Greens will have office, not power

Two ideas have taken hold here over the last week or so which, in my opinion, are profoundly mistaken - mistaken in a way that could corrode politics here.

The first is that the only point of politics is getting into office, for only there, it is argued, can one implement one's policies. The other is that there has been a sea change in politics in the last few decades and the "old" left agenda is now redundant.

The Green Party is fixed with the idea that politics is all about office. Actually, they say power, but mean office. But office, without power, is meaningless and that is what will transpire for the Greens if they go into office.

My understanding is that the Greens are about four ideas or four pillars as they are sometimes called in green-speak: ecology (or sustainability), social justice, grassroots democracy and non-violence.

It has a view of economics which is broader than the conventional view, focusing on the full cost of economic growth, including damage to ecological health. They advocate a shift to green taxes that encourage producers and consumers to make ecologically-friendly decisions.

By participatory democracy they mean a system whereby citizens play a direct role in political decisions, instead of the very indirect role that applies currently. Greens typically oppose the "war on terrorism", which, in the Irish case, involves making a principle over the use of Shannon as a facility for the war in Iraq. On social justice, Greens, typically, are on the left. For instance, for a while the Green Party here supported the idea of a basic income for everyone as a guarantee against poverty.

Almost everyone in the Green Party here now espouses these ideals or at least did so until recently. But for them the problem is that these ideas are not acceptable to the majority of the population or even a significant minority.

There is no hope that these four "pillars" of policy would be realised in a Fianna Fáil-Green coalition. Fianna Fáil buys a bit into the green agenda but only marginally.

Of course a "spin" on these issues is on offer but significant realisation? No way.

The only hope of actualising green policies is by campaigning for them, persuading the electorate or a significant portion of it that this is the way to go. That is "power". Going into government is "office". No use.

In fact a party or a politician need never get into "office" to have "power". To use examples I have used frequently in these columns, look at the influence of Enoch Powell in the UK and Conor Cruise O'Brien here. Powell persuaded or helped to persuade most of the British electorate of the virtues of neo-liberalism - he was the ideological precursor of Thatcherism. He prepared the ground for a radical shift in immigration policy. It was he who sowed the seeds of Euroscepticism in the UK and all this time during which he exercised influence and "power" he never held "office".

Here Conor Cruise O'Brien was hugely significant in shifting the public view on Northern policy and this had almost nothing at all to do with the brief period during which he held "office".

If the Greens go into government, they will kill off the green movement here in return for office and however they dress this up that will be the reality. The electorate is not ready for green policies and, because of that reality, no government will implement them, other than symbolically. Similar arguments apply in relation to "left" politics. The reason "left" politics is now out of fashion is because there is almost nobody campaigning for them.

In this recent election Fianna Fáil won more votes than it has ever won in an election previously, about 850,000 first preferences. It is a very considerable achievement, especially at a time when the fragmentation of the vote remains pronounced. In 1977 it won more than 50 per cent of the vote but that then represented fewer than 820,000 first preferences. So that 850,000 first preferences on May 24th was a huge achievement.

As it happens that very same number represents the number of people "at risk of poverty". That means there are 850,000 people living on incomes of less than €11,000 for a single person or less than €29,000 for a family of two adults and three children.

These same people experience appalling health welfare, hundreds of thousands of them are homeless, a great many have nothing but the most elementary education. They have no influence, live in crime-ridden areas and live lives far shorter than rich people.

And yet this was never an election issue. Is it "old" leftism to be raising this issue? Is this merely "1960s politics", as though these stark realities are figments of "1960s" mindsets rather than actual realities.

And the primary reason this huge inequity is not an issue is because the media and the political establishment chose not to make it an issue. Social justice, like the rest of the green agenda, can be achieved only by campaigning, by arguing, persuading, appealing to the resilient human instinct for fairness.