“Now is the time when you can really make a difference” — Interview with Natalie Bennett.

Published in En Vague issue two.

As the online lefty echo chamber, in which I dwell, recoiled in reaction to Trump’s election I noticed a certain phrase reverberating; ‘Don’t get angry, get organised’.

It’s become a battle cry for many of the politically ignored masses but the world of organised politics is an intimidating one. So to help anyone out there looking for an outlet for their frustrations I arranged a chat with the women who inspired me to become politically active, Natalie Bennett.

As the leader of the Green Party between 2012 and 2016, she helped the party quadruple its membership and managed to secure a podium on the live tv debates leading up to the 2015 general election.

She is also the most positive human being you will ever meet.

Over a cup of coffee, she continuously refutes my negative observations about the current state of politics.
“Being positive is my speciality”, she smiles, “the core reason to be positive is that things are not going to stay the same as they are.”

“We’ve had 40 years of neoliberalism dominating our politics, basically a philosophy that says; greed is good, inequality doesn’t matter and we can keep trashing the planet. You had to implicitly believe those things to be part of the political mainstream and that is clearly breaking down.”

“We are in a situation now roughly similar to the rise of Thatcher and Reagan- so then, very quickly, what was seen as mainstream politics changed. Before then the Tories were perfectly comfortable with state ownership of railways and even state ownership of car factories and coal mines. Then Thatcher and Reagan came along and the whole debate changed.”

“We’re about to see the whole debate change again so that’s a huge opportunity to see that change in a direction that says; no-one should live in fear and insecurity, no-one should have to worry about keeping food on the table and we all have to live collectively within our environmental limits. I call it ‘green politics’ but it doesn’t matter what you call it, as long as you meet those criteria.”

“At age five I was told because you’re a girl you can’t have a bicycle’, so that was when the feminist in me was born.”

While the UK Green Party are a relativity small force in UK politics the European Greens wield much more power within the EU Parliament. Across the EU, despite the rise of the far-right, the Greens have continued to grow in support and both Austria and Latvia have recently elected Green presidents.

Natalie cites these successes as a sign that people are becoming increasingly willing to vote for more radical parties.

“The centre-left across Europe is struggling, but the current centre-left, in historical terms, are more soft-right. Centrist politics doesn’t make sense anymore because centrist politics implies ‘let’s leave things roughly as they are, and fiddle with things around the edges’ and people just don’t believe that anymore”

“If you look at why Hillary Clinton lost to Trump it was because she was too much of a centrist politician representing much more of the same. A status quo ‘leave things as they are’ candidate just isn’t going to win anything at the moment.”

Although she is now more well known for her work tackling environmental issues Natalie’s first political cause was feminism.

“For all my life I’ve been a feminist and I’ve tried to act on my environment as a feminist. That started at age five when I was told ‘because you’re a girl you can’t have a bicycle, so that was when the feminist in me was born.”

Despite already leading her party through a general election Natalie, who grow up in Australia, only started getting involved with UK politics in 2006.

“In 2006 I made a new year’s resolution to do something about politics. So I took a look at the state of the world and I joined the Green Party.”

“There was no plan to become the leader, It was just that feeling that I should be doing something. So I threw myself into the local party. I then got asked by Sian Berry to do a little national job doing a couple of newsletters and it kinda flowed from there.”

Much of Natalie’s term as Green Party leader was spent travelling up and down the country attempting to inspire people to engage with politics.

“People often ask me how to get involved in politics and of course you can go and do a degree, but nothing beats just doing politics… My top line is ‘politics should be something you do, not something that is done to you’.”

“Let’s imagine that you live in a community where you’re worried about the level of UKIP support, don’t try and take on the whole party, think about your street and think about how you can organise events to bring the area together, encouraging the different cultures to mix and get along. That’s ‘taking on ‘UKIP’ but on a level where you can see the benefits.”

“But party politics is only a small part of what politics is, politics is working together with others to change things about your community, your society, your environment and make it better for everyone.”

“It’s clear that now is the time to get involved with politics- when I joined in 2006 that was a really tough time, before the crash, because most people thought that everything was fine so it was really hard to bring a message of change.”

“Now is the time of rich new opportunities because people are looking around for alternatives, searching for change so whatever you can do, whether it be picking up litter or getting elected to Parliament, or anywhere in between, now is the time when you can really make a difference.”