Demonstration against Donald Trump's visit to Turnberry Golf course, Ayrshire, Scotland, 2016-06-24
Political Ideas and Issues
This piece summarises very briefly the political issues and ideas that motivate me now. It will be expanded, and provided with references, when time allows.
I think it is most useful to start from the concrete – the specific issues that are most important and urgent – rather than from abstract general principles. So:
The five key issues listed link to general political aims:
A key question is the extent to which the crucial problems can be solved within capitalism – that is, the economic system that we live in and that now effectively encompasses the entire world**, within which the search for profit is the chief factor in determining investment decisions. Clearly, there are very different forms of capitalism, and the search for profit is not the only determinant of investment – since the second half of the 19th century, taxation has been used on a large scale to fund investments in infrastructure, health, welfare and armaments, that the “free market”*** would not fund; and on a smaller scale, individuals – even capitalists – have made investment decisions on other grounds. But we have seen over the past three decades how little has been done to mitigate climate change. We have seen the reduction in economic inequalities in rich countries that took place in the first half of the 20th century reversed, with no sign the increase is likely to halt (inequality between countries has fallen, as has the proportion of people in absolute poverty, largely but not entirely due to the economic rise of China; but inequality has risen enormously within China, and indeed in the great majority of poorer countries). Until a few years ago, the global prevalence of armed conflict appeared to be declining, along with the threat of a nuclear war, but both these trends look to have reversed, and the arms trade flourishes, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council being the largest arms exporters. At the same time, we have seen the rise of intolerant, bigoted and militarist ideologies in Europe, in the USA, in much of the Muslim world, in India, in Japan, in Brazil; and attacks on civil and democratic freedoms in the name of “security”. War, intolerance, gross inequality, environmental damage, authoritarian and oppressive government all existed before capitalism, and in the “actually existing socialism” of the USSR, its allies and satellites, and Maoist China. But can they be reduced to tolerable levels within it?
The strongest arguments that this is possible come from the history of the 19th and 20th centuries: representative democracy including female suffrage, civil liberties, progressive taxation, public health and education and welfare systems established in many capitalist countries, the defeat (at immense cost) of fascism; measures of environmental protection such as the Montreal Protocol. So I have little patience with a “Nothing worthwhile can be done until after the revolution” attitude. But in recent decades we have seen a number of these gains severely eroded, and others under threat, as capitalist ruling elites gain fuller control of public discourse and the forces once strong enough to oppose them (the USSR****, trades unions, Communist and “centre-left” political parties) decline, or crumble altogether. And in the case of the greatest threat we face (with the possible exception of nuclear war), we have seen three decades of empty promises and half-hearted fumbling, while greenhouse gas emissions go on rising, and fossil fuel interests and market-worshippers run huge campaigns of obfuscation and outright lies to ensure that serious measures to avoid disaster – which would necessarily threaten their profits andor ideology - are not taken.
So I am sceptical about the likelihood of even enough to avoid catastrophic climate change being done under anything like capitalism as it currently exists; and it is clear that climate change considerably less than what would in itself lead to civilizational collapse, will raise international tensions and feed destructive ideologies, greatly increasing the risk of nuclear war. But at the same time, I very much doubt we have time to establish the ecosocialist utopia before disaster strikes. Nor is it a viable solution for households or small communities to go “off grid” and live sustainably in self-sufficiency, although such pioneers can provide very valuable examples of what is possible: the likelihood of a large proportion of the population doing so within the next few decades is vanishingly small in a single country, let alone worldwide. So what are we to do?
The chink of light in this gloomy prospect, I suggest, is that effective action to mitigate climate change is objectively in the self-interest of almost everyone. Only those who both fully expect to die before the effects of climate change become serious enough to affect them, and have no-one they care about who can expect to live that long, can afford to shrug their shoulders and go on as if climate change were not real. Of course a few care about no-one but themselves (conversely, most of us care even about those we do not know), but even most of those in the “one percent” at least have children or grandchildren for whom they feel some concern. Many people – probably almost all to some extent – deal with the threat of catastrophic climate change by denial; but the objective veracity of the case for radical measures of climate change mitigation provides an opportunity to create a split in the political and economic elite. Historically, radical change only occurs either when such a split exists, and part of the elite finds itself compelled to side with those seeking such change, or when outside forces threaten it, as in World War II.
