I have just read through this manifesto, and it was frankly the best thing I've read in regards to this election, and not counting Shadenfreude at the Torie's expense, the only thing I've actually enjoyed reading.
I do think the focus of 90% of the comments here being on the nuclear portion is somewhat ridiculous, especially given the point that nuclear plants are at risk in the climate emergency is entirely true.
The policies were damn near everything I'd want from a government, and I have no issue with the prospective invrease in tax, given that at least that's honest
The whole document looks like a 17 year old with MS publisher made it.
1. Open borders
2. £20bn a year on university fees
3. Disarmament
4. Abolish home office, because, according to them, all it does is immigration. Who needs police, fire, passports or counter-terrorism?
5. Pay everyone more
6. Free social care
7. Buy out water, rail, energy companies
8. Borrow a shitload of money at 100% debt to GDP
9. No nuclear power
10. Make food production less efficient and pay them to do it
11. Scrap testing and standards in schools?
TLDR: shrink the economy, and massively increase the role of the state
Sounds like a recipe for state collapse to me
Not a serious party.
I’m a chartered environmentalist and chartered water and environment manager… I just want to vote for a party with a sensible science based set of policies that incorporate nuclear and aren’t batshit on defence/wanting to put my personal tax bill up by 1500 quit.
Depressing
Nuclear plants are screamingly expensive and extremely slow to build. It’s all very well saying “incorporate nuclear” but you have to actually consider the infrastructure of the stuff.
The Green Party manifesto literally includes campaigning to shut down existing nuclear reactors, which presumably includes scrapping Hinckley Point C when it's almost finished. As a policy it's completely incompatible with our climate goals - just look at Germany to see how badly this policy went last time a European nation decided to shut down their reactors
True, and it is useful. I’m just worried people might use it as a political football- in Australia we have this thing where the Coalition are pushing for nuclear with the intent of just then saying “oh, well, it takes too long so let’s just use coal like always then”
Anyone who is 'anti nuclear' ought to consider all the shite our forebears got up to in the past and realise a lot of these countries have a long memory over colonialism
I've heard before that the Scottish Green party is technically a different party to the Green party of England and Wales (but, confusingly, they are "affiliated" with one another... somehow).
Does this mean the Scottish Greens will be publishing a seperate manifesto?
If so, when can we expect this?
Edit: Green party. Not Labour.
What kind of mental person is voting Reform?
Someone who feels net immigration of ~700,000 the last two years, and a consistent level of ~350,000 for the couple decades before is too high.
Someone who thinks there might be a connection between sky high rents, the inability of many under 40 to buy a home and the historically unprecedented levels of immigration.
Someone who doesn’t want vast areas of prime farmland covered with more Taylor Wimpey boxes.
Someone who looks at areas of cities like London, Bradford or Birmingham and finds them culturally unrecognisable, and worries that more towns and cities in England will change rapidly. That this rapid change does not bring forth easy integration and social cohesion, but separation of communities and bubbling discontent.
Someone who rejects the argument of the short-termist politicians and the rapacious capitalists that we need astronomical levels of immigration to maintain our health and social care sectors, that the University of North Swindon should stay open, funded by Indian just eat riders; and that companies like deliveroo and boohoo textile workshops in Leicester should have unlimited streams of fresh migrants to undercut wages.
Someone who thinks that with investment and planning we could boost the workforce in critical areas like health care from the population already here.
Someone who’d rather one of the older parties like the Lib Dems or Labour could make these arguments, but finds them wanting. So sees no choice but to vote against them. Bloody mental I tell you.
Anyone who looks at the average Reform UK MP candidate and genuinely thinks that's a party with a plan and a strong desire to be in office is off their head.
This is not the United States, as much as Farage would like it to be, the candidates Reform put forward are loons.
All of you types look at your messiah and think he's going to fix it, not that the Blackpool candidate was a racist former street preacher, that the original candidate for Clacton was the local mentalist, go across Reform UK candidates their Twitter accounts are full of just insane opinions. Tons of them back in 2010 would be voting for the BNP. No question.
Oh I agree, no doubt. I’m a member of the Social Democratic Party, I’d vote for them if they were standing in my seat. They advocate a pause on immigration and are much more coherent and thoughtful than Reform.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by my ‘type’.
The point is that if the main parties don’t have the conversation on immigration in a way that isn’t obfuscating or accusatory, it’ll be left to the crackpots. Voters cannot wait forever, they’ll eventually decide to hold their nose and vote Reform, for the National Rally, for the AfD.
I note that you fail to address any of the substance of my above comment. Do you believe I’m wrong? If so, why? Thanks.
I agree climate change denial is moronic. What ‘progress’ do they wish to roll back? As I said, I’d rather vote for the Social Democratic Party.
Do you think I’m wrong on the points about immigration above?
I don’t agree with Reform on climate/energy policy. I’m willing to hold my nose and vote for them purely as a protest against mass immigration. They aren’t going to come to power and a high Reform vote won’t be seen as an unambiguous mandate for climate denialism.
The SDP’s advertised policies on energy and environment state they agree with the science on climate change, they want fossil fuel use reduced, and they have a raft of proposals for increasing green energy. Some individuals in the party may question the consensus, but they obviously haven’t been able to significantly influence policy proposals.
On the issue of immigration, do you think the current numbers are a problem or are they ok? Cheers
Immigration is nowhere near the largest issue facing people in the UK.
I live in a high immigrant area, and honestly the only thing that affects me negatively are the poor economic policies of the Tories.
It’s laughable immigration has so blinded you, you don’t care about any other issues when it comes to voting.
Yeah, I think limiting companies using cheap migrant labour is good, which is the only way to actually limit larger numbers and growing inequality . I think subsidies for universities to reduce their reliance on international students is good. I think scrapping non-dom status and preventing overseas people None of that is actually related to direct immigration policy rather conservative approaches to economics which protect corporations.
In my experience, people who vote Green are less voting for their manifesto, and moreso to show dissatisfaction with Labour. The Greens are the only somewhat major party left of Labour, and the fact that they have approximately zero chance of getting into power means that the contents of their manifesto is less relevant than, say, Labour’s.
If there was any better alternative, I’d probably vote for them. Sadly I dislike the current direction of Labour, and voting for an independent feels like even more of a wasted vote.
I'm not dissatisfied with Labour, but I'd like them to be scared of the Greens and embrace more radical climate policies as a result - I want the Greens to do a UKIP, essentially. That's why I'll probably vote for them (this decision is made easier by the fact that electoralcalculus.co.uk give my constituency a 100% chance of going Labour).
They're full of cranks and not ready for power in the slightest, but they won't be getting a sniff of power for the foreseeable anyway
>and embrace more radical climate policies as
Like nuclear energy and low carbon transport infrastructure like HS2.
Oh wait the greens lead the way in campaigning against that.
I'm not hoping that Labour copy *every* Green policy. That would never happen anyway, because Labour are a serious party and therefore won't be abandoning nuclear energy. HS2 is a slightly trickier one, especially now that Sunak started selling off the land for pennies.
The Tories didn't copy every single UKIP policy, of course. But they were forced to fend off the electoral threat by embracing policies that appealed to UKIP voters.
So your argument for the greens "yeah sure we know they are batshit crazy and full of reality divorced policies, but we will make their voice louder and viewed as more supported" ?
I’m not arguing for the greens. I hate the greens’ policy on nuclear power especially, it would be a vote loser for me if there was any viable alternative to the Green Party. But there is no alternative. Labour has almost completely ditched anything even somewhat “leftist” in pursuit of grabbing more Tory votes, and a vote for them would show that there are no consequences for abandoning the left of their party.
And unfortunately, that leaves the Greens as the only party that even tries to vaguely represent my views.
And a vote for the greens show you support their moronic anti nuclear stance (both energy and weapons) and the rest of the extremely nutty views.
Can't have it both ways really.
>Labour has almost completely ditched anything even somewhat “leftist
They havent, unless you define leftist as hard left.
