Saturday 19 March 2016

The Case for Green Party Supporters to VOTE FOR BREXIT

I am deeply disappointed with the Green Party over the lack of opportunity to discuss the referendum on Europe. Ever since the referendum has been called, the Green Party has refused to debate how we should campaign in the referendum. Indeed the Green Party broke its own rules on emergency motions to push through a pro-EU vote at the Autumn 2015 conference. A vote in which the vast majority of the 66,000 Green Party members were excluded. Fewer than 1% of members voted for the emergency motion and ever since all debate on whether or not to campaign for or against Brexit has been stifled by the leadership. There was a time when the Green Party refused to have "leaders" and I now understand why. This official censoring of debate is undemocratic and dictatorial.
Mainly because of the more democratic voting system, it is clear that the greatest success that the Green Party of England and Wales has had, has been at the European Elections. The Green Party now has three times as many MEPs than the Liberal Democrats. It does mean, however, that this Europhile tendency does tend to dominate the corridors of power within the Green Party, grouped as it is in the South and East of England.
However, I do feel that in their Euro-enthusiasm, our leaders do tend to forget their own rhetoric.
Perhaps I could remind you of some of the things mentioned in the Green Party manifesto in 2015.
• "We have lost half the wild animals on earth in the past 40 years.
• We lose between 20,000 and 100,000 species every year. This is between 1000 and 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.
• We are causing a ‘sixth extinction’. The other five occurred naturally. This one is down to us.
• We have increased CO2 concentrations from a pre-industrial 280 parts per million (ppm) to about 400 ppm.
• Global temperatures are due to rise between 1.5 and 4.8 degrees C by 2100. And that’s just the internationally agreed range without feedback effects. Many experts are predicting rises as high as 6 deg C.
For the first time in the history of the Earth one species is changing it forever – the human species. They call this new era the ‘Anthropocene’. We now have our very own geological epoch."
Now, such Armageddon type predictions suggest some pretty drastic changes are needed quickly to avoid a global disaster. But:
• you do not get change by voting for the status quo;
• you do not get change by being part of an economic union with economic growth as its over-riding ambition;
• you do not get change by voting for trade agreements like TTIP whose only purpose is to encourage unsustainable economic growth and further domination of the world economies by the increasingly avaricious global conglomerates;
• you do not get change when alternatives to unsustainable growth are not even on the European Commission agenda.
The EU as it is currently constituted is run for and by big business. The European Parliament continues to be dominated by right wing parties, paid for by big business. Even the UK "Remain" campaign is organised and paid for by the bankers and financiers of the City of London. The BSE campaign is financed by Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan and led by the former chair of M&S Lord Rose.
Even the "Vote Remain" campaign material being given out at the Green MEP stalls at Harrogate was paid for by British taxpayers via the EU levy, upon which British people have no vote and no say.
What we need, as the Green Party said at the General Election, is nothing less than a Green Revolution. Again from the 2015 manifesto:
• Make achieving international agreement on limiting climate change to within 2 degrees of warming a major foreign policy priority.

Foreign policy in the EU has been led by un-elected and unknown appointees like Catherine Ashton, who led us into the creation of conflicts in the Ukraine, Syria and Libya, but did nothing to foster international agreement on climate change.
• Invest in a £85bn public programme of renewable electricity generation, flood defences and building insulation creating more than 250,000 good jobs (in the UK).

Such a policy would not be allowed under current EU rules as it would create state subsidised unfair competition to the energy companies, now dominated by French, German and Spanish conglomerates.

• Support local sustainable agriculture, respect animals and wild places.

Again the EU rules do not allow the active support by member state of local food, at the expense of imports. An increase in animal welfare needs cross-EU support, as does the protection of habitats, so will take much longer to achieve within the EU, than if we just did it ourselves.

• Cut emissions by providing cheaper public transport, and encouraging cycling and walking.

The re-nationalisation and subsidy of the railways and bus services is not allowed under EU Directive 2012/34/EU.

