 Do you fancy helping with the national party's non-electoral campaigns? We're looking for members to join us on the national Campaigns Committee.
You'd get a chance to work with spokespeople, parliamentary Greens and others to develop low/no-cost campaign ideas and materials that can be taken up and used by members and local parties. Recently we’ve worked on campaigns to uphold the right to protest, to support NHS workers seeking better pay and conditions, to stop sewage pollution and protect the natural world with a Rights of Nature Act, and to build support for Baroness Jenny Jones’ Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill (Ella’s Law). We’ve also supported the Green presence at big events such as XR’s Unite to Survive and the March to Rejoin. Just yesterday we heard we'd been successful in helping the campaign to keep open railway station ticket offices. We meet on average once a fortnight on Zoom. If you’d like to join, we’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to apply or come along to a meeting fill out the contact form or email Campaigns Coordinator Tom Scott
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Greens lead successful opposition to government attempt to worsen the sewage crisis It’s been an exciting couple of weeks in Parliament. Last week, Campaigns Committee was able to support efforts by our Green peers Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett to defeat the government’s attempts to tear up water pollution (nutrient neutrality) rules for property developers.
The government aimed to do this by slipping new clauses into the Levelling Up & Housing Bill at a late stage and without proper parliamentary scrutiny. Labour refused to say that it would oppose this move in the House of Lords. We encouraged Greens to write to Labour MPs and shadow Levelling Up Secretary Angela Rayner to demand that they oppose this move, and Jenny and Natalie put personal pressure on Labour Lords. And, at the very last minute, Labour found a spine and voted with our Green peers to defeat the government!  This Saturday (23 September) many Greens will be at the national March for Rejoin in London, where Green speakers will include the German Green MEP Terry Rientke.
We’ve produced an information sheet to help you link up with fellow Green Party members at this event, and a placard design you can print off – these are here. The Green Party is the only party calling for the UK to rejoin the European family of nations, and we’d like to make sure that Greens are highly visible on the march. Hope to see you there!  The right to protest is one of the most fundamental rights in a democracy - and the government is determined to undermine it. And you can help defend it - see below.
Over the last 18 months, the Green Party and our allies have campaigned hard to defend the right to protest. Our Green peers Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett led opposition in the House of Lords to dangerously repressive new laws aimed at curtailing these rights, and hundreds of Greens used our #ProtestIsNotACrime flatpack to lobby MPs and peers demanding that they defend this crucial right. Forced measures Although the Lords voted down some of the worst aspects of Priti Patel’s Policing Bill and Suella Braverman’s Public Order Bill, the government was determined to force through measures that were condemned by a wide range of human rights organisations – and even by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which said that they “would neither be compatible with human rights legislation nor create an effective deterrent”. In June, it used ‘secondary legislation’ – in other words, ministerial decree – to reinsert a definition of ‘disruption’ in the Public Order Bill that the Lords had voted against. Jenny Jones then tabled a so-called ‘fatal motion’ that would have stopped this highly unusual and deeply anti-democratic move in its tracks. Shamefully, however, Labour peers were instructed by their party whips not to support Jenny’s motion and the government got its way. What do these new laws mean?
As Greenpeace and Just Stop Oil activists have been showing, these repressive measures will not stop protesters from standing up against the environmental destruction threatening the future of everyone on this planet. In some cases, juries may even refuse to convict such protesters, as happened in January. But not everyone will be prepared to risk being arrested, and campaigners will need to come up with imaginative new ways of making sure that protesters’ voices are heard. What can you do now? If Labour win the next election, we would hope that they'd repeal the repressive measures. But Keir Starmer has recently indicated that a Labour government would not. Write now to your Labour MP or Labour parliamentary candidate to ask if they want these extremely dangerous amendments removed and are prepared to stand up for the human rights that underpin our democracy. You can find your MP at Write to Them. And there's a template email you can use here. If you have time, do personalise it, using your own words. |
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