LABOUR’s decision to set up a unit specifically entasked with combatting the electoral threat posed by the Green Party’s ‘Green surge’ demonstrates how the 2015 General Election will be a genuine five-party fight, says the Green Party.
Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader, said:
"The Green Party can only take as a compliment the decision by the Labour Party to take special measures to fight back against us. And it is clearly a reflection of our fast growing poll ratings and massive membership growth (1) - 1,000 new members in the past 10 days, a 56% rise since January 1 2014.
"But no spin operation is going to disguise the fact that Labour is a business-as-usual party. Their rhetoric might sound a little different to the Tories, but their policies are virtually indistinguishable.
"That's true on the railways; Labour says it will throw a public company into the failed fragmented model of privatisation rather than return the railways to public ownership as the Green Party proposes. Caroline Lucas MP's private members bill would ensure that railways are run for the benefit of passengers not shareholders.
"Labour does not promise a Living Wage for all. We do, alongside plans for a minimum wage of £10/hour by 2020. Labour's plans offer nothing but a continuation of our current inadequate wage levels that see benefits subsidising massive corporate profits.
"Voters will not be fooled. They increasingly understand that for real change in our politics they need to vote for what they believe in."
Sadiq Khan MP, shadow Justice Minister, has been been charged by Labour’s election campaign manager Douglas Alexander to lead the unit. In an interview (2) Khan suggested Labour has changed and now shares Green values and “will be a government [Green supporters] can be proud of.”
Only the Green Party’s policies can deliver the real change for the common good needed to transform our society, economy and environment.
Unlike the Labour Party, the Green Party believes in people over profit policies and opposes fracking, the replacement of the £100bn Trident nuclear weapons system, the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and nuclear energy, particularly the building of the taxpayer-subsidised £34bn new nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point C (HPC).