The EU is all about economic expansion and enforced austerity, not public investment. Look what has happened to those countries faced with having to have a bail out to remain in the Euro. Massive levels of unemployment in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Even Ireland, touted as a success story, has effectively turned itself into a tax avoidance fiefdom of big business, emulating Luxembourg.
The Green vision for Europe is laid out the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society: the policy of the Green Party written by its members, not its leaders. This says:
EU110 To achieve the Green vision, Europe will need very different structures from those currently in existence. Europe should be made up of overlapping, co-operative, democratic, decentralised groupings of nations and regions.
This is not the EU and will NEVER be achieved with existing EU structures.
EU111 European institutions must be designed with care and with mechanisms for correction, to prevent the drift towards centralism that has repeatedly been seen in history.
The drift towards centralism has been a constant in the sixty year history of the EU and continues today.
EU112 Part of the way to do this is to have a multiplicity of independent bodies with clearly defined areas of responsibility, and with the possibility of membership by different groups of nations and regions. An example is the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for conflict resolution.
Again, this is not found within the EU and is not part of any European Commission policy being considered .
EU113 Europe must not become a super-state or global power bloc.
But this is precisely how the "Remain" campaign define the EU: as a global power bloc: it is at the very heart of their rhetoric. But a power bloc for whom, comrades? For you? For me? Or a power bloc for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?
Why do you think Obama is actively campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU? A single European nation suits the US government, its multinationals and its military. One leader is a lot easier to deal with than many.
Finally, again from the Green Party manifesto (preamble page 8):
The Green Party knows that:
• It’s hard to be a citizen when life tells you that you are a consumer;
It is Green Party policy to persuade the UK to abandon consumerism and back conservation. Conservation of our environment by abandoning waste and the constant search for more and more "things" we do not need or really want. Never mind the quantity, look for the quality of life. Look for sharing the wealth we have, not concentrating it in fewer and fewer hands.
But concentrating power in fewer hands is precisely what the EU is designed to do. Getting change is such a slow process in the EU that in forty years of membership, the UK has failed to change any EU Treaty; absolutely essential if you are to change the EU in the ways envisaged by the Green Party.
So, please, Green Party members, do not just accept the propaganda put out and financed by big business and the EU. Please think for yourselves. Look at Green Party policies and decide whether you want a society dominated by the commercial interests across the EU or an independent UK, where we can campaign for that Green Revolution and the British people can decide for themselves whether to be consumers or conservers.

Thursday 17 December 2015

Green Candidate at last election calls on MP to resign

In this blog, I am not mincing my words. I call on the sitting Richmond MP, Rushi Sunak, to resign for misleading the voters in the Richmond Constituency over fracking under National Parks.

As the Green Party candidate for Richmond (Yorks) at the last general election, I was in an excellent position to hear the promises made by Mr Sunak.

At several public meetings during the election campaign, as well as in his manifesto, Mr Sunak assured people that a Tory Government would not be fracking under our National Parks. However, Mr Sunak has just voted in the House of Commons to do just that.

The vote on the Government’s Draft Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing (Protected Areas) Regulations 2015 will see fracking allowed beneath National Parks, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Groundwater Protection Zones, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) and World Heritage sites. This could expose many of the UK’s most fragile and treasured landscapes to noise, air and light pollution, resulting from fracking rigs being situated around the edges of protected areas, in order to drill down and then horizontally across to access the shale gas reserves beneath.

The Government had previously committed to an ‘outright ban’ on fracking in National Parks, AONBs and SSSIs. However, the latest regulations attempt to sidestep this by allowing underground drilling in the fissures deep below protected areas. This could lead to thousands of lorry movements to transport equipment and fluids, noise from compressors, and 24 hour floodlighting around the perimeters of these areas – causing pollution to spill over into Britain’s most precious countryside.

SSSIs are conservation areas for wildlife and rare plants. There are around 4,000 in the UK, protecting 8% of land. There are 15 National Parks in England, Scotland and Wales, covering 22,658 square kilometres: more than a tenth of the area of Great Britain.