The measures required would be at least as radical as those employed in the UK and USA during that period, when huge amounts of investment capital were directed into producing weapons and other supplies for the war effort, what could and could not be manufactured was subject to extensive regulation and – by no means coincidentally – economic inequality fell significantlly, because the elite needed the support, so far as possible, of the whole population. To mitigate climate change, the same ability to direct investment – but into renewables and energy storage, and energy efficiency – would be required, along with some form of “carbon rationing”: limits on the greenhouse gas emissions individuals and corporations could be responsible for. But it is essential to avoid the undemocratic aspects of the emergency measures taken during wartime; rather, we need measures to strengthen civil liberties and local democracy, and to institute at least the beginnings of economic democracy: steeply progressive taxation - including taxes on wealth, not just on income, encouragement of cooperatives, universal basic income, land reform, mandatory employee representation on the boards of medium and large companies and public sector organisations, municipalisation or (where this is not practicable) nationalisation of key industries in transport, energy and communications. Without such radical change, we can expect to see emissions reductions targets that are too weak and too far off, whole sectors such as aviation effectively excluded, measurement of performance against those targets fudged and fiddled – because the powerful interests and ideologies opposing effective action will retain their veto power.
Of course it may be said that whatever Scotland (or the UK) does will not make much difference if the rest of the world, or large parts of it, do not follow suit. That is true – and means that we in Scotland (and the UK, whether independence happens or not) need to be part of the widest possible international coalition to bring about radical mitigation measures. But if there is no international move toward radical mitigation measures, we can be sure that climate catastrophe will follow. If there is a real possibility of such a move, then the place to be is at the forefront – both to raise the probability of it happening by setting a good example, and to be among those developing the technologies and institutions of the future.
It may also be said that enacting such a programme of radical reform is no more feasible on the necessary timescale than hoping that tens of millions of people will decide to go off-grid and live in small self-sufficient communities. That may be so; but we have to try. Moreover, these two approaches are in fact compatible and even complementary – there is room for those who prefer small-scale self-sufficiency to practice it, assisted by the existence of universal basic income and land reform. And as the urgency of radical mitigation measures becomes increasingly evident, it could attract broad support, including the more far-sighted sectors of the elite. Whether the outcome would still be "capitalism" perhaps depends on just how far effective power to determine investment decisions shifted from the owners and top managers of large-scale private capital to employees, cooperative members, and elected representatives of the whole population. Undoubtedly, even those elite members who recognised the need for radical mitigation measures would resist the loss of this power as far as they could, and attempt to regain it once the crisis had passed - but that they would succeed is not preordained.
*I would include Leninism here, but that does not retain sufficiently broad appeal to constitute a significant threat.
**While China, Vietnam and other avowedly socialist states retain some features of socialism internally, despite the huge growth of inequality within them, they are fully integrated into the capitalist world-system. Only Cuba remains as a partial exception to this.
***There is in reality no such thing as a “free market”: all markets are socially and institutionally embedded, with rules specifying who may buy and sell what, what constitutes a contract, what is to happen if one party cannot or will not stick to a contract, etc.
****I am absolutely no admirer of the USSR; but as long as it existed, capitalist ruling elites could not say “There is no alternative” with complete conviction.
This piece summarises very briefly the political issues and ideas that motivate me now. It will be expanded, and provided with references, when time allows.
I think it is most useful to start from the concrete – the specific issues that are most important and urgent – rather than from abstract general principles. So:
- Mitigating the environmental damage being done, above all anthropogenic climate change and the closely linked ocean acidification, but also soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, water shortages and pollution.
- Reducing (preferably eliminating) armed conflict and above all, avoiding nuclear war.
- Reducing (preferably eliminating) the gross economic and social inequalities within and between countries, and perhaps most important, between genders: it is quite clear that improving the status and education of women and girls, apart from its absolute necessity from the point of view of justice, has multiple and extensive benefits.
- Maintaining and extending civil liberties. This requires both resisting state and corporate restrictions, and combating destructive ideologies such as fascism, racism, patriarchalism, market-worship, and religious fundamentalism*.
