I have decided to stand as an independent candidate for the district council elections. For many years Catterick & Brompton on Swale were represented by independent councillors. Then the Conservative election machine took over and Tory councillors were elected. Since then this area has seen a marked decline in services. Children's playgrounds and bus shelters left to rot are a clear visible sign, but the Conservatives have overseen a decline in health and social services, public trainsport, social housing and increased homelessness. The operation of a food bank in an affluent area like Richmondshire is a clear sign of the damage caused by Conservative Government at all levels, nationally and locally.
The betrayal by a Conservative Prime Minister of the Brexit referendum result in 2016 sums it up. YOU CAN NEVER TRUST A TORY!
I will continue to fight for democracy, to fight for our right to make our own decision, particularly on economic policy. The right for a local council to source its supplies locally, to support local people in terms of improving social housing, improving local services, improving the poor recycling rate of Richmondshire district Council and reducing the use of plastics (including the plastic cups used at Council offices!), supporting local businesses and fighting to get local schools out of the clutches of avaricious academy chains and back under local control.
It is time to change. For a new type of politics based on representation of the people, not representation of vested interests and the establishment.
Break the chains! Vote Leslie Rowe on May 2nd!
If you want to contact me, write to the address below or send an email to lesliearowe@yahoo.co.uk
Published & Promoted by Leslie Rowe, West End, Richmond Road, Brompton on Swale, Richmond DL10 7HF
Friday 5 April 2019
Monday 25 March 2019
My Resignation letter to Green Party
Dear Green Party,
It is with great sadness that I tender my resignation from the Green Party. This is not because I have changed my mind on the need for a strong ecologically based political party in UK politics, quite the opposite. It is because the current leadership of the Green Party has taken the Party away from its guiding principles of democracy and fighting for a sustainable society and embraced the undemocratic autocracy and neo-liberal economics of the EU.
For several decades the policy of the Green Party on Europe has been
"to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity. We want to foster co-operation on issues of common interest, not establish international institutions for their own sake." (Policy EU100) and
"EU101 We recognise the value of the original goal of the founders of the European Communities, who sought to remove the threat of another war between European states. This has been distorted by vested political and economic interests into a union dominated by economic interests, which lacks democratic control, and promotes the goals of multinational corporations which are interested in profit not people, and which runs counter to the professed core values of the Union."
However, now the leadership is actively campaigning to overturn the democratic will of the British people that it promised to uphold. Prior to the referendum, in our 2015 manifesto, the Green Party promised the British people to respect the outcome of an in-out EU referendum. The Green Party said:
"The biggest lesson of the Scottish referendum was that when people are given the responsibility for making big decisions, they grab it with both hands." (Section 11)
"We support the proposal to have an in-out referendum so that the British people can have their say. This is because much has changed since the UK joined the Common Market in 1974. Endless debate on membership is a diversion from more important matters, such as ending inequality and adapting our economy to one-planet living."
The Green Party is now encouraging that endless debate in a concerted attempt, (funded by the same big business interested only in profit not people that the Green Party previously condemned), to overturn democracy and frustrate the British people from their choice to leave the European Union. This endless debate is frustrating the fight against global extinction by diverting the attention of the media away from the climate change crisis towards a campaign to reverse the decision on leaving the EU that the Green Party had previously promised to honour. (This was clearly demonstrated this weekend when climate change demonstrations in Newcastle and elsewhere were over shadowed by the rally to overturn the referendum result in London.)
Indeed, the leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales knows that the long term EU neo-liberal economic policies, which recently forced Greece into 42 years of austerity, make effective action on climate change, like promoting de-growth, impossible in the time the UN says we have left to attempt to reverse climate change. And yet they continue to sacrifice our planet so that they can continue to get their thirty pieces of silver from the EU.
This is cynical, self-centred hypocrisy and I can no longer be a party to it. Therefore, I resign my membership of the Green Party.
Yours Faithfully,
Leslie A Rowe
Richmond Green Party Parliamentary candidate 2005, 2010 & 2015
It is with great sadness that I tender my resignation from the Green Party. This is not because I have changed my mind on the need for a strong ecologically based political party in UK politics, quite the opposite. It is because the current leadership of the Green Party has taken the Party away from its guiding principles of democracy and fighting for a sustainable society and embraced the undemocratic autocracy and neo-liberal economics of the EU.