Greenpeace estimates that 300 square kilometres of the North York Moors could become open to fracking after government consultation, as well as areas near Stokesley in the Richmond constituency.

Mr Sunak and the Conservatives deliberately misled the electorate about their intentions over fracking. Also, the vote this week goes directly counter to the Paris Agreement last week on climate change. To meet those agreed targets it is essential that no fracking takes place, as the Government have also abandoned their proposals for carbon capture.

Any jobs created by fracking will be in the tens, not the thousands boasted by Mr Sunak and will be more than outweighed by those lost to the tourist trade.

Mr Sunak and the Conservatives are cynically putting our environment at risk in pursuit of corporate profit and Mr Sunak should resign for misleading voters in the Richmond constituency.


Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/shale-developments-to-be-banned-in-all-uk-national-parks

http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/08/18/dozens-of-sites-of-special-scientific-interest-in-blocks-offered-for-fracking/















Monday 2 November 2015

More Local Privatisation of the NHS

The recent revelation that a proposed private mini-hospital in Catterick Garrison could syphon away at least £1 million a year from Friarage Hospital, is yet another example of the privatisation of the NHS by stealth under the Tories. This undemocratic Conservative administration, elected by just 26% of UK voters, has long had a policy of allowing private NHS providers to "cherry pick" easy to provide services, which undermines the feasibility of public hospitals like the Friarage.

Apparently, the plans for a £4 million extension to the Harewood Medical Practice (Northern Echo 2/11/15) was drawn up without other medical practitioners being aware of it. The Hambleton, Richmondshire & Whitby Clinical Commissioning Group (HRWCCG) is a privatised Tory invention to facilitate this widespread privatisation of the NHS. The expensive process of fragmenting the NHS into privatised bits has directly contributed to the funding crisis in the NHS, along with successive Governments' reluctance to train sufficient UK doctors and nurses to work in the NHS, preferring instead to recruit medical staff overseas and through expensive private agencies.

I urge supporters of the NHS to book themselves onto the next HRWCCG patients forum (held in a Tory supporter's offices in Leyburn) on 25th November by ringing 01609 767600 and telling these running dogs of capitalism what they can do with their privatisation of the NHS.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Come the Revolution?

It is a while since I wrote on this blog. After the disappointing election result, where just 24% of the electorate, (or less than one in five of the population if you take account of those not allowed to vote), managed to vote in yet another Government of the minority under our patently undemocratic winner takes all voting system. Even in the Richmond constituency, where a parachuted in public school Tory was elected with a large majority of those who voted; the Tory still only has the support of just a third of the population.
But the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, Tuesday 6th October 2015, really, really got my goat.
Reporting from the Tory party conference in Manchester, the BBC once again demonstrated its biased reporting. Time after time, the claims by the Tories to have created a strong economy went unchallenged. Not once, despite having the opportunity many times, notably whilst interviewing the nutty Minority Minister, David Cameroon, did any BBC reporter point out that since coming to power in 2010, the Tories have doubled the public sector debt (from c.£750 billion to £1.5 trillion and still rising): an increase greater than every Labour Government combined.
The balance of payments deficit (the difference between what the UK imports and what we export) was close to £100bn in 2014. That deficit was funded by the ever rising non-government debt: in other words we are all getting deeper in debt. That means that more and more of the UK's capital assets are having to be sold off to pay for that debt. Almost every major non-financial business in the UK is in foreign ownership. Many of these companies are dodging tax, because the Tories have still failed to implement meaningful anti-tax avoidance measurements.
The Tory chancellor, George Osborne was in China recently, kow-towing to the Communist dictatorship that runs that country, in order to get a few scraps from its table. Offering shameless bribes, such as offering more money to China for grass roots football, than the Tory Government spends on sport in North East England.
China produces more than 800 million tonnes of steel a year, over 50% of the world's production, on the back of massive Chinese Government support and low wages. In the UK, in one of the few remaining UK (but foreign owned) steel plants on Teesside; steel workers are being made redundant and receiving little support from the Tory Government.
The message is very clear, but completely over looked by the BBC. The Tories are rubbish at managing our economy and austerity just does not work. Pre-austerity post war Britain had higher levels of economic growth, which were more evenly distributed than today. Since Thatcher broke the post war consensus the UK has had lower growth than previously, as well as the three great post war economic crises: in the early 1980s, the early 1990s (Cameron was culpable in causing Black Monday) and the banking crisis after 2008.
What sense is there in reducing the top tax rate for millionaires down to 45% when you have massive public debt, when even under Thatcher it was 60%? Why hasn't this Government implemented sweeping changes to tax avoidance legislation to stop companies exporting their profits to tax havens? Why are the poor being penalised by reducing benefits and tax credits, whilst the rich get lower taxes? Why is this Government forcing Housing Associations to sell the dwindling stock of social housing, whilst paying massive subsidies to private landlords in the form of housing benefit?
These are the questions the BBC are not asking. The BBC and all the media should be challenging the Public school boys in charge, but instead they are run by them. Which is why the BBC virtually ignored the massive peaceful demonstrations against austerity outside the steel walls erected by the establishment around the ivory tower that is the Tory conference.
The BBC is part of the grand alliance of unaccountable power that rules this country and time is running out if we are to avoid a revolution being the only way to end this injustice.

