Green Party launches manifesto for ‘peaceful political revolution’ at Arcola Theatre

Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett outside the Arcola Theatre in Dalston. Photograph: Hackney Citizen

The Green Party unveiled its vision for a ‘peaceful political revolution’ at the launch of its manifesto for the upcoming General Election at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston this morning.

Party leader Natalie Bennett and MP for Brighton and Hove Caroline Lucas presented a manifesto that focused heavily on social justice and action against climate change.

The Greens vowed to end the “disastrous” policy of austerity, reverse the privatisation of the NHS and scrap tuition fees. Bennett also promised the party would abolish the bedroom tax, introduce rent controls and raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour by 2020.

Caroline Lucas, who was elected as the Green Party’s first MP in 2010, said it was a “national scandal” that 9,000 people die a year from homes that are not properly insulated. She said the Greens would fix this with a free nationwide insulation programme.

The Greens faced questions on how their party would pay for its costly pledges and how an ‘anti-austerity’ party could align itself with a potential Labour government.

Lucas said that the £45 billion investment in insulating homes could be paid for by reducing the number of new road building schemes and cancelling HS2.

As well as re-allocating funding, the Greens said they would raise revenue by introducing a “wealth tax” on the top 1 per cent of earners and a “Robin Hood Tax” on banks’ financial transactions.

They also pledged to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion – the Greens say closing the tax loopholes would raise £30 billion a year.

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton and Hove and Natalie Bennett Green Party Leader, at the manifesto launch.

Bennett said that the 84 pages of the Green manifesto, For the Common Good, constituted a “new kind of politics”. She said: “Our manifesto is shaped by a vision of a future Britain and our principles and values that say that no one in this, the world’s sixth richest economy, should fear not being able to put food on the table.

“This is a politics that is founded in humanity. In a caring Britain, but also one that does not deny, as other parties do, the physical limits of our natural world. This is a new kind of politics, the end of ‘politics as usual’.”

Bennett said the Green Party’s membership has swelled to 59,000 members, higher than both UKIP and the Liberal Democrats. On 7 May the Greens will field candidates in 95 per cent of seats across the UK.