The Green
Party is hoping to flower again in Coventry, ten years after withering away.
The Party is fielding two candidates in the city council elections in May and there
will be more than twenty others in the Warwickshire area.
Local enthusiasts are meeting at the Friends Meeting House in Hill Street in the city
tonight (Tuesday) at 7pm to re-launch the party locally with increased support.
The Green Party was founded in the Warwickshire village of Napton in the 1970's. A
small group of friends formed People, a pressure group on environmental issues. It then
became the Ecology Party before changing to The Green Party to fall into line with the
party of the same name in Europe.
Activists believe that under the proportional voting system now in use in the Euro
elections, they have a very good chance of winning seats in the Brussels Parliament in
June.
The candidates for the Coventry City Council elections in May are Kathleen Guest, a
registered nurse and member of the Institute of Religion and Medicine who will stand in
the Upper Stoke ward and Alan Clarke, a former history and politics student at the
University of Warwick, who will stand in St Michael’s Ward.
Mr Clarke said:
"It will be nice to spread the word in Coventry. The Party faded away after the
1989 Euro elections but we aim to build back up again now. We want people to realise that
we are not a single issue party, not just a party of the environment. We have lots of
other policies as well.
"For example we are against European monetary union, global free trade, the
relentless pursuit of economic growth, nuclear weapons and new roads. We want stronger
animal welfare controls, a green tax instead of income tax and a State guaranteed income
for everyone."
Paul Baptie of The Green Party’s policy co-ordinating committee said:
"We are putting down a marker to tell people that The Green Party is back in
business. People in Coventry are fed up with the Labour Party. Coventry is a one party
state and it is time the people were given an alternative view."
