Greens: We are Committed to Defending Immigrants and Immigration
The debate in Britain is becoming more and more polarised on the issue of immigration. Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are all vying with one another to appear more and more anti-immigrant. Yet it is clear that immigrants are vital to the life of this country, and have been instrumental in creating much of what we now value most. Much of what the big parties are doing is to distract from the real threat to people’s standard of life and to our culture – the capture of our state by the interests of the wealthy and big corporations.
The Green Party’s leader, Natalie Bennett has taken a stand against the cynical exploitation of the immigration issue, something the vast majority of the Green Party are extremely proud of. A small number of Greens associated with the group “Population Matters” have written to the Guardian to challenge Natalie’s strong stand against xenophobia. Their letter tendentiously links immigration to population growth. Population Matters are best known for encouraging their supporters to offset their carbon emissions by funding projects reducing the birth rate in Global South countries like Madagascar and Ethiopia.
These anti-immigrant Greens wish our party to participate in immigrant-bashing, and the creation of an environment of fear of immigrants and those descended from immigrants. We reject the insinuations by those authors of the letter as totally as immoral and profoundly opposed to Green values.
This response, authored and organised by Benali Hamdache and now supported by well over 100 Greens, will appear in tomorrow’s Guardian. If would like to add your signature, please leave your name in the comments below:
We are dismayed to see the response by a very small group of Green Party members to Natalie Bennett’s bold speech on the toxicity of the immigration debate. We are migrants, the children of migrants and people whose families have lived in Britain for centuries. We reject the attempts by government and the media to divide us. We welcome the vital contribution made to our country, our lives and our public services by immigrants and the children of immigrants
National leaders have shamefully scapegoated migrants as the cause of the housing shortage, wage stagnation and increasing pressures on the benefit system. It is disappointing to hear the false narrative repeated that mass migration is a driver of societal ills. Natalie Bennett was correct to say “the government is scapegoating immigrants instead of acknowledging its own failings”. It is also true to state that this rhetoric drives discrimination, violence and disadvantage. Too many of us have experienced such prejudice.
Green Party policy is emphatically on the side of a fair and humane migration policy. Our policy recognises that current governmental policy would rather chase Daily Mail headlines than treat migrants fairly. We wholeheartedly oppose current policy that separates families, that drives away international students and that deports vulnerable asylum seekers back to places of danger. Migration is an easy scapegoat for when government is failing in its duties, we as Greens reject that mentality.
1. Benali Hamdache
2. Manishta Sunnia
3. Charlene Concepcion
4. Peter McColl
5. Romayne Phoenix
6. Caroline Allen
7. Sarah Cope
8. Deyika Nzeribe
9. Cllr Maggie Chapman, Edinburgh City Council
10. Noel Lynch
11. Hannah Ellen Clare
12. Sebastian Power
13. Stuart Neyton
14. Joe Lo
15. Ryan Coley
16. Matt Hawkins
17. Clifford Fleming
18. Samir Jeraj
19. Mark Burkwood
20. Jamie Whitham
21. Deborah Fenney
22. Juliette Daigre
23. Pete Murry
24. Thom French
25. Cllr Gina Dowding, Lancashire County Council
26. Mike Williamson
27. Laura Shepherd
28. Eliot Folan
29. Martin Francis
30. Ben Bradley
31. Keith Baker
32. Alex Rendall
33. Sarah Marks
34. Chris Jarvis
35. Rob Telford
36. Lewis Coyne
37. Fee Ferguson
38. Adam Ramsay
39. Gary Dunion
40. Alfie Van Den Bos
41. Josiah Mortimer
42. Simon Hales
43. Dave Taylor
44. Andy Chyba
45. Richard J Armstrong
46. Stephen Little
47. Margaret Westbrook
48. Lesley Graheme
49. Jim McGinley
50. Lynton North
51. Andrew Rossall
52. Simeon Jackson
53. David Mottram
54. Anne Vivienne Power
55. Jill Perry
56. Cllr Sam Hollick, Oxford City Council
57. Karl Wardlaw
58. Jonathan Clatworthy
59. Stephen Linnott
