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The Greens: a new force on the Left
The party's manifesto 'centrepiece' is a bold wealth tax
"With relatively little to lose in this election, or indeed win", the Green Party of England and Wales has been able to be impressively candid, said The Independent. Tax is "the issue that the bigger parties don't like to talk about"; they pretend that public services can be improved without greatly increasing the tax burden. But the Greens have looked at the state of the NHS, education and welfare, and at the need for new national infrastructure, and have concluded that personal tax rises amounting to £50bn-£70bn a year will be required.
Their manifesto's "centrepiece" is a wealth tax of 1% a year on assets over £10m, and 2% over £1bn, plus higher taxes on capital gains and property.
Fiscal recklessness
The Green manifesto promises "everything the Labour party should be doing… but is too frightened to propose", said George Monbiot in The Guardian. The Greens would immediately bring rail, water and the "big five" energy companies back into public ownership. They would ramp up NHS funding, including for dentistry and mental health; boost social security spending; scrap university tuition fees; and vastly increase subsidies for public transport.
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If enacted, their plans (costing £160bn a year in total) would drive away investment, cause the national debt to balloon, and would end in national ruin, said Carole Malone in the Daily Express. And their fiscal recklessness is only one reason to reject them. The Greens' former leader, Caroline Lucas, who is standing down, was a sensible, principled figure who was evidently passionate about the environment. By contrast, the next generation of Green politicians appear to be "bile-spewing hard-left" fanatics obsessed with trans rights, Gaza, and – bizarrely – the need for "natural" childbirth (code for denying women Caesarean sections).
Policies reminiscent of Corbyn's
Even so, the new, radical Greens have plenty of supporters, said Abby Wallace on Politico. And that's not surprising. Their policies are reminiscent of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership; they appeal to left-wingers alienated by Keir Starmer and upset, in particular, that he has not done enough "about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza".
The party has identified four seats it hopes to win, up from the single MP they had in the last parliament. Polls suggest that Siân Berry will hold Brighton Pavilion, Lucas's former seat, and that co-leader Carla Denyer will win in the newly created constituency of Bristol Central, beating Labour's shadow culture secretary, Thangam Debbonaire. But even if they don't hit their target, the Greens will "pile pressure on Labour from the Left".
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