For several decades the policy of the Green Party on Europe has been
"to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity. We want to foster co-operation on issues of common interest, not establish international institutions for their own sake." (Policy EU100) and
"EU101 We recognise the value of the original goal of the founders of the European Communities, who sought to remove the threat of another war between European states. This has been distorted by vested political and economic interests into a union dominated by economic interests, which lacks democratic control, and promotes the goals of multinational corporations which are interested in profit not people, and which runs counter to the professed core values of the Union."
However, now the leadership is actively campaigning to overturn the democratic will of the British people that it promised to uphold. Prior to the referendum, in our 2015 manifesto, the Green Party promised the British people to respect the outcome of an in-out EU referendum. The Green Party said:
"The biggest lesson of the Scottish referendum was that when people are given the responsibility for making big decisions, they grab it with both hands." (Section 11)
"We support the proposal to have an in-out referendum so that the British people can have their say. This is because much has changed since the UK joined the Common Market in 1974. Endless debate on membership is a diversion from more important matters, such as ending inequality and adapting our economy to one-planet living."
The Green Party is now encouraging that endless debate in a concerted attempt, (funded by the same big business interested only in profit not people that the Green Party previously condemned), to overturn democracy and frustrate the British people from their choice to leave the European Union. This endless debate is frustrating the fight against global extinction by diverting the attention of the media away from the climate change crisis towards a campaign to reverse the decision on leaving the EU that the Green Party had previously promised to honour. (This was clearly demonstrated this weekend when climate change demonstrations in Newcastle and elsewhere were over shadowed by the rally to overturn the referendum result in London.)
Indeed, the leadership of the Green Party of England and Wales knows that the long term EU neo-liberal economic policies, which recently forced Greece into 42 years of austerity, make effective action on climate change, like promoting de-growth, impossible in the time the UN says we have left to attempt to reverse climate change. And yet they continue to sacrifice our planet so that they can continue to get their thirty pieces of silver from the EU.
This is cynical, self-centred hypocrisy and I can no longer be a party to it. Therefore, I resign my membership of the Green Party.
Yours Faithfully,
Leslie A Rowe
Richmond Green Party Parliamentary candidate 2005, 2010 & 2015
Tuesday 26 February 2019
Leave Means Leave to sue for Euro elections if Art 50 extended
Leave Means Leave to sue for Euro elections if Art 50 extended
Leave Means Leave, the cross party campaign group for a true Brexit, is to mount legal action against the UK Government to ensure that European Elections will be held in the UK on May 23rd 2019 if Article 50 to leave the EU is extended. The organisation has appointed City law firm Wedlake Bell as well as Counsel from Field Court Chambers to prepare this claim.
The Prime Minister confirmed in Parliament in January 2019 that in the event of an extension, such European Elections would most likely be held. Leave Means Leave has written confirmation from the Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission that it is preparing and will be ready for these polls on 23rd May. However, concern is mounting amongst many Leave supporters that senior politicians are looking for ways to avoid holding such elections, for fear of the result.
There have been suggestions that a limited extension to Article 50, ending before the new EU European Parliament sits in early July, would negate the need for the UK to participate in EU elections. Leave Means Leave does not accept this argument. Such timing is clearly a tactic to avoid UK participation and cannot be trusted. Moreover there is nothing to suggest that a very short extension would change anything, especially since there will be no EU decision making capability while the Commission is in transition pending the May 23 polls. There is every likelihood of a further delay, leaving the UK a member of the EU without representation. This is unacceptable.
Leave Means Leave’s legal action is designed to ensure that if the UK is still a member of the EU on the 23rd May, European elections must be held on that day.
John Longworth, Chairman of Leave Means Leave, said: “Recent events show that politicians can no longer be trusted to stick to their word on Brexit. European elections must be held in the UK if we have not left on 23rd May."
