E-mail to the Green Party

Dear madam/sir,

Thank you for all of your recent correspondence concerning the lapsing of my Green Party Membership. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

I have a great affinity with the principles, and the majority of policies of the Green Party; more so than with any of the other political groups. This extends not only to your stance on environmental issues, but to the wider issues such as benefits, education, and foreign policy. In any future elections, I am most likely to vote for a Green candidate.

However, I no longer feel it appropriate for me directly support the Party with either a financial contribution, or by being a full member. I have two reasons for this.

I strongly believe that the best way for a party such as the Green Party to be successful, it should base its policies and campaigning on as firm as base as possible. Having been brought up and educated with a strong scientific basis, and having observed the increasingly populist form that recent politics has taken, it seems that a truly benevolent government should be focusing on what works, what can be shown to work, and to what can rationally be expected to work.

Whilst a large proportion of formal Green Party policy has been formed in this way, I am increasingly concerned by the behaviour of senior Party members who are abandoning these principles and resorting to positions that seem more interested in manipulating irrational fears than in the realities of a given situation.

As a brief example, there was some brief concern over the potential dangers of wireless computer communications. These concerns have very little basis either in observable effect, or in the theories that underlie our current understanding of the physical world. There are certain parts of the media, and opportunistic politicians, who I had no surprise in seeing jump on this and create irrational fears and ban everything headlines. I did not expect this behaviour from senior members of a party that I had joined at least partly on the basis of its rationality.

I fully accept the right of any individual member to hold some particular views that do not agree entirely with the policy of their party. There are of course one or two points in which I disagree with Green Party manifestos. However, there is also an added responsibility upon senior party members, particularly those who are frequently providing a voice for the party in public fora, to be consistent with party policy, and where they are known to disagree, to at least be sure that their disagreement in based on a tenable position.

On a second, more practical note, I have been astounded by the amount of information I have received from the Green Party during my year as a member. Communication is a very important part of any political movement, but the volume of paper that I have received, frequently with separate mailings from different sources containing exactly the same information has almost disgusted me.

In addition, none of this sources seem to offer alternative methods of communication, most notably in my mind an e-mail or internet based method of delivery that would reduce the amount of physical resources used.

I repeat that I will continue to vote for the Green Party at every opportunity. I will continue to support the aims of the Party where I can, both in practical acts, and in communicating with friends, relatives, and in dealing with important issues. However, I cannot consider offering financial support, or continuing my formal relationship with the Party given my concerns raised above.

Yours sincerely,




LSNDuck