Everybody likes the Greens.

I’m sorry if that sounded sarcastic, because i’m being perfectly sincere. One of the more bizarre claims by the Conservative party during the 2011 AV referendum was something along the lines of ‘AV would mean nasty small parties like UKIP would thrive, but nice small parties like the Greens would suffer’. This, of course, totally ignores the fact that the Greens themselves supported AV but that’s besides the point. What is interesting is that even the right-wing Tories know how many people have soft-spots for the lovable Greens.

But, in 2014, perhaps ‘lovable’ isn’t the right word for Natalie Bennett’s Green Party. Having secured more votes than the Liberal Democrats in May’s European Elections, maybe ‘lovable’ can be replaced by ‘formidable’. On social media, the Greens like to talk of a ‘surge’ in supporters, with Green membership now up to around 24,000 people nationwide (although this should really be put into context- the Liberal Democrats have, despite being more unpopular than they have been for a long time, a good 20,000 more members than the Greens).

Indeed, public support for the Greens is solid. For example, four-fifths of people want to see Natalie Bennett take part in next year’s TV leaders debates. So, its time we started taking the Greens seriously. I’ve conducted a little bit of research, and unfortunately I really do find it impossible to recommend voting for the Greens in 2015. Much like my UKIP article a few months back, i’ve decided to outline the top 3 reasons why not.

1) Bizarre, ill-thought out policies

It is often (quite rightly) argued that the Green Party is deserving of more media exposure than they get right now, especially compared to UKIP. However, one advantage of this for the Greens is that the nitty-gritty of their policies is escaping widespread scrutiny.

Reading through the Green’s policies online makes for an interesting experience. On the one hand, you have some solid ideas, like ‘Changing company rules so that large and medium sized companies must take account of the environmental and social impact of their activities’.

On the other hand, however, you have totally nonsensical guff like this:

“PD302 On inspection, there is little or no threat of direct invasion of the UK by any nation. Commitment to a large standing army, a navy of large warships around our coastline, squadrons of fighter planes and a cripplingly expensive missile defence system is therefore unnecessary. Any threat of invasion that might arise in the future is so remote that realignment of the UK military and defence preparations would be possible long before any invasion occurred.”

I’m no warmonger, but it does seem short-sighted in the extreme not to have any significant military force whatsoever. It also strikes me as hugely naive to say that the ‘realignment of the UK military and defence preparations would be possible long before any invasion occurred’. Really? Surely it takes YEARS to build up an adequate military force, no matter the threat? Maybe i’m wrong, but such a laissez-faire attitude towards national security is a worrying position to take in such an uncertain geopolitical climate.

And then you have this:

“CJ382 For the vast majority of women in the criminal justice system, solutions in the community are more appropriate. Community sentences must be designed to take account of women’s particular vulnerabilities and domestic and childcare commitments. The restrictions placed on sentencers around breaches of community orders must be made more flexible.”

I’m all for progressive criminal justice policies, but being more lenient on women just because they’re women is hardly a fair and equal society. Crime is crime, regardless of gender. What we should all be pushing for is equality in the justice system, not some skewed idealism like this.

Also, and this is more of a personal view than a serious criticism, I don’t particularly like how the Greens refer to ‘[a woman’s] particular domestic and childcare commitments’. I agree that there is way too much of an emphasis placed on mothers as opposed to fathers when it comes to childcare, but we should be looking to fix this rather than create policies around these kind of dogmas. For example, the Liberal Democrats have introduced Shared Parental Leave, allowing mothers and fathers to divvy up maternity and paternity leave as they see fit, which, it is to be hoped, will end the ‘women must sacrifice their careers to raise kids’ attitude that pervades many workplaces.

I would have thought the Greens to be much more progressive on this issue than the language used in policies like this suggests.

So whilst the Green party has managed to avoid going down the UKIP route of saying outright stupid things (though there was that Green councillor who described the British army as ‘hired killers’ during a Remembrance Day parade), a number their policies are flimsy at best and incomprehensible at worst.

2) Their shambolic record of government

Brighton has become an object lesson in why it is a disaster to vote Green - The Spectator

Brighton has lost patience with the chaotic Greens - The New Statesman

Green Party in Brighton and Hove faces no confidence vote - The BBC

Have the Greens blown it in Brighton? - The Guardian

The above are just four of the countless articles concerning the truly shambolic, regrettable and often darkly hilarious record of the Green party in the one place they have any power- Brighton.

Since 2010, both the MP (Caroline Lucas) and Council for Brighton have gone Green. In the time since then, the following has occurred:

- The town now recycles less than it did before the Greens came to power

- The council attempted to force a vote on whether to increase tax by 4.75% in order to protect services from cuts, but the idea was dropped after Labour pointed out that the cost of having the vote (£900,000) would itself plug many of the gaps.

- The council threatens a fine of £50,000 for putting plastic in the paper-only recycling bin, but nobody pays any attention anyway. Brighton and Hove is ranked 302nd out of 326 councils on its recycling record.

- They council attempted to enforce ‘Meat-Free Mondays’ in council offices, which would have banned bacon rolls and meat pies in council-run staff canteens. The proposal was dropped amid protests.

- In an attempt to slow traffic on roads around the city, the Greens (seriously) suggested flooding roads with livestock such as sheep as part of their ‘speed reduction package’. Again, the proposal was ditched.

- While bin-men were on strike after an attempt by the Green council to reduce their pay, residents in Brighton were treated to the bizarre sight of seeing the Deputy Leader of the Green Party joining the bin-men in protest whilst the Leader of the party was telling them to get back to work.

- In a similar vein, one prominent member of the Green council joined street protests to stop the Green council cutting down a tree- just days after she herself voted to chop it down to make way for a cycle lane.

- Such is the levels of tension amongst the members of the Green administration that mediators were called in to try and bring the warring factions together. This lead to the fantastic headline ‘Council calls in councillors to council councillors’.

This is a party with a proven track-record of incompetence. UKIP may have a proven record of saying stupid things, but when it comes to doing stupid things, nobody can match the Green Party in Brighton and Hove. This is a key reason why I find it impossible to recommend voting for the Greens in 2015.

3) To ensure the centre-left hasn’t wasted its time

This isn’t so much a research-based point, but more of a personal view. The latest voting intentions poll carried out by YouGov shows that around 12% of people who voted Liberal Democrat at the last election are now intending to vote Green. My question to these people would be: ‘Why?’

What do you think is going to happen if you vote Green? Because, like the Lib Dems in 2010, they sure as hell are not going to win a majority. In fact, unlike the Lib Dems, they realistically aren’t going to win enough in 2015 to form a coalition with anyone either. So if you are voting Green because you like their policies (and I would refer you to point 1), you should obviously know that the Greens will arguably not be big enough to put those policies into practice for at least another 20-30 years, and certainly not in 2015.

And what then? If the Greens ever do get big enough to be the power brokers in a coalition, what do you think will happen then? Because even if they do somehow cease to be the omnishambles we’ve seen in Brighton, the very nature of coalition means that they will need to compromise. Just like the Lib Dems needed to.

And then what will you think of the Greens? What will you think when you see a Green politician apologising for being unable to deliver on key policies because of the nature of coalition? Will you then abandon the Greens as well, moving on to some other left-wing protest group, doomed to the same fate?

The only thing that you will achieve by moving from Lib Dem to Green is ensuring that the centre-left of British politics will have wasted its time, and will continue to waste it for years to come.

So yes, I do like the Greens. But voting for them in 2015 is one of the worst ideas i’ve heard since ‘Meat-Free Mondays’.