Caroline Lucas - Speech to Green Party Autumn Conference
03 September 2009
1. Introduction
Thank you for that kind introduction.
I want to start with just one headline
The European Election result in this city: Labour 15%, Green Party 31%
Welcome to Brighton and Hove!
Welcome to you all - and particularly to those of you for whom this is your first conference.
Brighton and Hove really is a very special place to be.
Not only did we, the Greens, come first in this city during the recent European Elections, with almost 6000 votes more than the Tories, and more than double the number of votes of Labour.
But just a few short weeks later, we fought a Council by-election here in Hove.
And Alex Phillips achieved a stunning victory, as we leapt from third place in 2007 to win with an emphatic majority over the Conservatives.
This gives us our first foothold in Hove. And Joy! It's the first time the party has taken a seat from the Conservatives in this city.
We are now the equal second largest party on the Council.
And here in Brighton Pavilion, people genuinely see that we're on course to win one of our first seats in Westminster at the next General Election.
2. European Election results
It seems such a short time since our Spring Conference in Blackpool.
But a lot has changed.
Back then, the commentators and pundits were getting ready to write us off.
They had made their minds up that in a recession, the Green Party would struggle.
People don't vote Green in a recession, we were told.
The planet is a luxury, they sneered, like organic kiwi fruit.
Well, we've nailed that lie once and for all.
In the European elections in June, we increased our share of the vote by more than any other party - up by 44%.
It was deeply frustrating that this didn't translate into more seats - particularly when we came agonisingly close to beating Nick Griffin in the North West.
Peter Cranie ran a superb campaign, which left us short by just 5000 votes out of an electorate of well over 5 million.
No-one could have fought with more passion or decency than Peter.
It's now up to all of us to build on the foundations that have been laid and ensure that we make even more progress.
That we continue to work with people across the North West to say NO to the grotesque parody of politics served up by the BNP.
But as I've said before, we mustn't let our commitment and ambition and sense of responsibility cloud what we have achieved.
More than a million people voted for the Green Party in June.
A million people who responded to our policies, our candidates and perhaps, above all, to our values.
A million voices calling out for honesty in politics, for tackling the issues that really matter, like climate change and good quality public services.
A million people who wanted fairness from a Party they could trust.
What a message for the other parties.
I remember vividly at my European election count in Southampton, that wonderful moment of realising that we'd knocked Labour into fifth place.
That New Labour, with all its money and power and influence, could be beaten.
And then we heard they'd done the same thing in the South West as well.
And that in Manchester, we beat the Conservatives with over 13% of the vote.
In Norwich, we won 25% of the vote, ahead of all the other parties, firmly cementing Adrian Ramsay's bid to win the Norwich South seat at the next General Election.
In London, Jean Lambert more than comfortably held onto her seat.
And in Lewisham Deptford, Greens were neck and neck with Labour, with Darren Johnson transforming what was once a safe Labour seat into a key Green battleground.
In the local elections on the same day, we broke through onto several new County Councils, winning seats in Cambridgeshire, Devon, Gloucestershire and Suffolk.
But that's not all.
Since the Spring, we've also scored our best-ever result in a by-election.
So let me take this chance to pay tribute to everyone involved in the Norwich North campaign.
Running a campaign from a standing start, with nothing like the bundles of cash available to the other parties - and yet we quadrupled our share of the vote.
Seeing what Norwich can do, I'm sure that even our other target seats like Lewisham and Brighton will admit we have something to learn about campaigning!
But though fighting better campaigns and winning more votes is greatly encouraging, it's not the change in our Party that I'm most proud of since Spring Conference.
No, what I'm most proud of is the fact that we've grown.
When the image of politics and political parties could hardly be any lower, we recently gained more than a thousand new members in just six weeks.
Let me say to those new members, some of whom will be here today, experiencing their first Green Party Conference (and yes, what an experience it can be) - let me say how your commitment is so inspiring to those of us who have been here a bit longer.
I know from my own first few weeks and months in the Party that it can have its less than inspiring moments.
You come to change the world - and you get to leaflet in the rain.
(PAUSE)
But you are the new generation of activists, candidates and leaders.
The challenges this country faces are so urgent - we welcome all of your energy, ideas and creativity.
3. Economic Crisis
The coming winter will be a tough one for millions of people.
The gap between rich and poor in this country is growing ever wider.
After more than a decade of Labour government - a Labour government - inequality is higher than before they came to power.
And one in five children in Britain is living in poverty.
And yet this government's response to the current economic crisis is creating more inequality, not reducing it.
For years, Greens have been warning against the lethal cocktail of liberalisation and deregulation which have fuelled this recession.
We sounded the alarm when the government failed to act decisively to prevent ordinary people being priced out of the housing market.
We sounded the alarm when our hospitals and schools were attacked, one after the other, because of the obsession with putting profit before any other concern.
