“Progressive Alliance” Mania: Green MP, Caroline Lucas Calls for Alliance with Labour, *and* the Liberal Democrats.

For a Progressive Alliance of Greens, Labour and…..Liberal Democrats.

Peter Hyman, former key Blair speech writer and strategist, has called for a new alliance of the centre of British politics.

In the Observer on Sunday this appeared,

In a devastating critique of the party’s recent failures, from New Labour’s second term onwards, Blair’s former speechwriter and chief strategist Peter Hyman suggests its plight is now so desperate that it may even be necessary to form a new party with others, including the Lib Dems, to fill the “gaping hole in the centre and centre-left of British politics.

But Hyman is not alone is courting the Liberal Democrats.

Leading Greens are making eyes in that direction.

A progressive alliance of Labour, Lib Dems and Greens should be formed to take on the Tories in the 2020 General Election, Caroline Lucas has claimed.

Speaking to the Huffington Post UK, the Green MP called on anti-Conservative parties to band together to stop the “terrifying” prospect of a further decade of Tory rule.

Ms Lucas, who increased her Brighton Pavilion majority in May’s General Election, said one of the key principles those in the alliance should agree upon is to introduce proportional representation in order to end the “logjam” of the current “archaic voting system.”

The Green MP refused to say this year’s election was a missed opportunity for her party, and instead blamed the campaign of fear run by the Tories for the party’s failure to secure anymore MPs.

The Huffington Post   Owen Bennett

Not so long ago the Greens also admired the nationalist parties.

March 2015. Scottish Herald.

UK Greens back ‘progressive alliance’ with SNP at Westminster.

THE Green Party’s only MP has backed Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that a ‘progressive alliance’ could be formed between their parties at Westminster.

Caroline Lucas, who defeated Labour to win in the Brighton Pavilion constituency at 2010, told a conference of the Green Party for England and Wales that she wants to “forge a new grouping in Parliament” with the nationalists.

Like the SNP, the Greens have increased their membership substantially since the last General Election, with the party rivalling the Liberal Democrats in recent polls.

Ms Lucas said: “With the rise of the SNP, and with our own Green surge, we have the chance to forge a new grouping in Parliament. A progressive alliance.

This latter, a link-up with centrist pro-business Scottish nationalists, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens, found an admirer in the shape of Red Pepper’s apparently left-wing Editor.

Hilary Wainwright on the 7th of May wrote in Red Pepper.

These smaller parties – the SNP (Scottish National Party) Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists) and the Greens are already talking about forming a ‘progressive anti-austerity alliance’ with left wing Labour MPs – there are still some but not many – and using their bargaining power to push Labour to the left.

This kind of alliance combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary sources of power, is my dream

The growing network of militant extra-parliamentary, direct action campaigns are also insisting that these MPs give support to their struggles and not confine themselves to the shenanigans of parliamentary politics. All three parties and many left Labour MP’s have a strong record of engagement in campaigning politics outside of parliament. The new contingent of SNP MPs who will arrive at Westminster are mainly the product of the radical movement for Scottish independence which had real roots in working class communities and was hitherto largely autonomous from the SNP. And the one Green MP, Caroline Lucas, gains her inspiration more from outside parliament than inside. Many of the leadership of the Welsh Nationalists spent time in prison as a result of direct action in support of the Welsh language.

New alliances for the Greens have shifted since then, or have they not?

Who knows?

Caroline Lucas and Hilary Wainwright may consider the idea of a tie-up between Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru is still on the cards.

But the competition for the attention of the Liberal Democrats is already there.