Webchat with Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, Weds March 4th, at 1pm

[JustineMumsnet]

I'm very pleased to say that the leader of the Green Party England and Wales, Natalie Bennett, will be joining us for a webchat this Wednesday, March 4, at 1pm.

The Greens have been under the spotlight over the last few months, with a surge in membership, and controversy about whether they should be included in the pre-election TV debates.

Now's your chance to ask Natalie about leadership structures, the record of the Green council in Brighton and Hove and Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas, whether there's a long-term movement towards smaller parties in national politics, Green policies on housing, benefits, health, the economy and the environment - and what it's like to be at the eye of a media storm. Plus anything else that takes your fancy of course.

Natalie was born in Australia and worked as a journalist there and in Thailand before settling in the UK in 1999. She worked for The Guardian, among other UK newspapers, before becoming Green Party leader in 2012. She's standing for Parliament in the 2015 General Election in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

Hi Natalie,

I tend to be in agreement with most Green party policies but I'm not sure whether it's actually worth voting Green in May. I don't live in one of the key areas you're targeting, and looking at my local green party website I couldn't find the details of who is running (although I did find this elsewhere on the internet). Plus the list of policies for my local area included stopping all road building projects - when we clearly have traffic issues I don't see how that attitude will help.

So if I can't find out much about my Green party candidate and I'm not sure I agree with their local vision anyway, it seems best to me to vote labour and reduce the chance of the Tories getting in.

Can you say anything to persuade me to vote Green?

Hello Natalie

Commiserations on your bad week last week. We all have terrible days at work but usually they don't get broadcast to the nation.

Now that I've been nice to you... what. in. the. world. is going on with Green Party policies wrt women and sex?

Your sex work policy in particular (about halfway down that page) is just horrible libertarian bollocks.

Do you actually believe this nonsense or do you just have to go along with it because your groovy stupid young activists have got you in a vice?

Do you have any idea how many genuine feminist votes you've lost over this?

Will nuclear power always be off the table (Chernobel/Fukushama weren't being run properly, falsified records so a comparison to them would be unfair and remember Buncefield farm blew up in the Uk) - a nationalised well run nuclear, which by its nature is low carbon could provide cheaper energy and also allow us to disengage from natural resource wars in the middle east?

G'day Natalie .... please correct me if I am wrong, but up until this general election the Green Party, in the main, has nationally concentrated on green issues and locally got into more wider local issues.

So my question is, although the Green Party politics tend to be identified as more left of centre, after the early media rounds trying to now produce a manifesto for all issues, in hindsight, was trying to do this from scratch a mistake - as even some of the main parties who have stood for wider issues over decades are now struggling to come up with joined-up-policy thinking in a budget deficit economy?

In other words, should the Green party STICK to what they know best, as it is such and important niche, that already crosses many other policy issues you don't need to have all the answer to - as the Greens for years to come are unlikely to be the largest parliamentary party forming the next government/coalition and key policies - so why not feel the Green powder dry for your main policies within a loose coalition?

Otherwise like the Lib Dems, who never caused the student tuition fee situation, or was able to get that policy into a key policy coalition agreement with a larger party, THEY get the 'manure' (how green was that?) for not delivering one of their own policies.

Which parties would you not form a coalition with?

Hello Natalie

I'm a feminist (no idea what a "genuine" feminist is though) and I find your policy on sex work refreshing and sensible, even if it's not to everyone's moral tastes. You understand that being less tolerant of the trade, far from protecting women, actually makes their work more hazardous. Thank you. Good luck in the election

Good Luck, Natalie.

Will watch with interest.

Hello Natalie,

What is the experience of the Green party when it comes to getting involved in national debate, and Parliamentary debate following Caroline Lucas' election as MP, being a party in the minority? Has the party felt that it has been able to have some influence or does it often feel shut out?

On that note... as a follow up, what does the Green party feel about Parliamentary reform or do you think that the current system works well for minority parties?

That may look like several questions but it really is meant as one overall question I want to know more about how easy or hard it is when you're not one of the big parties.

Natalie
Do you believe The FVVRA Pledge can really bring about a Free Voting Parliament after the election with all MPs agreeing to voluntary recall?

Hi Natalie,

Do you appreciate that without drivers, especially of cars which provide the link to all other transport as well as to caring, nursing, water and food supply etc, our society would collapse? That without drivers, we would now die in large numbers and that life expectancy with them has risen instead?

Can you explain why, other than walkers and drivers to keep society running, we must have other road users imposed on a vital infrastructure?

As 99% of the population don't cycle and have no interest in cycling, just like jogging, isn't it because that, as a transport mode, it isn't really viable?

Wishes

Keith Peat

Hi Natalie, I will be proud to vote Green in May but I'm being warned that the Green Party aren't confident with managing the finances for this Country, would you say that's just a rumour?
I'd just like to add that your welfare and nhs policies are fantastic.
Good luck

I'd like to see SoccerFunDay's question answered, and to have clarity on whether the Green Party would really not criminalise pimps.

