Europe and as a result of of the European Green Party on this issue.

European colonialism across the world.

Green Party policy promotes a number Millions of native Americans, Asians, of practical ways to oppose land grabs. and Africans were dispossessed We oppose biofuels grown from crops, of their lands and resources. Land along with government and EU grants grabbing has been justified by notions to projects based on land grabs. We also such as the ‘tragedy of the commons’ promote understanding of commons and and ignorance of alternative systems other alternative forms of land rights. of property rights. The work of the late Green Party member Joella Greens are actively campaigning against Professor Elinor Ostrom, the only woman Lynch protesting against land grabs, and support the efforts of to win a Nobel Prize in economics – for land grabs in Newcastle groups like Oxfam to combat land theft. her research into common pool property – It’s worth reminding ourselves, too, has shown that such property can be managed that land in Britain was simply stolen during the Norman sustainably and fairly. invasion of 1066. While this is distant in time, land ownership Whether the land taken is owned collectively or privately, remains hugely unequal, with negative effects on our society theft of land is damaging for a number of reasons. Land over a thousand years later. grabs push peasants and indigenous people from their land, increase inequality and degrade the environment. Seized land often benefits corporations, sovereign and pension funds and There are some excellent indigenous campaigns against multinationals, which produce agricultural fuels and other land grabs, including: Survival International at commodities on a large scale for export, instead of growing www.survivalinternational.org; Intercontinental Cry at food for the local population. In Colombia, for example, rightintercontinentalcry.org; and, if you read Spanish, Lucha wing paramilitary groups have threatened peasants, coercing Indigena (‘indigenous struggle’) magazine at them to give away their land, and such land has been converted www.luchaindigena.com into palm oil production for biofuels. Likewise, in Sarawak,

“Companies and even countries have been trying to acquire land across the world”

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 19

Feature

Palestine and Israel policy The Autumn Conference saw the Green Party renew its support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the Israeli state. Annie Neligan explains how to put policy into action

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he Israeli onslaught on Gaza this summer has reawakened us all to the horrors of life and death in occupied Palestine.

My initial reaction was despair – and anger that the political focus was on getting a ceasefire and resuming the ‘peace process’.

Return to the status quo like this is not an option. As part of an olive picking team each October in the West Bank (pictured, below), I have seen how the so-called peace process is a cover for steady Israeli colonisation of Palestine. We witnessed intimidation and assaults from Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli soldiers: olive groves burned by flaming tyres rolled down the hillsides; trees savaged by nocturnal chainsaw attacks; streams cut off by the settlement above; young men arrested and roughed up for picking their own olives on their own land.

The villagers resist the takeover of their land in all sorts of ways.

They continue to plant and replant trees, rebuild demolished homes, grow food crops, send their children to school. But they are under escalating pressure, and options for resistance are being closed down daily.

It’s an intolerable way to live. Back from my first visit, I hunted out Green Party policy on Israel and Palestine (policy.greenparty.org.uk/ip). I was relieved to find that we recognise that before a fair choice can be made and accepted by both Israelis and Palestinians for their common future, the underlying causes have to be addressed. We call for UN and EU sanctions such as suspending special trade agreements and halting military support until the Israeli government has, as obliged by international law, ceased new settlement and evacuated existing ones; dismantled the settlement wall; abandoned their claim to East Jerusalem; addressed discrimination against Palestinians living in Israel; amended the Israeli law of return so that it ceases to discriminate against Palestinians.

Having seen how bad it is in the West Bank, I can barely imagine Gaza after nine years of a punitive blockade and the destruction of

water supply, sewage treatment and power. Then in June came the renewed bombardment from land, sea and air. Galvanised by the catastrophe in Gaza, a few of us put an emergency resolution to conference to actively participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It was adopted: we have decided to join a campaign to impel the Israeli government to meet its legal human rights’ obligations.

At the subsequent packed meeting, some concerns about being much more active in the BDS movement were raised. Here are some thoughts on what we need to be confident and clear about.