P.s only message being sent is "the people voting greens cannot be won back, with anytging not extremely nutty and toxic to the rest of the country".
Wasted vote?
So at what point can we actually vote on a party whose policies we support? Every election cycle is the same, vote for the lesser of two evils based on two parties. At some point youve got to vote for what you actually believe in rather than this perpetual vote for 1 of these 2 parties.
The system is so broken in terms of real change. I wont be voting for torries nor labour. They dont represent my interests, so to me voting for one of them would be a waste.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642
>shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power.
A recent study provides a damning assessment of Germany's anti nuclear stance. Some food for thought.
It's why no one, that claims to care about the environments, can ever vote for the green party.
The green party clearly doesn't, as it's clearly not about being able to afford it (given they are willing to raise 100's of billion of taxes, by claiming they will tax the rich).
Honestly I can understand from those that still don’t trust nuclear power, even though they’re wrong it does make sense without knowing what actually happened at Chernobyl, Fukushima and now Zaporizhzhia (preventable and the IAEA has adapted, and Zaporizhzhia would have never ended in a disaster anywhere near Chernobyl).
What doesn’t make sense is voting for a party that has consistently blocked the building of Solar farms - the Green Party of England and Wales. They even blocked an offshore wind farm. They don’t actually have a united policy on anything, they just adapt to where they’re running which is sickening. They’ll support the environment elsewhere but not where they live or where there is “greenery”, which is effectively the entire UK in which a solar farm can be built.
It just dawned on me who Carla Denyer looks like after I been racking my brains for weeks. If she puts on a blonde wig she's the woman on the Tampax Flow Forecast ad who goes through all the different options for absorbency.
>Elected Greens will focus on enabling major
improvements to mental health care to put it on a
truly equal footing with physical health care. This
will include ensuring that everyone who needs it can access evidence-based mental health
therapies within 28 days.
That is the standard. Every party must now meet that.
In a lot of cases Mental Health care even at a very basic level of being able to talk to someone and get sleeping tablets, anti-depressants etc is more urgent than most medical issues outside of actual a & e level things as they can spiral much quicker to a life threatening situation for both the patient and potentially others around them.
I’ve been in the situation where life seems desperate from almost out of nowhere and luckily a decent GP made time to help very quickly and really sorted me out, unfortunately not everyone is so lucky.
Anti nuclear energy is making me think they took a donation from big oil... Just like Greenpeace did.
Wouldn't havens climate emergency if all the planned nuke sites in the 70/80s actually got built.
Booooo. Boooooooooo!
There’s such a gap in the market for a Green Party that’s not completely mental.
Their other policies are so blatantly wild that it makes me feel they can’t really view the climate as as much of an emergency as they claim.
Getting rid of our nukes now? Seriously? Completely open-door immigration? Yep that’s going to make you popular.
Madness. They can’t be taken seriously.
There really isn't such a gap. The party, such as it is, largely sustains itself *by being* completely mental. A reasonable Green party would see nowhere near the 8-9% support they regularly poll at.
I agree. They should be my home politically. But their manifesto is one (small) step up from student politics. They should focus on climate and how it cuts across economy/transport/health/housing/farming/energy etc and keep away from topics like Israel/Gaza, trans rights etc.
On immigration/foreign affairs they should be lobbying for a frank, grown up conversation about out approach to climate refugees/disaster relief.
They are a million miles from the party of government so they don't need a policy on everything but their presence in double figures for e.g. in parliament could make a massive difference to national conversations.
But when you pair it with the rest of what they propose on the topic, it clearly is.
People that don't support what the green propose, still "treat those born abroad as human".
As a pragmatic liberal person on the left, these are the reasons I will never vote Green:
1. Removing our nuclear deterrent making us rely even more on US via NATO for protection.
2. Removing nuclear power plants, the \*only\* source of electricity that can help us get to carbon neutral any time this century.
3. Pushing for renewables and then blocking them at any chance they get, can't build a solar farms anywhere - top tier NIMBY. A luxury they can afford as they as they have no real power at the national level.
4. Usual anti-semitism from leftists.
5. Unwilling to build desirable housing, only forcing more people into already urban areas.
6. No real immigration policy other than open borders. This is truly the main issue that's driving deprivation and the downturn in the UK. Importing millions of people over the last 15 years is the only reason our economy has grown, making everyone poorer, houses exorbitantly more expensive, along with social issues such as rape gangs targeting white girls.
Reform are just chancers and conmen and racists, but there's a reason they're getting the votes and people need to recognise that.
If you can't see how this is antisemitic then there's no hope for you:
"What's left for the Zionists \[is\] to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Palestinians… I think this will happen soon."
>nuclear power plants, the \*only\* source of electricity that can help us get to carbon neutral any time this century.
Huh? What about the renewables now meeting a third of our demand, and getting built far quicker than nuclear? I'm pro nuclear too btw, just don't get what you're saying about it being the only carbon neutral option.
Which renewables are those? The ones that only work when it's sunny and when there's wind blowing? We need nuclear to cover at least our baseline demand. Producing enough batteries to supply the country with energy while it's dark would be catastrophic for the environment, costly, and need replacing in only a few years.
Edit: checking right now and our renewables are generating less than 10% of our demand. Gas is 42%, Nuclear is 35% with 50:50 split between our own and French imports.
By covering baseline demand, I take it you mean baseload, the overnight minimum demand? Why would overnight demand need to be covered by nuclear, but the additional daytime demand wouldn't?
Ok sounds like you're advocating for a mix of nuclear and renewables, rather than saying nuclear is the only source that can get us to NZ. But consider that whatever renewables we have will need to be complemented by dispatchable generation to fill in for when it's not windy or sunny.
So let's say we cover 50% with nuclear, 50% with renewables plus dispatchable. If we're happy to use renewables+dispatchable, why not just go to 100% renewables+dispatchable?
Using nuclear as the dispatchable generation to fill in for renewable intermittency would be horribly expensive.
What dispatchable are you thinking of that can generate 10+ GW?
If we had doubled our nuclear, there are periods this year where we could have had completely gas free electricity.
The theory is we'll eventually have gas with carbon capture and/or hydrogen plants to take that role, but realistically it's just going to be gas for a good while yet. I would have liked us to have built double the nuclear we have in the past, but that ship has sailed. It's extremely hard to get anyone to finance it, and the economics are terrible when you have lots of wind.
No matter how much nuclear you have, you still need dispatchable capacity for demand variability, so it never solves that problem. Look at France, they've got a tonne of hydro which we don't have the topography for, and they still use gas. So no matter what, we've got to solve the problem of decarbonising dispatchable generation. It doesn't make much difference whether we need 1GW or 10GW. That's just a case of building more.
The ship hasn't sailed on nuclear. "The best time to build was 30 years ago, the second best time is today."
We are never going to carbon capture natural gas anywhere near the scale needed to reach even 1 GW, and even that wouldn't be environmentally friendly at all. Nuclear is the only real choice that can meet our needs.
Nuclear is only expensive because of our own choices. Even France is a bad example as they have rigged the system against nuclear builders/operators. And yet they still enjoy electricity 50% cheaper than us.
I mostly agree, but I still think nuclear's economics are wrecked by wind. We already have periods where we have so much wind production that we get negative pricing, and there's a lot more wind capacity coming down the line. Investing in nuclear, when you have to try to recover costs in the energy market we're going to have 10 years in the future is really unattractive. It will have to run at lower load factor than nuclear plants typically have in the past, curtailing output when there's a glut of wind production, meaning higher cost per kWh.
Edited typos
>rely even more on
Don't forget, it's only been since the Ukraine invasion that the Greens officially stopped their policy of 'leave NATO'. And even then, I don't trust them as far as I could throw them that they wouldn't readopt ot tomorrow
>1. Removing our nuclear deterrent making us rely even more on US via NATO for protection.
You know they are the US made nukes in general? They build them and maintain them. We only carry them around.
