Shaka Lish wins applause for the Green Party's fresh ideas on education

Shaka, the Green Party's Brent Central candidate, was speaking at Education Question Time on Friday evening. Another video with all the Brent Central candidates speaking about education funding can be found on Wembley Matters HERE

The Green Party has suspended campaigning today after last night's terrorist attack in Manchester.

roysandison via lists.riseup.net	8:54 AM (31 minutes ago)
to greenleftdiscu.

The Green Party has suspended campaigning today after last night's terrorist attack in Manchester.

All national campaigning events, including the billboard launch and Welsh Green Party manifesto launch are cancelled.

In a statement following the attacks, the Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley said:

"Our thoughts are with those affected by this appalling incident in Manchester. For young people to be targeted in this way is utterly atrocious.

"As ever our emergency services have done us proud - and we pay tribute to the police, firefighters and paramadics who stepped up in this time of need.

"Our country will never be divided by terror. The people of Manchester showed last night just how strong the bond of friendship is between the people who live on these islands - and in the coming days and weeks we'll show that we won't let terrorism tear us apart."

A nationwide billboard campaign is being launched today across the country accusing Theresa May of being a 'threat' to our public services. The People's Assembly has hired over 40 billboards, mostly in key marginal seats, which display a large picture of Theresa May with the words 'I am a threat, to your local hospital, to your child's education, to your standard of living, to your job security, to your pension, to you peace and security'.



We are launching a crowdfunding drive alongside the billboard campaign so we can organise more advertising in the last week of the election campaign. We want to put up more billboards, adverts and organise actions across the country to expose the truth of Tory policies. We're taking back space that's usually only reserved for the big business and corporations. The more money we raise the bigger impact we can have, but we only have a very short time to make this happen and we've now used up every penny we have! The Tories get massive donations from a few millionaires but we have the strength of our numbers. Please donate!

 

Click here to make a donation to the crowdfunding campaign. 

Sam Fairbairn, National Secretary of the People's Assembly, said "

She is a threat to everything we rely on from cradle to grave. The crisis in the NHS was created by the Conservative government and they're doing nothing to address it. She's snatching free school lunches off infants while her plans to restructure our education system will leave schools without proper funding. University students are being strapped with lifelong debt. Employers are allowed to get away with paying poverty wages on insecure or zero hour contracts and she wants to rob people's houses from them & their family cover the costs of looking after them in old age."

"In one of the most important elections for generations we want to expose the lies behind Theresa May's soundbite rhetoric. We'll do everything we can to make sure Theresa May and her government for the super rich isn't returned to Downing St."

We're also asking everyone to get down to one of the billboards and take a snap and share online with #ToriesOut.

Why not save the image and make it your cover pic on Facebook or Twitter?

FULL LIST OF PLACES HOSTING THE POSTER (so far!)

1. Barking (Rainham Road)
2. Barking (Ilford Lane)
3. Birmingham (Summer Hill Road)
4. Birmingham (Tyburn Road)
5. Birmingham (Lichfield Road)
6. Birmingham (Bordesley Green Road)
7. Birmingham (Lodge Road)
8. Birmingham (Long Acre)
9. Birmingham (Bordesley Green Road)
10. Birmingham (Bordesley Green Road)
11. Bolton (Bury New Road)
12. Brent (Chamberlayne Road)
13. Bristol (Laurence Hill Roundabout)
14. Cardiff (Cowbridge Road West)
15. Cardiff (Cathay's Terrace)
16. Cardiff (Nantgarw Road)
17. Carlisle (Port Road)
18. Coventry (Albany Road)
19. Croydon (London Road)
20. Croydon (Stafford Road)
21. Croydon (Purley Way)
22. Leeds (Bridge Road)
23. Manchester (Grosvenor Street)
24. Manchester (Oldham Road)
25. Manchester (Rochdale Road)
26. Manchester (Hyde Road)
27. Sheffield (Broad Lane)
28. Sheffield (Penistone Road North)
29. Sheffield (Neepsend Lane)
30. Sheffield (Abbey Lane)
31. Wandsworth (Garratt Lane)
32. Wandsworth (Upper Tooting Road)
33. Wandsworth (Putney Bridge Road)
34. Manchester (Bury New Road)
35. Wandsworth (Upper Richmond Road)
36. Wandsworth (St Johns Hill)
37. Birmingham (Summer Hill Road)
38. Wood Green (Turnpike Lane)
39. Birmingham (Icknield Port Road)
40. Leeds (Tong Road)
41. Sheffield (Penistone Road)
42. Southampton (Mountbatten Way)
43. Wandsworth (Swandon Way)
44. Westminster (Harrow Road)

For a full list of exact dates for each billboard you can download the spread sheet here.  

Please help us do more of this!


Click here to make a donation to the crowdfunding campaign. 

The more you can do to help with this initiative the bigger the reach it will have, so please make a donation and get down to one of the sites and help us spread the message online. Let's take back the space and get the #ToriesOut.

Solidarity.

