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The Climate Emergency

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This is THE climate emergency election, and it goes without saying that the Green Party are at the forefront of the fight against climate collapse for decades.

We were warning about the imminent dangers of carbonisation when the other main parties were busy bailing out the bankers.

It was a Green Party councillor who introduced one of the world’s first climate change emergency motions and the first in the UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Denyer

It was Caroline Lucas who first proposed the Green New Deal in 2008 only to be ignored by pretty much every other political party until now https://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/caroline-hails-green-new-deal-budget-as-way-out-of-economic-problems

Our policies and proposals on care for the environment and the de-carbonisation of our economy goes far further than those of any other party. We have very ambitious plans and yes they will require a huge investment, both in terms of finance and resources.

But the existential threat to all of us from climate collapse demands urgent and ambitious action. We have 10 years to deal with these issues before we could be at a tipping point. If that happens, whatever we do won’t be enough https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-scientists-fear

We have to push forward boldly now to make up for all those years when we did nothing. Where we simply paid lip service to green issues and ticked the environmentalism box without really meaning it.

It’s about more than encouraging solar panels and electric cars. We’re calling for a radical and fundamental re-alignment of our economy and society so that everything we do from now has climate action at its heart.

I believe this is the only way we can ensure that future generations actually have a future.

If you want to protect that future for yourself, your children and their children, a vote for the Greens will send a strong message to government that we are serious about these issues.

Even if you don’t think the Greens can win, a large swing to the Green Party will make the other parties sit up and take notice, like they have already done on so many other issues the Green party have campaigned on for decades.

A Green vote can really make a difference, and we need to start seeing that difference in everything we do.

If not now, when?

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Here We Are Again!

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Under the statue

It’s a Thursday so it must be election day!  It seems like elections are almost a weekly occurrence now.  Brenda of Bristol must furious!

Joking aside, I must admit I was surprised to find myself thrown into another election so soon after winning 3 local council seats in May.

But it seems that our strong and stable government can’t manage to hang on for any longer than a coupe of years at most these days, even with the so-called fixed- term Parliament Act!

This just goes to show how desperately we need electoral reform in this country, a system by which more than one party can contribute to the process of government and more than one set of opinions can be taken into account.

It seems that, far from our first past the post system giving us a government of unity and decisiveness, when it comes to the most monumental political upheaval in a generation, we simply can’t agree on anything!

In those circumstances we have to go back to the country and hope that the numbers stack up differently afterwards.  Somehow I suspect they won’t.  While we cling to our broken 2 party state, we will just see-saw backwards and forwards between opposing positions.

On the key issue of Brexit, Labour are still offering a confused position, saying they would re-negotiate the deal with the EU and then put it to the people.  That’s a great in principle, but in practice it means Labour will presumably be rooting for their new deal in any subsequent vote.  That, by any sensible definition, makes them a party of leave.

The Libdems simply want to ignore the 2016 vote and treat Brexit like it never happened.  Whilst that’s an attractive prospect for those of us who would rather remain, it’s not a way to resolve the political schism in our country at the moment.

The 2016 result was hardly decisive as it showed a split right down the middle of the argument.  We could probably have run the vote again the following day and got a different result!

The only way to properly heal this country is with a second referendum as soon as possible after the election.  No more deals being negotiated, no more simply pushing the Brexit button out of expediency (as the Tories would have us do), but a properly informed, final say on the direction this country will take and what is in the best interests of everyone.

Personally, if that second vote still comes out as leave I’m done on the subject of Brexit.  I’m quite happy to let the chips fall where they may and shift my focus to trying to prepare the country for what I think will be the most damaging decade in history since the last war.

But to those who say we shouldn’t have a second vote, I’d point to the fact that we’re now having our third national vote since 2015!  If ‘the will of the people’ really was the main driving force in our democracy, we’d keep the government we voted for in 2015, regardless of the wishes of the government at the time.  But we haven’t.

So if we can have 3 general elections in 4 years, why not a confirmatory vote on something that was decided by a small minority three and a half years ago, when we didn’t know what we know now? Something that could impact on all our futures and those of generations to come.  Why is that to be decided on just one vote?

I really don’t know why anyone should object to the idea of a People’s Vote.  If the will of the people hasn’t changed, the result will be the same. The only reason I can see that the Brexit contingent would object to another vote, is that they think they will lose it.

In which case they know in their heart of hearts that the mood of the country has changed.  They know that the vote in 2016 was probably a fluke, and they’re terrified of the genuine will of the people being followed now.  they simply want to railroad us all into the abyss before anyone realised what’s happening.  That’s no way to run a country!

So let’s get on with this election and I hope vote in some more Green MPs who can influence Westminster enough to resolve the national insanity we seem to have thrown ourselves into over Brexit.

We don’t need to get Brexit done.  We need to do away with it once and for all!

 

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Thank You From Your New Councillor

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ian middleton winning picture

Well this is a post I never expected to be able to make!

As most of you will know I won the election for Kidlington East yesterday and am now a brand new district councillor, as well as a councillor on Kidlington and Yarnton Parish councils.

The district election was a close run thing, with a majority of only 73, which required a re-count to confirm (not that anyone actually asked for a re-count but that’s another story!).

I now join hundreds of new Green councillors across the country in what can only be described as a tsunami of Green votes that have given us our greatest gains in recent memory (possibly ever!).

It’s fantastic to be a part of such a historic event and I look forward to doing all those things I promised I would do during the election. Holding the council to account on local services, defending our green spaces and making sure Kidlington gets a fair hearing at council meetings.

I will also be focussing on climate change, as you’d expect from a Green councillor.

My thanks go to everyone who voted for me and believed in me, as well as my dedicated team of helpers and supporters, many of whom went the extra mile for me in the final days, working tirelessly in the run up to what was a very close election.

It’s been a very hard 10 weeks of campaigning and I’m only just coming to terms with actually winning after 7 years of being a runner-up.

Everything we did during the campaign counted towards that result. Just missing out one step or one person not being there could have cost us the win.

My thanks also go out to my partners on the Libdem side without whom none of this would have been possible. Special thanks to Neil Fawcett, Alaric Rose, Doug Williamson, Conor McKenzie, Katherine T. Tyson, and of course my superb MP Layla Moran. Congratulations also go to Conrad and Katherine who both also won their seats in Kidlington West and on Kidlington Parish Council. I’m very happy not to be the only newbie on both counts!

My congratulations also go out to all those other Oxfordshire Greens who won yesterday, especially Robert Nixon in Bicester, Cheryl Briggs in Abingdon, Robin Bennett in Berinsfield and Sue Roberts in Wallingford.

It’s all been a massive team effort and I feel very honoured to have been given so much help to get to this place. I hope I can justify your faith in me.

I’ll be sending out personal thanks to everyone in the coming days, but for now I hope you’ll enjoy basking in the glow of what has been a great few days for the Greens and will hopefully go on to be a sign of things to come!