There is a natural assumption that the Green Party is free from barriers and accessible to all. It is possible to work through the Green manifesto and assert that all the Green policies are pro-poor and designed to help the masses. The Greens are part of the New Left. Even our environmental policies, which are deemed to have middle class roots, are ultimately designed to benefit the majority. It has also been alleged that poor people do not have any time to worry about the environment as they are too occupied securing jobs and houses. As a result, it is often assumed that poor people will support us, give us their votes and help us to win elections.

The reality is, however, radically different. In the recent European parliamentary election, the percentages of votes received by the BNP rose to between 10% and 15% in all the predominantly white working class boroughs or cities (e.g. Blackpool, Burnley, Hyndburn, Knowsley, Pendle, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside and Wigan) of the North West. This is despite the fact that the Green Party’s main election leaflet emphasised green jobs in the middle of a recession and the party benefited massively from the expenses scandal. Nevertheless the disillusioned white working class did not vote Tory, as they used to do in Thatcher’s times, but either voted BNP or stayed at home.

Racism was originally defined by Ruth Benedict as: “…the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority.” Racism can be defined as an assimilation of racial prejudice and power. Unless one is in a position of economic, political, physical or environmental power, one cannot discriminate against the powerless. Thus racial prejudice needs the component of power in order to be translated into racial discrimination. Ian Law pointed out that the development of rigid Victorian class structure established skin pigmentation as the index of social inferiority when non-white people became associated with servile tasks. The prevailing Social Darwinism regarded racial conflict as inherent in humanity’s struggle for survival and linked racial difference with beliefs about the intellectual, moral and cultural superiority of white Europeans. Notwithstanding such a historical legacy, modern science tells us that races are simply social constructions.

On the other hand, a host of ideologies overlap in the environmental movement. Tim O’Riordan believes that the environmental movement is broadly reformist, being about a conviction that a better mode of existence is possible, opening up our minds and organisations to ideas about fairness, sharing, permanence and humility. And it was ecology that first promoted the concept of environment which embraces the natural, physical and social context of human life and action.

Ecology first sounded the alarm bell when an unprecedented expansion of industrial development inflicted deep wounds on oceans, air and land through uncontrolled urbanisation, the poor management of soil, forests and water, marginalisation of rural populations and wastage of fossil fuel and non-renewable energy resources. Environmentalism, however, could mean one’s concern for one’s immediate physical environment beyond housing or one’s social environment (e.g. family, race, community, education, leisure); or it could include an awareness of global environment where poor black and brown southern countries are inextricably bound up with rich, white, northern countries, however unhappily, in a theory of sustainable development.

In 2009 there were four boroughs in the North West with a Green vote of over 10% - Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster and Trafford, the last two with small ethnic minority populations. While Manchester contains a large ethnic population, and Greens secured their second best result (13.6%) there, it has to be noted that Manchester Evening news gave out a strong anti-BNP message during the whole fortnight prior to the election which must have helped the Greens. Even in heavily ethnic Blackburn, the Green vote was only 5.72%.

Notwithstanding the fact that an additional Green Party leaflet was printed and distributed widely, warning the ethnic minorities about the danger of a possible victory of the BNP leader, most of the ethnic minorities stayed at home. It is obvious that neither the ethnic minorities nor the white working class are working together with the environmental movement locally. They have a BNP leader now to represent them in Europe, which may break down all contact with non-whites.

So how do we crack it? Greens are united in the belief that human society should be a product of equality and justice. While we consider ourselves very inclusive in our policies, and are totally opposed to discrimination in any form, we are failing to communicate our belief at the community level. This obviously cost us at least one European seat in the North West, and possibly more in other regions. This situation is mirrored when one looks around at a Green conference. Out of the four party conferences I attended in Lancaster, Liverpool, Blackpool and Brighton, I have only met one white working class person in them. The very few ethnic minorities I have met are all middle class and well-heeled. In other words, our membership does not reflect our inclusivity either. The Greens have never had a lead Black or Asian candidate in European or parliamentary elections.
Looking outside the Green world, Cameron, in his bid to proclaim diversity, put forward several Asian candidates in parliamentary and European elections. But one can hardly claim that the Conservative Party is tackling the acute social, economic or environmental problems of ethnic minorities. Their policies are still geared towards social elites. The situation is thus the reverse of the Greens.
We have to offer what poor black or brown people badly need and explain what we mean by our philosophy of anti-racism. Our policies have to be simplified and, if necessary, translated. Perhaps there is room for anti-racist training for candidates and positive action strategies for selecting candidates. We have to cultivate our links with the trade unions intensively with a view to involving poor whites. As one candidate remarked in North West: ”Saying we want a fairer society, almost as an afterthought, is meaningless without explaining what that means and how it will be delivered”.

Samir Chatterjee is a Green Party member and former Race Adviser to LIverpool City Council and Senior Community Education Officer of Rochdale Borough Council.