- Reducing (preferably eliminating) the scope of unaccountable power, whether political, economic, or socio-cultural.
The five key issues listed link to general political aims:
- Environmental sustainability. We only have one habitable planet, fantasies of colonising Mars notwithstanding. We have to understand and work within the limits this simple fact determines.
- Peace. War should always be a last resort – it is far from that in the current foreign policy of many states, including all five of the UN Security Council permanent members (the USA, UK, Russia, France and China), and the other four remaining nuclear-armed powers (India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) – and there can be no justification for the use of nuclear (or chemical or biological) weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, the chance of a nuclear war exists, so their complete abolition must be a central aim of foreign policy.
- Equality. A near-complete reduction in economic inequalities is a necessary aspect of a just world. The slogan of “equality of opportunity” is always to some degree fraudulent: as long as significant socio-economic inequality exists, there can be no such thing, as children do not start on an equal footing. There is also compelling evidence that greater economic equality has multiple beneficial effects.
- Individual liberty and the means to exercise it. This is of central importance to the quality of life. Civil liberties alone are insufficient, without adequate resources to exercise choice, including education and access to knowledge as well as material resources.
- Accountability of power. Complete equality of power or influence between people is unachievable, because we differ in health, in talents, in sheer luck – but all power should be accountable to those over whom it is exercised (or in the case of those unable to exercise such accountability, e.g. children and those with severe dementia, to their representatives). While the liberties provided by “bourgeois democracy” must be maintained and extended, the democratisation of the economy is also vital.
A key question is the extent to which the crucial problems can be solved within capitalism – that is, the economic system that we live in and that now effectively encompasses the entire world**, within which the search for profit is the chief factor in determining investment decisions. Clearly, there are very different forms of capitalism, and the search for profit is not the only determinant of investment – since the second half of the 19th century, taxation has been used on a large scale to fund investments in infrastructure, health, welfare and armaments, that the “free market”*** would not fund; and on a smaller scale, individuals – even capitalists – have made investment decisions on other grounds. But we have seen over the past three decades how little has been done to mitigate climate change. We have seen the reduction in economic inequalities in rich countries that took place in the first half of the 20th century reversed, with no sign the increase is likely to halt (inequality between countries has fallen, as has the proportion of people in absolute poverty, largely but not entirely due to the economic rise of China; but inequality has risen enormously within China, and indeed in the great majority of poorer countries). Until a few years ago, the global prevalence of armed conflict appeared to be declining, along with the threat of a nuclear war, but both these trends look to have reversed, and the arms trade flourishes, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council being the largest arms exporters. At the same time, we have seen the rise of intolerant, bigoted and militarist ideologies in Europe, in the USA, in much of the Muslim world, in India, in Japan, in Brazil; and attacks on civil and democratic freedoms in the name of “security”. War, intolerance, gross inequality, environmental damage, authoritarian and oppressive government all existed before capitalism, and in the “actually existing socialism” of the USSR, its allies and satellites, and Maoist China. But can they be reduced to tolerable levels within it?
The strongest arguments that this is possible come from the history of the 19th and 20th centuries: representative democracy including female suffrage, civil liberties, progressive taxation, public health and education and welfare systems established in many capitalist countries, the defeat (at immense cost) of fascism; measures of environmental protection such as the Montreal Protocol. So I have little patience with a “Nothing worthwhile can be done until after the revolution” attitude. But in recent decades we have seen a number of these gains severely eroded, and others under threat, as capitalist ruling elites gain fuller control of public discourse and the forces once strong enough to oppose them (the USSR****, trades unions, Communist and “centre-left” political parties) decline, or crumble altogether. And in the case of the greatest threat we face (with the possible exception of nuclear war), we have seen three decades of empty promises and half-hearted fumbling, while greenhouse gas emissions go on rising, and fossil fuel interests and market-worshippers run huge campaigns of obfuscation and outright lies to ensure that serious measures to avoid disaster – which would necessarily threaten their profits andor ideology - are not taken.
