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OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
Daniel Kamaluddin and George Bichard : Could you talk about how you see the path forward for the Greens? Jonathan Bartley : When I became leader, it was very clear that a big challenge for us was to win seats in Westminster in a general election. And there’s no shortcut to it. You can get massive poll ratings, but because of the first past the post system, the votes are spread out over the whole country, and don’t translate into seats. So, we knew that we had to win council seats, because that’s the way you build up your base in an area and concentrate the vote. Once people see that they can elect councillors in their local area, they’re much more willing to vote for the Green party. But the challenge is to translate that into people voting for the Green party, believing the Green party can win. Winning council seats shows that we can win [seats]. If you look at places like Bristol, where we were neck and neck with Labour on the council, or in places like Sheffield last local elections, we won the popular vote in those council elections. There’s no reason why we can’t win more MPs in those areas.
middle of the 2010 general election, we had a debate about disabled children. We will never have another debate about disabled children in the general election campaign unless we change the voting system, or someone else – another parent – can find some other party leader live on TV; the parties and I know this from working on the AV [alternative vote] referendum. Parties target a few (100,000) swing voters in marginal seats, to try to get them to change their mind. And it’s their views that matter. It will be their views that are taken into account, their views that frame the whole general election campaign. If you change to a proportional system, suddenly the voices of the 10 or 11 million disabled people in this country really do count, as do the voices of the millions who care about climate emergency passionately. So, when you change the voting system you change lives.
DK and GB : What are your views on changing the voting age?
JB: I’ve got some controversial views on this. It has always struck me that people are making decisions for you about the health care you might receive, or funding for schools or transport or roads or the age at which you can buy alcohol and whether drugs can be legalised and whether you can gain access to them or not: all sorts of decisions which affect your life in one way or another. But you have no voice in that. Now, I realise there’s a lower level of competency, but all I have to say is that I know a lot of 16-year-olds who know a hell of a lot more about politics and public life than some 50-, 60- or 70-year-olds. Do we say that someone who’s disabled and 19-years-old, like my son, shouldn’t have a vote because he’s got learning difficulties? Of course not: we make allowances for that. So, I think we should have representation in some shape or form even lower than 16. Now, that might not be a 13-year-old casting a vote, but it might be that there’s a proxy vote and a parent or guardian can cast a vote on their behalf.
DK and GB : Could you talk about diversifying the Greens’ election platform?
JB : If you haven’t read it, read our 2015 manifesto, which is all costed out, and, of course, was the basis of the Labour manifesto in 2017. They basically took out great big chunks of our 2015 manifesto. Things like free social care are massive. Even the Labour manifesto in 2017 and 2019 was nothing in terms of wealth redistribution compared to the 2015 or 2017 or 2019 Green party manifestos. We want to redistribute more wealth than any other party, including Corbyn’s then Labour party, whose spending proposals were small by comparison to what we were advocating through consolidated income tax, for example. That means that the proceeds of wealth are taxed at the same rates as the proceeds of income. In addition to wealth tax, we proposed a carbon tax, a basic income reform of the welfare state, huge changes in transport and huge changes in agriculture; the amount of council housing that we wanted to build was way more than any other party. And this was all costed and set out in our manifestos. The problem is people don’t ask us about those things. People don’t want to hear from us because they don’t see us as the government in waiting.
DK and GB : What are your views on the climate summit?
JB : Look at the figures: we’re virtually at 1.5 degrees of warming. We’re rapidly moving towards it. I think the important thing for me is to ask: will Glasgow result in meaningful action that will keep warming below 1.5 degrees, hand on heart? No. I genuinely don’t think so. I can say that now. I couldn’t have said that as leader: you won’t get an elected green politician saying that because we all want to be really hopeful. But for all the rhetoric about a climate emergency, this is not being treated as an emergency. We aren’t on a war footing, and we need to be on a war footing. This is an existential crisis bigger than any threat: it’s on par with the threat from nuclear weapons. And the tipping points that you can see us reaching already around the world make it feel like we’re on the verge of losing control. It’s like a big tanker which you’ve got to turn around, but we’re still heading in the wrong direction. I hope we can keep it under two degrees, and I hope that something
DK and GB : Could you tell us your views on the first past the post system?
JB : To me, this is about how when you change the system, you change lives. I often tell the story of how I became involved in politics, which was I had an encounter with David Cameron during the 2010 general election, taking my son to a hospital appointment. I ended up having a confrontation with him on the street about his plans for disabled children’s education, and for 24 hours in the
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