It’s been a very full week again, although thankfully the coming one is looking a lot less action-packed and offers time to review and plan. From the relief of getting a good team of staff to support me with my MEP tasks in place, to reflecting back to the awful ‘misdeeds’ in the Brexit vote, and later the joy of Lancaster Pride this weekend, it’s been a week of seeing the positives and acting on the negatives.
Pride
Back home, Lancaster Pride did Lancaster proud this week in Dalton Square. ‘Unity in diversity’ is a good way to sum it up. Loved meeting the Typhoons RUFC Lancashire’s first and only inclusive rugby team (who practice at Preston Grasshoppers RFC). Straight or gay, any ability, shape, or size they say – everyone welcome as long as you’ve got the right attitude to rugby… and they certainly do! The event was fabulous and fun.
Brexit
Today is the 3rd anniversary of the Referendum that gave us ‘Brexit’; seems like yesterday and an eternity all at once. Our co-leaders of Green Party of England and Wales reflected on what’s happened since: the key critical social and environmental issues that have not been tackled, and two million young voters have been denied a say in their futures.
Siân Berry said:
“Our politics has become entangled in what has been rightly described as Brexit chaos over the past three years. We could, and should, have been dealing with the fast-rising issues of poverty and homelessness, the collapse of bus services and the causes of the filthy air we breathe, the state of our nature-deprived countryside and the struggles of our small farmers to survive. Instead we have been bogged down in party in-fighting, fact-free debates about non-existent Brexit options and arcane struggles over parliamentary procedures.”
Jonathan Bartley added:
“More than two million young people have become voters since the 2016 referendum. Well over another million are aged 16 and 17, seeing society wrestling with issues that will have a huge impact on their futures. That’s more than 3 million people who deserve a say on their own future through the democratic option of the People’s Vote. Parliament has shown itself to be unable to find a way forward. The answer is democracy, and giving those young people the option to have their say.”
EU Parliament
In Brussels, I was pleased to sign a letter calling for an investigation into Brexit electoral ‘misdeeds’ that have come to light. It is a cross-party initiative, co-led by fellow Green, Molly Scott Cato MEP. Molly rightly says: “Brexit is a crime scene, yet our efforts to ensure the perpetrators face justice using the agencies available in the UK…have so far failed.”
Together, we 38 UK MEPs are calling on a high-level international legal commission to intervene over ‘declining democratic standards’ in the UK, asking the commission to investigate: breaches of spending rules and data-protection laws; the exclusion of non-UK EU citizens residing in the UK from voting during the 2016 referendum; the more recent disenfranchisement of UK citizens resident abroad, and EU citizens resident in the UK from the European elections this year.
There’s a lot more to this and an awful lot more to come. Alongside all this, MPs are preparing to take the Met police to court, after the force has failed to investigate alleged offences by Brexit campaigners for nearly a year. Separately, the Brexit Party has been told by the Electoral Commission to check its donations and tighten up its processes, after a loophole was revealed that could allow foreign donations to the party.
Meanwhile, this week:
Good:
The Green Party signed up to support the Manchester Declaration for a Right to Repair worldwide. It’s a call by independent repair businesses and citizens who are frustrated with the early obsolescence of most of today’s products. They ask UK legislators and decision-makers at all levels, as well as product manufacturers and designers, to stand with us for our Right to Repair, by making repairs more accessible and affordable, and ensuring that we adopt product standards making products better supported, well documented and easier to repair by design.
Siân Berry said: “We are committing to using our political influence at local, national and EU level to trigger the switch to a circular economy, and fight for our right to repair.”
Here’s a link to further information about the project.
Bad:
Just 0.34% of the UK”s population will now decide who the next PM is to be. Many of us lament the system that allows this to happen. Can we do anything to change this? Not right now but the fight for fairer voting and more representative democracy is at the core of the Green Party policies and we will not stop fighting for them.
Where hope lies:
Students, young people and school pupils rose again on Friday for another YouthStrike4Climate march and here in the North West, despite some Chorley students being told they cannot now go to their School Prom because they participated in the Strike, they participated in the Strike, they are not deterred. And that gives me inspiration.
Onwards 💚