So I am sceptical about the likelihood of even enough to avoid catastrophic climate change being done under anything like capitalism as it currently exists; and it is clear that climate change considerably less than what would in itself lead to civilizational collapse, will raise international tensions and feed destructive ideologies, greatly increasing the risk of nuclear war. But at the same time, I very much doubt we have time to establish the ecosocialist utopia before disaster strikes. Nor is it a viable solution for households or small communities to go “off grid” and live sustainably in self-sufficiency, although such pioneers can provide very valuable examples of what is possible: the likelihood of a large proportion of the population doing so within the next few decades is vanishingly small in a single country, let alone worldwide. So what are we to do?
The chink of light in this gloomy prospect, I suggest, is that effective action to mitigate climate change is objectively in the self-interest of almost everyone. Only those who both fully expect to die before the effects of climate change become serious enough to affect them, and have no-one they care about who can expect to live that long, can afford to shrug their shoulders and go on as if climate change were not real. Of course a few care about no-one but themselves (conversely, most of us care even about those we do not know), but even most of those in the “one percent” at least have children or grandchildren for whom they feel some concern. Many people – probably almost all to some extent – deal with the threat of catastrophic climate change by denial; but the objective veracity of the case for radical measures of climate change mitigation provides an opportunity to create a split in the political and economic elite. Historically, radical change only occurs either when such a split exists, and part of the elite finds itself compelled to side with those seeking such change, or when outside forces threaten it, as in World War II.
The measures required would be at least as radical as those employed in the UK and USA during that period, when huge amounts of investment capital were directed into producing weapons and other supplies for the war effort, what could and could not be manufactured was subject to extensive regulation and – by no means coincidentally – economic inequality fell significantlly, because the elite needed the support, so far as possible, of the whole population. To mitigate climate change, the same ability to direct investment – but into renewables and energy storage, and energy efficiency – would be required, along with some form of “carbon rationing”: limits on the greenhouse gas emissions individuals and corporations could be responsible for. But it is essential to avoid the undemocratic aspects of the emergency measures taken during wartime; rather, we need measures to strengthen civil liberties and local democracy, and to institute at least the beginnings of economic democracy: steeply progressive taxation - including taxes on wealth, not just on income, encouragement of cooperatives, universal basic income, land reform, mandatory employee representation on the boards of medium and large companies and public sector organisations, municipalisation or (where this is not practicable) nationalisation of key industries in transport, energy and communications. Without such radical change, we can expect to see emissions reductions targets that are too weak and too far off, whole sectors such as aviation effectively excluded, measurement of performance against those targets fudged and fiddled – because the powerful interests and ideologies opposing effective action will retain their veto power.
Of course it may be said that whatever Scotland (or the UK) does will not make much difference if the rest of the world, or large parts of it, do not follow suit. That is true – and means that we in Scotland (and the UK, whether independence happens or not) need to be part of the widest possible international coalition to bring about radical mitigation measures. But if there is no international move toward radical mitigation measures, we can be sure that climate catastrophe will follow. If there is a real possibility of such a move, then the place to be is at the forefront – both to raise the probability of it happening by setting a good example, and to be among those developing the technologies and institutions of the future.
It may also be said that enacting such a programme of radical reform is no more feasible on the necessary timescale than hoping that tens of millions of people will decide to go off-grid and live in small self-sufficient communities. That may be so; but we have to try. Moreover, these two approaches are in fact compatible and even complementary – there is room for those who prefer small-scale self-sufficiency to practice it, assisted by the existence of universal basic income and land reform. And as the urgency of radical mitigation measures becomes increasingly evident, it could attract broad support, including the more far-sighted sectors of the elite. Whether the outcome would still be "capitalism" perhaps depends on just how far effective power to determine investment decisions shifted from the owners and top managers of large-scale private capital to employees, cooperative members, and elected representatives of the whole population. Undoubtedly, even those elite members who recognised the need for radical mitigation measures would resist the loss of this power as far as they could, and attempt to regain it once the crisis had passed - but that they would succeed is not preordained.
*I would include Leninism here, but that does not retain sufficiently broad appeal to constitute a significant threat.
**While China, Vietnam and other avowedly socialist states retain some features of socialism internally, despite the huge growth of inequality within them, they are fully integrated into the capitalist world-system. Only Cuba remains as a partial exception to this.
***There is in reality no such thing as a “free market”: all markets are socially and institutionally embedded, with rules specifying who may buy and sell what, what constitutes a contract, what is to happen if one party cannot or will not stick to a contract, etc.
