Not In Our Name – Greens slam ‘abhorrent’ Rwanda plan, calling for safe routes not deportation routes

14 June 2022

Responding to the imminent deportation flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda under the government’s asylum policy, Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green party, said:

“The government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda today is utterly abhorrent and has been widely condemned, from the UN and human rights lawyers to bishops and campaign groups. As Greens we join the chorus crying, Not in Our Name, and call for a humane policy of official and safe routes for refugees to come to this country and claim asylum.

“The strong public opposition to this policy and determined efforts of lawyers to fight deportations on a case-by-case basis reveals that at heart the UK is a compassionate country.

“Greens fully support all efforts to try and prevent the wheels leaving the tarmac tonight – a plane that could end up flying a handful of asylum seekers 4,500 miles away, which makes no economic or environmental sense.  

“In 2021 The government spent £11m on deportation flights [1]. This money should be spent instead on supporting thousands of refugees fleeing war, poverty and oppression. We need to open safe routes instead of deportation routes.”

Notes

[1] https://www.bigissue.com/news/politics/exclusive-the-uk-government-spent-over-11m-on-deportation-charter-flights-in-2021/

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Green Party condemns Brexit legislation as turning UK into pariah state

13 June 2022

  • Challenges Johnson’s suggestion that this is ‘not a big deal’

Responding to the expected publication of legislation to breach the Northern Ireland protocol the UK government signed up to [1], Molly Scott Cato, Green Party finance and economy spokesperson and former MEP, said:

“By publishing legislation to break their own agreement the UK government is showing itself to be an untrustworthy partner as well as undermining peace in Northern Ireland. They are also demonstrating that the claim during the 2019 election that they would ‘Get Brexit Done’ is a lie.

“Boris Johnson’s claim that breaking an international treaty he himself signed up to is ‘no big deal’ [2] demonstrates the deceitfulness of a Prime Minister who has lost the support of 40% of his own MPs. His authority to negotiate on behalf of this country is fatally undermined.

“There is a simple alternative available to the government – to negotiate with our European partners to agree a veterinary agreement and to rejoin the customs union. This would remove the need for most of the checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Instead, the Tories have chosen to sow division, provoke conflict with our closest neighbours and turn the UK into a pariah state.”

ENDS

Notes

1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61779169

2

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bureaucratic-simplification-uks-johnson-defends-nireland-law-2022-06-13/

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Not a Food Strategy at all – it’s junk, says Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay

Commenting on the government’s Food Strategy for England [1], which is launched today, co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay, responded: 

“This is not really a strategy at all – it’s junk. The failure to expand free and nutritional school meals or intervene to challenge fast and highly processed food will leave millions of children living in poverty, undernourished and in poor health. 

“A genuine strategy would offer something new on the menu – it would look to transform our food and farming sector to tackle the cost of living crisis, improve public health and address the climate and ecological emergency. Instead, we’ve been dished up leftovers from an era that serves Tory paymasters, especially large scale farmers and the processed food industry. 

“Up to a third of our carbon emissions are related to the food supply chain while chemical reliant farming has played a significant part in the loss of two-thirds of our wildlife over the last 50 years. 

“England and Wales have fantastic examples of regenerative and organic farming methods in action, supplying healthy and sustainable food while capturing carbon in the soil and improving biodiversity. These are the approaches that the government needs to look to in shaping a healthy, resilient and greener food and farming sector.”

Notes

[1] Food strategy criticised by government’s own adviser – BBC News

 

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Greens criticise Boris Johnson’s divisive housing policy that will harm poorest households

9 June 2022

Responding to the news that Boris Johnson is expected to say he wants to extend the right to buy in a speech later today [1], co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Carla Denyer said:

“This is clearly a cynical attempt by the Prime Minister to gain a quick headline for a policy that is supposed to sound aspirational but is in fact divisive and will actually harm the poorest households.

“Extending the right to buy to housing association tenants would simply reduce the amount of affordable social housing we have in this country, when we are already chronically short of places for people on the lowest incomes to live. [2]

“Once again, the Prime Minister’s sums simply don’t add up, with the costs far exceeding the amounts proposed for this ill-judged plan [3]. But even if this policy did go ahead, it’s not clear that this is what people even want. [4]

“Everybody has the right to a safe, warm and affordable place to call home. As such, the Green Party would empower local authorities to bring empty homes back into use and create 100,000 new homes for social rent a year, built to high energy efficiency standards to ensure low bills.

“At the same time, we should be looking to transform the lives of private renters by introducing rent controls that are linked to average local income rates and ending no-fault evictions across the UK, as Greens are already doing as part of the Scottish Government [5].”

ENDS

Notes

1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61739816

2

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/is-right-to-buy-for-housing-association-residents-the-answer-to-affordable-homeownership-75958

3

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1534798842222235650

4

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/the-month-in-numbers-who-wants-the-right-to-buy-75724

5

https://news.stv.tv/politics/tenants-rights-minister-patrick-harvie-hopes-rent-controls-will-help-to-change-balance-of-power-in-sector

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Greens condemn Conservative failure to oust law-breaker Boris Johnson

6 June 2022

Responding to the news that Conservative MPs have voted to keep Boris Johnson as leader, Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:

“It is extremely disappointing that Conservative MPs have once again failed to gather the courage to do what is right for the country and get rid of a Prime Minister who not only broke the law but then went on to lie about it.

“The revelations about parties in Downing Street while the rest of the country was in lockdown have not only been an insult to all those who abided by the rules, even when that meant making heartbreaking decisions to do so, they have also eroded trust in politics to a dangerous degree.

“And it is not just partygate that has shown Boris Johnson is unfit for this office. From unlawfully proroguing Parliament, to the delays in locking down at the beginning of the pandemic and the botched evacuation of Afghanistan, his tenure as Prime Minister has been marked by crisis after crisis, with us all paying the cost.

“However, it is clear that Boris Johnson is not the only bad apple. The entire Conservative tree is rotten to the core. This government is in complete disarray at a time when we need true leadership and a government people can trust. Yet all we are seeing from the Conservative party is increasingly desperate attempts to cling on to power and save its own skin.”

ENDS

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