A Greener Green Party… John Gormley talks about the future in Belfast. Meanwhile… why they won’t be the ethical watchdog MkII in the Fianna Fáil led Coalition

An interestingly robust speech from John Gormley in Belfast at the special conference of the Green Party.

Speaking in Belfast at a special regional party agm on Saturday, he insisted only the Greens could offer real opposition to the Sinn Féin/DUP-led Executive at Stormont. He claimed the Northern Ireland Greens, as a political entity, had emerged as a result of the Good Friday agreement.

Is this true? That’s quite a claim to make, and perhaps indicates some effort to take a degree of ‘ownership’ of the process albeit at a remove. They certainly make great play of the way in which the Green Party in Northern Ireland is a ‘Region’ of the Irish Green Party, and yet also has links to the Scottish, Welsh and English parties. Which, in some respects seems weirdly reminiscent of the Socialist Party approach. But, maybe they’re correct. Then it’s on to the current situation.

“The DUP and Sinn Féin have fought their war and signed their treaty. That is their legacy. It is now our turn,” he said.

The term ‘chutzpah’ springs to mind, considering that both those entities command many multiples of the support garnered by the Green Party. But… one has to start somewhere. And it is with at least some sort of an ideology that he does so…

“We are the result of a political climate that soars far above sectarianism or religious identification – climate change, pollution and the challenges of the globalised economy do not stop at national borders. Sectarian politics aimed at one section of the community and not the other is one reason why so many in Northern Ireland feel disaffected – the Green Party offers these people a reason to vote.”

Brave words too, when he said:

“With the entry of the Green Party into government in Dublin, we will deliver not just for voters in the Republic but also for the people of Northern Ireland,” Mr Gormley said.

“Using the cross-Border bodies and other joint initiatives on nuclear power, renewable energy, tourism and GM food, the party in Northern Ireland will approach voters at the next elections with evidence that Green power delivers a better quality of life for all.”

I simply don’t know the terrain that the Green Party in Northern Ireland negotiates well enough to be able to judge how this sort of appeal will play. On the one hand this is all eminently sensible stuff. On the other one might suggest it is the sort of message which might have a certain resonance that would be slightly off-putting to some in the North. After all, however well-intentioned, the idea that Irish Government Ministers are casting their eye across the Border is likely to cause some pause for thought in certain circles. Mind you, the language is precise. ‘Northern Ireland’, ‘cross-Border’. This may indeed not scare the horses.
And this dovetails with a good article in Sundays Business Post by Pat Leahy about the way in which the Green Party has taken the sensible step in government of avoiding becoming the ethical watchdog of Fianna Fáil. They learned well from the Progressive Democrats who foundered upon precisely that issue. As Leahy notes:

The new approach by the Greens to sharing power with Fianna Fail is motivated by the party’s belief in the importance of its own policy agenda. If you believe that you are helping to save the world from potential disaster caused by climate change, it puts the issue of who paid for Bertie Ahern’s curtains in perspective. But the Greens’ approach is also informed by the experience of previous coalition partners of Fianna Fail – and in particular by the combustion of Michael McDowell’s PDs in the last government.

Now there are those, and some are reading this, who disagree profoundly with this analysis. But… it’s sort of sensible if one believes we face an existential threat then, as Leahy notes, Ahern and the North are relegated to a very distant second and third – perhaps in that order.

And that leads to a pragmatism that in a sense puts government at the heart of the project:

The message that the Greens understood was this: if we go into government with Bertie Ahern, it can only be on the basis of waiting for the tribunal to report. We can’t let evidence or leaks or court challenges dominate the business of government.

The Greens were also, say senior sources, heavily influenced by the experience of Green parties in Europe. ‘‘Agree the programme, get the ministries, compromise and say when you can’t do things,” said one source. ‘‘Try to get our stuff done.”

It’s a model of coalition different from anything that Fianna Fail has encountered in the past. ‘‘Basically, we’ve seen that approach doesn’t work,” said Dan Boyle, a senator and influential figure within the party.

I’m genuinely intrigued as to how long this can run. It seems to me that it might be for quite a while, but time will tell. Certainly the Green Party appear to be digging in. As Leahy also notes:

Besides, as one Green source pointed out, when the party’s ministers are looking from the government benches at the opposition hyperventilating about how the Greens are failing to keep Fianna Fail honest, the thought often occurs to them: do we really want to do what our enemies want us to do?

It’s a fair point. And always important to remember that no one group holds the franchise on the belief that their way and their way alone is the true expression of the public good. And wow, the Greens have that in bucket loads. Gormley said at the weekend that:

“It is up to us now to get out there, to spread the word, to recruit more members and to compete aggressively and confidently in elections. We are members of the most progressive, responsible and dynamic political movement on this island, in these islands, and across the world.”

Now it may be misplaced confidence, but the polls so far support them.

As it happens I have a reasonably nice year planner from the Green Party which has photo’s and contact details of their current elected representatives including Brian Wilson (Member of the Legislative Assembly – and believe it or not apparently a member of the NILP back in the day, later on the Alliance Party and later still and Independent. A heart in all the right places, more or less.). I like the way in which they’re forging something of a broad based, all island(s) approach, but… we’ve seen how socialism didn’t quite go the distance to bridging the gap between communities. Being the old cynic that I am I tend to be dubious that environmentalism or Green philosophy will somehow do better.

Still, this is a different age. Perhaps if Gormley does soft-pedal the one phrase he didn’t use clearly in the above quotes, that of ‘national identification’, he and the Green Party will be fine. Perhaps. But maybe to come to terms with the situation it will be necessary to actually engage with that very issue.