And we sounded the alarm when hedge funds, currency speculation and all manner of other financial dodges were used in a massive gamble with our financial future.
And we have to ask, how many people have to lose their jobs, how many people have to lose their homes, how many businesses going under is it going to take, before the other parties change course?
Only the Green Party is challenging the virility competition between Cameron and Brown over who can make the most swingeing cuts in public services.
It might be dressed up in spin about value for money.
It might be disguised by loud, but empty, promises not to tax the least well off.
But make no mistake - under a Labour or Tory government, this country faces more cuts and more unemployment.
We face cuts in the value of pensions. The selling off of a stake in Royal Mail and a drastic reduction in the regional rail system.
And millions of people struggling to survive on paltry, if not downright insulting, social security benefits.
Certainly some cuts we would welcome, in defence spending for example.
Though when we see how equipment and weapons budgets have been so badly managed in Afghanistan, can we really trust that even this will get done properly?
More than two hundred service men and women have lost their lives there - many of them my own constituents.
The Green Party's commitment to withdrawing the troops does not in any way detract from a commitment to ensuring that our armed forces are properly led, trained and equipped when they're in the field - and properly compensated and cared for should they be injured.
But this idea that we have to slash public spending is a myth.
(PAUSE)
The reality is that we need long-term investment, not short-term cuts.
It is critical that we not get blown off course by a national debt that is a lot more manageable than alarmists claim.
I've visited households crushed by unemployment, businesses going bankrupt at a record pace and the message is always the same - government spending is crucial.
Not the mindless spending of the previous years of turbo-consumerism.
Not the spending on new nuclear power stations, ID cards, or endless road-building.
But targeted investment to protect public services, and to create sustainable jobs, together with investment in the energy efficient and renewable energy infrastructure we urgently need.
Ministers could start by making a u-turn over Vestas on the Isle of Wight, reversing their extraordinary complacency and hypocrisy, and ensuring that the UK's only major turbine plant not merely stays open, but thrives, grows, and is joined by many others.
But we have to ask: how can a Labour government simply stand by, as bankers start paying themselves grotesque salaries again, while the taxpayer staggers under the debt they've caused?
What monumental incompetence for this government not to have acted, when the public were desperate to see someone take responsibility for the way our money is being spent.
In the spring, it was all contrition.
We were promised root and branch reform of the financial system.
Six months on?
Business as usual is creeping back - rather like Peter Mandelson's grip on every aspect of government!
This began as a paper recession forged in the international credit markets.
But it has turned into a real one - real jobs lost, real companies closing down, real people losing their homes.
And to rub salt in the wounds, in spite of everything that has happened, the government is still happy to see the banks pay out massive bonuses to their senior executives ...
... despite just this morning announcing plans for a series of half-baked measures, which will only tinker with the problem.
What's their justification?
The government says they have to pay the market rate to get the best people.
Yes, I know..."the best people".
In other words, unless you pay bonuses of a million pounds or more, well, you can't get the staff.
Tell that to the hard-working people of this country.
Hospital cleaners on the minimum wage.
Shop workers on graveyard shifts.
Social workers trying to protect the most vulnerable.
And let's be clear - they'd probably do a better job of running our banks too.
They may not have large expense accounts or teams of consultants telling them what is common sense.
But they're more likely to have what's really needed - A sense of fairness.
So let's be clear: however clever or experienced you might be, if profits and bonuses for the few is why you're there, you're not fit to run a bank.
Never mind fit to run a country.
4. Political Crisis
For the recession is not the only crisis facing our country.
We're also living through a crisis in politics.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one here today who has been shocked by what has been revealed during the last few months.
Bogus expenses, MPs using the fees office like a cash machine.
Using our money - yes, again, our money - to fund widescreen TV's and hanging baskets.
But the expenses scandal isn't a freak accident of an otherwise healthy body politic.
It's a symptom of a system that is wholly dysfunctional.
We're being governed by a political elite that has stopped listening.
Too many MPs seem more interested in changing their homes, than in changing the world.
We need to make Westminster alive again with political ideas.
Getting rid of a few of the old guard isn't the answer.
Root and branch transformation is essential.
A few months ago, that's exactly what we were promised.
But the old style politicians have been away for the summer to lick their wounds.
Now they're coming back, hoping the great British public has forgotten all about their mistakes.
During the other party conferences in the next few weeks, no doubt we'll hear warm words from the podium from Cameron and Brown.
But would you trust either of them to bring in genuine reform?
The Green Party is opening this year's party conference season by setting a very different tone.
So, today I am issuing a challenge to Cameron and Brown.
We need to form a political consensus around five key commitments.
All of these must be delivered in full in the next Parliament.
No weasel words or cop-out clauses.
And that means writing them into the manifestos of all the parties, so that every MP will be elected on this platform.
First, end the mega donations.
Political influence quite simply shouldn't be for sale to the highest bidder.
Second, reform of the system for state funding of political parties.