60. Steve Dawe
61. Hazel Dawe
62. Alwynn Cartmell
63. Steve Hayesa
64. Chris Hart
65. George Heron
66. Lee Burkwood
67. Glen Glencowski
68. Steven Durrant
69. Siobhan MacMahon
70. Ryan Cleminson
71. Paul Cohen
72. Douglas Rouxel
73. Steve Hayes
74. Amelia Womack
75. Howard Thorpe
76. Rachel Hardy
77. Duncan Davis
78. Dirk Nols
79. Daniel Key
80. Derek Wall
81. Ben Mitchell
82. Robin Winslow
83. Dave Collins
84. Jake Pentland
85. Sullivan Poulter
86. Dan Phillips
87. Ben Young
88. James Mackenzie
89. Karl Stanley
90. Tom Lagden
91. Charles Gate
92. Rustam Majainah
93. Alison Bain
94. Adam McGregor
95. John Beckingham
96. Allan Faulds
97. Luke Walker
98. Casper Drake
99. Chris Appleby
100. Graham Wroe
101. Daniel Juett
102. John Cooper
103. Chris Hyland
104. Jo Chandler
105. Lindsay Ashford
106. Joannna Sprackett
107. Bernard Little
108. Siân Berry
109. William Pinkney-Baird
110. Nick Martin
111. Ryan Bestford
112. George Czernuszka
113. Cait ni Cadlaig
114. Alan Borgars
115. Julieanne Porter
116. Kevin Meaney
117. Tim Burdon
118. Howard Thorp
119. Penny Kemp
120. Tony Gair
121. Matt Hanley
122. Shakti Shah
123. Harris Kaloudis
124. Cllr Will Duckworth, Dudley MBC, Deputy Leader of the Green Party
125. David Lyons
126. Jack Mcglen
127. Viv Preece
128. Chloe Cheeseman
129. Kate Billington
130. Peter Murray
131. Kyla Darrell
132. Violeta Vajda
133. Mike Lammiman
134. Sean Thompson
135. Jean-Marc Ben (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, France)
136. Alan Wheatley
137. Ian Huckson
138. Sue Shanks
139. Susan Murray
140. Peter Burrows
141. Graham Ward
142. Martin Deane
143. Philip Leicester
144. Michael Marten
145. Dr Robert George
146. Joe Cassels
147. John-James Bulstrode
148. Marina Gray
149. Heidi Bendstrup
150. Alex Wood
151. Cllr Ricky Knight, Barnstaple Town Council
152. Jerzy Pawlicki
153. Bronwen Jones
154. Paul Atkins
155. Tim Turner
156. Pippa Bartolotti, Leader, Wales Green party
157. Dorothy Wilson
158. Kate Griffin
159. Peter Garbutt
160. Cllr Sven Rufus, Brighton & Hove City Council
161. Jo Hancox
162. Inti Suarez (GroenLinks, Netherlands)
163. Lucy Early
164. Paul Philo
165. Carlie Goldsmith
166. Nicole Haydock
167. Jonathan Tilley
168. Ollie Sykes
169. David Walker
170. Matthew Butcher
171. Kathryn Jones
172. John Medhurst
173. Sue Tibbles
174. Robin Kinrade
175. Marcus Pitcaithly
176. Michael Brader
177. Valerie Phillips
178. Peter Mountford-Smith
179. Dave Eatock
180. Lesley Hedges
181. Jo Lavender
182. Cllr Ben Duncan (Brighton and Hove City Council)
183. Douglas Coker
184. Lauren Sloan
185. Laura Bannister
Institutional signatories:
Green Left
Green Party Trade Union Group
Scottish Young Greens
If immigrants were to leave the UK, and the UK left the EU, the entire UK economy would collapse virtually overnight. Wake-up. The UK no longer manufactures anything. The UK became a financial-services whore-house a long time ago. Oh those poor little British people who are denied jobs by migrants, jobs they don’t want to do, jobs that they won’t take because they are too bloody lazy, and those awful migrants, contributing to the economy, living with friends and relatives, those awful, awful migrants that don’t claim benefits, god they really are a terrible bunch aren’t they!! You only need Office for National Statistics data to see that Eastern EU migrants have much higher employment level than the native British population – hence relying less on Benefits than the Brits.
I think as it’s widely accepted that most migrants are young working age people who get work and don’t need to claim benefits, the idea that they are a drain on the NHS is silly – people in that demographic aren’t at the point in their lives when they need much healthcare. Most of the NHS’s resources are spent on the elderly. Ditto, education – they’ve finished their education so aren’t a cost there either. And as for having their children educated here, the only reason our birth rate is at, and not well below, the replacement rate is migrants. The problems of our ageing population, increasingly in retirement, would be far worse without migrants having children. Migration has been at the centre of human survival and geopolitical boundaries are actually anti-survivalist that’s if you want to take the route of “survival of the fittest”. Immigration is good, Diversity is strength, Multiculturalism makes areas ‘vibrant’.
