Pledges: Personal
#14 in my Pledges series
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
I received an email from the National Secular Society:
“As the election approaches, I wanted to introduce you to the National Secular Society and the work we do in advocating for freer, fairer and more tolerant society where people are free to follow the beliefs they choose and where no religion is privileged or imposed.
We were founded in 1866 by Charles Bradlaugh, who was elected as MP for Northampton, but denied his seat on account of his nonreligious beliefs. It was Bradlaugh’s Oaths Act that eventually allowed all MPs to affirm rather than swear a religious oath.
Today we campaign for a clear separation of religion and state to ensure equality, human rights and freedom for all, whatever their religion or belief.
We believe that in our increasingly diverse society, a secular approach to public policymaking is vital in safeguarding the rights of individuals to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and in creating a fair and inclusive society for all.
With the election fast approaching, we wanted to offer support and assistance with any secularist issue you may consider backing. Some of our key issues include:
Secular, inclusive schools: A third of state funded schools are faith schools. Most of these can discriminate against children who don’t belong to their religion in their admissions, as well as staff. What’s more, ‘broadly Christian’ daily collective worship is a legal obligation in all state-funded schools. We campaign to end religiously selective admissions, phase out faith schools, and abolish the collective worship law. We also campaign to protect children from illegal unregistered schools.
Freedom of expression: After successfully campaigning to abolish our ‘blasphemy’ laws, we are keen to ensure they do not return in any form, including through poorly drafted or illiberal legislation which criminalises ‘offensive’ speech about religion.
Separation of religion and state: It is clearly unfair and unsustainable to continue having the dwindling Church of England as our state church in our diverse and largely irreligious society. That’s why we campaign to disestablish the Church of England, which would also give the Church the freedoms that all other religions enjoy.
We also hope you will support our calls for democratic reform by ending the automatic right of 26 Anglican bishops to sit in the House of Lords.”
There's some crossover here with the email I had from the Humanists.
Even though I am a spiritual person (Pagan) I believe it is a matter of choice what belief system someone follows, materialist or idealist, religious or secular. And Government should not favour one over the other. Certainly not one religion over others. That's just a power game that has been taking place for thousands of years.
"A third of state funded schools are faith schools."
If they're state funded, they should not be religious schools.
"‘broadly Christian’ daily collective worship is a legal obligation in all state-funded schools."
That should be abolished. It's one thing to educate people in tolerance, goodness, ethics and so on, that would find agreement with both religious and secular people - another to push for a certain religion.
"Freedom of expression"
I'm fairly radical in supporting free speech even when some will find it offensive. Everyone finds something offensive, and avoiding offence is both impossible and counter productive. Trying to do so often leads to things like the way anti-semitism is being weaponised to defend Israel for its war crimes which are backed by the same (non-Jewish) politicians who are weaponising the restriction, when they should be focussing on true antisemitism and not making things worse for my Jewish brothers and sisters who don't support Israel's actions. I'd rather identify the bigots and work to point out the true enemies (e.g. capitalism and the super rich), than have hatred fester unchallenged.
"We also hope you will support our calls for democratic reform by ending the automatic right of 26 Anglican bishops to sit in the House of Lords."
Absolutely. Though I'd also like to abolish the House of Lords.
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!