Britain’s first Green MP Caroline Lucas is preparing to set out her party’s manifesto today (Monday 22 May).
The Brighton Pavilion candidate – and co-leader of her party – is expected to say that other parties are ignoring the environment but the Greens will protect it.
She is also promising a “ratification referendum” before Britain can formally leave the European Union (EU) – the process known as Brexit.
Her party is also promising to protect the NHS and “roll back privatisation” while pledging to “fight for bold policies like a basic income and shorter working week”.
The Greens are expected to announce plans to introduce an NHS Reinstatement Bill to Parliament, to reverse the privatisation of the health service.
They will also pledge to “reverse the NHS funding gap”, with a view to paying for it by scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
The Green Party said: “The party will pledge to immediately guarantee the rights of EU citizens, protect freedom of movement and give the British public, rather than just Parliament, the final say on any EU deal.
“The ‘Green guarantee’ will also promise to ‘take steps towards the introduction of a universal basic income, including a government sponsored pilot scheme’ and phase in a shorter working week.”
At an event later today Caroline Lucas, the party’s co-leader, is expected to say: “The Green Party has big, bold ideas to create a confident and caring country we can all be proud of.
“That means protecting our environment for our children and grandchildren, saving our NHS from crisis and ridding it of private sector profiteering.
“It means giving people a proper say on the Brexit deal, not shutting them out of the process. And it means exploring changes to our economy to make it fairer and fit for the future.
“Green MPs elected on (Thursday) 8 June can be trusted to protect our public services, fight for a close relationship with the EU and truly hold whoever is in government to account.
“If we do end up with a Tory government you can be sure that Green MPs will hold (Prime Minister) Theresa May’s feet to the fire.”
Poor old “Gerald Wiley”! It’s been too much for him, to read that, he has fainted at his keyboard, and the night air echoes to the siren as he is sped to A and E.
The random letters generated by the Wiley head hitting the keyboard would surely make for more edifying posts than his usual ones.
Good morning Mr Carnegie. Did you really set you alarm for 3 o’clock to post this inane stuff? Or was it your prostate playing up again?
Sorry, but about 97% (based on recent polls) of the population don’t care what Caroline and Scrappy Doo have dreamt up as their ‘manifesto’ because they will NEVER lead a government. It’s about the same percentage of Hove residents that didn’t vote for you when you stood to be their MP.
It’s a shame that you couldn’t get your “progressive alliance” (🤣) to align policies between all members as you desperately seek to find reasons for your party continuing to exist.
But thanks for mentioning me – you made me want to respond.
So far as I know, I do not have cancer, as you gracelessly suggest, but I suppose there is always the possibility of that, as it is for anybody. Something we discussed at a funeral last week after a friend’s four years’ struggle with it.
Says it all that I make a bantering remark but you posit a virulent disease.
No, I did not get up to write about you but to try to watch Twin Peaks. I could not get through. We can get images from Mars and beyond. but not simple streaming.
As it happens, I think the “progressive alliance” rubbish. We have seen locally over many years here that one cannot trust Labour: such awful people as Lord Bassam, Nicky Easton…
The central reason for the Green Party’s existence is that it is the only one to put at its centre the environment, from which all else depends, and without which all life will become very short. We are already seeing the effects, and the social consequences, in such places as Syria and Mexico.
You do seem to have great concerns about life, death, and having to achieve something worthwhile between these events.
Let me give you a clue – you are going to die – many more people will die of cancer as health care improves – it happens – accept it – get over it – and enjoy life without spreading gloom over others!
Glad you agree about the “progressive alliance” – but if you can’t trust Labour then the only one you can “align” with are the Lib Dems and their leader looks almost as demented as your two.
Very true about wanting to improve the environment – perhaps you should go to Syria or Mexico and express your concerns – or how about North Korea and China – I think that we, in the UK, set a great example without the need for self-righteous, incompetent, activists wanting to set an example by putting in expensive unused cycle lanes, plant pots, and unenforceable speed limits and as a result increasing emission levels in the centre of the city.
BTW – why do you get up watch Twin Peaks? I thought you would read the story and generate the images in your mind. You also need to upgrade your broadband if you are having problems streaming Twin Peaks on Now TV and have to watch overnight. Are you still on dial-up?
It is troubling to think that we could be living in a terrible “Democratic Republic of Wiley” where times of sleep/waking are dictated – with everybody up for Strength Through Joy exercises on Hove Lawns.
You live in a strange world in which you think politics dominate. Let me tell you a little about the past few days. As it turns out, what with a sudden bad cold here (it’s going about, I gather), I could not see a great friend as a cold could be dangerous for her return to chemotherapy this week for the latest of three separate cancers.
And today I found, on a journey, that a relation had kept quiet the terrible vicissitudes – blood from many orifices – of something which
has led my mother to fear the worst, Death so very likely.
I write this because I think these people are showing so much more valiant a spirit than your casual denigration of anybody who does not follow your line.
Good to see that many long-term Green Party policies, like mass building of council housing and universal basic income (UBI) mainstreaming.
There is recognition, in the Green Manifesto, of rebalancing life for the benefit of families through a long term goal of a four day week and reducing the burden on the young by eliminating student debt. It is also the only party that still puts the environment front and centre. Climate change is already upon us, but you would have thought it solved given the lack of coverage by the big 3 (the Conservatives giving twice as much space in their manifesto to fracking as the environment!). The proposed improvements in public services are long, long overdue.
The Greens, along with the Liberals, support deep reform of our corrupted political system. Labour and the Conservatives still abhor the thought of proportional representation, their old guards believe it is perfectly ok to rule with 35%, despite the coalition government being a vast improvement on the Conservatives.
Both Labour and the Conservatives also condemn us to the white elephant of a replacement for trident, system that never even had a target!
Sad that on 8th June so many will line up to harm their own interests by voting for the chaotic, dementia taxing, fox hunt supporting, austerity loving, ideologically driven and incompetent Conservatives.
Is your policy of no borders and unlimited immigration still in your manifesto? That will do the environment no-end of good, won’t it?