Immigrants are net contributors to the NHS too, they bring in more money than they spend, that has been the case for a long time. I love watching the right squirm for new arguments whenever they are confronted with facts that don’t fit their agenda. With all respect, I don’t think that Brits taking the dole are interested in earning their income being employed. I have seen whole British families living in council housing and milking the system of any benefit possible. Nobody in the family working or interested in working. I haven’t seen Eastern European families doing the same. The ones I knew are taking something out of the system were also working and paying their taxes. But of course I don’t know every single immigrant in the UK, so I can only speak basing on my personal experience, which doesn’t equal sociological research. What do you mean by the “best” immigrants? The ones who are educated or the ones who are working? I’m entirely sure there are immigrants living off the system. There seems to be a stereotype of immigrants coming over to the UK just to claim benefits and I think it’s largely demagogy publicized for political gain.
Read the report – of a £109bn health budget, immigrants account for £12m – that’s 0.01% use, which is well below the level of the older, sicker, more likely to be invalided native Brits! And be glad about that increased birth rate – those are the people who’ll be paying your pension, as well as your health bills as you get older! And again – read the report! It says that non-EEA (that is, people from outside the EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) immigrants made a negative net contribution of £118bn: BUT it also says that BRITISH people made a negative net contribution of £591bn!!
IA
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Thanks Chit Chong, your comments above at no 136 are among the few that I wholeheartedly agree with.
Earlier this year I was attacked by several socialists for suggesting that citizens incomes should only go to 2 children per family, to help with childcare costs, including the work of mothers at home, as well as other costs, and any further children should only get means-tested benefits. I wrote that this was to discourage overpopulation. Perhaps I should have written more accurately that it was to avoid encouraging overpopulation. But I would probably have been attacked by the socialists anyway. I’m one of the not very socialist Old Greens that they seem to be trying to push out of the Green Party.
I’m happy to report that one of my nephews recently became the father of twins. As he also has an older child, I think that only the older twin should get the citizens income. The younger one might get a means-tested benefit, and would get the same citizens income as everyone else when he becomes an adult. This is because the production of the older twin is a public service, but the production of the younger one is a luxury. The parents of course would be likely to spend approximately equally on all 3 children.
Lynton North, comment 139, seems to doubt that too many Green Party members don’t care about the environment. I could supply several examples but I’ll mention just one, the change in the basic principles of the gpew at the conference earlier this year. Social justice was promoted and environmental salvation became secondary, something that is assumed will automatically follow when social justice is achieved.
@Chit Chong – can you provide one scrap of evidence to back up your ridiculous claim that “too many members including those in senior positions in the Party are seemly blind to or simply deny that climate change is happening” or “or is a serious climate change denier of the Nigel Lawson mould”?
What and who are you refering to by “neo-trot” tendency on ther left of the party. Evidence please before you start feeding witch-hunts, and alluding to “entryism”.
I’m very concerned here by the tendency to say “being in favour of immigration is a left wing thing so we must reject it”. Chit here says “the simplistic left-ward drift of the Party… as if we were SWP Mark ii.” Then goes on to talk at some level of complexity about how we should tell the electorate that we will make them even more miserable than the Tories do.
While *no-one* in the Green Party thinks the environmental crisis is anything other than vital it is important to realise that our vision appeals to people. What we know is that our Green vision has a real appeal to people. Having more time to spend with your family, having a life not disciplined and defined by the diktats of big corporations and cruel plutocratic employers and being able to use your work to make a real difference to the world are core Green values. While some may find it tempting to shout at the electorate about how awful they are for living in an expoitative system, it’s something we must avoid.
Instead we must tackle the exploitative system and to do that we must tell people how much better their lives will be. Not how much worse their lives will be. No one likes the prophet of doom. And if we are committed to an electoral road to solving our environmental and economic crises then we must find ways to make people want our vision of the world, not fear it – however much we might enjoy frightening people.
So where Green politics overlaps with the aims of the left we shouldn’t be afraid of that. We should be true to our principles, rather than rejecting things because of their intellectual antecedence. Saving the world is too important for ideological bickering.
