Matt is standing against Labour's Diane Abbot.
Should you vote for him? Here's why Matt thinks so:
1. Firstly Matt – would you like to introduce yourself?
Hi there. My name is Matt
Sellwood - I'm originally from London, was a city councillor for the Green
Party in Oxford from 2004-8, and now I live in Hackney. I'm the Green Party's Parliamentary
Candidate for Hackney North & Stoke Newington, and also a council candidate
for Clissold ward. My background is in campaigning, particularly around climate
change and anti-war activism.
2. We have had Green councilors for some time now, and a Green member
of the London Assembly. What difference would a Green MP really make?
The most important function of a
Green MP would be to enable and empower local communities to organise
themselves, to encourage grassroots campaigning and solidarity, and to protect
social movements from the worst impacts of public sector cuts and state
repression. Greens recognise that social change comes about because of the
organisation of large masses of people - both at work and in their communities
- but that the national legislative framework has a big impact on how easy that
is to do. As a Green MP, I'd aim to argue for radical politics in the Commons,
and help ordinary Hackney residents organise outside it too.
I went to the Green Party’s England & Wales conference in
Swansea in 2007, and left rather disillusioned. I met lots of smartly dressed
30 and 40 somethings, university
backgrounds, who had all worked in the public sector or for ‘good causes’ for
some years, and were uniformly urban and middle class. It was a very
narrow social base - I could just
as easily have been at a meeting of Hackney Labour Party or perhaps any of the
other national parties. In what way now, are the Greens ‘different’?
I think it is fair to say that we
still have some way to go in broadening our membership base - there are still
lots of university educated, middle class people who work for NGOs. Like, umm,
me. :) However, the key difference in the Green Party is that power isn't held
exclusively by that social base, and that anyone can get involved in the
democracy of the party - either through changing policy, or starting to
organise in their own locality. As a result, there are now a number of areas in
which the social base of the Green Party is anything but 'muesli belt'.
I'd also say, of course, that while
any party claiming to represent working people, ethnic minority communities and
so on must also have a membership made up of those communities, we do have
excellent policies on housing, trade union rights, economic equality and so on.
That marks us out from Hackney Labour, certainly!
Where the Greens have done well in recent years it has tended to be
in some of the University towns or cities with large ‘alternative’ communities
– Brighton, and Norwich are two examples. In Hackney, you are bigger in Stoke
Newington that you are in, say, Hackney Wick. What is the Greens core vote?
I think the Green core vote varies
somewhat depending on where in the country one measures it - and how 'core' we
are talking. There's no denying that there's a very solid 3-4% of the national
vote that is identified with more 'alternative' communities, and which tends to
vote Green. However, if this was the extent of the Green vote then it would be
very difficult for us to win elections anywhere outside a few very specific
towns and cities. It certainly wouldn't have been possible for us to get 23% of
the vote in Hackney last year in the European elections, for example - and it
wouldn't be possible to win elections in Stoke Newington without support
outside of these voters, either.
So as well as that core support which has been
with the Greens for years, we are now increasingly gaining support from
disaffected Labour voters, particularly from council estates which have been
ignored and neglected for a significant period of time by all the establishment
parties. Morris Blitz Court in Stoke Newington is one good example, but there
are many others - certainly not 'alternative' communities, but rather people
who want a party that believes in social justice and actually listens to
people.
What message do the Greens have to working class voters, who have
been largely ignored by New Labour for the past decade?
Our policies are significantly to
the left of the establishment parties. They include a living wage of £8.10 an
hour, a maximum national wage, £4 billion of investment in new council housing,
free insulation schemes to abolish fuel poverty, and massive investment in
youth schemes and community centres. Crucially, they also reject cuts to the
public sector and lay a big emphasis on opening up space for communities to
organise themselves. Basically, if you want politicians who are speaking up for
ordinary communities, then you're looking for the Greens nowadays.
One of the things I used to admire about the Greens, that I felt
made sense, was the basic income scheme. Do you stand for that today?
Yes, the Citizen's Income is still
our policy, and I certainly support it whole-heartedly.
Given the depth of the financial crisis, how will the Greens deal
with the budget deficit?
We are the only party talking about
a serious increase in redistributive taxation, rather than massive cuts in the
public sector. We would end some programmes, but they would be New Labour
disasters such as the occupation of Afghanistan, new aircraft carriers, ID
cards and our nuclear weapons.
The bulk of our money would come from a long
overdue rebalancing of the tax system to make the wealthy pay their fair share
- for example, abolishing the upper limit on NI contributions and introducing
new, higher rates of income tax. Cutting the public sector would not
only be morally wrong, it would also be fiscally disastrous, putting hundreds
of thousands out of work and raising the real risk of a 'double dip' recession.
You are standing against Diane Abbot, who has been Hackney’s MP for
over 20 years. Does she bat for the people of Hackney?
Not anymore, which I think is sad. I
suspect that when she was first elected she might well have done, but over 20
years as an MP seems to have changed that. She now earns large amounts of money
in a second job as a political commentator, and seems more interested in
talking up Gordon Brown and invoking the bogeyman of the Tories than admitting
what an abject failure this Labour Government has been. I think Hackney needs
an MP (and a Council) who is independent from this corrupt lot of timeserving
right-wingers, rather than one who votes for Brown to lead the country.
Green Party GLA member Darren Johnson has spoken out against those
who would drag the Green party down the route of 9/11 ‘truth’ theories. Do you
stand behind him on this issue?
Yes, although I don't think it is a
particularly big issue in the Green Party, to be honest. There was an attempt a
couple of years ago to pass a motion on this - which, as a democratic party, we
heard out - it was defeated. I haven't really heard anything about it since
within the Party.
If the Greens believe
in decentralization, why is party leader Caroline Lucas MEP, standing in the
most winnable parliamentary seat? She already has two jobs!
Because she is our best candidate.
If she is elected as an MP she will step down as an MEP, and the party
membership will decide if she remains as Party leader - as part of our
democratic system, we have leadership and deputy leadership elections every two
years.
OK imagine I’m just about to slam the door on you. You have your
foot wedging it open – and have 20 seconds to tell this blogs readers why they
should vote for you in Hackney North.
There is no case for tactical voting
in Hackney North - for better or worse, Diane Abbott is going to win the seat
in 2010. So, you are free to vote for the candidate whose policies are closest
to your own, and whose record you believe in. I am a socialist who stands for
redistributive taxation, trade union rights, opposition to public sector cuts,
and withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
A vote for me will help build a
credible, radical alternative to Hackney Labour, rather than ceding the field
to the establishment parties who have an appalling record of betraying and
using our communities. Electoral politics isn't the be-all-end-all, but it is important, and you can use your vote to help build an alternative to politics
as usual.
Matt - Thanks for your time and trouble!
Hackney Greens debate whether to storm the Labour HQ now, or on May 6th.
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