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
John Longworth - Chairman, Leave Means Leave - 07775 876986
Richard Tice - Vice Chairman, Leave Means Leave - 07785 900300
Sunday 25 November 2018
Not just the UK the Brexit Betrayal of Europe
It is now clear that Theresa May and the metropolitan elite have betrayed the British people in a grand conspiracy undreamt of in modern times.
The Brexit deal that she and her allies have signed up to could not have been worse, if the EU bureaucracy itself had sat down and written it for her. The likelihood is that that is exactly what they have been doing.
The plan seems to have worked beautifully. For over two years, the people of the United Kingdom have been strung along, been made to believe that May was negotiating a Brexit trade deal. But at the end of it there is no trade deal, just a Gordian knot designed, if accepted, to give the UK no legal route out of a permanent vassalage, unless the EU agree to free us from it, which of course they will never do.
At the same time her allies in all political parties, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Scottish Nationalists and Greens have all been carefully manipulated and orchestrated in a well paid for campaign (paid for by people who got very rich in the EU controlled market) to seek a second referendum to reverse the popular vote.
The future ploy of this minority Prime Minister is now clear. Unless the House of Commons has lost its wits entirely, they will reject this ridiculous deal. The conspirators will then say, as May has now said, the alternative to this bad deal in not, as was promised, no deal, but no Brexit. The Government will bow to the orchestrated campaign for a second referendum. Huge resources will then pour in to persuade the British people that they were wrong to choose independence and that they must, to save their very lives, vote to stay in the EU.
At the same time as this has been going on, supporters of Brexit, both big and small, have been and continue to be bombarded by legal challenges. The fact that more than twice as much money, money from the Government and shady foreign-backed characters was spent on the Remain campaign is ignored. The money spent by the EU itself, by the IMF, by numerous overseas interests, including the then President of the USA, has been and will be ignored in the grand push for the UK to remain under the yoke of Brussels.
Every critical referendum in EU history has been reversed, either by a second referendum or Government capitulation. Ireland, Greece, Netherlands, Denmark France, the EU has always managed to coerce and cajole a reversal of the anti-EU vote.
They knew, however, that the UK would be harder, the 2016 referendum having been the biggest popular vote in the UK's history. But the EU is used to playing a long game. Just look at Greece, locked into ant-austerity measures by the neo-liberal dictatorship of the EU for the next 42 years. Or Italy, where Governments have been rejected and brought down by the EU.
I myself would not have dreamt of such a conspiracy until I read Yanis Varoufakis' book "Adults in the Room" which showed the lengths that the EU deep establishment would go to bend the will of a sovereign nation towards its own agenda. As Varoufakis said in that book, it is the death of democracy in the EU.
No sovereign nation in Europe is now free to choose its own path. There are sufficient traitors, used to living off the EU's shilling, who are willing to continue to conspire to keep the tyranny of the unelected elite who control and run the EU forever in control. The fourth Reich is here, a reality that, unless a decisive revolt happens now, this time WILL govern the enslaved peoples of Europe for a thousand years.
The Brexit deal that she and her allies have signed up to could not have been worse, if the EU bureaucracy itself had sat down and written it for her. The likelihood is that that is exactly what they have been doing.
The plan seems to have worked beautifully. For over two years, the people of the United Kingdom have been strung along, been made to believe that May was negotiating a Brexit trade deal. But at the end of it there is no trade deal, just a Gordian knot designed, if accepted, to give the UK no legal route out of a permanent vassalage, unless the EU agree to free us from it, which of course they will never do.
At the same time her allies in all political parties, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Scottish Nationalists and Greens have all been carefully manipulated and orchestrated in a well paid for campaign (paid for by people who got very rich in the EU controlled market) to seek a second referendum to reverse the popular vote.
The future ploy of this minority Prime Minister is now clear. Unless the House of Commons has lost its wits entirely, they will reject this ridiculous deal. The conspirators will then say, as May has now said, the alternative to this bad deal in not, as was promised, no deal, but no Brexit. The Government will bow to the orchestrated campaign for a second referendum. Huge resources will then pour in to persuade the British people that they were wrong to choose independence and that they must, to save their very lives, vote to stay in the EU.
