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You may be out voting. Make it count! I always say the only wasted vote is the one where you vote for something or someone you don’t believe in.
Previous posts in this pledges series included a lot of official Green Party Manifesto items. But there are many other things I care about. Here are a few of the things I would love to work on if I was in power. (I could probably do a whole series of these as an additional manifesto.) But it always comes down to this: people, planet and peace. And for those, we need equality.
Here are a few ideas.
Elections / Democracy
Remove election deposits, so anyone can stand as an MP: we need more voices, and the poor shouldn’t be barred from standing.
Institute proportional representation to make votes count and make elections more democratic.
Get rid of the monarchy and the House of Lords.
If an election is taking place, let it also be an opportunity for the same ballot paper to include referenda on important topics. That way the public can vote on them directly, and there’s no extra expense. All those topics where you’re furious at politicians for making awful choices because lobbyists with deep pockets got to them: take those choices out of the hands of MPs and put them back in the hands of the people.
Independence: as I said in my statement, “Karl has the heart of a Celt and dreams of a fully independent Wales, Scotland and united Ireland, and a subsequent alliance of Celtic countries. Finally free of England’s warmongering, colonialisation and resource theft, the daffodil, thistle and shamrock could thrive again.”
I care about openness. I’d go so far as to say I don’t even agree with most of the Official Secrets Act. It’s not about hiding military bases (I’m sure Russia and every other nation knows where they all are!) It’s often more about hiding government crimes, as Snowden and Assange showed. Coverups of war crimes, environmental crimes, illegal activities, prevention of whistleblowing: it is to protect criminals in government, not the people they are meant to serve. If the government is our servant, it should not keep any secrets from us. As soon as it can do that, it becomes our master, and opens the way for tyranny.
Finance / Inequality
I love this from our manifesto: “The ever-expanding gap between companies’ highest earners and their lowest paid is damaging for our society, so Green MPs will campaign for a maximum 10:1 pay ratio for all private and public-sector organisations. No worker should see their CEO getting paid more in a day than they do in an entire year.”
Plus our plans to tax the super rich.
Full nationalisation of energy, water, rail etc. The basics of life shouldn’t cost more just to make the rich richer.
Establishment of more cooperatives, where the workers own the business.
Tax breaks for UK independent businesses, to help them against international conglomerates. And make non-UK companies (the likes of Amazon etc) pay full tax.
Our nation should be more self-sufficient, reinvigorating national industries, in food, in resources, in products.
Equality. 10% of the world owns 76% of the wealth. It is obscene, and the inequality grows all the time. We should be dismantling the systems that create this. Being an overpaid CEO of a planet-destroying global corporation does not make you more important than anyone else. In fact, you contribute less to society than one fruit grower, one rubbish collector, one teacher, one nurse. They should be paid more than you. This should be a priority. The people create value, and most of it should stay with the people and community, not syphoned out of it to make the rich richer.
MPs
UK politics has been stuck in the mud of privilege, archaism and corruption for too long. Let's try some radical ideas that reverse the negatives.
If I was an MP, then when they next tried to vote themselves pay increases. I’d vote to reduce MP salaries (and clamp down on MP fraud). Maybe halve the salaries? Since the business of being an MP is already covered with extensive expenses and allowances, they shouldn’t be extorting huge salaries when many people have trouble surviving. You should be an MP to make the world better, not enrich yourself.
I’d want to tackle the corruption of paid lobbying, honours, favours, board positions, bribery. One way could be: if an MP receives favours, money or promises from an organisation/person/nation, then the MP is forbidden from voting on anything that affects that organisation/person/nation. That would stop 90% of the bribery. Any attempt to subvert this and hide the bribes would mean imprisonment, loss of position, and seizure of assets. And the embargo would be in place even after they ceased to be an MP, so they couldn’t be promised money and cushy board positions as future perks for doing what the lobbyists want.
MPs are meant to represent the people. As such, all MPs should have to use the NHS, not private healthcare. They should have to send their children to state schools, not private ones. And they should use public transport where feasible (and not first class, either). Then they would actually see what it's like to be a normal person, and we’d suddenly see funding and improvement in services.
While those in charge live lives separate from normal people, they’ll never act in our interests.
Secular State
The government should do one thing: provide services to benefit people (and the planet) that we can’t do alone. But otherwise, as long as a person is not breaking any laws, government should have nothing to do with their actions. No favouritism, no exceptions, no special rules for particular belief systems. As the Wiccan Rede says: “An ye harm none, do what ye will.”
Law
This is a core principle, and the one true human right (though I think it applies to other life forms too): autonomy of the body. The one thing we can ever be said to truly own is our body. We should have absolute say in what is done to it. This core right therefore makes murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, forced medical practices and so on automatically illegal, removing the need for hundreds of other laws and rights.
We should have a constitution of core principles like this, which underpin all law.
Likewise, law should be made available to all. It is unjust that we are subject to laws that we have no easy way of checking. All law should be placed in a single system available to all without legal subscriptions and jargon. If that means massively simplifying the law and dropping archaisms, so be it.
Nature, Wildlife, Other Species
I love this from our manifesto: “Currently only 5% of land in the UK qualifies as being effectively protected for nature. We need to bring nature back to life and restore valuable habitats. We would plan to give 30% of land and sea back to nature by 2030 ensuring that it is permanently protected.”
Likewise, fully ban hunting and vivisection (for the latter, replace it with funding for modern, advanced and effective techniques instead).
War
I’d make it illegal. Soldiers should only defend their country, not attack others. Instead of a world of endless conflict and war, which the powerful want because they can steal resources and profit from the military industry, we should be spending that money on peace. We should be creating cooperation, not conflict. Develop future friends and allies, not people who hate us. If we spent half the money that goes into bombing people on ways to avoid conflict, the world would be a safer place for all. And the other half of the money could be spent domestically on improving the country for all who dwell in it: free and reliable public transport, or a healthy NHS rather than the ailing failing system following decades of cuts and privatisation. We need to reverse the current system where those we call allies are often terrorists and war criminals, while those we call terrorists are often those resisting oppression. We should not have a government that labels those who want peace as extremists, while normalising those who want endless violence.
I’d bring peace to the Middle East as well. We created most of the problems there. So either Israel gives stolen land back to the Palestinians and makes full reparations for its past behaviour over 75 years. Or, if the Israeli government refuses to end the apartheid, then the nation is reformed as the peaceful and united country it used to be. A single nation called Palestine where Jews and Arabs live in peace and are all treated equally. That’s how it used to be before Zionists, British and Americans interfered and stole much of the land to establish a Western colony. There has been conflict and unnecessary bloodshed and division ever since.
Promoted by Harriet King on behalf of the Green Party both at The Gate, Keppoch Street, Cardiff CF24 3JW.
Good luck Karl!