Rob Hosking on why there will be no teal deal

Rob Hosking writes:

This brings us back to the talk of the Teal Deal between the Greens and National.

It won’t happen. It would split the Greens.

And that’s because too many Green members’ sense of their own personal identity seems wrapped up in their politics, which is less about “green” issues as such, and more about being pure and unsullied and, particularly, not associating with evil “neoliberals.”

And while the term “neoliberal” tends to be so elastic as to be meaningless, it definitely does encompass the National Party – even if most of its members regard the term with a kind of amused bemusement.

It always seemed to me that this was the real, psychological impetus that led former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei’s political exit before the election.

Being in government involves choices, often messy ones where the options are either disastrous or unpalatable.

It involves compromise and dealing with people you might not otherwise wish to deal with.

And if your self-image is tied up in doing the precise opposite – wrapped up in a sense of your own purity and of being against and, indeed, outside “the system” – then going into government isn’t just a professional challenge: It is a threat to your entire sense of being.

In that sense, Ms Turei’s political demise was not surprising: It was, in fact, inevitable.

And in that self-image of the rebellious wild-eyed loner, standing at the gates of oblivion, she mirrors that of all too many Green Party members.

It is no doubt emotionally satisfying. It is not, though, an outlook that equips you for the responsibilities of government.

Basically it is confirmation that the Greens value their self-image far more than actually achieving any of their policies.