• Green Party members have already been active, joining pickets and demonstrations, with or without Green Party banners; Caroline Lucas has raised the issues in the EU and the House of Commons.

• The BDS movement is not an organisation directing us but a call for support from Palestinian civil organisations; people decide in their own areas how they can be most effective.

Within Israel, for example, Who Profits researches the links between companies and the occupation. In the UK, groups focus on supermarkets selling goods produced in illegal settlements or specific companies like SodaStream.

• This is a targeted campaign against the government and its supporting institutions, not against individual Israelis.

People are most often uncomfortable with the cultural boycott, concerned about academic freedom. But Israeli institutions are targeted when they: carry out research for military intelligence and occupation; tolerate racist theories and victimise dissenters; are involved in designing the wall, the settlements and their infrastructure; and promote a historical narrative from which Palestinians are missing.

• We are acting against the Israeli government and their murderous policies, not against Jews: the religion or ethnicity of oppressors is irrelevant. Plenty of Jewish groups

A farmer contemplates the olive grove he can no longer tend

A Palestinian farmer’s daughter enjoys the harvest

20 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

Israeli soldiers who hassled the farmer for his permit to pick his own olives on his own land

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support the campaign because they see that the struggle for Palestinian human rights is part of the wider struggle for all humans. And we need to recognise that antiSemitism is a real and vicious threat, so we must challenge such attitudes, keep the distinction clear, and champion the rights of Jews.

We need to be well equipped to deal with suggestions that Palestinians are responsible for ongoing ‘conflict’. This is not a matter of the latest outburst: it is a long story of dispossession, displacement and occupation. It has become clear that the Israeli government has a vested interest in stalling any peace process. It is no accident that the latest onslaught began after Hamas and Fatah agreed to accept Israel within secure borders and renounce armed struggle.

Neither the BDS nor the Green Party have a position on whether there should be a one- or two-state solution: our demands are that human rights and justice should be addressed, not the details of how.

With all this in mind, local councils can be bold in legally refusing tendering to complicit companies like G4S, which runs Israeli prisons under conditions that defy international law, Veolia, which built the railway connecting illegal settlements to West Jerusalem and dumps Israeli rubbish on Palestinian land, and Caterpillar, which supplies bulldozers that plough through Palestinian homes.

All members can encourage MEPs to pursue sanctions and support Caroline Lucas in her relentless attack on the arms trade and work to demand a divorce of the UK’s military marriage with Israel. The work is well under way: we can work alongside local BDS, Jewish social justice and/or Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) groups, proudly bringing our banners, our distinctive politics, and our influence on councils, in Parliament and in Europe. We can include it in our manifestos, talk about it on the doorsteps.

We’ll be supporting the voices of Palestinians such as Rajah Shehadah, writer and human rights activist, who told Desert Island Discs: “We have things to offer. [Israelis] have things to offer.

Together we can do brilliantly”, and, “I have very few partners in optimism.” We can be one of those partners.

The Green Party BDS group is on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/groups/596723640442541 Learn more about the BDS campaign at: www.palestinecampaign.org/boycott

Why we founded J-BIG

Having signed up to Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) in July 2002, I eventually concluded that the best way forward was to pursue the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel until it complies with international law.

Governments and the United Nations will not act, so pressure needs to be applied at a grassroots level to create a snowball effect.

Some of us felt that there should be a visible Jewish presence within the boycott movement to increase the movement’s credibility (‘Even Jews boycott Israel!’) and to strengthen it by negating the notion that it is anti-Semitic to boycott Israel and mobilising Jews who themselves fear ostracism from Zionists. JfJfP could not fulfil this need as it would not support a full (as opposed to Settlement) boycott for fear of losing many of its signatories, some high profile, and thus its power. In November 2006, we therefore decided to form Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) and affiliated it to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s ‘Boycott Israeli Goods’ (BIG) campaign. We supported the goals of the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS – freedom, justice and equality. The idea was not so much to act independently, as to have a separate identity – we have our own name, blog, leaflets, banner, stickers and badges. We wanted, in effect, to give a ‘kosher’ stamp to the boycott movement, hence our slogan: ‘It’s kosher to boycott Israeli goods’.