At the same time as this has been going on, supporters of Brexit, both big and small, have been and continue to be bombarded by legal challenges. The fact that more than twice as much money, money from the Government and shady foreign-backed characters was spent on the Remain campaign is ignored. The money spent by the EU itself, by the IMF, by numerous overseas interests, including the then President of the USA, has been and will be ignored in the grand push for the UK to remain under the yoke of Brussels.
Every critical referendum in EU history has been reversed, either by a second referendum or Government capitulation. Ireland, Greece, Netherlands, Denmark France, the EU has always managed to coerce and cajole a reversal of the anti-EU vote.
They knew, however, that the UK would be harder, the 2016 referendum having been the biggest popular vote in the UK's history. But the EU is used to playing a long game. Just look at Greece, locked into ant-austerity measures by the neo-liberal dictatorship of the EU for the next 42 years. Or Italy, where Governments have been rejected and brought down by the EU.
I myself would not have dreamt of such a conspiracy until I read Yanis Varoufakis' book "Adults in the Room" which showed the lengths that the EU deep establishment would go to bend the will of a sovereign nation towards its own agenda. As Varoufakis said in that book, it is the death of democracy in the EU.
No sovereign nation in Europe is now free to choose its own path. There are sufficient traitors, used to living off the EU's shilling, who are willing to continue to conspire to keep the tyranny of the unelected elite who control and run the EU forever in control. The fourth Reich is here, a reality that, unless a decisive revolt happens now, this time WILL govern the enslaved peoples of Europe for a thousand years.
Monday 13 August 2018
How the Retail Sector can be better off after the UK leaves the EU
Once again we are seeing a large retail chain under threat. For the time being, with the takeover of House of Fraser, that threat has been averted, but for how long?. Over the last decade, retail chain after retail chain has fallen victim to overseas multinationals selling online from tax havens. How can we protect our retail heritage and at the same time ensure that the multinationals are paying tax on everything they sell in the UK?
The answer is a Lexit Brexit. After we leave the EU, the UK will be no longer fenced in by the EU trading laws that favour the tax avoiding multi-nationals. After a Lexit Brexit, a Green Party in Government will be able to ensure that all trading in the UK is done through a UK institution and ensure all profits are taxed when they are distributed either to an individual or to another corporate entity (see tax voting paper being put to the 2018 Green Party autumn conference in Bristol).
Photo: visitlondon.com
Such radical reforms of the taxation system are impossible in the straitjacket imposed by the unelected officials in Brussels who control the EU fiscal policy. Outside of the EU, we can, if we have the right Government, protect British industry, agriculture and commerce and begin to, at last, reduce the massive and unsustainable balance of trade deficit we have with the rest of the world. Rather than being a threat to the retail sector, Brexit could be its saviour.
The answer is a Lexit Brexit. After we leave the EU, the UK will be no longer fenced in by the EU trading laws that favour the tax avoiding multi-nationals. After a Lexit Brexit, a Green Party in Government will be able to ensure that all trading in the UK is done through a UK institution and ensure all profits are taxed when they are distributed either to an individual or to another corporate entity (see tax voting paper being put to the 2018 Green Party autumn conference in Bristol).
Such radical reforms of the taxation system are impossible in the straitjacket imposed by the unelected officials in Brussels who control the EU fiscal policy. Outside of the EU, we can, if we have the right Government, protect British industry, agriculture and commerce and begin to, at last, reduce the massive and unsustainable balance of trade deficit we have with the rest of the world. Rather than being a threat to the retail sector, Brexit could be its saviour.
Thursday 2 August 2018
The UK exit from the EU: a catalyst to re-unite Ireland after 200 years?
At the EU referendum in 2016, I predicted that the UK leaving the EU made the possibility of a referendum on a united Ireland much more likely, thereby eliminating any border problem. (See 2016 blog below).
If polls suggest that if there is a majority in Northern Ireland in favour of reuniting Ireland, the UK government, under the Good Friday agreement, is legally bound to offer a referendum on reunification.
And polls do show that. According to "The Week", polling of Northern Ireland residents by LucidTalk in December 2017 found that - in the event of no deal between the UK and the EU, support for remaining in the EU through reunification with the Republic was marginally greater (48%) than support for staying in the UK (45%).