****I am absolutely no admirer of the USSR; but as long as it existed, capitalist ruling elites could not say “There is no alternative” with complete conviction.
Brief Political Auto-Biography
The extent of my political involvement has varied considerably over the years, depending on what other calls there were on my time. The ideas behind it have also changed, although I think there have been some underlying continuities. The earliest quasi-political concerns I can remember were triggered by a TV documentary on the killing of big game in Africa. This must have been around 1961, when I was seven. Of course I had no idea at the time of the complexities of conservation and environmental issues in Africa, or their relationship to the history of European imperialism there – but I doubt whether the makers of the documentary had much either; at that time, conservationists in general gave little thought to the human inhabitants of the areas they wished to conserve, other than as a threat.
My parents at this time always voted Conservative (my mother later moved considerably left, switching her vote first to the Liberals and then to the Greens), and my first move to an independent political identity came with the election of 1966, when in my school’s mock election, I supported the Liberals. But like many around my age, the real political awakening came around the Vietnam War, and the tumultuous events of 1968 across the rich world. At fourteen I was too young to take an active part, but inspired by the youth politics of the time, and the book Anarchism by George Woodcock, I became – in theory at least – an anarchist communist, and attended a number of meetings above the anarchist bookshop in Whitechapel High Street, where the older comrades were both friendly, and indulgent of my naivety. I also became aware of the growing concern about environmental issues, and subscribed for a while to The Ecologist, only gradually noticing the conservative and, as I would now say, patriarchist strain in many articles.
My anarchism remained largely theoretical during my undergraduate years at the University of Sussex (1972-5) – although I did join in one student occupation, for a cause I don’t now recall. I cheered as the miners defeated Edward Heath and the dictatorships in Spain, Portugal and Greece fell, and joined Friends of the Earth during a brief stay in Milton Keynes during 1976-7, but again my politics remained pretty much detached from my everyday life (and largely devoid of awareness of my layers of privilege as a white, gentile*, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender man living in a rich country). Things, after all, seemed to be moving generally in the right direction – despite the “Troubles” in northern Ireland, Pinochet’s coup in Chile, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, the brutalities of apartheid... It was only with the arrival in power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and the renewed threat of nuclear war, that this changed.
I credit Thatcher with my conversion from anarchism to what I would describe as democratic ecosocialism. I saw how the anti-statist rhetoric of my youth, and of the 1968 generation, could be co-opted by the right; and I realised how far the ease of my own life, and the improvement of life for millions in the UK and beyond, had been due to state-funded provision of health services, education, pensions, welfare benefits, even (although with considerable reservations) the police and the legal system. The anarchist claim that the state could not be reformed, could not be used for good purposes, no longer convinced me – although I remained aware of its oppressive roles both at home and abroad.
I also became acutely frightened by the threat of nuclear war, as Reagan ratcheted up the tension with his “evil empire” rhetoric – and rightly so, as it has become clear since that the Soviet leaders themselves considered an American “first strike” a real possiiblity, and we came close to catastrophe at least twice in 1983 (put the terms "Able Archer" and "Stanislav Petrov" into your favourite search engine for details). I was, moreover, outraged by the Falklands War of 1982 – the disgusting jingoism, and the cynical sacrifice of troops on both sides in order to turn a disastrous series of misjudgements by Thatcher and her cohorts into a golden political opportunity, which was exploited to the full in the 1983 election. For the first time my political activism went beyond occasional meetings and letters to the press to demonstrations and direct action with CND, against the introduction of cruise and Pershing missiles into Europe. The peace movement was the focus of my political activity for most of the 1980s, although I also became involved in opposition to civil nuclear power and support for renewable energy sources, joined the anti-apartheid movement, took part in a strike for the first time (while working for the Inland Revenue), and in the 1987 election, canvassed for the Labour Party, which I joined soon after the election.
In 1988 I moved from Brighton to take up a post-doctoral research position at Oxford University. In Oxford, I rejoined Friends of the Earth, and greatly enjoyed my participation in a highly active local group. I was involved in a “Rainforest Festival” we organised in 1990, to draw attention to the grave threats to biodiversity, local communities, and climate of forest destruction for ranching, mining, logging and agriculture. My involvement also involved publicity stunts, and direct action in opposition to imports of illegally-logged tropical timber. In 1989, I resigned from the Labour Party following Neil Kinnock’s abandonment of unilateralism; and campaigned for the Green Party of England and Wales in the European elections of that year (riding around Oxford on a tandem, sloganising through a megaphone), although I did not join the party.
