What are you afraid of boys? The Green Party posed this question on Westminster’s College Green this morning as they launched a new poster campaign (driven around on pedal bikes, natch) calling for the Greens to be involved in the TV leaders debates. Leader Natalie Bennett also announced that the party’s membership is up to 44,175 today — 52,000 including Scotland.
I asked Bennett how she feels about being used by the Prime Minister for his own political gains. She doesn’t seem to mind too much:
‘Mr Cameron is certainly speaking for his own political advantage – but he’s only able to do that because it’s a fair and responsible thing to say. If you look at the fact there’s been a whole slew of polls over the past week, all of which show that the public should be invited to the debates.’
And how many of her new members does Bennett attribute to the furore over the debates?
‘There’s a broad range of reasons of joining – a lot of them have been people who have been thinking of joining for a while and this has just been the impetus for pushing them over the line…quite a few of them are people who are saying since the rise of Ukip, we want to see the anti-Ukip force get stronger.’
Bennett did not dismiss the notion that the Greens are rapidly becoming the Ukip of the left, countering the other political parties’ reaction to the rise of the people’s army:
‘What we are, are people who have spoken out against the race to the bottom on immigration rhetoric — while quite disgracefully the three largest parties have really pandered to Ukip’
One thing Bennett does have in common with her nemesis Farage is that neither is in the House of Commons. For now, she finds this to be an advantage:
‘Obviously, I’d like to be in there voting, making a difference, delivering a different kind of politics and we need to get people elected to do that. But for the moment, it’s a huge advantage to be a genuinely a leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, all around England and Wales.’
As well as a gaggle of Green Party supporters who turned up – including a placard announcing ‘Je Suis Green’ — the Guido Fawkes rascals brought along their own chicken to promote a message similar to Bennett’s. Although Bennett said she welcomed ‘all supporters’, she was quick to note the chicken was unrelated the Greens and he was escorted away:
The Green Party comes to Westminster (and a Guido Fawkes chicken)
The chicken is escorted away
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