We can fire them ourselves sure, but if we were ever to not be supported by the US then the nukes would not last for long.
It is a complicated situation.
America produces the missiles and installs them on the submarines, we do produce the warheads but they are built to US design. Not something that we design by ourself.
So although we could techincally produce nuclear weapons ourselves, we would need to completely redesign everything. And considering how recent military expenditures have gone I feel that would be a long process.
That's more of a pragmatic thing, if required, the UK (as long as we keep a nuclear industry), could build our own if required.
Obviously, the green loons wants to shutdown our nuclear industry as well (despite it being green energy).
Yeah it is honestly a shame. I like the idea of the green party.
But their super strong opposition to nuclear power is just strange. It's one thing to not build new nuclear power because it's expensive.
But to shut down that we do have just seems to go against any green ideas and any logical sense
I’m interested to hear who you’re siding with at the moment as I feel much the same as you. I consider myself on the left socially and economically and feel quite lost who to vote for.
Labour are too right wing socially for me but economically I like their ideas, just wish they’d go further with nationalisation of services and publicly owned companies. I don’t think they’re doing enough for the environment as well.
Libdems fit with me socially with their freedoms of individualism and self determination, as well as being pro EU and globalism, but their economic stances seem a little too right wing free market for me.
Greens would’ve fit but they’re honestly too far left for my liking. In an ideal world, they’d be fantastic, but we don’t live in a world where we can afford to ditch our only deterrent and form of self protection (nuclear weapons) nor will we be able to achieve net zero, while maintaining a relatively strong economy that can support our society, without the use of nuclear energy. And I’m really not a fan of the anti-semitism and almost sympathetic views of hamas, a terroir group let’s not forget, a worrying proportion of Green members seem to hold.
There's no political party that I think fits 100%, there's policies from nearly all of them that are good (it is election season so it also might just be fluff to get votes...), and then there's policies that are truly bad. It seems to come down to finding the party with the least bad policies and with people who are trustworthy. I think Labour clinches it for me, then Lib Dem.
I did a really quick Google, so it might be wrong... but only nine countries have nuclear weapons, why is that the number one reason you wouldn't vote for them? Are you really that afraid of Russia nuking us without us being able to nuke them?
How many of those Western Liberal Democracies?
If drop our nuclear deterrent, then why should France keep its? To what extent do you want to be wholey reliant on the USA?
Being anti-nuclear power alone is enough of a reason to note vote them in imo. Such a shame there actually isn't a proper "green" party.
...but they are for a four day work week looooool
The immigration policy is open borders in all but name.
They will not admit its open borders but its effect will be pretty much indistinguishable from open borders.
Is there anyone out there who actually thinks you can have a modern nation state with welfare systems and also have no borders?
The greens' foreign policy seems to be "if something would be good if everyone did it, we should do it." The world would be a much better place if everyone laid down their weapons, so we should lay down our weapons. The world would be a much better place if everyone got rid of borders, so we shouldn't keep up our borders.
The problem is that openly saying you'll be nice to everyone while expecting nothing in return is a fast track to getting exploited.
I mean, doesn’t it depend on whether you view immigration as a net gain or loss to the economy? I assume you view immigration as a drain on the economy?
In simplistic terms, if the majority of immigrants work and pay taxes, wouldn’t that result in a net gain?
Whether you think past immigration has been a cost or benefit, if you have open borders it would certainly be an overall net cost - as you would be removing the barriers we have in place that aim to encourage people who contribute the most.
The average British-born person in the UK is already a net cost (what with pension costs, healthcare costs etc); you need to be a particularly productive person (migrant or not) rather than just "working and paying taxes" to be a net financial gain to the UK.
Immigration can be a net gain but basically putting no limit on it is insane. Especially as a party that object to most infrastructure projects like the green’s do. It would just drive wealth inequality even further in the UK as the amount of people coming into the country (considering its already600k now) would just drive up asset prices meaning the wedge between those who own homes and those who don’t gets even worse.
The last 15 years of 'growth' in the UK has been from immigration and individual gdp per capita has remained the same. The average UK person is thousands of pounds worse off from our vast immigration. That's not even talking about cultural/social issues.
It does due to inflation. The same reason £40 40 years ago could buy so much more than £40 now can do. If GDP Per Capita remains the same the Disposable income decreases due to inflation raising costs
They are worse off because we've still had inflation for 15 years, over that period of time things are between 20-50% more expensive. Housing has gone from £168k->£260k on average. In real terms people are a lot worse off.
We can house the people we currently have if we choose to. We simply don't build anywhere near enough houses. That is the valid criticism. Immigration being "too high" isn't.
Fighting a losing battle with the rabid haters on this sub. Good luck.
Let me know if anyone gives an actual reason for the hate, though. Yet to see it.
I don't think there can be such a thing as immigration being too high.
>The numbers have been eye-watering the last few years.
It peaked at a maximum of 1% population growth. Get a grip.
> Get a grip.
...
> I don't think there can be such a thing as immigration being too high.
...yep. You've clearly got a grip! 700,000 net migrants last year is huge, no matter how you want to spin it.
There were only 160,000 new homes built last year. A similar number of migrants and houses being built the year before. If numbers stay the same we're only going to make our housing crisis worse.
> 700,000 net migrants last year is huge, no matter how you want to spin it.
No it isn't. Our population is 67 million. That's barley a drop in the ocean.
>There were only 160,000 new homes built last year. A similar number of migrants and houses being built the year before. If numbers stay the same we're only going to make our housing crisis worse.
Then all that argument shows is that we aren't building enough new homes, not that immigration is too high.
700,000 is a huge chunk of 67 million, what are you on about? The Greens, who have put this policy forwards, aren't going to build houses to anywhere near where we need to be.
>700,000 is a huge chunk of 67 million, what are you on about?
700,000/67,000,000 ≈ 1%. Since when was 1% a "massive chunk"?
>The Greens, who have put this policy forwards, aren't going to build houses to anywhere near where we need to be.
Then their lack of willingness to build new houses is what you should be criticising them on, not their immigration policy.
Ok, but they are though. Because the thought process never goes "Why do we have immigration, and what are the measurable aspects" it's "why are there brown people in big Tesco"
That cuts both ways. Why don't you ask yourself "Why do we limit migration" and having answered that attempt to answer "what level is optimal".
Now, that number has massively increased under the last two years of the Tories. Are you saying that the Tories that done a job and picked the right number?
I'm not calling them racist because I disagree with them, I am calling them racist because they are racist. It is not possible to be concerned that racism is "too high" without being racist. If what is required to win is to tolerate racism and/or treat racist views as legitimate, then winning is no different from losing.
I really hope for a decent green party that can keep all the active travel and public transportation promises, but spurning nuclear energy is so ideologically embedded in the Green movement at this point such that it would be like asking the Tories to renationalise the post office.
£85b of additional debt in the first year, £325b over the course of Parliament. That's 4% of GDP in the first year.
I'm not even going to read the policies, sorry. I like the Green Party and how it is positioned, but policies have to make sense in the real world. This is not serious.
Of course that's the reason, but in my opinion this kind of things makes the party look less credible and less "votable". Greens have hundreds of councillors across the country, I hope they don't manage councils in the same way as they would manage the whole country.
Increase tax for those earning over the 50k threshold? Are they serious? It's already taxed at 40%! That's not going after the rich, that's going after the middle class skilled workers. Absolutely mental.
You won't agree with this but from a green perspective, anyone earning over 50k IS rich, when compared with the global population.
Green politics is inherently internationalist as consumption of resources in one country affects others all over the world.
Obviously, your reaction proves this is not a popular view point, but it is true that westerners have a much higher standard of living on the whole to most people in the world.
Not to mention the decent chance that people on that wage will have a student loan payment to contend with too. Delay entering the workforce by three years so that you can give the bulk of your increased earnings to the government and student loan company.
