WALES Green Party leader Pippa Bartolotti took part in a huge protest against the government’s economic policies on Saturday.
English Party Leader Natalie Bennett and MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, led the March for a Future that Works, in which around 300,000 union members, political party representatives and members of the public marched through London to protest against the coalition government’s economic policies.
And Wales Green Party members followed them in the march from Embankment, past the Houses of Parliament, to Hyde Park.
Ms Bartolotti said: ‘It’s very important for all parts of the Party, from all parts of the country, to show our solidarity with the unions, who represent so many people who are being so badly hurt by this government.
‘We have a lot of trades union members in the Wales Green Party, and we’re very close to what’s happening there. We are building stronger ties with the unions because we must stand together against what the government’s doing to all of us.
'We’re here for several reasons; to voice our concern and anger at the effect of the cuts; to show solidarity with other people who are being punished for an economic situation they didn’t cause and couldn’t do anything about; to continue to exercise our democratic right to protest.
Many people here may have voted Conservative, thinking that things may be better under them, and the fact is that they have been hit as hard as anyone. So we are here to help show them there is another way.’
The Green Party took part in the march to show solidarity with people who are being crushed by the coalition’s economic illiteracy, and to reiterate a vital point: far from reducing the deficit, as the government promised, the cuts have actually increased it, at the same time as putting people out of work, killing any chance of economic growth.
In their place, the Green Party would introduce the Green New Deal, in which every citizen receives a decent living wage, led by investment in the Green economy – which delivered a third of UK economic growth in the last year.