Derrick Jensen session removed from Green Party Policy Fest

Session on ‘Deep Green Resistance’ removed from online week of discussion on Green policy topics

In January 2024 I arranged for Derrick Jensen to speak about ‘Deep Green Resistance’ at the Green Party Policy Fest, an online week of discussion on important Green policy topics from 3 to 9 March 2024. The meeting was scheduled for Tuesday 4 March at 7:15pm but has since been removed from the official timetable. It will still take place unofficially and the topic remains as originally billed:

Guest speaker Derrick Jensen, co-author of Deep Green Resistance and Bright Green Lies will be talking about issues that touch on core Green values, philosophy and policies, such as “Do you think this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of life?”  Prepare to be inspired or disillusioned!

[Post-event edit: a recording of the discussion will be published soon on YouTube with the link posted here.]

How did it come to this?

First off, in January my session was removed from the Policy Fest draft timetable by my Policy Development Committee (PDC) colleague who usually arranges Policy Fest. I complained to the Policy Development Co-ordinator, who runs PDC, and she re-instated it.

Then, in the middle of February, the Co-ordinator removed the session from the final Policy Fest timetable. The reasons provided are that Policy Fest is an arena in which to discuss Green Party policy only and that the session is too controversial.

In a narrow sense, it is true that the concept of Deep Green resistance is somewhat foreign to the Green Party. This is a lamentable lacuna and it’s notable that one of the only PDC colleagues to respond to me when the first removal took place said he had never heard of the concept nor of Derrick Jensen.

My point is, if Deep Green resistance is not up for discussion in the Green Party, it ought to be. Furthermore, what better place to discuss it than at the festival of green ideas that is run by PDC?

But suddenly, for the second time in a month, the topic has become so controversial that the session must be banned. This is despite my having given PDC the necessary link to the deepgreenresistance.org website from the start. Nobody has so far given me details as to precisely why the session is controversial.

What is Policy Fest actually for?

Policy Fest is an online week of discussion on important Green policy topics. It usually takes place twice a year. Its purpose is, I think, both broad and unclear. That may be the cause of the problem as to why Deep Green Resistance is out but a session on ‘Queer Liberation’ is in.  

The word ‘fest’ connotes a festival or gathering devoted to a particular activity or interest. That is the broad meaning. The narrower definition that seems to be the one used by PDC is of a gathering that focuses on preparation for the annual conferences of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW). It’s a chance for the groups that work on various aspects of GPEW policy to come together without the formalities – and in some ways the restrictions – of conference procedure: agenda, motions, votes, etc.

Still, in that context of a broad yet unclear gathering, presumably designed to stimulate free and easy discussion, it’s hard to fathom why some topics are welcome while others are too controversial to be contemplated. That is why I highlight the session on Queer Liberation.  

On the same evening as the Deep Green Resistance session was meant to take place, there is a session by LGBTIQA+ Greens on Queer Liberation, entitled ‘How our policies as a party can bring about Queer Liberation ahead of the next General Election’.

What has that to do with preparation for the next Green Party annual conference on 6 to 8 September 2024?

GPEW is keen to stress that social justice and environmental justice are two sides of the same coin – even if, in my view, we sometimes lose track of which is heads and which is tails. There is not much social justice on a dead planet – to coin a phrase!

Nevertheless, it is good to have sessions by groups concerned with such issues of social justice. GPEW classes these groups as Members’ Working Groups, Special Interest Groups and Liberation Groups. That’s three different names for what is essentially the same thing, which is another source of potential confusion in GPEW thinking.

As far as I can see, the only other Liberation Group session at our March Policy Fest is the ‘Workshop With Greens of Colour’, whose focus is ‘Working on draft policy proposals’. That is clearly within the narrower definition of a gathering that focuses on preparation for the annual conference.

By the same token, the LGBTIQA+ Greens focus on how to about Queer Liberation ahead of the next General Election is not focusing on preparing policy proposals to bring to the next annual conference.

Edit and correction

Apologies, gentle readers: while it is true that the session on Deep Green Resistance has indeed been removed, I was mistaken in saying that it had been replaced by the LGBTIQA+ Greens session on Queer Liberation. That session is earlier in the evening and has been in the timetable from early on. In the slot where the Deep Green Resistance session was there is now a blank, in other words, two concurrent sessions on other topics when there were previously three. I have edited this post accordingly today (26 Feb 2024).