Submission statement: just like Reform UK, the left populists are learning that they have a serious chance of going into government (in this scenario likely some sort of tactical voting situation that leads to a Lab-Lib-Green coalition or Confidence & Supply), and they’re both evidently starting to think more about their economic policies
Why this is important to r/Neoliberal: as the only major party in the UK to support Land Value Tax on all land, I think this is one policy that will be carried over if the Greens decide to reform their economic policies to be more serious
>A new economic think tank linked to the UK’s Green Party is set to launch in the new year, as the left-wing party seeks to fend off criticism that it doesn’t understand the economy.
>The organization, to be called Verdant, will be independent from the Greens and aim to provide progressive policy ideas suited to adoption by any left-of-center politicians, according to the party’s chief executive, Harriet Lamb. Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ former leader and first MP, will sit on the board.
>
>It comes at a time when data showing an unexpected contraction in October underlines the way in which mainstream politicians are also struggling to advance a convincing narrative on growth, helping the country’s fringe parties ascend to rival the traditional duopoly of UK politics in a newly fractured landscape.
>
>Born out of the ecological movement in the 1970s, the Green Party has long been a force in local UK politics but has risen in popularity nationally since the election of Zack Polanski as leader in September. With that higher profile has come increased scrutiny and a need to convince voters it can produce credible economic policy.
>
>Verdant will attempt to bridge the distance between party members who favor radical socialist reform, and those who recognize the UK’s dependence on international investors for its debt-financing requirements and want to swing left while keeping bond markets on-side.
>
>Polanski has come under fire in recent weeks for agreeing with Labour Party Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham’s comment that the UK needs to stop being “in hock” to bond markets, and for saying that increasing borrowing wouldn’t be problematic because much of the UK’s debt pile is held by the Bank of England.
>His stance has drawn ire from centrists: after interviewing the Greens leader on his podcast The Rest is Politics earlier this month, former Conservative MP Rory Stewart said he was “horrified” by Polanski’s economic thinking. The Greens’ headline economic policy involves a wealth tax of 1% on people with assets worth more than £10 million ($13.4 million), an idea of which Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “I’m not even sure it would work.”
>Some close to Polanski in the party are fans of Modern Monetary Theory, one person familiar with his inner circle said. That’s the idea, controversial among economists, that a country with its own currency doesn’t have to worry about accumulating too much debt because it can always print more money to pay interest, leaving inflation the main constraint on spending.
>But others in the Green Party are unconvinced about MMT — and want to use Verdant as a vehicle for researching progressive ideas that can also garner mainstream appeal.
>
>“We’ve been criticized because our ideas are very different, and so people find it hard to engage with them as opposed to just dismissing them,” Lamb told Bloomberg. “The ideas we’ve been putting forward have not been taken seriously enough by the mainstream because they’re very comfortable in the existing framework,” she said, adding “we want to move that whole framework of thinking.”
>
>This could involve changing the way fiscal rules are set by a government and used as a marker of its economic probity, Lamb said. Fiscal rules were first introduced to the UK in 1997, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ self-imposed strictures — namely that borrowing should only be used to cover investment rather than day-to-day spending, and that national debt should be falling as a share of the economy over the forecast period — have been blamed for forcing the government to enact politically uncomfortable tax hikes.
>Yet recent jitters in bond markets when it appeared uncertain whether Reeves would be able to stick to her fiscal rules, as well as the chaos caused by Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts in 2022, will act as a restraint for anyone looking to rip up them up.
>Verdant “will start by looking at economics, but they’ll always be also looking at ecology,” Lamb said. It will broaden out over time, she added, to examine: “What does that mean for our food systems? What does that mean for everything from AI through to our security policies?”
>
>While the Greens currently hold just four seats of the House of Commons’s 650, they’ve been climbing in national polls since Polanski became leader. Membership numbers have surpassed both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives to hit more than 170,000, and YouGov’s surveys of voter intention show them polling at 16% — close behind the Conservatives on 18% and Labour on 19%.
>
>Reform UK, the insurgent right-wing party which is currently leading the polls at 26% — despite similar parliamentary representation as the Greens — has also helped to organize the launch of new think tanks to bolster its policy agenda. These include the Centre for a Better Britain, which released its first paper in November, and the Great British Business Council, which Bloomberg reported is due to set up in the New Year.
>
>The two initiators of Verdant are James Meadway, an economist and former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and Deborah Doane, a partner at the Rights CoLab which creates strategies to advance human rights.
>
>“It’s widely accepted by this point that the current fiscal framework isn’t working as intended, trapping the government in cycles of market turmoil and political turbulence,” Meadway said. “But any replacement, including alternative sets of rules, and greater monetary and fiscal coordination, will have to be aware of Britain’s international exposures and the need to carefully manage its substantial liabilities in conditions of higher inflation and interest rates worldwide.”
>
>The think tank will also get endorsement from Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, and Jenny Jones, a Green member of the House of Lords. It is in discussions around securing funding with philanthropic organizations and high-net-worth individuals, Lamb said.
R0zza123 on
Greens try to un-unserious themselves
RevolutionaryBoat5 on
So they admit that they’re not serious on the economy right now?