Like JfJfP, we demonstrate that Israel and its advocates do not speak for all Jews, thereby helping to fight real anti-Semitism, while challenging and isolating Israel, which expects support from world Jewry. Israel’s behaviour goes against Jewish ethics and violates Jewish law, so it is also about reclaiming Judaism from Zionism.

Deborah Fink

The red-roofed hilltop settlement of Bracha threatens the old Palestinian village of Burin

Read more at: www.jews4big.wordpress.com

Autumn Issue 2014 Green World 86 | 21

Book Reviews Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Frenzel, Patrick McCurdy

Protest Camps Zed Books, 260pp, £16.99 The growth of protest movements across the world in recent years has produced renewed vigour in the field of social movement scholarship. Amongst the profusion of studies in this field, the best work has attended to the ways in which protest groups practice their activism in diverse ways and attempt to establish spaces from which their activism can operate.

Into this field Feigenbaum, Frenzel and McCurdy’s new book makes a significant contribution. With the emergence of the protest camp as a global phenomenon since 2011, the authors’ efforts to study the relationship between more recent camps and some of their historical predecessors, such as Greenham Common, provide an excellent overview of the way in which protest camps function. Conceptualising protest camps as ‘alternative infrastructures’, the authors identify four particular infrastructures that are central to all protest camps: media and communication infrastructures; protest action infrastructures; governance infrastructures; and re-creation infrastructures, understood as the means both to ensure that a particular camp itself can continue to reproduce itself, and also attempt

Joe Glenton

Soldier Box Why I Won’t Return to the War on Terror Verson, 184pp, £12.99 Soldier Box is the story of Joe Glenton, who became a soldier, served in Afghanistan, suffered post-traumatic stress and refused to fight a second ‘tour of duty’ after realising the war was futile and destructive. It is a very moving and engaging book. Glenton is a brilliant writer, and his autobiographical book soon draws the reader in. He drifted into the army thinking he could do good, but found the reality very different. The passages on his experiences of meeting the US military in Afghanistan are particularly damning, as he learns of troops racially abusing Afghans, disrupted local communities and corporations making a quick profit from the war. Glenton notes on page 35, after discovering a US Pizza Hut and Burger King on a base shared with American troops: ‘We knew then we were at McWar.’ He refused to fight again in Afghanistan, went AWOL but returned to the UK and voluntarily gave himself up to the army. He was courtmartialled and sent to jail. He has been and continues to be a supporter of the peace movement.

The book shows that while routine racism, sexism and brutal behaviour can exist in the British Army, soldiers are often thoughtful and often reject war. There are numerous 22 | Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014

GW80 to expand its influence outwards.

Along the way, the authors do not shirk some of the more negative conflicts that have occasionally raised themselves as issues within some protest camps, and make no attempt to assert that such camps necessarily follow any one form of politics. Instead, they are at pains to emphasise the autonomous nature of such spaces, and the ways in which they create space for the mutual interaction of diverse political ideologies and perspectives. Although this is a scholarly book written in an academic style, it nevertheless should help activists to remain attuned to the importance of extra-parliamentary politics, and to the necessity of seeking to actively build the alternatives that we hope to see in the future through the political practices that we use to oppose the present.

Daniel Whittal

examples in the book of other soldiers telling Glenton that they thought war was more about oil and political power than tackling terrorism or humanitarian missions.

Others have left the army and spoken out – for example, he describes an exSAS member who resigned because he refused to track down and send Iraqis to US rendition camps.