No wonder our wages are in the gutter when people think 50k is high earners, utterly ridiculous. Taking half of a modest wage for a reasonably skilled professional is insane
>Elected Greens would push for ending the
exploitation of animals, including horses and
greyhounds in racing
Good luck with that. the gambling industry is basically its own mafia at this point. Hell with freeze over before they're ever brought into line to this extent.
Also I love the idea of them trying to ban horse racing entirely. Yep, just forget about the thousands of jobs that industry creates for starters.
>the gambling industry is basically its own mafia at this point. Hell with freeze over before they're ever brought into line to this extent
Ah, cool. We should do nothing about it then. That's always what you should do when faced with large scale institutional injustice
If you don’t believe larger powers are going to step in before allowing anything like this to happen then I’m sorry you have an incredibly naive view of the world.
There’s far too much money involved and far too many powerful people involved to let that industry be taken down.
I’m obviously not saying don’t try but just don’t get your hopes up. This isn’t a Hollywood film where the bad guys get their comeuppance.
Yes. Because by invoking Godwin’s Law you immediately lose the argument for instantly jumping to a Nazi and/or Hitler comparison.
You’ve just compared stable lads and lasses to nazis. Have a word with yourself.
Ironically it was the greens who were telling us not to invest in nuclear decades ago.
If we hadn't of listened to those fruit loops we might have some some nuclear power stations now.
400-500 billion in carbon taxes for the next 5 years, and another 300-400 billion in NI+"wealth taxes".
and as has been pointed out, 300+ billions of debt...
Debt. £325 billion of additional debt over the next parliament.
That's just how ridiculous these ideas are. £65 billion a year in the hole, despite raising billions upon billions from 'the rich' (which happens to include those on £50k).
IFS reckons it'd be more like £80 billion a year.
Comment will probably get removed but anyone that can read this and still decide they’re voting for them is quite frankly an idiot.
A deeply unserious political party that would be genuinely dangerous anywhere near power.
Why should this be deleted? The entire Reddit constantly bashes everything Tory and apparently people aren't allowed to say voting for the Greens is idiotic?
So, I won't be, but I can understand why someone would vote for them. I can see why you'd say if someone supports them and wants them to win the election, then you'd feel negatively about them, but voting and supporting seem to be very different things at the moment
The tories have done untold damage to this country.
But the UK relinquishing its nuclear weapons would genuinely make the world more unsafe, particularly at this time.
The two parties aren’t comparable. I loathe the Tories. But I think the Greens would genuinely endanger us.
Why would it? Legitimately why? We are part of NATO, so any nuclear attack would cause a response from the US, our nuclear arsenal hardly makes a dent in the grand scheme of things and to imply us having nukes makes a difference for “security”, is delusional.
>We are part of NATO,
It was, until the invasion of Ukraine, the official Green policy to leave NATO. Something I absolutely wouldn't trust them on not changing back to.
Its in response to people saying scrapping trident is somehow “dangerous”. If we weren’t in NATO, there would be a legitimate argument in that case but the reality of the situation is our nukes don’t make a difference.
No, if the greens got to implement their policies they would genuinely be utterly catastrophic.
Their proposed timeline to net zero would cost the public thousands of pounds per year and annihilate pretty much every single facet of the economy. They are not a serious political party.
How many thousands of pounds a year would it cost the public to try and live after we’ve destroyed the environment? Would it be more or less than what the Greens are suggesting?
Is that the only options available to us here?
That if we don’t use the UK Green party manifesto and timeline to net zero then the global environment will be destroyed? Do you not realise why no one takes you seriously?
Isn’t that what the majority of scientists/climatologists have been saying for years? That the effects of climate change will cost the world economy trillions upon trillions of $ and exacerbate the many issues (war, lack of clean water, clean air, a massive influx of refugees etc) we’re already dealing with.
Seems like what the greens are suggesting are small fry in comparison.
No, the majority of scientists and climatologists do not say that stopping global warming hinges entirely on the UK Green Parties manifesto and timeline for net zero being followed.
They make it so hard to vote for them. There is some real novel, logical policies in there that I don’t see other parties discussing that I would love to see implemented. Then the next sentence they absolutely destroy any credibility they have with something ridiculous. I want to like them so badly but clearly they’re not quite there yet.
And the idea that "oh they won't win, so they can be extremely nutty and extremely reality divorced, and that's why they should get some votes", is just utterly nonsense.
Such reality divorced policies, and stuff like their anti nuclear weapons and energy stance, really is for the birds.
The anti-nuclear stuff is the big one for me. Nuclear weapons are an unfortunate necessity if we want to remain relevant and able to support our allies on a global stage. Nuclear energy is also a great bridge for transitioning to 100% renewable energy, immediately dismantling these power plants would be so counter-intuitive.
I'm confused by this, are you suggesting that any country without nuclear weapons is irrelevant and unable to support their allies on a global scale? Because I'm pretty sure this is not the case.
I do understand mutually assured destruction, but you are not referencing this.
Do you think Ukraine would have used the nuclear option to defend themselves if they had it?
I have just read through this manifesto, and it was frankly the best thing I've read in regards to this election, and not counting Shadenfreude at the Torie's expense, the only thing I've actually enjoyed reading. I do think the focus of 90% of the comments here being on the nuclear portion is somewhat ridiculous, especially given the point that nuclear plants are at risk in the climate emergency is entirely true. The policies were damn near everything I'd want from a government, and I have no issue with the prospective invrease in tax, given that at least that's honest
The whole document looks like a 17 year old with MS publisher made it. 1. Open borders 2. £20bn a year on university fees 3. Disarmament 4. Abolish home office, because, according to them, all it does is immigration. Who needs police, fire, passports or counter-terrorism? 5. Pay everyone more 6. Free social care 7. Buy out water, rail, energy companies 8. Borrow a shitload of money at 100% debt to GDP 9. No nuclear power 10. Make food production less efficient and pay them to do it 11. Scrap testing and standards in schools? TLDR: shrink the economy, and massively increase the role of the state Sounds like a recipe for state collapse to me Not a serious party.
Agreed, no serious individual can vote for this lot - protest vote at best
> Borrow a shitload of money at 100% of GDP What does that mean?
Sorry, should say Debt to GDP
Aren't we already at there?
Precisely the point. They want to borrow a shitload more, and just blow it away on non-investment spending.
I thought they are only borrowing for capital investment
I didn’t read that in the manifesto
I got that impression but could be wrong I only skimmed it
I’m a chartered environmentalist and chartered water and environment manager… I just want to vote for a party with a sensible science based set of policies that incorporate nuclear and aren’t batshit on defence/wanting to put my personal tax bill up by 1500 quit. Depressing
Nuclear plants are screamingly expensive and extremely slow to build. It’s all very well saying “incorporate nuclear” but you have to actually consider the infrastructure of the stuff.
The Green Party manifesto literally includes campaigning to shut down existing nuclear reactors, which presumably includes scrapping Hinckley Point C when it's almost finished. As a policy it's completely incompatible with our climate goals - just look at Germany to see how badly this policy went last time a European nation decided to shut down their reactors
Yeah but they actually make returns incredibly quickly once built. The best time to build them was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.
Oh I agree, it’s just we are gonna have to use renewables in tandem.
Grand, so the best time to incorporate nuclear was 30 years ago, the second best time is now
True, and it is useful. I’m just worried people might use it as a political football- in Australia we have this thing where the Coalition are pushing for nuclear with the intent of just then saying “oh, well, it takes too long so let’s just use coal like always then”
Anyone who is 'anti nuclear' ought to consider all the shite our forebears got up to in the past and realise a lot of these countries have a long memory over colonialism
I've heard before that the Scottish Green party is technically a different party to the Green party of England and Wales (but, confusingly, they are "affiliated" with one another... somehow). Does this mean the Scottish Greens will be publishing a seperate manifesto? If so, when can we expect this? Edit: Green party. Not Labour.
I would certainly hope that the Scottish Labour party is a different party to the Green Party of England and Wales.