I say reform because, although they keep it quiet, the bigger political parties already receive millions in state funding.
In the last year alone, the Tories took over £5 million in public funds, while Labour and the Lib Dems trousered another £3 million between them.
Funding should be proportionate to the number of votes a party receives.
That way, it is the public who decide, through the ballot box, how much each party gets.
Third, a Freedom of Information law that has real teeth.
Where ministers and MPs can't use excuses like national security or ministerial privilege to cover up their own incompetence and wrong-doings.
Fourth - replacement of the House of Lords with a fully elected second chamber.
It is twelve years and counting since Labour was elected on a pledge to reform the House of Lords.
Twelve years, and two thumping majorities.
It's now clearer than ever that Labour never wanted reform.
Why else would they leave the decision in the hands of a gaggle of factory farmed turkeys who wouldn't vote for Christmas!
And finally, a fair voting system to make sure everybody's vote counts.
Not that we're frightened of first past the post.
The Green Party has shown that we can win under the current system in local elections ...
... and we aim to buck the system at the next General Election to get our first MPs.
But it cannot be right that unless you happen to live in a marginal seat, your vote doesn't count.
And it cannot be right that the current government has 100% of the power on just 36% of the vote.
Let's be very clear: if we are to have any hope of reconnecting Westminster to the wider public, if we are to have the remotest chance of rebuilding trust between the people and the politicians who are meant to represent them, then we have to find a fair electoral system where the voice of everyone is counted the same.
5. Climate Change
The economy, political reform, public services:
if these were not responsibilities enough, we are also the only party who is being honest with the public about the greatest threat we face - climate change.
The evidence is mounting all around us - rising sea levels, melting glaciers, tropical storms and floods.
And according to the UN, over 300,000 people are already dying now, every year, as a direct result.
But as the vital Copenhagen Climate Summit draws closer, it's clear that the current level of ambition will not deliver anything like the speed and scale of the emission cuts that we so urgently need.
Nor the financial resources to enable poorer countries to play their part too.
And that's why our message to government is this:
· We demand an end to airport expansion, and to plans for a fleet of new coal fired power stations.
· We demand a massive investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, in public transport and green jobs.
· And we demand that when the government signs up to new emission targets, they undertake to make domestic cuts here at home, not to outsource or offset them in poorer countries.
Grassroots mobilisations like Climate Camp and the 10:10 campaign, launched this week, are vitally important.
But commitment and engagement amongst civil society must be matched with real political leadership.
In a few years, people will look back bewildered and angry that - knowing what they knew now - none of the other main political parties in Britain confronted the most critical issue of our time.
They have pretended that they have the problem under control.
That a few low energy light-bulbs here, a bit of lagging on your loft there, and the problem is solved.
And that to do anything more is either unnecessary or involves too much "sacrifice".
We've got news for them: a transition to a post-carbon world doesn't have to be about sacrifice.
It's about jobs, it's about a more equal society ...
... and it's about a way of life with the potential to be far more fulfilling than the turbo-charged consumerism which is peddled by politicians today.
And that's why we say that our government's inaction is nothing less than a political crime.
6. Fairness
In 8 months time, we'll be fighting the most critical general election for a generation.
It's not only critical for us as a party, but for the direction this country takes as a whole, over the coming decade and beyond.
Are we to continue down the road of growing inequality and cynicism as we drift towards an environmental catastrophe?
Or can we as a country begin the task of returning to a politics built on fairness?
Starting with an economy for the many, not the few.
Where health care is free - not where you are charged a tenner for the privilege of seeing your GP, as one Tory MEP recently suggested.
Where the response to a recession is about investment in training and education rather than churning out candidates for more McJobs.
An economy that uses taxes to benefit us all - not just reckless banks and greedy bankers!
Now is not the time to retreat into the same old arguments by the same old parties.
It is a time for bold policies by a bold Green Party.
The only party in British politics that believes we can change our course.
At the next election, we will show not only that we hold true to our values ...
... but that more and more people in this country are joining us.
So as well as winning our first seats in Parliament - as if that wasn't a challenge enough ...
... we must reach out to more members, more supporters and more voters than ever before.
And we must speak out across every aspect of politics, and show that Green values speak to every issue this country faces ...
... from drugs and prison reform to social services and pensions.
7. Conclusion
There are formidable challenges ahead.
But we are up to the task.
We have proved we can attract large number of new members.
We have proved we can build support.
We have proved we can win elections.
I know how hard we are all going to have to work over the next 8 months ...
But we can take strength from knowing that fairness is worth fighting for.
Together, we can overcome the barriers put in our way and change politics - and people's lives - for the better.
We need a politics of bold government, not of incremental adjustment.
We need a politics that's about setting the agenda, not feebly following the focus groups
We need a politics that connects with peoples' real hopes and concerns.
We need a politics with passion.
Friends, Green politics is that politics.
And the Green Party is its home.
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