Glenton is also clear in his feeling that charities that support soldiers too often provide a message that war is heroic and part of a British tradition. He argues that peace campaigners must be pro-soldier, and that individual soldiers suffer in war and deserve support, but notes: ‘Being pro-soldier is not the same as being pro-war.’ From resistance to apartheid to the struggle against Hitler, war may sometimes be justified. However, war is generally brutal, unnecessary and profitable. This book is a call to respect individual soldiers and a challenge to make policies that promote peace. Please read it: it has a powerful message, delivered in sharp prose, with much inspiration, and even occasional humour.

Derek Wall, Green Party International Coordinator

Feature

GW86

Going it alone This May, the Greens gained the sole opposition seats in both Islington and Lewisham with a single representative elected to each council. Tom Williams finds out what it’s like to be the only Green in the room

“

T

hey take up the whole space – I’m surrounded”, Green Councillor Caroline Russell says, whilst roughly sketching a diagram of Islington’s council chamber.

There’s her seat, that of the leader of the opposition, at one end of a two-tiered horseshoe.

The rest are filled by Labour councillors – 47 of them in total – stretching right round to the leader of the council who sits opposite her. “I have to steel myself every time I go into the town hall. It’s intimidating – particularly in the chamber.”

Caroline is the sole opposition councillor on Islington Council.

Last May, she won her seat in a closely contested election in Highbury East with Islington coming within eight votes of having a wholly Labour council. She blames the current situation on a failure of our electoral system – Labour won 56 per cent of the vote and 98 per cent of the seats with the Greens gaining just two per cent of the seats for their 20 per cent of the vote across the borough.

It’s the same situation in Lewisham where, in May, Councillor John Coughlin took up his seat representing Brockley ward as the only Green with 53 Labour councillors for company, despite 30,000 people voting for the party. For him, being the sole opposition is “a mixed blessing”. “On the one hand there is inevitably a degree of freedom in being the only opposing voice”, he says. “On the other, the prospect of holding such a monolithic organisation to account can be quite daunting.”

Both stress that they are interested in working with their new colleagues rather than being the one voice of dissent all the time. “I don’t want to spend four years sniping in the corner saying, ‘Yah boo, yah boo’. I want to work constructively with them”, says Caroline, who is seeking to propose motions on transport and public health policy over the next four years. John agrees: “I believe compromise, consensus and courtesy are vital to the implementation of the policies we need to benefit our communities, and I will work with anyone to make this happen, regardless of party.”

Both also believe that their primary role is to be dedicated ward councillors, representing the people who elected them to the best of their ability. Inevitably, however, the question of how to hold the entire rest of the council to account weighs heavily on their minds, particularly in this time of unprecedented

strain on local authorities.

“Essentially, Labour can just get on and do what they want”, Caroline admits. “What I’m going to have to do is pick and choose my battles.”

She sits on two scrutiny committees including ‘Policy and Performance’, which oversees the whole council’s work, but readily concedes that she can’t be an expert on everything. Instead, she describes a support network developing from within the local party with members attending committees she can’t make and reporting back, and campaigners doing a lot of the legwork to make it easier for her to raise questions with officers.

In this way, she’s essentially a figurehead for a much wider grassroots opposition – channelling people’s thoughts, concerns and questions to become a larger presence than one person could manage on her own. “I’m in the paper rather a lot – good for us and probably infuriating for Labour”, she says, smiling.

It’s early days, and the local party are still “making it up as they go along”, but this support work helps to both raise the profile of the Greens and keeps members engaged in the periods outside elections, whilst also helping to prepare them for elected office.

The ultimate aim for the two Green sole opposition councillors is to get some company next time: “I certainly don’t want to be a lone councillor for long”, says Caroline. And both are

“I don’t want to spend four years sniping in the corner. I want to work constructively” quietly optimistic that support is growing in their respective areas. “It is only a few years ago that Lewisham had six Green councillors, and I am confident we can return and even better this performance in the future”, says John.

For now, however, it’s a daunting four years in prospect with much drama ahead. But if anyone is up to this challenge, it’s a Green politician.

Green World 86 Autumn Issue 2014 | 23

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