But ecological problems arise out of human action and human action is ‘social’ and ‘political’.
For example, the present government are promoting fracking, building new roads and doing little to promote renewables.
We have to promote environmental solutions which requires great thought and focussed action.
Any way I am on my last three days of writing my book ‘The sustainable economics of Elinor Ostrom’
hey and don’t dis neo-trots, many on the left realised they didn’t consider the environment seriously and admit they made a mistake.
Finally look at all those on Bright Green who signed the letter and who are opposing fracking at Balcombe.
I remember the anti-roads movement in 1990s it was social and ecological.
I am sorry, but cannot sign this letter, though I have already taken Chirs et al to task for their letter.
This is because I share many of their concerns especially regarding the simplistic left-ward drift of the Party away from the Party which stands for the planet and social and environmental justice to one that concentrates almost exclusively on an anti-austerity platform with token reference to the environment, as if we were SWP Mark ii.
I also worry that too many members including those in senior positions in the Party are seemly blind to or simply deny that climate change is happening and methane is bubbling up from the melting permafrost. Indeed anyone who thinks that we can feed 10 billion just with fairer distribution of food when agriculture gets hit by the chaotic weather of the 4C world has got their head in the sand or is a serious climate change denier of the Nigel Lawson mould,
This takes us to the blue touch paper of Chris’s letter and one which I feel was handled in a kack handed manner. As an immigrant and refugee myself, I support Natalie’s stance, but as an environmentalist, in a high consumption, high emission nation this is much more difficult. If we had a low per-capita emissions, an open door would be less of an issue, but for a high emissions nation like ours, our population is a factor we must consider. So, if we are to follow GP policy for a 90% CO2 reduction by 2030, as indeed climate science and international equity demands, then the only three factors we have to play with to achieve this are a combination of reducing per capita emissions, reducing birthrate (crucial for 2050) or reducing net immigration. You can’t say yes you can come in but you cannot emit CO2.
And now it becomes personal and painful for me because it exposes my own environmental hypocrisy. The carbon truth is that most immigrants and refugees to the UK not only end up adopting the UK high carbon lifestyle but also have the added carbon cost because we are immigrants and usually have family in our birth nations. In my case, i can no longer avoid the filial duty of seeing my aged father in Malaysia, even though I know all too well its carbon cost to future generations. Its just that I cannot leave him lonely and to die alone. I am sure that it is a dilemma that the increasing number of environmentalist from ethnic minorities share with me as well as those from the “white colonies” , and one that I hope they have a better way of resolving than I have.
Finally, another concern I have with our left-ward drift, is our anti-cuts stance. I feel that this has been conflated with general anti-austerity. Don’t get me wrong, as someone who lost his job in the public sector, I’d like to see Frank Goodwin strung up and his bonus used to fund the public sector. However, as previously mentioned, our climate change policy calls for 90% carbon reduction by 2030, whilst this means lots of green jobs insulating buildings, it also means the death of Ryan Air and Primark. These seem to me to be the primary measures of people’s conspicuous material abundance. So whilst we are not a Luddite or hair shirt party, 90% carbon reduction no matter how much we insulate, how many wind turbines and solar panels we put up, means that we are the Party of austerity and we should not kid the electorate about it.
In conclusion, I think that our current anti-cuts stance plays to short-term popularism at the cost of our commitment to the future generations and long-term sustainability.
Fair is NOT worth fighting for if it is based on betraying our children and grandchildren.
My fear is that this is where the neo-Trot wing of the party is getting the Green Party to do.
Throw my name on this please!
Please add my name.
Please add my name to this letter.
Please add my name to this.
Add my name please
Pls add my name.
Please add my name:
Cllr Ben Duncan (Brighton)
Please add my signature
Please add my name too. Any pressure from immigrants on services is due to the government’s failure to use the taxes they pay into the system from being redistributed to the areas where they live and work, in education, health and council services. Yet the health service can’t survive without immigrant workers.
Please add my name to the letter. Immigrants contribute far more than they take. I also support the campaign to provide work permits for people who are seeking asylum.
Dear Nicola,
You seem concerned about whether readers know you personally. I don’t, and in fact I have never heard your name mentioned nor seen anything you’ve written, so I’m forming a view based purely on the arguments you set out. Without wanting to challenge every sentence of your letter, which would be tedious, there’s a couple of points I would make.
