Norwich City Council To Go Green?

The county of Norfolk is one of the most conservative – with a small and a big ‘C’ – places in the country. It’s the last refuge of the diehard English, with their backs to the North Sea and nothing to protect themselves from the modern world but their prejudices. So why is the county capitol of Norwich about to take the radical step of (hopefully) electing Britain’s first Green council?

Norwich – England’s second city until the small matter of the industrial revolution – has a long tradition of radical politics and civil revolt, right back to the 16th century Kett’s rebellion, when insurgent ‘peasants’ briefly took over the city. Persecuted religious minorities – known locally as ‘strangers’ - came in large numbers from the continent. Broader ‘non-conformity’ was very strong here, embodied by reformers like Elizabeth Fry and Harriet Martineau. In the late 19th century, William Morris’ Socialist League and the English Marxists of the Social Democratic Federation had large and busy Norwich branches.

By contrast trade unionism – the solidaristic core of Labourism which would dominate 20th century British politics – was never that successful or all-embracing here. This begins to explain the contemporary rise of the Norwich Greens. Our ‘socialism’ was always more thought-out and community-based, with a life outside the workplace and the sectional interests of the unionised workforce. The Labour Party’s hold on municipal politics – apart from a period of ‘one-party rule’ in the 1980s, when local opposition to nationally rampant Thatcherism was at its height - has likewise never been that secure.

In 1933, J.B. Priestley described Norwich as “a very rich mix, equally famous for its old churches and sturdy dissenters... a city in which foreigners exiled by intolerance may seek refuge and turn their sons into sturdy and cheerful East Anglians.” He called semi-seriously for “Home Rule for East Anglia!” with Norwich as its capitol. The architectural historian Pevsner designated our magnificent City Hall, with its graceful and self-confident modernism, “the foremost English public building of between the wars”. Norwich was badly bombed in the Second World War, targeted first for its industry and then (in the ‘Baedecker raids’) for its history, and provided much of the ‘rest and recreation’ for the surrounding air and army bases. The American presence was welcome and benign.

The city followed the vogue for post-war planning and reconstruction, with a “technocratic progressivism” which now seems slightly mad – everything to be torn up or covered in concrete – and fortunately was only part-realised. Labour-led ‘modernisation’ was largely a national failure, but one of its achievements was the ‘new universities’ of the sixties. The University of East Anglia – again distinctively designed by Denys Lasdun in “weathered concrete” – brought new life to the local economy, politics and culture, with the highest proportion of graduate ‘stayers’ in the country.

Local politics – as everywhere in the UK – began to deteriorate in the 1980s and ‘90s, with Thatcherite assaults on local government. Labour was increasingly marked by a distasteful paternalism and corrosive factionalism, with marked whiffs of corruption and ‘clientelism’ in its dealings with residents and citizens. I recall the council deputy leader arguing for more council housing “because they vote Labour”. We ended up with a tired and demoralised local authority, poor in both income and performance, surrounded by hostile county and district councils driven by the worst kind of petty suburban grievance.

The challenge facing an incoming Green administration in post-Labour Norwich is daunting. Opposition is relatively straightforward, and up to now a focused electoralism - a better ‘machine’ for getting out the vote than the other parties – has brought steady advance. But taking over an ailing council, and staying in control for long enough to make a difference, is another matter. Labour has left behind a poisonous legacy: real nastiness in the way politics is done, a cowed and resentful workforce, a strategic approach which always manages to combine the worst of the old and the new. ‘Unitary status’ was promised by New Labour, and may have revived the council, but one of the new coalition’s first acts was to announce that the status quo, complete with gerrymandered boundaries with the city’s wealthy suburbs hived off to surrounding district councils, will remain.

The Greens will need all the imagination and determination they can muster. Notably youthful, and motivated mainly by the big issues of global climate change, they have to address the concerns of a predominantly elderly local electorate, and take a close interest in the minutiae of local council services. Housing is a particular challenge, with around half the city’s population living on deprived and slowly deteriorating estates. The Norwich Greens have begun to make inroads on the old Labour fiefdoms, beyond their own ‘natural’ supporters among the progressive middle class. Green councillors work very hard, and that impresses people. The ultimate challenge (and I’m sure this applies elsewhere) is to create a sustainable social alliance around a new and modern Green urbanism, and out of that a new ‘civic identity’ by which the people of this ‘fine city’ can be re-enthused.