(http://www.theweek.co.uk/northern-ireland/89293/will-ireland-unite-after-brexit )
Driving support for reunification is thought to be the fear of a hard border between the north and south. The UK government and leaders in Dublin and Belfast have all repeatedly said border posts and physical checks, synonymous with the chaos and conflict of the Troubles, will not return.
However, Ireland and the EU remain adamant that they want to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union, a plan that has been roundly rejected by both parties in the Tory / DUP alliance. Both Ireland and the EU have also rejected the use of technology to police trade between the north and south. However, a frictionless border is incompatible with Theresa May’s promise to leave the EU customs union.
As part of the alliance deal with the Tories, the DUP received assurances that there would be no referendum or border poll on Irish unity. As we have seen, this appears to contravene the Good Friday agreement, so probably could be successfully challenged in court.
Following the collapse of power-sharing talks, and the effective re-imposition of direct rule by Westminster, Reuters said that Irish nationalists “fear that that their unionist rivals may effectively govern the province through their influence of May”.
In a Guardian article, Powell, who was the chief British negotiator during the Good Friday Agreement talks called the Tory-DUP alliance a “a terrible mistake with lasting consequences” that “would risk undermining 20 years of hard work”.
Northern Ireland voted Remain by 56% to 44%, so is at odds with the English and Welsh who voted strongly for Leave. But a U.K.-wide referendum cannot automatically over-ride the terms of the Ireland-wide referendums on the Good Friday agreement of 1998, and a majority within Northern Ireland for remaining in the EU.
The obvious solution to this impasse would be to call for a border poll to give people the option of remaining within the EU through Irish reunification—especially if there is no alternative that respects the clear local majority preference to remain within the EU. The very same compromise may also weaken the pressure from the Spanish government for the U.K. to cede sovereignty over Gibraltar. Gibraltar also voted to remain in the EU.
This might just then be the catalyst that would solve the Irish problem; 200 years after Ireland joining the UK caused it.
If polls suggest that if there is a majority in Northern Ireland in favour of reuniting Ireland, the UK government, under the Good Friday agreement, is legally bound to offer a referendum on reunification.
And polls do show that. According to "The Week", polling of Northern Ireland residents by LucidTalk in December 2017 found that - in the event of no deal between the UK and the EU, support for remaining in the EU through reunification with the Republic was marginally greater (48%) than support for staying in the UK (45%).
(http://www.theweek.co.uk/northern-ireland/89293/will-ireland-unite-after-brexit )
Driving support for reunification is thought to be the fear of a hard border between the north and south. The UK government and leaders in Dublin and Belfast have all repeatedly said border posts and physical checks, synonymous with the chaos and conflict of the Troubles, will not return.
However, Ireland and the EU remain adamant that they want to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union, a plan that has been roundly rejected by both parties in the Tory / DUP alliance. Both Ireland and the EU have also rejected the use of technology to police trade between the north and south. However, a frictionless border is incompatible with Theresa May’s promise to leave the EU customs union.
As part of the alliance deal with the Tories, the DUP received assurances that there would be no referendum or border poll on Irish unity. As we have seen, this appears to contravene the Good Friday agreement, so probably could be successfully challenged in court.
Following the collapse of power-sharing talks, and the effective re-imposition of direct rule by Westminster, Reuters said that Irish nationalists “fear that that their unionist rivals may effectively govern the province through their influence of May”.
In a Guardian article, Powell, who was the chief British negotiator during the Good Friday Agreement talks called the Tory-DUP alliance a “a terrible mistake with lasting consequences” that “would risk undermining 20 years of hard work”.
Northern Ireland voted Remain by 56% to 44%, so is at odds with the English and Welsh who voted strongly for Leave. But a U.K.-wide referendum cannot automatically over-ride the terms of the Ireland-wide referendums on the Good Friday agreement of 1998, and a majority within Northern Ireland for remaining in the EU.
