{news} Fw: USGP-INT OP/ED: Protest against Brown – vote Green (Green Party UK)

Mon Jun 8 09:51:16 EDT 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/jun/03/vote-green-brown/print

Protest against Brown – vote Green

Disillusioned Labour voters can vote Green with confidence now that 
social justice is front and centre of the party's agenda

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk,	 Wednesday 3 June 2009 21.30 BST

What are Labour voters to do? Party loyalty is understandable, but the 
party they once supported is no more. During 12 years of Labour rule, 
social inequality has returned with a vengeance, with a widening gap 
between rich and poor, including more children and pensioners living in 
poverty. By the end of last year, income inequality under Labour was 
greater than during the reign of Margaret Thatcher.

Isn't it time for Labour voters to revolt? Why keep voting for a party 
whose government has betrayed its roots and values?

There is an alternative. The Green party embraces the social justice 
agenda that Labour has long abandoned. We are more than a party of 
environmental protection. We are also a party of fairness and equality, 
with progressive policies on jobs, housing, education, health and 
pensions. Unlike the Liberal Democrats, we don't support free market 
capitalism or use dirty tricks during election campaigns and we don't 
talk green in national politics only to do something else entirely at 
the local level.

Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Labour lost its heart and soul. It 
has become the party of war, privatisation and attacks on civil 
liberties. The Labour government promoted the financial deregulation 
that led to the banking crisis, resulting in bankruptcies and mass 
unemployment. It refuses to take legal action against the corporate 
criminals who have pushed Britain to the precipice of a full-blown 
economic depression.

Labour's policy rot was not caused by Brown alone. The whole Labour 
government – including Alan Johnson – backed the party's rightward drift.

When a Labour government pursues anti-Labour policies it no longer 
deserves respect or loyalty from Labour members and voters. Arrogant, 
out of touch, complacent and authoritarian, Labour is not Labour any 
more. It's time has passed.

For all these reasons, after 22 years' membership I left Labour and 
joined the Green party. It isn't perfect – no party ever is. But 
compared to Labour and the other political alternatives, the Greens are 
now the most progressive force in British politics, with our visionary 
agenda for grassroots democracy, social justice, human rights, global 
equity, environmental protection, peace and internationalism.

The Greens now occupy the emancipationist political space that was once 
occupied by Labour. We offer the most credible progressive alternative 
to Labour.

To deal with the economic crisis, our agenda includes a Roosevelt-style 
Green New Deal to simultaneously tackle unemployment and climate 
destruction. The Greens would invest in new green industries to create a 
million green collar jobs. We would put money into energy conservation, 
which would lead to tens of thousands of jobs in double-glazing, loft 
insulation and the fitting of energy efficient boilers. This would also 
help cut fuel poverty and reduce household energy bills. We'd also 
invest in renewable energy, including wind, tidal, wave and solar. This 
would help revive Britain's decimated engineering industry and establish 
new technologies that could be exported worldwide at great financial 
benefit to the UK.

Labour's great, historic achievement was the creation of the NHS and the 
welfare state, but Blair and Brown sought to dismantle them. Their 
commercialisation and semi-privatisation of health and education is 
something that not even Margaret Thatcher attempted. They have 
out-Thatchered Thatcher.

While the Labour government has promoted a stealthy privatisation of 
public services, the Greens oppose privatisation and defend public 
services as essential components of a just society and a decent quality 
of life for all citizens. We reject Labour plans to close post offices 
and to privatise the Royal Mail.

In contrast to the anti-trade union policies of Labour, the Greens 
support the rights enshrined in the trade union freedom bill which gives 
new protection to employees.

Similarly, the Blair-Brown government sought an opt-out from key 
sections of the EU social chapter on workers' rights. The Greens, 
however, have been steadfast in opposing the opt-out and insisting on 
the fair treatment of employees.

While Labour's policies for senior citizens have been miserly, it is 
Green policy to end pensioner poverty by providing free social care to 
the elderly and raising the single person's state pension to £165 per 
week and linking it to average earnings.

We are also pushing for a major house-building programme and the 
refurbishment of older and disused properties, in order to give 
low-income families the chance to have a good quality home at a rent 
they can afford.

These measures could be paid for by cancelling Labour's wasteful and 
reactionary expenditure of more than £100bn on new Trident nuclear 
missiles, ID cards, two super aircraft carriers, the botched 
computerisation of the NHS and further motorway expansion.

This is crunch time for progressive politics. Labour has turned its back 
on its traditional values, torn up previously cherished socialist 
ideals, sidelined the trade union movement, waged an illegal war, tried 
to impose 42 days' detention without charge, and made unsavoury pacts 
with big business and George W Bush.

The Labour leadership has pandered to prejudice and irrationality on 
issues including asylum, drugs, terrorism, Europe and crime. Principles 
have been abandoned for the sake of a few more sympathetic headlines in 
the Daily Mail and for another cup of tea with Rupert Murdoch.

Labour voters don't have to put up with this rightwing nonsense. They 
can vote Green in the knowledge that they are voting for a party that 
offers a powerful challenge to neo-liberal economics and globalisation.

Greens put the common good before corporate greed, and the public 
interest before private profit. Our synthesis of the best of the red and 
the green integrates policies for social justice and human rights with 
policies for tackling the life-threatening dangers posed by global 
warming, environmental pollution, resource depletion and species 
extinction. The future is bright – bright Green.

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