“Many of her party’s supporters are as concerned as the rest of the public about a high level of net immigration, mainly because it is a major contributor to population growth.” Immigration is about population movement, population growth is about, well, growth. I had understood that people moving to richer countries were likely to have fewer children than their peers remaining in the country of origin, just like richer people generally have less kids than poorer people. So immigration implies less kids, not more. Is that wrong? Which references should I be checking to put me right?
This next one’s a cracker. “…a high level of net immigration, mainly because it is a major contributor to population growth. This adds to the uphill task of protecting our environment and moving the economy to an ecologically sustainable one. According to opinion polls, this is a concern shared by the majority of the public. It is, no doubt, this wider public concern that has brought about the political consensus of which Natalie complains. This has nothing to do with hostility to immigrants…”
What? Most people who oppose immigration do so because of concerns about environmental sustainability, not racism? Is this meant as a subtle joke? It’s passed me by, I confess.
“…the bare mathematical fact that immigration has added to the pressures on public services…” This is a very odd thing to say. The pressures on public services come mostly from the elderly, and sick, as you would expect. Immigrants, mostly, are neither elderly nor sick. Overall, they contribute to, not take from, these services. (Without wishing to open up a line of argument about “so, as they get older, will they then be a burden and can we ship them back?”) The “bare mathematical fact” is that we depend on immigrants to keep services running, or “sustainable”.
You might like to check some facts, for example as presented by Portes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NmeY92OFPRU
Peter
(Eds, happy to add my name to letter, if not too late)
Indeed Derek, many of us agree with Natalie. But Natalie didn’t label Nicola Watson, Chris Padley etc as Xenophobes. The quality of debate here is worthy of a Labour Party WMD dossier. Since when did being a member of population matters make one a xenophobe? (what are you saying Gary, #3,apart from demonstrating your internet research skills). Are Porrit, Attenborough, Parkin, Tickel also to be tarred with the same brush; p-lease! Has our policy on population been revoked, particularly PP120?
Derek, once you were proud we had no leader; are the fears of those of us who opposed Green 2000 coming true? Are we going up the spout like Teapot 2000, where debate is stifled by rhetorical devices as we ALL play follow my leader [1].
As Outrageous mobile billboards, which may as well be sponsored by the Daily Mail, tour London Boroughs promote the hostile immigrant go home narrative, I reiterate my support for the counter-letter (#118); Padley et al are, in my view incorrect. They choose to emphasise one aspect of GP policy over another but many on this thread have chosen to suggest GP policy, which does state that population is a matter of concern is itself intrinsically xenophobic. Many of our detractors would agree.
[1] RE:Activity, Fred Bear 1992
Regards
Philip
absolutely suplort.
I’d be glad to add my name to this
Dear Nicola we have heard your view and that of Natalie and many of us agree with Natalie.
There is a climate of hatred against migrants in Britain, Natalie spoke out against it and many of us have felt moved to praise her for doing so.
The reasons why there are shortages of housing are to do with the massive decline in social housing and many homes (700,000) I believe are empty.
The relationship between migration and ecological damage is spurious too. We need to be directly supporting assaults on local communities under environmental attack from people in Balcombe to rainforest citizens in places like Peru.
How many people in the world have starved to death because Malthus shaped assumptions in the British empire about hunger always being driven by numbers?
Finally many of us are proud that our leader is a migrant.
Many of you signing up to Benali’s letter know me personally You surely can’t believe that I have turned into the ignorant, Little Englander xenophobic caricature portrayed here. You know that I am a committed environmentalist and that I have been a loyal Party member for nearly 30 years. I did not take the decision to write the original letter lightly. I was absolutely aware of its significance. But the levels of immigration that we are accepting – together with a natural population increase – mean that every 10 years we will have to build another Leeds.
The Green Party used to pride itself on being able to talk sensibly about the difficult issues. Not any more, it would appear.
I’m proud of Natalie’s stand and not joining the race to the bottom. Tories hate immigrants anyway, Labour are desperate to show they’re more Tory than the Tories and the Lib Dems have long given up on the idea of principles.
Further to my support for the proposed letter I would add what particularly annoyed me in Padley et al’s letter was their contention that “it is, no doubt, this wider public concern that has brought about the political consensus of which Natalie complains. This has nothing to do with hostility to immigrants. Most people know the vast majority of immigrants are here legally, intending only to be good citizens and neighbours, and most achieve it”.