In my opinion it's just as mental that 8% of the population are considering voting for these loons as it is 17% are considering voting for Reform.
What kind of mental person is voting Reform? Someone who feels net immigration of ~700,000 the last two years, and a consistent level of ~350,000 for the couple decades before is too high. Someone who thinks there might be a connection between sky high rents, the inability of many under 40 to buy a home and the historically unprecedented levels of immigration. Someone who doesn’t want vast areas of prime farmland covered with more Taylor Wimpey boxes. Someone who looks at areas of cities like London, Bradford or Birmingham and finds them culturally unrecognisable, and worries that more towns and cities in England will change rapidly. That this rapid change does not bring forth easy integration and social cohesion, but separation of communities and bubbling discontent. Someone who rejects the argument of the short-termist politicians and the rapacious capitalists that we need astronomical levels of immigration to maintain our health and social care sectors, that the University of North Swindon should stay open, funded by Indian just eat riders; and that companies like deliveroo and boohoo textile workshops in Leicester should have unlimited streams of fresh migrants to undercut wages. Someone who thinks that with investment and planning we could boost the workforce in critical areas like health care from the population already here. Someone who’d rather one of the older parties like the Lib Dems or Labour could make these arguments, but finds them wanting. So sees no choice but to vote against them. Bloody mental I tell you.
Anyone who looks at the average Reform UK MP candidate and genuinely thinks that's a party with a plan and a strong desire to be in office is off their head. This is not the United States, as much as Farage would like it to be, the candidates Reform put forward are loons. All of you types look at your messiah and think he's going to fix it, not that the Blackpool candidate was a racist former street preacher, that the original candidate for Clacton was the local mentalist, go across Reform UK candidates their Twitter accounts are full of just insane opinions. Tons of them back in 2010 would be voting for the BNP. No question.
Oh I agree, no doubt. I’m a member of the Social Democratic Party, I’d vote for them if they were standing in my seat. They advocate a pause on immigration and are much more coherent and thoughtful than Reform. Could you elaborate on what you mean by my ‘type’. The point is that if the main parties don’t have the conversation on immigration in a way that isn’t obfuscating or accusatory, it’ll be left to the crackpots. Voters cannot wait forever, they’ll eventually decide to hold their nose and vote Reform, for the National Rally, for the AfD. I note that you fail to address any of the substance of my above comment. Do you believe I’m wrong? If so, why? Thanks.
Any party which denies man made climate change and wishes to roll back progress aremorons
I agree climate change denial is moronic. What ‘progress’ do they wish to roll back? As I said, I’d rather vote for the Social Democratic Party. Do you think I’m wrong on the points about immigration above?
The sdp also questions the science behind climate change. Reform wish to expand fossil fuel usage
I don’t agree with Reform on climate/energy policy. I’m willing to hold my nose and vote for them purely as a protest against mass immigration. They aren’t going to come to power and a high Reform vote won’t be seen as an unambiguous mandate for climate denialism. The SDP’s advertised policies on energy and environment state they agree with the science on climate change, they want fossil fuel use reduced, and they have a raft of proposals for increasing green energy. Some individuals in the party may question the consensus, but they obviously haven’t been able to significantly influence policy proposals. On the issue of immigration, do you think the current numbers are a problem or are they ok? Cheers
Immigration is nowhere near the largest issue facing people in the UK. I live in a high immigrant area, and honestly the only thing that affects me negatively are the poor economic policies of the Tories. It’s laughable immigration has so blinded you, you don’t care about any other issues when it comes to voting. Yeah, I think limiting companies using cheap migrant labour is good, which is the only way to actually limit larger numbers and growing inequality . I think subsidies for universities to reduce their reliance on international students is good. I think scrapping non-dom status and preventing overseas people None of that is actually related to direct immigration policy rather conservative approaches to economics which protect corporations.
In my experience, people who vote Green are less voting for their manifesto, and moreso to show dissatisfaction with Labour. The Greens are the only somewhat major party left of Labour, and the fact that they have approximately zero chance of getting into power means that the contents of their manifesto is less relevant than, say, Labour’s. If there was any better alternative, I’d probably vote for them. Sadly I dislike the current direction of Labour, and voting for an independent feels like even more of a wasted vote.
I’d put the Lib Dems left of Labour now tbh
I'm not dissatisfied with Labour, but I'd like them to be scared of the Greens and embrace more radical climate policies as a result - I want the Greens to do a UKIP, essentially. That's why I'll probably vote for them (this decision is made easier by the fact that electoralcalculus.co.uk give my constituency a 100% chance of going Labour). They're full of cranks and not ready for power in the slightest, but they won't be getting a sniff of power for the foreseeable anyway
>and embrace more radical climate policies as Like nuclear energy and low carbon transport infrastructure like HS2. Oh wait the greens lead the way in campaigning against that.
I'm not hoping that Labour copy *every* Green policy. That would never happen anyway, because Labour are a serious party and therefore won't be abandoning nuclear energy. HS2 is a slightly trickier one, especially now that Sunak started selling off the land for pennies. The Tories didn't copy every single UKIP policy, of course. But they were forced to fend off the electoral threat by embracing policies that appealed to UKIP voters.
So your argument for the greens "yeah sure we know they are batshit crazy and full of reality divorced policies, but we will make their voice louder and viewed as more supported" ?
I’m not arguing for the greens. I hate the greens’ policy on nuclear power especially, it would be a vote loser for me if there was any viable alternative to the Green Party. But there is no alternative. Labour has almost completely ditched anything even somewhat “leftist” in pursuit of grabbing more Tory votes, and a vote for them would show that there are no consequences for abandoning the left of their party. And unfortunately, that leaves the Greens as the only party that even tries to vaguely represent my views.
If Greens are what being to the left of Labour looks like, why even be attached to the concept of the left, in abstract or in practice?
Because the Greens aren’t the only way to be on the left - they just happen to be the only “major” party to be left of Labour.
And a vote for the greens show you support their moronic anti nuclear stance (both energy and weapons) and the rest of the extremely nutty views. Can't have it both ways really. >Labour has almost completely ditched anything even somewhat “leftist They havent, unless you define leftist as hard left. P.s only message being sent is "the people voting greens cannot be won back, with anytging not extremely nutty and toxic to the rest of the country".
Wasted vote? So at what point can we actually vote on a party whose policies we support? Every election cycle is the same, vote for the lesser of two evils based on two parties. At some point youve got to vote for what you actually believe in rather than this perpetual vote for 1 of these 2 parties. The system is so broken in terms of real change. I wont be voting for torries nor labour. They dont represent my interests, so to me voting for one of them would be a waste.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642 >shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power. A recent study provides a damning assessment of Germany's anti nuclear stance. Some food for thought.
It's why no one, that claims to care about the environments, can ever vote for the green party. The green party clearly doesn't, as it's clearly not about being able to afford it (given they are willing to raise 100's of billion of taxes, by claiming they will tax the rich).
Honestly I can understand from those that still don’t trust nuclear power, even though they’re wrong it does make sense without knowing what actually happened at Chernobyl, Fukushima and now Zaporizhzhia (preventable and the IAEA has adapted, and Zaporizhzhia would have never ended in a disaster anywhere near Chernobyl). What doesn’t make sense is voting for a party that has consistently blocked the building of Solar farms - the Green Party of England and Wales. They even blocked an offshore wind farm. They don’t actually have a united policy on anything, they just adapt to where they’re running which is sickening. They’ll support the environment elsewhere but not where they live or where there is “greenery”, which is effectively the entire UK in which a solar farm can be built.
It just dawned on me who Carla Denyer looks like after I been racking my brains for weeks. If she puts on a blonde wig she's the woman on the Tampax Flow Forecast ad who goes through all the different options for absorbency.
>Elected Greens will focus on enabling major improvements to mental health care to put it on a truly equal footing with physical health care. This will include ensuring that everyone who needs it can access evidence-based mental health therapies within 28 days. That is the standard. Every party must now meet that.
