Green v Labour
The letter below was sent yesterday to the East Anglian Times:
Dear Editor
Labour has set up a unit under Sadiq Khan aimed at reducing the "threat" from the
Greens at the General Election next May.
Its interesting that Labour have switched from saying the Greens are irrelevant to
being a "threat".
But we have been here before. Mr Khan says
"Most Green Party supporters share the same values and aims as the Labour Party"
Simon Hughes tried that one for the LibDems several elections running.
Mr Khan also used the tired old argument that a vote for the Greens .... (but
actually its anyone other than Labour) ... “lets the Tories in”. The Tories use
the same argument the other way.
Its an arrogance of titanic proportions that Labour and the Tories think only they
have a right to have MPs and to govern.
There are many reasons why Greens will not vote Labour and also why many former
Labour voters are now going Green.
Here are just some of those reasons:
Labour under Blair took the UK into the illegal and disastrous Iraq war on made up
threats;
Labour supports nuclear weapons - Greens view nukes as immoral;
Labour supports nuclear power and fracking - Greens would invest instead in
renewables and energy efficiency;
Labour, said it would reduce animal experiments, yet numbers rose by a million
between 1997 and 2010 to nearly 4 million a year;
Labour came to power in 1997 promising an “ethical” foreign policy yet continued
the UK’s high level of arms exports, including to repressive regimes;
Labour supported major expansion of airports in the South East and was poised to
allow new runways at both Heathrow and Stansted before it left office in 2010 -
Greens will not support any new runways;
Labour introduced tuition fees, forcing students to go into debt - Greens support
free education;
Labour introduced academies;
Labour damaged the planning system with its regional plans and local development
framework system; complex with top down targets;
Labour let the banks and financial markets go rip, which contributed to the crash and
the austerity that followed;
Labour supported waste incinerators and awarded advantageous contracts for
electricity from EfW schemes - Greens support recycling and waste minimisation;
Labour wasted £ billions of taxpayers money on complex and massively overpriced PFI
schemes for public infrastructure;
Labour was elected in 1997 pledging to end the internal market in the NHS but
increased private sector involvement - Greens support a public NHS.
The Greens are running at record levels in the polls. Green Party membership has
doubled in a year, now approaching 40,000. There will be Green candidates in a record
75% of parliamentary seats.
Labour and the Tories may not like it, but the election next May will offer more
choices to voters and this time with more parties capable of winning seats. The
politics of the future is not going to look like the past.
Yours sincerely
Cllr. James Abbott
Essex Green Party Co-ordinator
Dear Editor
Labour has set up a unit under Sadiq Khan aimed at reducing the "threat" from the
Greens at the General Election next May.
Its interesting that Labour have switched from saying the Greens are irrelevant to
being a "threat".
But we have been here before. Mr Khan says
"Most Green Party supporters share the same values and aims as the Labour Party"
Simon Hughes tried that one for the LibDems several elections running.
Mr Khan also used the tired old argument that a vote for the Greens .... (but
actually its anyone other than Labour) ... “lets the Tories in”. The Tories use
the same argument the other way.
Its an arrogance of titanic proportions that Labour and the Tories think only they
have a right to have MPs and to govern.
There are many reasons why Greens will not vote Labour and also why many former
Labour voters are now going Green.
Here are just some of those reasons:
Labour under Blair took the UK into the illegal and disastrous Iraq war on made up
threats;
Labour supports nuclear weapons - Greens view nukes as immoral;
Labour supports nuclear power and fracking - Greens would invest instead in
renewables and energy efficiency;
Labour, said it would reduce animal experiments, yet numbers rose by a million
between 1997 and 2010 to nearly 4 million a year;
Labour came to power in 1997 promising an “ethical” foreign policy yet continued
the UK’s high level of arms exports, including to repressive regimes;
Labour supported major expansion of airports in the South East and was poised to
allow new runways at both Heathrow and Stansted before it left office in 2010 -
Greens will not support any new runways;
Labour introduced tuition fees, forcing students to go into debt - Greens support
free education;
Labour introduced academies;
Labour damaged the planning system with its regional plans and local development
framework system; complex with top down targets;
Labour let the banks and financial markets go rip, which contributed to the crash and
the austerity that followed;
Labour supported waste incinerators and awarded advantageous contracts for
electricity from EfW schemes - Greens support recycling and waste minimisation;
Labour wasted £ billions of taxpayers money on complex and massively overpriced PFI
schemes for public infrastructure;
Labour was elected in 1997 pledging to end the internal market in the NHS but
increased private sector involvement - Greens support a public NHS.
The Greens are running at record levels in the polls. Green Party membership has
doubled in a year, now approaching 40,000. There will be Green candidates in a record
75% of parliamentary seats.
Labour and the Tories may not like it, but the election next May will offer more
choices to voters and this time with more parties capable of winning seats. The
politics of the future is not going to look like the past.
Yours sincerely
Cllr. James Abbott
Essex Green Party Co-ordinator