I strongly suspect that this is not true – there is indeed doubt. Many people’s concern does relate to hostility. I hear and see this in my daily experience. We should play no part of shoring up that hostility.
However, in the introduction above, it is written “these anti-immigrant Greens wish our party to participate in immigrant-bashing, and the creation of an environment of fear of immigrants and those descended from immigrants”. This I also believe to be nonsense and do not believe the letter by Padley et al supports that contention. It may contribute to an environment of fear as an unintended consequence – and that’s our argument, but Padley et al, I doubt very much, “wish it”.
We can still be assertive, but let’s keep the debate respectful and deliberative. This is all we need if we believe our policies to be correct.
Kind Regards
Philip
I’m very happy to add my name to this.
Please add my name.
Me too.
Please add my name. There is no room for this kind of 21st Century Eugenicist racism in the Green Party.
Please add my name
There really ought not to be a place for groups like OPT to promote their racist & right wing message at our conferences or as inserts in Green World.
As a party we should take the attitude that accepting advertising money from Population bombers is just as unacceptable as from say Nuclear Power companies, Payday loan (sharks), Arms companies, or HumVee cars.
I am not of course advocating censorship. Members such as the Lincoln green three should be given free access to express their views, however misguided. Neither should any suggestions of “silencing” them be counternanced.
I support Natalie!
Simon Ross,
If you think immigration to the UK puts pressure on the UK’s environment, housing etc., presumably you’d agree that think emigration from India, China, and Pakistan relieves pressure on the environment, housing, etc. in those countries? Or do you think cities like Mumbai, Bejing and Karachi are at less risk of overcrowding and environmental collapse than London?
Classic racist scaremongering from Population Matters, there.
The UK population has grown by less than 4 million in the last ten years, so plainly many if not most of the 5 million people who have moved to this country in that time have subsequently left.
Furthermore, the UK has maintained a positive natural increase over that period – that, is, more Brits are being born than dying, so even that smaller figure is way above real net migration over the decade.
Bosses put pressure wage levels, not migrants. People create value, they do not destroy it. Which means more people would mean everyone was richer rather than poorer, were it not for corporates stealing that value and hiding it offshore. A subject upon which Population Matters, with all its concern for workers, is oddly silent.
Similarly, housing and services become easier to provide, not harder, as migration increases the proportion of the population that is of working age. Few migrants are children or elderly. But again, the efforts of these hardworking people that could be used to expand social housing and services are being appropriated by the real drain on the economy, the corporates Population Matters would rather not mention.
Mr Ross, regrettably there remain plenty of fora in the UK in which your brand of ever-so-reasonable racism will be welcomed with open arms. I am proud to be able to say that the Green Party is not one of them.
Dear Simon,
As you well know our public services are dependent on immigrant labour, our culture is the product of immigrants and the cause of the problems you identify is the grossly unequal distribution of resources in Britain.
If you were concerned about wage levels you would be arguing for a living wage. If you wanted housing for all you would be pressing for empty properties and brown field sites to be brought into use. If environmental degradation is your issue you could campaign against the corporate control of our politics.
Instead you choose to place the blame on people who are often the poorest and most vulnerable. In the same way as your organisation Population Matters is silent on the extreme over-consumption by rich, white westerners, while casting blame for environmental problems on the poorest in the world.
While wealthy white westerners like you and I are understandably reluctant to accept the blame for our actions and those of people like us it is profoundly disingenuous to suggest that it is immigrants to blame for our nation’s problem.
And when immigrants are subject to ever more hostile racism in public your actions only exacerbate this serious problem.
But like responsibility for environmental degradation I’m sure you’ll find someone else to blame for your actions in stoking racist hate.
please add my name
Dear all,
The reality today is that migration levels is not something that can be ignored in a conenected world. The problem you face is that the Green party has not developed a practical or effective migration policy in a world where migration is rapidly increasing. The reality (i.e. what is actually happening) is that over five million people have settled in the UK in the least ten years. (ONS) The predictable result is pressure on wage levels, housing and services, and environmental degradation. Another 42 million people million people around the world would like to settle in the UK. (Gallop) What number would you be comfortable with? Those who fail to address this issue honestly will be rightly ignored by the UK public, who are naturally guided by their experience snd the evidence of their own eyes.
Simon Ross
Chief Executive
Population Matters
Please add my name.