At around the same time, I was among those attending three “Green and Socialist Conferences”, and founding the “Red-Green Network” which grew out of the first two. This was a forum for discussion and cooperation between those who regarded themselves as greens but recognised the richness of socialist traditions, and those who identified as socialists but recognised the importance and urgency of environmental concerns, and the role of greens and Green parties in pursuing them. As one who identified as both a green and a socialist, I was happy to take the role of RGN membership secretary. The RGN was never large, and no longer exists – individuals crucial to its functioning shifted their efforts into other groups or campaigns; I remain a member of a discussion group with similar aims, the Red-Green Study Group, which has a website (www.redgreenstudygroup.org.uk) – on which I really must do some more work!
In 1990, I abandoned my academic career (as it turned out, temporarily), and tried to establish myself as a writer, primarily on environmental politics. I spent four months in southern Africa at the start of 1991 (for two months with a woman who helped me enormously through her knowledge and contacts, and who has remained a close friend), investigating, no doubt in an amateurish fashion, issues around the use and misuse of traditional healing practices, and frictions between conservation organisations and local African communities. I managed to sell just two articles on my return, one to The Guardian, one to Africa Events (see the “Publications” page). Another article was accepted by The Ecologist, then dropped without explanation – I strongly suspect the chummy relationship between Edward Goldsmith and Mangosuthu Buthelezi was behind this; I published this article, and another, without payment in an activist magazine, Greenline.
In July 1991 I met my wife, Dithe, although she almost immediately had to move to Birmingham after being made redundant; and early in 1992 I also left Oxford for a research job at Leeds University. In Leeds I was active in Earth First! I was briefly arrested for “trespassing” at the Menwith Hill American** military base – my only experience of arrest so far – but released without charge. However, for the next decade my political activity was rather limited, with work and family (our son was born in 1995) taking precedence. I moved to Aberystwyth in 1996, where Dithe and our son joined me, then we moved to Aberdeen in 1998, where I had accepted a job in computer modelling at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (now part of the James Hutton Institute).
In Aberdeen, Dithe took on the role of coordinator in the local Greenpeace group. I joined in the letter-writing, leafletting, demonstrations and publicity stunts she organised, and was also active in CND, and in anti-war activities as the wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq were launched. As I have done since 1990, I always voted Green when there was a candidate – with one exception, when a friend was standing for the Scottish Socialist Party – but still felt that pressure group activity suited me better than that within a political party. This continued to be the case up to the independence campaign of 2014 – in the midst of which my wife and I moved first to Edinburgh (where our son was studying), then to Dunfermline.
I was active in the Radical Independence Campaign first in Aberdeen, then in Edinburgh. I had become convinced some years before this that Scottish independence was a worthwhile goal – both for negative reasons (the United Kingdom is and always has been deeply mired in imperialist actions, since 1945 as the principle sidekick of the USA and as a nuclear weapons state and a major arms supplier), and for positive ones - the Holyrood electoral system, while imperfect, is far more democratic than Westminster’s, Scotland seems to have decisively rejected Toryism, and independence offers the best chance to get rid of Trident, and the best chance to build a sustainable, socially just and free society anywhere in Britain. The result was of course a disappointment – although an expected one – but (along with several thousand others) I had been impressed by the Scottish Greens’ part in the campaign, and the commitment and thoughtfulness of the party members I had encountered. I decided it was finally time to join the party, and work for more Green MSPs and councillors, and for a fairer, greener Scotland. I have continued to be active in a number of pressure groups and campaigns, to varying extents – RIC, Friends of the Earth, Scottish CND, Greenpeace (as a lobbyist), and Stop TTIP. But the Scottish Green Party has become the main focus of my political life, and so far as I can forsee, will remain so.
*My first partner was (and still is) Jewish. We parted after some ten years, but I remain grateful to her for (among other things) alerting me to the continued threat of antisemitism, and its presence in significant parts of the left.