The People's Assembly Against Austerity
http://www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/

The Green's anti-dote to May's war on young people

Thank you @Shaka4BrentGP #GreenParty 4 #Brent for joining #thegreatdebate on #LeahCKDriveTime on @TheBeat1036fm 2day! pic.twitter.com/jbNVif8NTg

— Leah Charles-King TV (@leahcharlesking) May 19, 2017

The Green Party will launch its youth manifesto today, promising to crack down on unpaid internships, protect renters and cancel student debt. Co-leader Jonathan Bartley, the Young Greens and the party’s young candidates will outline a series of pledges at an event in London.

The Green Party’s youth policies will include:

• Interns and trainees entitled to the national living wage
• Introduce a living rent for all through rent controls and more secure tenancies for private renters
• Abolish tuition fees and cancel all student debt 

Jonathan Bartley, Green Party co-leader, is expected to say:

The Conservative Government has launched a war on young people, taking public debt and hanging it around the necks of the next generation - cutting their housing benefit, increasing tuition fees and scrapping education grants. 

Young people matter and a political party that fails to work with and listen to young people, that ignores them in favour of older voters, that thinks of the future only in terms of their tenure in office not the lifetime of today’s youth, is not a political party at all but a closed-off clique.

The Green Party wants to make schools and universities a springboard for life. We’re offering young people a better future, whether it’s a quality education, secure job, or a warm, safe home.

The Green Party will build a raft for young people negotiating the Brexit storm. Young people have the most to lose from an uncertain future outside the EU, and we’re promising a referendum on the final Brexit deal, with the chance to stay in the EU if voters don’t like the Government’s deal.

The Green Party's Environment Manifesto published today

Green Party Environment Manifesto

H&K: No standing down without agreement on Brighton and Isle of Wight

Tulip Siddiq, Dee Searle (Chair) and John Mansook last night

Following a meeting of Brent and Camden Green parties in Kilburn on Monday 8^th May, Green Party members in Hampstead & Kilburn have voted that the prospective parliamentary candidate John Mansook will stand in the constituency in the upcoming General Election, rather than stand down and pursue a local electoral alliance. 

Brent and Camden Green parties would like to thank Labour’s incumbent Tulip Siddiq for coming to speak at the meeting, which was conducted respectfully at all times. In particular, they would like to commend her efforts to persuade Labour’s National Executive Committee to stand aside for the Greens in Brighton Pavilion and the Isle of Wight, and her voting record on key Green issues including resistance to fracking, renewal of Trident and HS2.

However, Labour’s lack of willingness to enter into electoral alliances with the Green Party in constituencies where the Greens have a better chance of winning – particularly Brighton Pavilion and the Isle of Wight – was a key factor in the vote. This followed new advice not to stand aside from the Green Party leadership unless Labour was prepared to withdraw in these constituencies. Members did add a condition that keeps an option open for standing aside in Hampstead & Kilburn if there is movement from Labour on electoral alliances nationally before a deadline of 12pm, Wednesday 10 May.

Hampstead & Kilburn Green Party candidate John Mansook said:

Any electoral alliance needs to be a true alliance, not a one way street. Sadly there hasn’t been any movement towards this from the Labour Party nationally. While we are very grateful to Tulip for coming to speak to us and advocating electoral alliances publicly in recent days, any decision to stand aside would have been very difficult knowing Labour are not likely to reciprocate. One of the Green Party’s key platforms in the upcoming campaign will be to change our unfair voting system, so that discussions like this are unnecessary and people can vote for what they believe in.

Camden Green Party co-Chair John Holmes said:

Brent and Camden Green Parties have selected an excellent local candidate in John Mansook, who is deeply connected with many of the issues facing residents of Hampstead and Kilburn. Voters deserve the option of being able to vote for him and for the Green Party’s unique policies, including a commitment to reverse privatisation in the NHS and measures that will dramatically cut Britain’s contribution to climate change. We can only deprive voters of that opportunity if Labour works with us to increase our Green voice in Parliament.

This is the resolution passed last night:

The members of the Brent and Camden Green parties living in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency resolve:

1) To publicly thank Tulip Siddiq for meeting the parties, for the efforts she has made to secure a progressive alliance for the 2017 General Election and the undertakings she has made to work for a progressive alliance in future
2) With regret, unless the Labour Party agrees to the reasonable demands of the Green Party nationally to withdraw the Labour candidates in Brighton and the Isle of Wight by noon on Wednesday 10^th May, we will submit our nomination for John Mansook to be our candidate.
3) If an agreement is reached nationally, the election agent is instructed not to submit our candidate’s nomination.

Kilburn Times on Brent Greens' General Election candidates

From Kilburn Times May 4th 2017

Introducing Brent Green Party's parliamentary candidates for June's General Election

Brent Green Party has selected its candidates for the General Election giving Brent voters a chance to vote for what they believe in, fresh voices in Parliamment and a different, principled, way of doing politics.

