Green Co-operators Network proposed at Ways Forward 2022
Hello Ways Forward!
How are you doing? This is my 8th Ways Forward conference. Hands up if you’ve been to at least 5? Awesome.
Hands up if this if your first Ways Forward? Welcome! That’s awesome too. Thanks very much to all the organisers and sponsors. This wouldn’t be happening without you. Much appreciated.
I’ve worked with co-operatives for 30 years, including importing this fair trade organic Palestinian olive oil.
I co-organised the first Co-op Ways Forward conference. They have all been held here in this very hall. This was in 2014, in response to the crises at the Co-operative Bank and its take over by hedge funds.
A few months later, it was Ways Forward 2 because the Co-operative Group was selling Farms and Pharmacy and other desperate measures to stay some kind of mutual. At that time the Co-op Enterprise Hub was cut, which funded co-operatives business advisors like myself and others to support hundreds of co-operatives anywhere in the UK.
Ways Forward 3 was held in 2015. We were really at quite a low point there. We were looking for inspiration and examples overseas and also to young people. I remember one guy said a story about the Rochdale Pioneers, 1844, includes a 19 year old who walked from Rochdale to Manchester to fill the wheelbarrow up with wholefood produce they could sell. They had to come to Manchester and walked all the way back to Rochdale because the wholesalers, most of them, were boycotting the new co-op. Very inspiring story from the history that we have.
Ways Forward 4 in 2016, followed this amazing mobilisation and resurgence of socialism and eco-socialism that came with Jeremy Corbyn. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, spoke at that conference. He announced the workers right to buy, if a firm was changing hands, and shortly after, the Labour manifesto pledge to double the size of the co-op sector. Like thousands of other people passionate about co-ops, I threw my energies into the Labour Party, thinking this is the vehicle for the fundamental changes that Chris [Saltmarsh] was just talking about.
Ways Forward 5 looked at that in more detail. Roads to a Democratic Economy had Ken Loach, Angela Raynor MP, and Rebecca Long-Bailey. She also spoke at Ways Forward 6, as the shadow business secretary, embracing co-operatives.
Also that year, 2018, I was elected as a Labour/Co-op councillor.
The last Ways Forward, 7, was about the Solidarity Economy. We had Molly Scott-Cato, as a Green MEP speaking.
I’d just overturned my first suspension by the Labour Party, for talking about the racism that I face as a Jewish person. I was suspended again in 2020 while standing for election to the national executive committee. I won every disciplinary case the Labour Party threw at me. They finally were able to get rid of me by changing the rules and applying them retrospectively. I was expelled, 11 months ago, by the Labour Party for speaking up for people who had been targeted with injustice. Co-operative Party expelled me too, because its purpose is to support the Labour Party.
I had mixed feelings what the Labour Party and Co-op Party did. On one hand, I was devastated that the Labour Party is no longer a vehicle for social and climate justice. But also it was a massive relief to be free from the hostile, racist, authoritarian environment that the Labour Party has become. I fear, actually, for a Labour government that embodies those values, that continues to be authoritarian, to not uphold the principles of natural justice, and to be racist in its approach.
Its one of the dangers of the model that Chris was talking about, about state control and capture of key industries, when the state is run in an authoritarian way. For example, I lived in Northern Ireland and the railways are state owned. There are about 30 train stations. All bar two stations are in one community, that controlled the state. The railway was run on very sectarian lines even though it was state run. There are dangers depending on the values of the state at that time. Even over time, we have seen how state industries can work over decades.
Meanwhile, the Greens on the Wirral voted to save the library in the ward that I am elected to represent. I joined the Green Party 7 months ago. Every day I am happy about that. My mum was right, she said “Greens are good for you!” and they are.
Which brings us here today. We are talking about co-operating for climate solutions. We clearly all need political change and system change that Chris was talking about and that we know so well.
Where is this leadership going to come from to do that? Led by Sir Kier Starmer, the Labour Party has scrapped most of its manifesto pledges that we heard about here in this hall, we read about, we campaigned for, we voted for.
What does the Labour Party now offer to co-operatives? Really that is a genuine question? [long silence]. Aye… nothing.
Only the Green Party offers climate justice at scale – and with co-ops.
The Green Party offers the genuine Green Green New Deal.
Co-op solutions in all sectors: retrofit revolution in housing, zero carbon transport, support for co-op businesses, food and farming run on zero carbon principles.
Green Party would put the 5 big energy suppliers into public hands.
There’d be a wealth tax on 1% richest households, raising £70 billion that would be used for huge investment in renewable energy at scale. That’d also be owned by households and owned by local communities, wherever possible.
Greens would scrap Trident. We would stop supporting this huge war machine which does nothing to help the environment. It actively destroys our environment as well as people.
We’d fund a just transition for all affected workers.
Greens would put racial inequality at the centre. As Brazilian indigenous activist, Kadie Tarana, said about exploitation “Colonialism caused climate change”, when she opened the People’s Pavilion at COP 26.
Can Greens do it? I think so. In Scotland, Greens share power. In Scotland, the government are leaving the coal in the ground. The Greens have over 550 councillors in principal authorities in England and Wales and share power in 18 councils here.
Back to vehicles for change for co-ops and climate justice. The Co-operative Group funds the Co-operative Party with up to £1m a year [£600,000]. Most of this money benefits Labour/Co-op MPs and councillors. How has that benefited co-ops in the last few years? [long silence]. Another tumble weed moment.
John Boyle: I will respond.
You have the right to reply, working for the Co-operative Party as you do.
So there’s a gap we can uniquely fill for our Green and co-op future. We need a new co-op movement. Ways Forward has represented the radical wing of the co-operative movement over the last 8 years. The next stage is to absolutely address climate change.
We need a new vehicle to do that on an ongoing basis, in between conferences as well, bringing the climate and co-op movements together. So I am proposing an idea: to start a Green Co-operators Network. Where membership is open to any active co-operator that is also a member of the Green Party - or at least is not any other political party. The network would promote co-operatives to Greens and promote climate justice to fellow co-operators. And help to develop the policies our communities and our planet so desperately need.
It might be a combination of what Chris was talking about. We do need a mixed economy, rather than the very capitalist economy that we have now – with also very direct state intervention into particular sectors, like fixing energy prices. We need a much more mixed, diverse and plural economy, which has a central role for co-operatives: in monopolies, in local communities, and at national and international level. I am sorry to hear that Chris can’t see the role for co-operatives in some of those. Maybe he needs to get out a bit more? Have a look at co-operatives in other countries. In Germany, co-operatives own [part of] the national grid and have a major role in renewable energy production. There’s fair trade co-operatives crossing borders all the time. There are lots of energy co-ops in the USA. And that’d just in the energy sector. There are co-ops in all kinds of sectors across the world.
If you are interested in this Green Co-operators Network, please do get in touch. You heard it first at this Ways Forward conference.
Thank you very much.