Sunday 26 April 2015

BBC Continues Bias

BBC Look North from Newcastle continue to have debates from different constituencies that exclude Green Party candidates. In response to a complaint from me the BBC wrote:

We are filming "hot seats" for Look North in four of the region’s marginal constituencies and took the decision - based upon the BBC guidelines - to include UKIP candidates but not to include the Greens. This was based upon current levels of polling and past performance in recent elections. For example, UKIP won a North East seat in last year's European elections as well as coming second to Labour in both the Middlesbrough and South Shields by-elections."

On this basis, why do they include the Liberal Democrats? The Green Party got more votes and more seats than the Liberal Democrats in last year's European Elections, upon which they partially base their decision? The Green Party has more members than either the Liberal Democrats or UKIP and are standing in 90% of the seats in England & Wales.

In addition, their polling, for which no evidence was given and upon which they partially base their decision, will be affected by THEIR OWN DECISION NOT TO BROADCAST DETAILS OF GREEN CANDIDATES AND TO EXCLUDE GREEN CANDIDATES FROM BBC DEBATES!

What right do the BBC, a body paid for by you and me, have to decide who should be represented on their debates and who should be excluded? What price democracy, if the BBC can decide who is to be heard and who is not? In my constituency (Richmond (Yorks), there are two independents with strong followings, but under the BBC criteria they will never be heard. What right has a publicly owned broadcaster have to decide that?

The BBC should and will be challenged for their bias. This political bias is undermining democracy in this country and runs contrary to the BBC charter. Write to the BBC and complain! http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/

Tuesday 31 March 2015

Virgin on the Ridiculous!

I recently attended a patients' forum put on by the Richmondshire, Hambleton and Whitby Clinical Commissioning Group (RHWCCG), the very name of which indicates just how cumbersome this Tory monster has become.

The main aim of the forum appeared to be to get patients to volunteer to do the jobs previously done by paid NHS staff.

One of the CCGs other admissions was that the NHS budget was going to have to stretch to cover social care as well, something not publicised by the Con Dems when they foisted this unlooked for change in the NHS upon us. A NHS re-organisation was expressly excluded from the manifestos of both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, so watch out for further nasty volte-faces if, (God forbid) we get another right wing coalition after the election. For me, this betrayal of Lib Dem promises on the NHS was probably worse than their notorious lie about abolishing tuition fees.

