As a regular Gscene contributor I attended the Green Party Conference at Hove Town Hall last month for the magazine and, while taking a look at the broad policy matters the party confronts, managed to get interviews with both of our Green MEPs, and listened to the Greens LGBT group about their extensive work.
Cards on the table first: I’m a
Green Party member and worked
with dozens of others campaigning
for the election of Alex Phillips in
Goldsmid for the council elections.
I chatted in the lobbies with the
brilliant, vibrant Alex about her
new role as councillor.
In my interview with Jean
Lambert MEP (who I found to be
one of the most astute politicians
in European and other national
affairs I’d ever met), I learned of the work
she does in driving discrimination out of
Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania. Gscene has
covered some of these issues previously, but
what I learned from Jean is that she knows
and fights for more than many. More
broadly I learned of her grasp on issues
such as access to goods and services
without discrimination, so that maybe us
LGBT folk might be able to get a hotel room
in Latvia without fear of rejection one day.
Dr Caroline Lucas MEP is a
prospective candidate as MP for
Brighton Pavilion. I’d left the EU
stuff to Jean Lambert and was keen
to focus on some Brighton & Hove
matters with Caroline. While she
demonstrated a keen grasp on local
issues, Caroline was also keen to
stress the more ‘global’ Green values
in a local context. Therefore I think
we can expect an even greater focus
on social justice in our city with her
at Westminster.
Quizzing her on the Green Party jobs agenda, she took me straight to her understanding of how important the creative and new-media industries are to our local economy. Caroline was keen to emphasise the fact that she believes the Green Party to be the “most progressive of all parties” – a good match for the UK’s most progressive city, she told me. Caroline also promised that she and her colleagues would carefully follow developments with Brighton Pride, recognising the vast benefit, in social and economic terms, Pride has brought to the city.
I came away from the conference pleasantly surprised at the breadth of skills and enthusiasms among the hundreds of people I had shared these three days with – from the Greens’ obvious environmental roots, through to economic and business issues and international nous and beyond.
Courtesy of the Neil Woodcock Gscene