The obvious solution to this impasse would be to call for a border poll to give people the option of remaining within the EU through Irish reunification—especially if there is no alternative that respects the clear local majority preference to remain within the EU. The very same compromise may also weaken the pressure from the Spanish government for the U.K. to cede sovereignty over Gibraltar. Gibraltar also voted to remain in the EU.
This might just then be the catalyst that would solve the Irish problem; 200 years after Ireland joining the UK caused it.
Monday 16 July 2018
Revisited: Why you should vote to look Forward and not Back. Why you should vote for Leslie Rowe as leader of GPEW
This blog is linked to the Green Party website to give members an insight into the alternative paradigm for the Green Party being championed by Leslie Rowe in his bid to be leader of the Green Party in England and Wales. Here is the statement accompanying his application repeated and updated, so that it appears first on his blog. No other candidate is putting forward such a radical ecosocialist agenda.
Have you looked out of the window lately? You know as well as I do that climate change is not a campaign for the future, its effects are being felt here and now.
That is why I am standing for leader of the Green Party. I want the Green Party to focus on climate change, on localism, democracy and economic de-growth and not on the EU. Prior to the 2016 EU referendum we, in our 2015 General Election manifesto, faithfully promised to accept the result. We should do that now and move on.
Our basic message has long been of replacing a pro-growth consumer society with a society wedded to conserving our environment. We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the 2°C rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy for a limited period.
"Having even a 50/50 chance of keeping the planet under a 2-degree level of warming is incompatible with economic growth," author Naomi Klein said at the 2014 Leipzig De-growth conference.
We should return to our roots and actively campaign for a UK de-growth economic policy, a beacon for the rest of the world to follow.
In the Green Party policy statement, EU100 we state "In our Green vision for Europe we seek to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity."
This is totally at odds with the declared aim of the EU for continuing Economic Growth. In his opening statement laying out his vision for the single market, the President of the European commission, Jean Claude Juncker put economic growth as the main goal of the single market.
There is no evidence that this policy will change in the foreseeable future.
In fact, economic policy in the EU is controlled by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup. As Yanis Varoufakis said in his book "Adults in the Room" ..."democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty" (page 237). It is the Eurogroup who continue to force privatisation on Greece and other EU states.
So it is time for the Green Party to campaign not for the EU and continued growth, but for a sustainable future based on de-growth and meeting the societal needs of the British people.
We can carve out a unique position by opposing ALL UK free trade agreements (including the EU single market) and focus on reducing the out of control UK trade deficit by supporting sustainable UK manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries. This may lead to disputes within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but it would re-balance the UK economy and give us a unique position in UK politics.
Campaign to embrace localism in our procurement policies for schools, hospitals and other public institutions, making it a virtue of buying local, preferably organic, food and other supplies.
Step up our opposition to the creeping privatisation of the NHS, especially now that the Tories would no longer have the excuse of EU neo-liberal policies on procurement. Campaign to use the extra money for the NHS in tripling the number of training places for doctors and nurses, reintroducing bursaries and abolishing student fees.
Point out that leaving the EU does not mean that we have to leave the European Court of Human Rights, which is a separate and older institution. Indeed we can champion the Court in our opposition to Tory attempts to water down our rights.
Campaign for a progressive UK Government, supporting universal basic income and Positive Money; to reverse the neo-liberal economic policies favoured by all successor governments since Thatcher, both Labour and Tory.
Campaign to re-nationalise the UK railways and utility companies unhindered by EU Directives such as 2012/34/EU establishing mandatory competition in a Single European Railway Area.
Solve the Northern Ireland border issue by actively campaigning for a referendum for a United Ireland.
Renew our campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords and the creation of a new elected senate of the regions.
Actively campaign for more local democracy with proportional representation, a new independence referendum in Scotland and greater autonomy for Wales.
In this way we can renew and invigorate the Green Party by following a more radical agenda. If you agree, please vote for Leslie Rowe as GPEW leader.
Leslie Rowe is a retired accountant who stood for election for the Green Party in Richmond (Yorks) in the general elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015, the European Election of 2009, along with many other local council elections. He has been a Green Party member since 2003 and is a former treasurer of Yorkshire and Humber Greens and Richmond (Yorks) Green Party.
Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales.