Hi Natalie, I think you are doing a great job and will b voting for Adam van coevorden in chelt! He's a very intelligent and moral person.
Anyway, t he question! I feel passionately about the ban on fox hunting. Would you try and strengthen it if in power? (Hope so!)

Hi Natalie, I'm a Green Party supporter (member even and may even stand for our local council in May!) and am also a big user supporter of social media. So, I was on FB the other day and came across this "where are you on the political spectrum?" thing by Another Angry Voice.

I came out as slightly more "left" and slightly more "libertarian" than the Green Party
Have you seen this? Done it? Wondering if so where did you come out?!
(sorry about no link I'm not that techy)

I'd also like an answer to the question about the Green Party wanting to legalise pimps and punters. I will never vote for you whilst this policy remains.

Hello. I'm quite curious about your policy of having a Citizen's wage for every adult (including students).

Have you done an economic analysis on this policy? How it would be funded and would it replace other benefits?

Thanks.

Hello Natalie,

I was heartened to see Caroline Lucas's recent campaigning for sensible, harm-reducing drug policies, however I am confused that the Greens are not also supporting ecigs as a harm reduction strategy which could help prevent thousands of UK deaths each year from smoking. According to ASH's figures, there are around 700,000 ex-smokers in the UK thanks to vaping and twice as many who have cut down the amount they smoke by using ecigs.

I was dismayed to learn last year that the Green MEPs voted in favour of Article 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive and as a result I spoilt my ballot paper for the first time ever in the EU election (there was nobody else I want to vote for, I usually vote for you lot!)

Art. 20 comes into force in the second quarter of 2016. It threatens to remove all effective vaping products from the market and hand whatever's left to the big tobacco companies. Many, many vapers will end up back on cigarettes and even more smokers will never get the opportunity to try an alternative that is at least 95% safer than smoking. A lot depends on how Art. 20 is implemented and there are many details to be worked out yet (e.g. it could be even worse if the UK govt. decides to add its own bells and whistles on top). If vaping is to remain a viable alternative to smoking at all, Art. 20 needs to be implemented sensibly and with restraint.

An APPG on ecigs has been started by Mark Pawsey to establish what role ecigs have for helping people quit smoking and to examine what sensible regulation would look like.

My question is: would you encourage Jenny Jones, Caroline Lucas and whichever other Greens are lucky enough to be elected to attend the APPG, learn more about the harm-reduction role that ecigs are playing and support sensible and proportionate regulation?

It's a bit different to the drugs harm-reduction strategy. With drugs, we need legalisation and regulation. Ecigs are already legal but the danger is that overregulation will make them unviable. The harm-reduction principle is the same though and I feel this should be right up your street as policy.

Very good further info here from Clive Bates who used to be director of ASH.

Also interested in your response to SoccerFunDay's question. I am very uncomfortable with the stance the Greens have taken on this.

Hello Natalie, I'd like to ask what would be your ideal outcome for the Green Party in this election? And where do you see the Green Party in 10 years' time?

What do you think your greatest obstacles in achieving this are going to be?

Would you commit to a "citizens wage"? I know you've mentioned it before and I fully support it, as long it was fully costed.

Dear Natalie,

I am a floating voter and have considered voting Green in May, mainly because you will scrap SATS and rethink the whole academy system.

One thing I would like to discuss is children with SEN. Your policy states 'Every disabled learner will have an entitlement to an assessment of his / her learning needs'. How will you do this differently to the current system, where SENDIST appeals have increased by 20% in the last year because so many LA's are refusing to assess.

In a similar vein, your policies talk about Special Resource Units. Is this in addition to the current special schools an area may have, or instead of?

Being the father of an 11 year old girl, I would like to know how a future Green government would make sure that the sexual abuse scandals of Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxfordshire never happen again.

Both conservative and labour administrations have failed in their basic duty to protect the most vulnerable members in society.

Every child has a right to a happy childhood, as leader of the green party and future member of parliament for Holborn and St.Pancras what will you do to ensure that this happens.

Hello Natalie - do you feel that it is unfair the Green party doesn't get more press coverage (I seem to always be hearing about UKIP but not much about the Green Party). Do you feel the party is able to get its message across to the general public?

Hi Natalie, thank you for coming on.

First I really like Green party policies, especially Council House building, Citizens Income and Financial transactions Tax - Why isn't the Green party promoting these policies more forcibly?

Second, I want to vote Green but I fear that by not voting Labour we will end up under Tory austerity and their ugly right wing ideology for years more - How much support are you actually hoping to get and do you think a coalition is a realistic option?

Hi Natalie, I think both you and Caroline Lucas are great.

However, I can't vote for a party which is content to see its equalities spokesperson, and a worrying number of its parliamentary candidates, use misogynistic slurs like "TERF" against women.

What are you going to to to address misogyny (dressed up as progressive politics, when it's the same old, same old woman-hating) in the party?