Brighton, where the Green party have their only MP, Caroline Lucas.
Down in Brighton, the Green Party’s leading front-women Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas have been trying to please their most loyal supporters from Sussex and Brighton University- their beloved students. Those green signs are beginning to flourish in the city’s streets just like the 3am club leaflet litter.
With widespread statements that students have the momentum to #SwingTheVote, the Green Party’s manifesto is full of pleasing policies and intentions that seem rather… pleasant. When I say the word ‘pleasant’, I emphasise how these are pleasing to the eye, short-term, and ‘nice’ of them to say – but this is not enough.
These pleasant yet loose priorities for the Green Party may gain them the student vote for now but in the unlikely event of them governing our great country, the priorities may begin to rapidly fade just like their popularity. Their promises tick many boxes for us students. A living wage? Check. Controlled rent levels? Check. No tuition fees? Absolutely check. But will these short-term snippets of darling promises give Britain the long-term benefits our economy and people need?
Pledging to cut tuition fees is one hell of a promise. For a party that proposes a greater economy, environment and everything else in between, cutting tuition fees will make or break the Green Party. With many students laying their faith and loyalty with the Greens (with one student claiming to have a Lucas ‘shrine’ in their university room), the promise of no tuition fees weighs a tonne. Actually, a few million tonnes if you equate it to how much money Britain could be sacrificing. Apply the enormous weight of student dependency, trust and work in promoting Green policies, this attractive promise needs more thought, particularly on the implications this will have other aspects of the UK economy.
It may satisfy many young people now, but the end of this tuition fee fiasco is never going to let students live happily ever after. In fact, student life lasts a lifetime. The continuous loan payments will be added to the list of other outgoings including rent and living expenses- implying a domino effect. The Green Party have done well in focusing on the now but what about our future?
Maybe the Green Party’s suggestion of a ‘peaceful political revolution’ may not be as ‘peaceful’ if they do not please their main supportive demographic. Let me remind you – 2011’s student protests. Need I continue?
This is great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V2cfkAKZC0
Did you take the picture? Can we use it on a creative commons basis? We are covering Brighton and struggling for pictures – WINOL
The Green Party appeals to students because they have yet to truly live life alone. Students may have left home but still return during holidays. Their college ensures they want for nothing.
The Green Party panders to people unwilling to look after themselves and who want to have their cake and eat it.
The Green Party manifesto makes no mention of global human over-population. The manifesto is unsustainable. Coming from a Green Party that is shocking!
The Green Party has been usurpsed by closet Marxists.
Only Agrarianism can save the planet. The Green Party is a far-left front that will ruin the planet as quickly as the centrist parties.
Students should have to vote in their home town ie. the LEA that processed their UCAS application. It is unfair on the local populace to have their politics affected by students who have completely different needs to business owners / workers / mortgage payers. In a way it is undemocratic to have a block vote from people who have yet to experience the real world and are not in the university town for the long term to experience the backlash of their naive selection. Casing point Brighton. It now has the worst congested road network in Britain. Students voted Greens in but they do not need to commute, park, use cars. I could go on.