RHWCCG also announced that they had awarded Virgin Care a multi-million pound contract to supply Whitby Out of Hours and Community Care. This was after an 18 month procurement process that did not include any NHS run bid, but did cost hundreds of thousands of pounds (including costly legal advice). As part of their justification, the RHWCCG spokesperson said that Virgin had told the CCG that they would not make a profit in the first two years. Not surprising as Virgin Care appear to be avoiding tax by taking their profits offshore!

You may have read about this in the recent story in the Guardian newspaper (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/21/ow-lucrative--deals-go-to-firms-that-use-tax-havens), which detailed the tax arrangements of Virgin Care.

According to this article and a recent report from Unite the Union, Virgin care has a complicated structure of 13 intermediate holding companies between Virgin Care Limited and its ultimate parent company, Virgin Group Holdings Limited.

The company’s main offshore links are with the British Virgin Islands where its ultimate parent company is based. The way in which Virgin is structured, with multiple holding companies in locations that provide a high level of secrecy, means that it is very hard to get a clear view of the group’s finances.

These structures are wholly inappropriate for a company in receipt of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of public sector contracts in the National Health Service. Virgin Care Limited should urgently reform its corporate structures and tax arrangements or negotiate the speedy return of its NHS contract back to the RHWCCG.

RHWCCG should itself revisit any contracts with private companies indulging in tax avoidance measures. It should also look more closely at Virgin Care's chequered history.

In 2012 a NHS watchdog accused a Virgin Care urgent care centre of putting patients' health at risk by using receptionists with minimal medical training to assess how unwell arrivals were. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/04/nhs-watchdog-virgin-care-croydon-hospital The Care Quality Commission (CQC) report criticised the operation of the urgent care centre at Croydon hospital in south London, which was run by Virgin Care.

If you agree that NHS contracts should not go to tax dodgers, then please sign a petition to tell Virgin Care to pay their taxes and protest against the continuing privatisation of the NHS! http://action.peoplesnhs.org/page/speakout/virgin-pay-your-tax?js=false

Friday 20 March 2015

Tax on School Children

Leslie Rowe, the Green Party Parliamentary candidate for Richmond, attended the Richmondshire Area Committee today (Wednesday 18 March 2015), to protest at the proposal to increase a tax on kids. "This tax takes the form of charges for travel to school or college, which had been proposed to increase from £480 to £550 a year. Also proposed is a charge of £380 for primary-school children aged 8 to 11. Compare this with the situation in Tory grandee Boris Johnson's London, where children can travel free on public transport." A North Yorkshire County Council report to the meeting pointed out that the September 2014 increase to £480 had led to a "much-reduced" take-up of post-16 transport. Green candidate Leslie Rowe pointed out the environmental impact of the thousands more car journeys now being taken by parents unwilling to pay those exorbitant charges. "This has increased the County's carbon footprint at a time when we are obliged by international agreements to reduce it." "Teaching problems at various schools, including Richmond, have also led to an increase in after-school revision and extra-curricular activities, so pupils miss the scheduled bus home," commented Mr Rowe. "If forced to pay, pupils should have the option of paying only for the journeys they actually take, especially where buses are running with empty spaces, because of the already reduced take up." During his statement to the committee Leslie Rowe acknowledged the leadership of Councillor John Blackie on this issue. "Although John Blackie and I are opponents in the parliamentary election I acknowledge that he has led the fight against school-bus charges in the County Council in recent months and we are as one in our opposition to this discrimination against local children. The council should fulfil its statutory duty to undertake an Equality Impact Assessment as soon as possible." "Although the proposal to increase the post-16 charge to £550 has been shelved until after the general election you can be sure it will be reintroduced once the election is over. This tax on children's education has been forced on North Yorkshire by the Tory and Lib Dem coalition austerity measures. As the Conservatives regard the Richmond constituency as a safe Tory seat they think they can impose this tax on kids with impunity. They would not dare to introduce such charges in more marginal urban areas such as London. This is discrimination against rural communities and they should not be allowed to get away with it." Promoted by Leslie Rowe on behalf of Richmond Constituency Green Party, c/o 73 Richmond Road, Brompton on Swale, Richmond, DL10 7HF