These are our candidates:

Shaka Lish, Green Party candidate for Brent Central

Shaka Lish has been selected to challenge Dawn Butler in Brent Central:

I am a life long Brent resident, conceived in Harlesden, born in Kilburn, grew up in Queens Park and now reside in Willesden. I wasn’t always political but like many, after the Iraq war I was left with so many questions about politics in the UK. Questions like, what makes democracy work for the people, not just the powerful? Since then, I have become more engaged with issues that I am passionate about and also more informed. Since the global crash in 2008, there has been a change in the world. What appeared at first as an opportunity to change the way we are living – address climate change, inequality and neoliberalism – has actually appeared tighten the grip of disaster capitalism. There comes a time when we have to stand up to be counted and take part in effecting the change that we wish to see in this world. By standing for the Green Party I believe I am doing just that. The local, to the national, to the global, are all intimately interconnected. We begin locally but this inevitably has echoes further afield.

I have been a professional singer pursuing a career in music since leaving school and been lucky enough to make music, travel the world and share my creativity on a platform. Although I still make music, I have nurtured another passion - for social justice and for helping others. I recently became a mature student and finished an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics and History and currently I am finishing an MA in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation, at SOAS. Being lucky enough to get a grant to study, I know how enriching education is, so I am adamant tuition fees should be scrapped and that we should not create barriers to knowledge through eye-watering debt. Education is a social good for all.

My undergraduate dissertation was on the subject of climate change and it has been frustrating to watch how science has led the way but unfortunately our leaders have been slow to act. My priority would be to hold the government to account and to keep campaigning for investment in green initiatives, transport and technology.

I am passionate about community, the environment, equality, the NHS, animals and education. I often feel so inspired by what could be possible, how the country can be transformed for the good of all, not just the few. I see a country where we have clean air, renewable energy, we look after our environment, we care for the vulnerable, have meaningful and secure work and where everyone gets the opportunity to thrive and fulfill their potential. I know this is possible but I also know it can only be achieved together.

My local campaign would focus around these areas –

• Put pressure on the council to make commercial recycling mandatory, not optional.
• Campaign for more local cycling hangers – and for this to feed into a more coherent transport policy.
• Push for procurement of local land for community resources such as youth activities and allotments
• Create a plan that gives locals more power to decide on their dominant energy sources and scrap any disincentives to renewables.
• Strive for any new developments in Brent to be accompanied by appropriate services to sustain the growing population of residents – such as medical care, childcare, community resources and activities. Not just shopping facilities.

The opportunity to stand as an MP is humbling as it is a service to my community. Brent is a community that has given me opportunities and support and I would be proud to stand as a Green Party representative and spread the message to make sure people know, a better world is possible.

Email: shaka.lish@greenparty.org.uk

Michaela Lichten, Green Party candidate for Brent North

 Michaela Lichten has been selected to challenge Barry Gardiner in Brent North:

I’ve been a resident of Brent for over 30 years and am passionate about the built and natural environment.

So much of society is weighted against ordinary people and with the crisis in Housing and Education worsening, new and innovative solutions need to be found to halt further inequalities.

With Brexit now triggered The Green Party can ensure we don’t stop being Europeans. I’m proud to stand for The Green Party which has long been a feminist party, with policies including improved maternity services, quotas for women on boards and working with organisations to advance women's equality and employment opportunities. I’d strive to be a good constituency MP concentrating on local issues such as housing, schools, open spaces, pollution and the provision of good quality care for the elderly that doesn’t solely rely on the, often unpaid, contribution of the families of those effected. I’d work to provide better support for carers.

There are around seven million carers in the UK with 700,000 being under 18; I’d work to ensure that young carers and young adult carers are given vital support throughout their education. Having been a carer myself, for my husband who suffers from Alzheimer’s, I identify with the many carers that are over 65 and struggling with their own health issues and who deserve better support.I believe that it’s the duty of MPs to listen to, and be reachable by, the constituents that elect them. If elected I will work to raise the concerns of Brent residents with relevant Ministers ensuring a local influence at Westminster.

email: michaela.lichten@greenparty.org.uk

tweet: @michaelalichten

John Mansook, Green Party candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn

 John Mansook has been selected by Brent and Camden Green Parties to challenge Tulip Siddiq in Hampstead and Kilburn

I have lived in Brent all my life and I am also active in my community raising awareness and giving advice to residents. I believe because of my occupational and life experience I am able to identify and communicate with younger voters in Brent. I am aware of the issues such as poor health, pollution, crime, cuts to youth services and lack of affordable housing all of which affect the quality of life of all residents in Brent especially the next generation. My daily exposure to different groups such as elderly and disabled people has allowed me to gain a deep understanding of the impact cuts to funding has had on the quality of life for the most vulnerable society. This awareness has motivated and mobilised me into action.

I am a diabetes community champion and I attend community events to raise awareness about diabetes and to educate the citizens of Brent on health and wellbeing. I have also previously volunteered in Camden working with the Leighton Project as a swim buddy which helped disabled young adults overcome their fear of water and become self- confident in water and ultimately learn how to swim. I have also volunteered in Camden on health and activity awareness days promoting health and wellbeing within the Borough.