Voting is open to all paid up members of the Green Party in England & Wales as at the 29th July 2018.
Have you looked out of the window lately? You know as well as I do that climate change is not a campaign for the future, its effects are being felt here and now.
That is why I am standing for leader of the Green Party. I want the Green Party to focus on climate change, on localism, democracy and economic de-growth and not on the EU. Prior to the 2016 EU referendum we, in our 2015 General Election manifesto, faithfully promised to accept the result. We should do that now and move on.
Our basic message has long been of replacing a pro-growth consumer society with a society wedded to conserving our environment. We have been told many times that if the world wishes to avoid exceeding the 2°C rise in global temperatures that will trigger non-reversible climate change, then the wealthiest countries, including the UK, have to adopt a de-growth strategy for a limited period.
"Having even a 50/50 chance of keeping the planet under a 2-degree level of warming is incompatible with economic growth," author Naomi Klein said at the 2014 Leipzig De-growth conference.
We should return to our roots and actively campaign for a UK de-growth economic policy, a beacon for the rest of the world to follow.
In the Green Party policy statement, EU100 we state "In our Green vision for Europe we seek to replace the unsustainable economics of free trade and unrestricted growth with the ecological alternative of local self reliance and resource conservation, within a context of wider diversity."
This is totally at odds with the declared aim of the EU for continuing Economic Growth. In his opening statement laying out his vision for the single market, the President of the European commission, Jean Claude Juncker put economic growth as the main goal of the single market.
There is no evidence that this policy will change in the foreseeable future.
In fact, economic policy in the EU is controlled by the unelected and secretive Eurogroup. As Yanis Varoufakis said in his book "Adults in the Room" ..."democracy had indeed died the moment the Eurogroup acquired the authority to dictate economic policy to member states without anything resembling federal democratic sovereignty" (page 237). It is the Eurogroup who continue to force privatisation on Greece and other EU states.
So it is time for the Green Party to campaign not for the EU and continued growth, but for a sustainable future based on de-growth and meeting the societal needs of the British people.
We can carve out a unique position by opposing ALL UK free trade agreements (including the EU single market) and focus on reducing the out of control UK trade deficit by supporting sustainable UK manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries. This may lead to disputes within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but it would re-balance the UK economy and give us a unique position in UK politics.
Campaign to embrace localism in our procurement policies for schools, hospitals and other public institutions, making it a virtue of buying local, preferably organic, food and other supplies.
Step up our opposition to the creeping privatisation of the NHS, especially now that the Tories would no longer have the excuse of EU neo-liberal policies on procurement. Campaign to use the extra money for the NHS in tripling the number of training places for doctors and nurses, reintroducing bursaries and abolishing student fees.
Point out that leaving the EU does not mean that we have to leave the European Court of Human Rights, which is a separate and older institution. Indeed we can champion the Court in our opposition to Tory attempts to water down our rights.
Campaign for a progressive UK Government, supporting universal basic income and Positive Money; to reverse the neo-liberal economic policies favoured by all successor governments since Thatcher, both Labour and Tory.
Campaign to re-nationalise the UK railways and utility companies unhindered by EU Directives such as 2012/34/EU establishing mandatory competition in a Single European Railway Area.
Solve the Northern Ireland border issue by actively campaigning for a referendum for a United Ireland.
Renew our campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords and the creation of a new elected senate of the regions.
Actively campaign for more local democracy with proportional representation, a new independence referendum in Scotland and greater autonomy for Wales.
In this way we can renew and invigorate the Green Party by following a more radical agenda. If you agree, please vote for Leslie Rowe as GPEW leader.
Leslie Rowe is a retired accountant who stood for election for the Green Party in Richmond (Yorks) in the general elections of 2005, 2010 and 2015, the European Election of 2009, along with many other local council elections. He has been a Green Party member since 2003 and is a former treasurer of Yorkshire and Humber Greens and Richmond (Yorks) Green Party.
Promoted and Produced by Leslie Rowe as part of their campaign for election to the post of Leader. This is not an official communication from the Green Party of England and Wales.
Voting is open to all paid up members of the Green Party in England & Wales as at the 29th July 2018.
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