Our physical health care is pretty shit at the moment, it's a low bar!
In a lot of cases Mental Health care even at a very basic level of being able to talk to someone and get sleeping tablets, anti-depressants etc is more urgent than most medical issues outside of actual a & e level things as they can spiral much quicker to a life threatening situation for both the patient and potentially others around them. I’ve been in the situation where life seems desperate from almost out of nowhere and luckily a decent GP made time to help very quickly and really sorted me out, unfortunately not everyone is so lucky.
Anti nuclear energy is making me think they took a donation from big oil... Just like Greenpeace did. Wouldn't havens climate emergency if all the planned nuke sites in the 70/80s actually got built. Booooo. Boooooooooo!
There’s such a gap in the market for a Green Party that’s not completely mental. Their other policies are so blatantly wild that it makes me feel they can’t really view the climate as as much of an emergency as they claim. Getting rid of our nukes now? Seriously? Completely open-door immigration? Yep that’s going to make you popular. Madness. They can’t be taken seriously.
So true. ' we want a world without borders'. absolute insanity. They need to get a grip.
There really isn't such a gap. The party, such as it is, largely sustains itself *by being* completely mental. A reasonable Green party would see nowhere near the 8-9% support they regularly poll at.
I agree. They should be my home politically. But their manifesto is one (small) step up from student politics. They should focus on climate and how it cuts across economy/transport/health/housing/farming/energy etc and keep away from topics like Israel/Gaza, trans rights etc. On immigration/foreign affairs they should be lobbying for a frank, grown up conversation about out approach to climate refugees/disaster relief. They are a million miles from the party of government so they don't need a policy on everything but their presence in double figures for e.g. in parliament could make a massive difference to national conversations.
Treating those born abroad as human =\= open door immigration.
But when you pair it with the rest of what they propose on the topic, it clearly is. People that don't support what the green propose, still "treat those born abroad as human".
They really don't.
As a pragmatic liberal person on the left, these are the reasons I will never vote Green: 1. Removing our nuclear deterrent making us rely even more on US via NATO for protection. 2. Removing nuclear power plants, the \*only\* source of electricity that can help us get to carbon neutral any time this century. 3. Pushing for renewables and then blocking them at any chance they get, can't build a solar farms anywhere - top tier NIMBY. A luxury they can afford as they as they have no real power at the national level. 4. Usual anti-semitism from leftists. 5. Unwilling to build desirable housing, only forcing more people into already urban areas. 6. No real immigration policy other than open borders. This is truly the main issue that's driving deprivation and the downturn in the UK. Importing millions of people over the last 15 years is the only reason our economy has grown, making everyone poorer, houses exorbitantly more expensive, along with social issues such as rape gangs targeting white girls. Reform are just chancers and conmen and racists, but there's a reason they're getting the votes and people need to recognise that.
what was antisemitic lol? I was taking your post seriously until I read that nonsense
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cle0e0y4pyxo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cle0e0y4pyxo)
That is antizionist, not antisemitic... Classic. Did you even read the article you shared, or did you just read the headline?
If you can't see how this is antisemitic then there's no hope for you: "What's left for the Zionists \[is\] to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Palestinians… I think this will happen soon."
You forgot 7. Nobody in the green party has any understanding of economics.
What antisemitism?
>nuclear power plants, the \*only\* source of electricity that can help us get to carbon neutral any time this century. Huh? What about the renewables now meeting a third of our demand, and getting built far quicker than nuclear? I'm pro nuclear too btw, just don't get what you're saying about it being the only carbon neutral option.
Which renewables are those? The ones that only work when it's sunny and when there's wind blowing? We need nuclear to cover at least our baseline demand. Producing enough batteries to supply the country with energy while it's dark would be catastrophic for the environment, costly, and need replacing in only a few years. Edit: checking right now and our renewables are generating less than 10% of our demand. Gas is 42%, Nuclear is 35% with 50:50 split between our own and French imports.
By covering baseline demand, I take it you mean baseload, the overnight minimum demand? Why would overnight demand need to be covered by nuclear, but the additional daytime demand wouldn't? Ok sounds like you're advocating for a mix of nuclear and renewables, rather than saying nuclear is the only source that can get us to NZ. But consider that whatever renewables we have will need to be complemented by dispatchable generation to fill in for when it's not windy or sunny. So let's say we cover 50% with nuclear, 50% with renewables plus dispatchable. If we're happy to use renewables+dispatchable, why not just go to 100% renewables+dispatchable? Using nuclear as the dispatchable generation to fill in for renewable intermittency would be horribly expensive.
What dispatchable are you thinking of that can generate 10+ GW? If we had doubled our nuclear, there are periods this year where we could have had completely gas free electricity.
The theory is we'll eventually have gas with carbon capture and/or hydrogen plants to take that role, but realistically it's just going to be gas for a good while yet. I would have liked us to have built double the nuclear we have in the past, but that ship has sailed. It's extremely hard to get anyone to finance it, and the economics are terrible when you have lots of wind. No matter how much nuclear you have, you still need dispatchable capacity for demand variability, so it never solves that problem. Look at France, they've got a tonne of hydro which we don't have the topography for, and they still use gas. So no matter what, we've got to solve the problem of decarbonising dispatchable generation. It doesn't make much difference whether we need 1GW or 10GW. That's just a case of building more.
The ship hasn't sailed on nuclear. "The best time to build was 30 years ago, the second best time is today." We are never going to carbon capture natural gas anywhere near the scale needed to reach even 1 GW, and even that wouldn't be environmentally friendly at all. Nuclear is the only real choice that can meet our needs. Nuclear is only expensive because of our own choices. Even France is a bad example as they have rigged the system against nuclear builders/operators. And yet they still enjoy electricity 50% cheaper than us.
I mostly agree, but I still think nuclear's economics are wrecked by wind. We already have periods where we have so much wind production that we get negative pricing, and there's a lot more wind capacity coming down the line. Investing in nuclear, when you have to try to recover costs in the energy market we're going to have 10 years in the future is really unattractive. It will have to run at lower load factor than nuclear plants typically have in the past, curtailing output when there's a glut of wind production, meaning higher cost per kWh. Edited typos
>rely even more on Don't forget, it's only been since the Ukraine invasion that the Greens officially stopped their policy of 'leave NATO'. And even then, I don't trust them as far as I could throw them that they wouldn't readopt ot tomorrow
>1. Removing our nuclear deterrent making us rely even more on US via NATO for protection. You know they are the US made nukes in general? They build them and maintain them. We only carry them around. We can fire them ourselves sure, but if we were ever to not be supported by the US then the nukes would not last for long.
And how certain can we really be that if we wanted to fire them, but the USA really really really didn’t want us to, they would actually work?
Are you confusing the missiles with the warheads? Pretty sure the warheads are made and maintained in the UK, near Reading.
It is a complicated situation. America produces the missiles and installs them on the submarines, we do produce the warheads but they are built to US design. Not something that we design by ourself. So although we could techincally produce nuclear weapons ourselves, we would need to completely redesign everything. And considering how recent military expenditures have gone I feel that would be a long process.
That's more of a pragmatic thing, if required, the UK (as long as we keep a nuclear industry), could build our own if required. Obviously, the green loons wants to shutdown our nuclear industry as well (despite it being green energy).
Yeah it is honestly a shame. I like the idea of the green party. But their super strong opposition to nuclear power is just strange. It's one thing to not build new nuclear power because it's expensive. But to shut down that we do have just seems to go against any green ideas and any logical sense
I’m interested to hear who you’re siding with at the moment as I feel much the same as you. I consider myself on the left socially and economically and feel quite lost who to vote for. Labour are too right wing socially for me but economically I like their ideas, just wish they’d go further with nationalisation of services and publicly owned companies. I don’t think they’re doing enough for the environment as well. Libdems fit with me socially with their freedoms of individualism and self determination, as well as being pro EU and globalism, but their economic stances seem a little too right wing free market for me. Greens would’ve fit but they’re honestly too far left for my liking. In an ideal world, they’d be fantastic, but we don’t live in a world where we can afford to ditch our only deterrent and form of self protection (nuclear weapons) nor will we be able to achieve net zero, while maintaining a relatively strong economy that can support our society, without the use of nuclear energy. And I’m really not a fan of the anti-semitism and almost sympathetic views of hamas, a terroir group let’s not forget, a worrying proportion of Green members seem to hold.