4 Comments
Submission statement: just like Reform UK, the left populists are learning that they have a serious chance of going into government (in this scenario likely some sort of tactical voting situation that leads to a Lab-Lib-Green coalition or Confidence & Supply), and they’re both evidently starting to think more about their economic policies
Why this is important to r/Neoliberal: as the only major party in the UK to support Land Value Tax on all land, I think this is one policy that will be carried over if the Greens decide to reform their economic policies to be more serious
https://archive.ph/TILpN
>A new economic think tank linked to the UK’s Green Party is set to launch in the new year, as the left-wing party seeks to fend off criticism that it doesn’t understand the economy.
>The organization, to be called Verdant, will be independent from the Greens and aim to provide progressive policy ideas suited to adoption by any left-of-center politicians, according to the party’s chief executive, Harriet Lamb. Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ former leader and first MP, will sit on the board.
>
>It comes at a time when data showing an unexpected contraction in October underlines the way in which mainstream politicians are also struggling to advance a convincing narrative on growth, helping the country’s fringe parties ascend to rival the traditional duopoly of UK politics in a newly fractured landscape.
>
>Born out of the ecological movement in the 1970s, the Green Party has long been a force in local UK politics but has risen in popularity nationally since the election of Zack Polanski as leader in September. With that higher profile has come increased scrutiny and a need to convince voters it can produce credible economic policy.
>
>Verdant will attempt to bridge the distance between party members who favor radical socialist reform, and those who recognize the UK’s dependence on international investors for its debt-financing requirements and want to swing left while keeping bond markets on-side.
>
>Polanski has come under fire in recent weeks for agreeing with Labour Party Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham’s comment that the UK needs to stop being “in hock” to bond markets, and for saying that increasing borrowing wouldn’t be problematic because much of the UK’s debt pile is held by the Bank of England.
>His stance has drawn ire from centrists: after interviewing the Greens leader on his podcast The Rest is Politics earlier this month, former Conservative MP Rory Stewart said he was “horrified” by Polanski’s economic thinking. The Greens’ headline economic policy involves a wealth tax of 1% on people with assets worth more than £10 million ($13.4 million), an idea of which Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “I’m not even sure it would work.”
>Some close to Polanski in the party are fans of Modern Monetary Theory, one person familiar with his inner circle said. That’s the idea, controversial among economists, that a country with its own currency doesn’t have to worry about accumulating too much debt because it can always print more money to pay interest, leaving inflation the main constraint on spending.
>But others in the Green Party are unconvinced about MMT — and want to use Verdant as a vehicle for researching progressive ideas that can also garner mainstream appeal.
>
>“We’ve been criticized because our ideas are very different, and so people find it hard to engage with them as opposed to just dismissing them,” Lamb told Bloomberg. “The ideas we’ve been putting forward have not been taken seriously enough by the mainstream because they’re very comfortable in the existing framework,” she said, adding “we want to move that whole framework of thinking.”
>
>This could involve changing the way fiscal rules are set by a government and used as a marker of its economic probity, Lamb said. Fiscal rules were first introduced to the UK in 1997, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ self-imposed strictures — namely that borrowing should only be used to cover investment rather than day-to-day spending, and that national debt should be falling as a share of the economy over the forecast period — have been blamed for forcing the government to enact politically uncomfortable tax hikes.
>Yet recent jitters in bond markets when it appeared uncertain whether Reeves would be able to stick to her fiscal rules, as well as the chaos caused by Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts in 2022, will act as a restraint for anyone looking to rip up them up.
>Verdant “will start by looking at economics, but they’ll always be also looking at ecology,” Lamb said. It will broaden out over time, she added, to examine: “What does that mean for our food systems? What does that mean for everything from AI through to our security policies?”
>
>While the Greens currently hold just four seats of the House of Commons’s 650, they’ve been climbing in national polls since Polanski became leader. Membership numbers have surpassed both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives to hit more than 170,000, and YouGov’s surveys of voter intention show them polling at 16% — close behind the Conservatives on 18% and Labour on 19%.
>
>Reform UK, the insurgent right-wing party which is currently leading the polls at 26% — despite similar parliamentary representation as the Greens — has also helped to organize the launch of new think tanks to bolster its policy agenda. These include the Centre for a Better Britain, which released its first paper in November, and the Great British Business Council, which Bloomberg reported is due to set up in the New Year.
>
>The two initiators of Verdant are James Meadway, an economist and former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and Deborah Doane, a partner at the Rights CoLab which creates strategies to advance human rights.
>
>“It’s widely accepted by this point that the current fiscal framework isn’t working as intended, trapping the government in cycles of market turmoil and political turbulence,” Meadway said. “But any replacement, including alternative sets of rules, and greater monetary and fiscal coordination, will have to be aware of Britain’s international exposures and the need to carefully manage its substantial liabilities in conditions of higher inflation and interest rates worldwide.”
>
>The think tank will also get endorsement from Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, and Jenny Jones, a Green member of the House of Lords. It is in discussions around securing funding with philanthropic organizations and high-net-worth individuals, Lamb said.
Greens try to un-unserious themselves
So they admit that they’re not serious on the economy right now?