With the EU elections looming the various political parties are ramping up their campaigning to persuade voters to vote for them. The particularly worrying aspect of this is the fear-inducing campaign of UKIP. Posters claiming that 26 million people in Europe are after your job may not be racist, but are clearly aimed at stoking anger against “all these foreigners coming here and taking our jobs.” The fact is there is not a fixed number of jobs to go around in the economy. If there were fewer immigrants in this country, there would also be fewer jobs around, because immigrants also create jobs when they spend their wages, and in complementary lines of work. There is much research showing the benefits of immigration. Further, issues such as concerns with immigrants depressing wages can easily be addressed by implementing a living wage and expending more effort in tackling unscrupulous businesses that exploit people by paying them below the minimum wage.
The problem is getting this message across, when you are faced with simplistic and emotional language from UKIP and others, claiming that everything would be fine if we just got out of the EU and greatly restricted immigration.
An alternative approach
There are many problems with the EU that need addressing, but to just give up on it and retreat back to the UK is very short-sighted. Many of the major issues that we face in the world, such as the environment, climate change, inequality and globalisation, cut across national boundaries. By grouping together, the countries in the EU can stand up to large multinationals who avoid taxes and play one country off against another over where they will locate in the hope of getting the lowest tax burden possible. Environmental issues such as pollution and climate change can only be tackled at this level, by preventing one country trying to undercut another by loosening their environmental controls. Exactly the same argument applies to workers rights. The right-wing argument that we are in a global race and must compete against the lowest paid countries can only be a recipe for disaster for those already struggling on low wages; this is a race to the bottom.
After years of austerity, with the four UK parties (Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP) all advocating more of the same, the interesting fact is that the one party that is standing up to this “business as usual” are the Green Party. Hopefully enough people will realise that disillusionment with the main parties should prompt people to vote Green, rather than UKIP. They are advocating policies deemed too right-wing for the Conservatives, such as privatisation of the NHS and large tax cuts for the wealthiest, that will do nothing to support those most in need. Whereas the Green Party favour bringing the railways back into public hands, turning the minimum wage into a living wage, scrapping tuition fees and insulating every home. Once people realise what the Green Party stands for, they tend to vote for us. We just have to keep trying to get our message across.
Please read the Green Party mini-manifesto to better understand our policies.