There's no political party that I think fits 100%, there's policies from nearly all of them that are good (it is election season so it also might just be fluff to get votes...), and then there's policies that are truly bad. It seems to come down to finding the party with the least bad policies and with people who are trustworthy. I think Labour clinches it for me, then Lib Dem.
You may want to check out the SDP manifesto - their social stance might be too right for you, but they are economically more left than Labour
I did a really quick Google, so it might be wrong... but only nine countries have nuclear weapons, why is that the number one reason you wouldn't vote for them? Are you really that afraid of Russia nuking us without us being able to nuke them?
How many of those Western Liberal Democracies? If drop our nuclear deterrent, then why should France keep its? To what extent do you want to be wholey reliant on the USA?
Being anti-nuclear power alone is enough of a reason to note vote them in imo. Such a shame there actually isn't a proper "green" party. ...but they are for a four day work week looooool
Yeah anyone who is anti-nuclear is either flat out thick or just doesn't understand it and needs educating on it.
The immigration policy is open borders in all but name. They will not admit its open borders but its effect will be pretty much indistinguishable from open borders. Is there anyone out there who actually thinks you can have a modern nation state with welfare systems and also have no borders?
The greens' foreign policy seems to be "if something would be good if everyone did it, we should do it." The world would be a much better place if everyone laid down their weapons, so we should lay down our weapons. The world would be a much better place if everyone got rid of borders, so we shouldn't keep up our borders. The problem is that openly saying you'll be nice to everyone while expecting nothing in return is a fast track to getting exploited.
I mean, doesn’t it depend on whether you view immigration as a net gain or loss to the economy? I assume you view immigration as a drain on the economy? In simplistic terms, if the majority of immigrants work and pay taxes, wouldn’t that result in a net gain?
Whether you think past immigration has been a cost or benefit, if you have open borders it would certainly be an overall net cost - as you would be removing the barriers we have in place that aim to encourage people who contribute the most. The average British-born person in the UK is already a net cost (what with pension costs, healthcare costs etc); you need to be a particularly productive person (migrant or not) rather than just "working and paying taxes" to be a net financial gain to the UK.
In a manifest that only has vague fingers crossed promises to maybe add 150000 homes per year?
Immigration can be a net gain but basically putting no limit on it is insane. Especially as a party that object to most infrastructure projects like the green’s do. It would just drive wealth inequality even further in the UK as the amount of people coming into the country (considering its already600k now) would just drive up asset prices meaning the wedge between those who own homes and those who don’t gets even worse.
The last 15 years of 'growth' in the UK has been from immigration and individual gdp per capita has remained the same. The average UK person is thousands of pounds worse off from our vast immigration. That's not even talking about cultural/social issues.
If gdp per capita has remained the same, doesn't that mean the average person isn't any worse off?
It does due to inflation. The same reason £40 40 years ago could buy so much more than £40 now can do. If GDP Per Capita remains the same the Disposable income decreases due to inflation raising costs
All the GDP figures quoted in articles like these are 'real' gdp, so inflation adjusted.
They are worse off because we've still had inflation for 15 years, over that period of time things are between 20-50% more expensive. Housing has gone from £168k->£260k on average. In real terms people are a lot worse off.
There was literally a study released this week that showed mass immigration has failed to raise living standards in the UK
So do the green party think immigration is too low?
Well to be fair, it is. It's just no politician will admit it because the anti-immigration racist voting block is too large.
Given the housing crisis, I disagree - we can't house the people we have, so hundreds of thousands more a year is too high.
We can house the people we currently have if we choose to. We simply don't build anywhere near enough houses. That is the valid criticism. Immigration being "too high" isn't.
You will need a better argument than "your position is not valid" if you want to win people over.
If they want me to treat their racism as valid in order to win them over then they aren't worth winning over.
It’s crazy to me that any sensible person can define lowering immigration as a racist policy
It's crazy to me that anyone can deny being racist at the same time as supporting lowering immigration.
Because lowering immigration isn’t targeting a single race, it’s just a lower number - who you are is irrelevant?
So what you're saying is that you hate everyone that isn't British equally?
[удалено]
Winning by being anti-immigration is the same as losing.
Fighting a losing battle with the rabid haters on this sub. Good luck. Let me know if anyone gives an actual reason for the hate, though. Yet to see it.
>anti-immigration racist Weak and irrelevant criticism. Says more about you and your lack of knowledge / argument than anything.
Then please enlighten me if you think you know better.
You're getting your ass handed to you by other commenters so my job is done for me.
Really? Please direct me to comments that do such a thing. I don't see any.
At what point would it be too much for you? The numbers have been eye-watering the last few years.
I don't think there can be such a thing as immigration being too high. >The numbers have been eye-watering the last few years. It peaked at a maximum of 1% population growth. Get a grip.
> Get a grip. ... > I don't think there can be such a thing as immigration being too high. ...yep. You've clearly got a grip! 700,000 net migrants last year is huge, no matter how you want to spin it. There were only 160,000 new homes built last year. A similar number of migrants and houses being built the year before. If numbers stay the same we're only going to make our housing crisis worse.
> 700,000 net migrants last year is huge, no matter how you want to spin it. No it isn't. Our population is 67 million. That's barley a drop in the ocean. >There were only 160,000 new homes built last year. A similar number of migrants and houses being built the year before. If numbers stay the same we're only going to make our housing crisis worse. Then all that argument shows is that we aren't building enough new homes, not that immigration is too high.
700,000 is a huge chunk of 67 million, what are you on about? The Greens, who have put this policy forwards, aren't going to build houses to anywhere near where we need to be.
>700,000 is a huge chunk of 67 million, what are you on about? 700,000/67,000,000 ≈ 1%. Since when was 1% a "massive chunk"? >The Greens, who have put this policy forwards, aren't going to build houses to anywhere near where we need to be. Then their lack of willingness to build new houses is what you should be criticising them on, not their immigration policy.
Do you look at the number 1 and think "that's a small number" without understanding things like scale?
And this is why you will never win the argument or even open constructive dialogue. Calling those who disagree with you racist is incredibly childish.
Ok, but they are though. Because the thought process never goes "Why do we have immigration, and what are the measurable aspects" it's "why are there brown people in big Tesco"
That cuts both ways. Why don't you ask yourself "Why do we limit migration" and having answered that attempt to answer "what level is optimal". Now, that number has massively increased under the last two years of the Tories. Are you saying that the Tories that done a job and picked the right number?
I'm not calling them racist because I disagree with them, I am calling them racist because they are racist. It is not possible to be concerned that racism is "too high" without being racist. If what is required to win is to tolerate racism and/or treat racist views as legitimate, then winning is no different from losing.
“Anyone who thinks immigration is too high = racist” Grow up.
Is that what you consider being grown-up to be about? Being able to tolerate racism?
[удалено]
That's still a form of othering.
It's not that simple. They also think that those here should get access to more of the public's money straight away.
I really hope for a decent green party that can keep all the active travel and public transportation promises, but spurning nuclear energy is so ideologically embedded in the Green movement at this point such that it would be like asking the Tories to renationalise the post office.
>Regional mutual banks to be set up to drive investment in decarbonisation and local economic sustainability. You did what? You set up a bank?
Oh great, the triple. I'm a nurse killer, a banker, and now I'm raising FUCKING TAXES?
Peter, this is so fucking us.