**The pretence is maintained that this is an RAF base, and I was arrested by MoD police, but in practice, it is American-run.
The extent of my political involvement has varied considerably over the years, depending on what other calls there were on my time. The ideas behind it have also changed, although I think there have been some underlying continuities. The earliest quasi-political concerns I can remember were triggered by a TV documentary on the killing of big game in Africa. This must have been around 1961, when I was seven. Of course I had no idea at the time of the complexities of conservation and environmental issues in Africa, or their relationship to the history of European imperialism there – but I doubt whether the makers of the documentary had much either; at that time, conservationists in general gave little thought to the human inhabitants of the areas they wished to conserve, other than as a threat.
My parents at this time always voted Conservative (my mother later moved considerably left, switching her vote first to the Liberals and then to the Greens), and my first move to an independent political identity came with the election of 1966, when in my school’s mock election, I supported the Liberals. But like many around my age, the real political awakening came around the Vietnam War, and the tumultuous events of 1968 across the rich world. At fourteen I was too young to take an active part, but inspired by the youth politics of the time, and the book Anarchism by George Woodcock, I became – in theory at least – an anarchist communist, and attended a number of meetings above the anarchist bookshop in Whitechapel High Street, where the older comrades were both friendly, and indulgent of my naivety. I also became aware of the growing concern about environmental issues, and subscribed for a while to The Ecologist, only gradually noticing the conservative and, as I would now say, patriarchist strain in many articles.
My anarchism remained largely theoretical during my undergraduate years at the University of Sussex (1972-5) – although I did join in one student occupation, for a cause I don’t now recall. I cheered as the miners defeated Edward Heath and the dictatorships in Spain, Portugal and Greece fell, and joined Friends of the Earth during a brief stay in Milton Keynes during 1976-7, but again my politics remained pretty much detached from my everyday life (and largely devoid of awareness of my layers of privilege as a white, gentile*, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender man living in a rich country). Things, after all, seemed to be moving generally in the right direction – despite the “Troubles” in northern Ireland, Pinochet’s coup in Chile, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, the brutalities of apartheid... It was only with the arrival in power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and the renewed threat of nuclear war, that this changed.
I credit Thatcher with my conversion from anarchism to what I would describe as democratic ecosocialism. I saw how the anti-statist rhetoric of my youth, and of the 1968 generation, could be co-opted by the right; and I realised how far the ease of my own life, and the improvement of life for millions in the UK and beyond, had been due to state-funded provision of health services, education, pensions, welfare benefits, even (although with considerable reservations) the police and the legal system. The anarchist claim that the state could not be reformed, could not be used for good purposes, no longer convinced me – although I remained aware of its oppressive roles both at home and abroad.
I also became acutely frightened by the threat of nuclear war, as Reagan ratcheted up the tension with his “evil empire” rhetoric – and rightly so, as it has become clear since that the Soviet leaders themselves considered an American “first strike” a real possiiblity, and we came close to catastrophe at least twice in 1983 (put the terms "Able Archer" and "Stanislav Petrov" into your favourite search engine for details). I was, moreover, outraged by the Falklands War of 1982 – the disgusting jingoism, and the cynical sacrifice of troops on both sides in order to turn a disastrous series of misjudgements by Thatcher and her cohorts into a golden political opportunity, which was exploited to the full in the 1983 election. For the first time my political activism went beyond occasional meetings and letters to the press to demonstrations and direct action with CND, against the introduction of cruise and Pershing missiles into Europe. The peace movement was the focus of my political activity for most of the 1980s, although I also became involved in opposition to civil nuclear power and support for renewable energy sources, joined the anti-apartheid movement, took part in a strike for the first time (while working for the Inland Revenue), and in the 1987 election, canvassed for the Labour Party, which I joined soon after the election.
In 1988 I moved from Brighton to take up a post-doctoral research position at Oxford University. In Oxford, I rejoined Friends of the Earth, and greatly enjoyed my participation in a highly active local group. I was involved in a “Rainforest Festival” we organised in 1990, to draw attention to the grave threats to biodiversity, local communities, and climate of forest destruction for ranching, mining, logging and agriculture. My involvement also involved publicity stunts, and direct action in opposition to imports of illegally-logged tropical timber. In 1989, I resigned from the Labour Party following Neil Kinnock’s abandonment of unilateralism; and campaigned for the Green Party of England and Wales in the European elections of that year (riding around Oxford on a tandem, sloganising through a megaphone), although I did not join the party.
