I have just sent this to the candidates for leadership of the Green Party, Ellie Chowns, Adrian Ramsey and Zack Polanski.
Dear leadership candidates,
The media are currently pumping the issue of migration.
Green speakers rightly have a humanitarian approach to this issue, but this has little traction with media, and little news value, since our views are well known.
It is clear that it is very difficult (not to say impossible) to *control* migration. Therefore everyone should turn our attention to the *causes* of migration, that is, to war, dictators, poverty and climate change. In solving migration, we could solve much of the world’s woes. Migration is a symptom of global misery.
The media response will be that it is all very well to talk about these issues, but thet they are insoluble. This gives us an opportunity to voice our global policies: on war, stop the huge UK contribution to the global arms trade, bring about ammunition control, and address the specific curable causes of war: religion, dictatorships, foreign interference, separatism etc. See here for a development of these solutions https://greenerblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/causes-and-prevention-of-current-wars.html
On dictatorships: explain our policy on a Global Human Rights Index. On poverty: close tax havens on a global basis, producing a more wealthy world that, in turn, has the money to address climate change. On secessionism: institute an arm of the UN dedicated to developing negotiations about separatism and secessionism.
All this will of course take time, but the media owes us a lot of time, to balance the time they have afforded to Farage. We should set out our plans one sound bite at a time. And we can devote an arm of our website to this cause of migration argument, and to systematically developing other policies.
“Think globally, act locally” is still true. We are now doing plenty of local action, with our councillors and elected members. It is time to start getting a name for thinking, and acting, globally.
I promise that I will vigorously support whichever of you, candidates for leadership, returns the earliest and best response to this proposal to address the causes of migration.
For a peaceful green future
Richard Lawson
(Green Party Co-Speaker February - September 1992)
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