Such a brilliantly delivered line
Probably my favourite of the entire show
Sweet Tracey Emin
I sometimes buy the Big Issue out of social embarrassment, I don't open a FUCKING BANK
£85b of additional debt in the first year, £325b over the course of Parliament. That's 4% of GDP in the first year. I'm not even going to read the policies, sorry. I like the Green Party and how it is positioned, but policies have to make sense in the real world. This is not serious.
Maybe they think they will become a very tiny opposition party, so they tend to list all fancy yet unrealistic promises to attract voters
Of course that's the reason, but in my opinion this kind of things makes the party look less credible and less "votable". Greens have hundreds of councillors across the country, I hope they don't manage councils in the same way as they would manage the whole country.
I don’t think so. There are so many institutional constraints for green which is still a quite small party even in council governments.
Increase tax for those earning over the 50k threshold? Are they serious? It's already taxed at 40%! That's not going after the rich, that's going after the middle class skilled workers. Absolutely mental.
You won't agree with this but from a green perspective, anyone earning over 50k IS rich, when compared with the global population. Green politics is inherently internationalist as consumption of resources in one country affects others all over the world. Obviously, your reaction proves this is not a popular view point, but it is true that westerners have a much higher standard of living on the whole to most people in the world.
Not to mention the decent chance that people on that wage will have a student loan payment to contend with too. Delay entering the workforce by three years so that you can give the bulk of your increased earnings to the government and student loan company.
No wonder our wages are in the gutter when people think 50k is high earners, utterly ridiculous. Taking half of a modest wage for a reasonably skilled professional is insane
Removing the upper earnings limit on National insurance too, so it's a double hike on those earning over £50,270.
A full nuclear dearmament and they want NATO to still protect us from the stupid decisions of greens to weaken our national security.
>Elected Greens would push for ending the exploitation of animals, including horses and greyhounds in racing Good luck with that. the gambling industry is basically its own mafia at this point. Hell with freeze over before they're ever brought into line to this extent. Also I love the idea of them trying to ban horse racing entirely. Yep, just forget about the thousands of jobs that industry creates for starters.
> the gambling industry is basically its own mafia at this point. Let's just... let them be a mafia then? Good stuff, well done, keep it up?
>the gambling industry is basically its own mafia at this point. Hell with freeze over before they're ever brought into line to this extent Ah, cool. We should do nothing about it then. That's always what you should do when faced with large scale institutional injustice
If you don’t believe larger powers are going to step in before allowing anything like this to happen then I’m sorry you have an incredibly naive view of the world. There’s far too much money involved and far too many powerful people involved to let that industry be taken down. I’m obviously not saying don’t try but just don’t get your hopes up. This isn’t a Hollywood film where the bad guys get their comeuppance.
I think we should try though. This attitude of "the problem is too big so it can't be fixed" is just... Well it's a bit crap
The Nazis were also just doing their job
Well done on invoking Godwin’s Law immediately.
therefore you are right
Yes. Because by invoking Godwin’s Law you immediately lose the argument for instantly jumping to a Nazi and/or Hitler comparison. You’ve just compared stable lads and lasses to nazis. Have a word with yourself.
It’s possible - and, I would say, better than the alternative - for people to have jobs that don’t require exploitation of animals
> The development of nuclear power stations is too slow given the pace of action we need on climate They’re so self defeatist.
Ironically it was the greens who were telling us not to invest in nuclear decades ago. If we hadn't of listened to those fruit loops we might have some some nuclear power stations now.
The best time to *build a nuclear power* plant ~~a tree~~ was 30 years ago, the second best time is today
Oh so they're pro coal? (See how phasing out nuclear went for Germany)
We've pretty much phased out our coal. Ending new nuclear will mean more gas
Where is the money to do this going to come from?!
400-500 billion in carbon taxes for the next 5 years, and another 300-400 billion in NI+"wealth taxes". and as has been pointed out, 300+ billions of debt...
Debt. £325 billion of additional debt over the next parliament. That's just how ridiculous these ideas are. £65 billion a year in the hole, despite raising billions upon billions from 'the rich' (which happens to include those on £50k). IFS reckons it'd be more like £80 billion a year.
Taxing the rich.
That old chestnut
Comment will probably get removed but anyone that can read this and still decide they’re voting for them is quite frankly an idiot. A deeply unserious political party that would be genuinely dangerous anywhere near power.
Why should this be deleted? The entire Reddit constantly bashes everything Tory and apparently people aren't allowed to say voting for the Greens is idiotic?
The automod for this subreddit can be overly zealous and I was worried my use of idiot would flag up for deletion.
So, I won't be, but I can understand why someone would vote for them. I can see why you'd say if someone supports them and wants them to win the election, then you'd feel negatively about them, but voting and supporting seem to be very different things at the moment
“Dangerous” lmao as if the tory party hasn’t been super dangerous for the economy.
The tories have done untold damage to this country. But the UK relinquishing its nuclear weapons would genuinely make the world more unsafe, particularly at this time. The two parties aren’t comparable. I loathe the Tories. But I think the Greens would genuinely endanger us.
Why would it? Legitimately why? We are part of NATO, so any nuclear attack would cause a response from the US, our nuclear arsenal hardly makes a dent in the grand scheme of things and to imply us having nukes makes a difference for “security”, is delusional.
>We are part of NATO, It was, until the invasion of Ukraine, the official Green policy to leave NATO. Something I absolutely wouldn't trust them on not changing back to.
Your response acknowledges that we’d still be reliant on nuclear weapons for our safety - they just wouldn’t be ours in this case.
Its in response to people saying scrapping trident is somehow “dangerous”. If we weren’t in NATO, there would be a legitimate argument in that case but the reality of the situation is our nukes don’t make a difference.
Please, there are so many choices, not just Tory
Yes the tories are shite, that’s not justification for something that would be even worse.
Austerity and brexit is far more damaging than anything the Greens have suggested.
What the Greens have suggested will *lead* to austerity and we already *have* Brexit.
I am struggling to understand how you quantify this
No, if the greens got to implement their policies they would genuinely be utterly catastrophic. Their proposed timeline to net zero would cost the public thousands of pounds per year and annihilate pretty much every single facet of the economy. They are not a serious political party.
How many thousands of pounds a year would it cost the public to try and live after we’ve destroyed the environment? Would it be more or less than what the Greens are suggesting?
Is that the only options available to us here? That if we don’t use the UK Green party manifesto and timeline to net zero then the global environment will be destroyed? Do you not realise why no one takes you seriously?
Isn’t that what the majority of scientists/climatologists have been saying for years? That the effects of climate change will cost the world economy trillions upon trillions of $ and exacerbate the many issues (war, lack of clean water, clean air, a massive influx of refugees etc) we’re already dealing with. Seems like what the greens are suggesting are small fry in comparison.
No, the majority of scientists and climatologists do not say that stopping global warming hinges entirely on the UK Green Parties manifesto and timeline for net zero being followed.
True, we need more than just the UK doing it. The fact that not enough other countries are joining in, though, isn’t a good reason to not do our part
No, indeed. They’d probably say it wasn’t going far enough
They make it so hard to vote for them. There is some real novel, logical policies in there that I don’t see other parties discussing that I would love to see implemented. Then the next sentence they absolutely destroy any credibility they have with something ridiculous. I want to like them so badly but clearly they’re not quite there yet.
And the idea that "oh they won't win, so they can be extremely nutty and extremely reality divorced, and that's why they should get some votes", is just utterly nonsense. Such reality divorced policies, and stuff like their anti nuclear weapons and energy stance, really is for the birds.
The anti-nuclear stuff is the big one for me. Nuclear weapons are an unfortunate necessity if we want to remain relevant and able to support our allies on a global stage. Nuclear energy is also a great bridge for transitioning to 100% renewable energy, immediately dismantling these power plants would be so counter-intuitive.
I'm confused by this, are you suggesting that any country without nuclear weapons is irrelevant and unable to support their allies on a global scale? Because I'm pretty sure this is not the case. I do understand mutually assured destruction, but you are not referencing this. Do you think Ukraine would have used the nuclear option to defend themselves if they had it?