I fully support this letter.
Please add my name.
I am proud to support Natalie
Paul
Please add my name too.
Inti Suarez, GroenLinks member (dutch green party)
Jo Hancox
Definitely with this. Please add my name
Please add my support.
Scottish Young Greens have just voted to sign this statement.
Please add my name.
Please add my support.
Please add my name.
Please add my signature
Please add me if in time.
Add me
We need opportunities for more cross border migration, not less. Please add my name.
Pippa Bartolotti, Leader, Wales Green party
Hi Violeta, we actually added it earlier, hope that’s okay! You are at number 132.
Please add my name too.
Violeta’s cogent comments say it all for us – in absolute agreement.
I fully support Natalie’s letter and sincerely wish the follow-up letter had never been sent. Let’s hope another 15,000-odd true-green signatures of support follow-on here.
Ricky
Sorry, forgot to say – add my name if not too late. Violeta
add me too
Please add me. Thanks!
Please add my name. I am heartily sick of the polarisation, demonisation and xenophobic attitudes with regards to immigrants.
Please add my name.
Please add my name. I’m a GP member.
I hate to see any Greens falling into the immigrant bashing hype which has become commonplace amongst the mainstream neoliberal parties. Please add my signature (Scottish Greens).
Please add my name (member of GP in Scotland) – thank you.
Would you like me to add you to the signatories list, Mike?
Proud to be part of a party that is standing up for migrants. The reactionary populism of the other parties helps the rich and powerful to push on with austerity. Blaming migrants for a crisis they did not cause is disgusting.
Add my name
Philip Leicester
Loughborough Green Party
“Here’s me thinking that when it comes to the environment, we humans rise or fall together and cannot create little insulated happy enclaves!” – Absolutely spot on from Violeta Vajda.
The fundamental, non-negotiable basis of Green politics is the recognition that the earth is a common treasury for all. The xenophobia of Population Matters and their fellow travellers stands in direct opposition to what it means to be a Green.
Martin Deane
Hull and East Riding Green Party
Graham Ward
Its essential that where anyone is taking on the right wing bigoted press machine & blows a hole in their spin & myths on such an important matter ,that they are supported .
Add my name……….
Please add my name
Please add my name
I agree.
I fully support the stance of Natalie Bennett on this matter, as I do when prominent Greens speak out against greedy offshore landlords.
When will the Green Party’s ‘anti-immigration’ lobby, Population Matters/Optimum Population Trust ever speak out against the latter, that buy up land and buildings in London, etc only to leave it deserted in much the same way as dodgy speculators burn crops so as to increase unit prices?
Please add my name.
Jean-Marc BEN
Europe Ecologie-Les Verts
Calais (France)
Add my name too.
I support the letter. Immigrants are scapegoated by the right ring press and the Tories.Tax evasion and the lack of investment in new jobs are the real enemy.
As a Romanian immigrant closely associated with the Romanian Cultural Centre in London and as a Green Party member and activist I am doubly proud to see that both organisations are standing up boldly against attempts to divide immigrants to the UK into the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor. From the letter of Chris Padley et al, it sounds like immigrants on the whole are seen as a danger to this ‘green and pleasant land’ that must be protected by the environmental movement, even as some individual immigrants, if well behaved, are to be allowed in. It’s worth noting the Victorian symbolism intrinsic in their letter, which tugs at the heart strings of nationalists and singles out the UK of all countries as the bastion of environmental progress. And here’s me thinking that when it comes to the environment, we humans rise or fall together and cannot create little insulated happy enclaves!
Thank you, I agree with this completely
Kyla Darrell
As Secretary of Green Left and Secretary of the Green Party Trade Union Group I wish to add support from these groups to Natalie Bennett’s stance on migration. The letter from Sandy Irvine et al grossly misrepresents opinion within the Green Party and indeed wider opinion on this topic, (has nobody heard of the work of authors such as Fred Pearce and Danny Dorling (not as far as I know, GP members) who suggest that population alarmism is misplaced).
When combined with despicable attempts to whip up anti-immigrant xenophobia, population alarmism lends itself to a first world first agenda and distracts attention from the real cases of global economic and ecological crises. I now look forward to being accused of attempting to ‘shut down’ debate on population which is the usual response of Irvine et al to any criticism of their obsessional stance.
