Trevor Sargent under pressure to endorse GM crops

Monday September 24, 2007 07:54

by Aragon

Are Greens now the anti-environment party?

Green party members are currently making a frantic attempt to halt a sell-out on GM crops. The power sharing agreement with Fianna Fail which has effectively converted the party into Fianna Fail's most effective weapon in its resistance to the environmental lobby looks as though it may come under strain because of tensions within the Green Party over this issue.

Members of the Green Party were yesterday doing everything possible to alert environmentalists to the fact that the Greens are in danger of formally abandoning their opposition to GM crops. Although this has been much anticipated since they got into government there is a suggestion that it may prove to be a divisive issue for the party. So far they have managed to maintain a relatively united front in public but that may be about to end. A party insider who was texting and phoning as many people as she could yesterday said 'Trevor is under enormous pressure to agree to this - he needs all of the support he can get to resist it.' She was asking for as many individuals and groups as possible to send him messages of support. If this goes ahead it will be curtains for the organic farming lobby in Ireland - a thriving fledgling agri-business. The lies and distortions of companies like Monsanto will win out and, as ever, our prostitute government will roll over and purr like pussy cats to yet another group of polluting corporate invaders. And at the end of the day none of the benefits which are claimed for GM will have been realised because they are based on lies and fraudulent 'science'. Farmers will be more reliant than ever on chemical and pesticide producers and corporate control of our food will have been completely ceded.

It is no coincidence that those Greens who brokered the power sharing deal are the people to personally benefit the most from the arrangement. Those same people are now driving a pro-government line in abandoning all but the least significant of their policies. And beyond that they even are staying silent on Bertie Ahern's atrocious testimony to the Mahon Tribunal.

It is claimed elsewhere that membership of the Green Party has gone up since the election. If this is true then it is testimony to the shallow and ill-informed understanding of environmental issues of many Irish people.