Jonathan Bartley & Caroline Lucus, Co-leaders of the Green Party

What a strange point we are at in British politics. UKIP are at war with themselves as Aaron Banks threatens to stand against their only MP, Douglas Carswell. Nigel Farage seems to have thrown his toys out of the pram because he didn’t get an honour. Most of the Tory party are leading the country into the UKIP inspired chaos that is Brexit. The most effective opposition has been from John Major and Kenneth Clarke who both have made impressive and sensible speeches, showing just how far the rest of the Tory party has drifted into UKIP territory. Labour whipped MPs and Lords into supporting the crazy government policy of a rapid and hard Brexit.

As we blunder into Brexit a second Scottish independence referendum is almost inevitable and it is equally inevitable that Nicola Sturgeon will win a huge mandate. Senator George Mitchell has pointed out that Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement was based upon both the UK and Ireland being members of the EU. Brexit may destabilize Northern Ireland economically and politically. Northern Ireland, like Scotland, voted to stay in the EU. They, like Scotland, may seek a political settlement that maintains that membership even if it means leaving the UK. After Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK Wales would almost certainly follow. To speak of the United Kingdom already feels like a historical anachronism, like speaking of the British Empire. Little England, outside the EU and bereft of its former partners in the UK would seem a very isolated and vulnerable place. That will have been the unintended consequence of UKIP and their Tory acolytes.

The Tories, Labour and UKIP all seem crippled by internal disputes. Meanwhile the Green Party is strongly united behind its co-leaders, Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley, and making slow but steady gains in a scattering of local authority by-elections in the Forest of Dean, Knowsley and in Weymouth over recent months. Then yesterday Exeter city councillor Chris Musgrave left the Labour party and joined the Greens. I’ve been a Green (and before that Ecology Party) voter since the 1970’s. Several times I’ve thought we were on the verge of a breakthrough, but strangely now, out of the chaos that is Brexit, it feels more likely than ever.

Following the death of Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman there is to be a by-election in Manchester Gorton. In the 2015 general election Labour had a huge majority, with the Greens coming second out of a field of seven candidates. In the Richmond Park by-election the Greens stood down to help Sarah Olney achieve a LibDem victory: perhaps this time the Lib Dems will stand down and pitch-in to help the Greens? Will More United play a role? UK politics seems very much more fluid and unpredictable than at any time in my life… and I was born before the Suez Crisis!

Outside in the real world beyond our shores big decisions need to be made. Climate change and a related host of macro ecological threats endanger our continued existence as a species. Fascistic demagogues are in power in USA, Russia, and the Philippines and are threatening to take over in several European countries. They care not a jot about the ecological state of the World and thrive on social division. It is more critical now than ever before that humanity cooperates to build a better, more ecologically sustainable, socially just and peaceful future. Perhaps most of the world’s people understand this. Now it is time that they, that we, united and worked together to overcome the forces that seek to divide us.