Truly shocked and saddened that the response to Natalie’s brilliant article was written in the name of the Greens. I wholeheartedly support this riposte as the true reflection of Green Party policy and ethics. Please add my name. Yours, Chloe Cheeseman, Nottingham
Please add my support too!
I support this letter
I’d like to add my support to the above statement.
Jack Mcglen, Newcastle GP
I also agree with this letter.
I also agree with this letter.
Please add my name
Matt Hanley ‘The sooner Bright Greens voices have a greater say in the Greens, the better.’ NO, NOT REALLY. REAlLY, NOOO.
Shakti Shah wants her name added ( she is having technical probs).
Ffs. Please add my name to this. Well done all at Bright Green for the response. The sooner Bright Greens voices have a greater say in the Greens, the better.
Please add me
please add my name
sign me up!
Fully agree.
And add me to.
Please add my name to the list of supporters. Proud of Natalie Bennett’s stand and proud to be a member of the Green Party.
Please could you add my support and signature to this letter? Thank you.
Green Party ENG/WAL
Wholeheartedly agree
As a first generation migrant, who struggled personally and politically for migrant rights, it’s very touching to see so much support from politically minded people. As a migrant, when dealing with own personal immigration issues or when in a stuffy UKBA policy meeting…it often feels very lonely and dis-empowering. Today, I am very proud to be a Green Party member.
Totally agree. The Green Party should disown the writers of the original letter.
Please add my name to the list – Ryan Bestford
Please add my name to supporters.
Definitely add my support to this!
Signed – and more or less shocked it needed doing in response to any members at all!
Please add my name in support.
please add my name
(now with correct email address)
Please add my name
Please add my name.
Add me too!
Please add my name.
Please add my name.
John Cooper, Birmingham
Casper you’re already on it!
Me too
Agree!
Me too!
Please add my name. Thanks.
Chris Appleby
Me too.
Sign me on!
Please add me too!
Alison Bain
I wish to be a signatory.
Add my support also. Humans are humans, regardless of ‘nationality’
I wholeheartedly support this and people’s ignorance shall not bring the name of the Green Party down.
Karl Stanley. Please add my name to the list.
Add me too 🙂
I’m happy to add my name @Calderdale Green Party
I’m in too.
Please add my name
Ben Young
Please add my name
Dan Phillips
People’s ignorance blinds them.
Such intolerance towards what certain individuals see as “non-British” and “non-white” is atrocious. Immigrants and refugees and citizens of the EU should be welcomed into our communities, not shunned and attacked for being who they are. So many different people from different backgrounds make our country such a diverse and interesting place.
This evening I witnessed racist verbal abuse on my doorstep, and it made me so upset and angry to be a part of a society which is encouraging such attitudes.
What sort of message did these Green Party members think they were creating? They should be ashamed of themselves for having such intolerant beliefs. Nobody in our society should be prejudiced or harmed because of their ethnicity, faith, background, sexuality, gender or anything else for that matter!
It is truly a shame some members can fall so far away from what our party believes in.
Please add my name
yep add me,
Please add my support too!
I add my support to this
+1 I support this
I would like to add my signature to this too.
Please add my support,
Daniel Key
And a letter from Adam Ramsay:
“Dear editors,
When Green Party leader Natalie Bennett stands up against immigrant bashing rhetoric, she represents the democratically agreed policy of our party and she is quite right to do so.
Chris Padley et al (letters, 25 July) present the idea that immigrants are a burden on our public services as a fact, when the truth is that the figures show the opposite to be true – immigrants tend to contribute more through taxes than they take in services. They express the view that immigrants are an environmental burden – demonstrating an outdated 1970s environmentalism obsessed with population whilst ignoring vast inequalities in consumption levels. They claim it is Natalie’s rhetoric which is shifting blame onto immigrants as big brother vans tour London telling them to go home.
The rhetoric used by Labour, Tories and now even Lib Dems shifts blame for the mistakes made by these parties onto immigrants. The vast majority of Green party members are proud that our leader is becoming the loudest voice calling on them to stop this dangerous scape goating – we need more politicians to follow her lead.
Yours sincerely,
Adam Ramsay”
Yes, add my support.
Rachel Hardy
It is worth noting that while the three xenophobes who sent the original letter claim to be writing merely “as Green Party members,” the first of them, Chris Padley, is in fact Population Matters’ “Letter writers’ group manager”.
Absolutely!
Dirk Nols
I’m happy to add my support to this.