At around the same time, I was among those attending three “Green and Socialist Conferences”, and founding the “Red-Green Network” which grew out of the first two. This was a forum for discussion and cooperation between those who regarded themselves as greens but recognised the richness of socialist traditions, and those who identified as socialists but recognised the importance and urgency of environmental concerns, and the role of greens and Green parties in pursuing them. As one who identified as both a green and a socialist, I was happy to take the role of RGN membership secretary. The RGN was never large, and no longer exists – individuals crucial to its functioning shifted their efforts into other groups or campaigns; I remain a member of a discussion group with similar aims, the Red-Green Study Group, which has a website (www.redgreenstudygroup.org.uk) – on which I really must do some more work!
In 1990, I abandoned my academic career (as it turned out, temporarily), and tried to establish myself as a writer, primarily on environmental politics. I spent four months in southern Africa at the start of 1991 (for two months with a woman who helped me enormously through her knowledge and contacts, and who has remained a close friend), investigating, no doubt in an amateurish fashion, issues around the use and misuse of traditional healing practices, and frictions between conservation organisations and local African communities. I managed to sell just two articles on my return, one to The Guardian, one to Africa Events (see the “Publications” page). Another article was accepted by The Ecologist, then dropped without explanation – I strongly suspect the chummy relationship between Edward Goldsmith and Mangosuthu Buthelezi was behind this; I published this article, and another, without payment in an activist magazine, Greenline.
In July 1991 I met my wife, Dithe, although she almost immediately had to move to Birmingham after being made redundant; and early in 1992 I also left Oxford for a research job at Leeds University. In Leeds I was active in Earth First! I was briefly arrested for “trespassing” at the Menwith Hill American** military base – my only experience of arrest so far – but released without charge. However, for the next decade my political activity was rather limited, with work and family (our son was born in 1995) taking precedence. I moved to Aberystwyth in 1996, where Dithe and our son joined me, then we moved to Aberdeen in 1998, where I had accepted a job in computer modelling at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (now part of the James Hutton Institute).
In Aberdeen, Dithe took on the role of coordinator in the local Greenpeace group. I joined in the letter-writing, leafletting, demonstrations and publicity stunts she organised, and was also active in CND, and in anti-war activities as the wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq were launched. As I have done since 1990, I always voted Green when there was a candidate – with one exception, when a friend was standing for the Scottish Socialist Party – but still felt that pressure group activity suited me better than that within a political party. This continued to be the case up to the independence campaign of 2014 – in the midst of which my wife and I moved first to Edinburgh (where our son was studying), then to Dunfermline.
I was active in the Radical Independence Campaign first in Aberdeen, then in Edinburgh. I had become convinced some years before this that Scottish independence was a worthwhile goal – both for negative reasons (the United Kingdom is and always has been deeply mired in imperialist actions, since 1945 as the principle sidekick of the USA and as a nuclear weapons state and a major arms supplier), and for positive ones - the Holyrood electoral system, while imperfect, is far more democratic than Westminster’s, Scotland seems to have decisively rejected Toryism, and independence offers the best chance to get rid of Trident, and the best chance to build a sustainable, socially just and free society anywhere in Britain. The result was of course a disappointment – although an expected one – but (along with several thousand others) I had been impressed by the Scottish Greens’ part in the campaign, and the commitment and thoughtfulness of the party members I had encountered. I decided it was finally time to join the party, and work for more Green MSPs and councillors, and for a fairer, greener Scotland. I have continued to be active in a number of pressure groups and campaigns, to varying extents – RIC, Friends of the Earth, Scottish CND, Greenpeace (as a lobbyist), and Stop TTIP. But the Scottish Green Party has become the main focus of my political life, and so far as I can forsee, will remain so.
*My first partner was (and still is) Jewish. We parted after some ten years, but I remain grateful to her for (among other things) alerting me to the continued threat of antisemitism, and its presence in significant parts of the left.
**The pretence is maintained that this is an RAF base, and I was arrested by MoD police, but in practice, it is American-run.