I had a brief involvement with the Greens due to being involved with road protesting, RTS and critical mass type stuff and, yup, a real bunch of smug, middle-class wankers with a huge sense of entitlement and a real fear of the working class. in my experience.
Well for a significant part of last decade, when I was at uni, I was happy to support the Greens, I thought of them as a fresh alternative to the tired politics of many to all of the left-wing organisations, and I admired them for not getting involved with Respect and the baggage associated with them. I interpreted the criticisms of them being "middle class" (having naively assumed there was no real reason why working class people would be put off by the Greens) and having no class analysis as code for not liking them because they didn't adhere to the "traditions" of what they considered a left wing organisation.
However I started to hear stories which indicated that the Greens weren't all that they were cracked up to be. Deals with the Tories in Leeds (and a few other places), for one, and Jenny Jones defending Ian Blair over the police murder of Jean Charles de Menezes (along with other feckwittery). Also the Coalition made me much more cynical about political parties in general (yes, I was one of those schmucks who voted Lib Dem in 2010, on the merits of my individual MP). There was this one time when I went to a Friends of the Earth meeting and explained to a active Green Party member that I didn't really trust any of them, to which I got the response of "oh, so you're an anarchist then?"
This is the same person who is now considering quitting the Greens, although he hopes that Caroline Lucas helps to form a breakaway "Green Left" party, which I would support if such a party was to work with Left Unity and possibly TUSC as well, rather than be Yet Another Left Wing Splinter Group.
Then came the Brighton betrayal, and I realised that the Green Party of England and Wales really was going down the well trodden route that Greens have tread in Ireland and Germany, so started to hammer out a warning that if people expect the Greens to be the answer to the problems of the left and the working class of the UK, they were in for a massive disappointment. It was then I realised why that lack of class analysis is so problematic, as well having a membership base of mainly middle-class people whom have no experience of the struggles and hardships of people whom live outside of their bohemian bubble.
I've spoiled my ballot (when there's no TUSC or other left-leaning candidate) ever since.
