For local elections (ie for the City Council, like the forthcoming one on Thursday 4th May 2023), national policies are of secondary importance. Most importantly, we need local people, passionate about their communities, listening to and working with other residents, and fighting for change.

However, we – your local Green team, here in Hunslet and Riverside – are proud of the Green Party’s wider vision for society. We are a socially progressive and liberal party, committed to serious action both on the climate emergency and social justice. Click here to read the Green Party’s most recent (2019) national manifesto. And if you’ve time (!), click here to read the full Green policy framework – developed over the decades by party members, and always publicly visible.

National policies that especially resonate with us (the local team) include: real devolution of powers out of Westminster to regions, cities, and communities; electoral reform for a fairer voting system, including votes for 16+ year olds; saving the NHS from crippling cuts, privatisation, and managerial control (the idea being to democratise decision-making amongst a wide range of staff and stakeholders); designing a 21st century tax system that ensures big business pay their fair share, and rebalancing the economy in favour of small/independent business; establishing a high bar around the Minimum/Living Wage, and continuing to push it up (just one of many long-held Green Party policies that other parties are now ‘borrowing’); a green industrial revolution to generate 10,000s of jobs; resisting daft vanity projects like the Trident nuclear programme (£110bn) and High Speed Rail 2 / HS2 (£80bn+; the money would be far better spread out across the northern transport systems); renationalising the railways, and regulating the buses more tightly (like the Transport for London model); moving towards a 4-day working week, to create a less work-centred society; enabling schools to prepare children for life not just exams (eg liberating them from the stifling bureaucracy of SATs and Ofsted; there are far better alternatives); blocking the narrow-minded push towards ‘fracking’; and serious action on climate issues like air pollution, and flooding (especially low-tech solutions like countryside reforestation).

And there’s also the Leeds Green Party website, where we have a dedicated city manifesto. Please get in touch anytime to discuss any of this.

(Ed and Omar are working with a number of people and agencies to develop local street art.)