Well, it's almost 2019 and I want to begin by wishing everybody in Britain a very happy NewYear.
For the Green Party, we're looking forward with optimism, confidence and determination. 2019 was a huge year for us. We saw our membership more than triple. We saw 1.1 millionvotes in the General Election, more than four times more votes than we've ever won before. Wesaw the return of Caroline Lucas as our brilliant Green MP.
So 2019 – this is the year in which we need to turn the Green surge into Green votes andthat's what we're determined to do. What we need to do is, up and down the country, providepeople with the real alternative. And that is what we are doing.
Because so many people, up and down the country, when we look at the local council electionsthat are coming up, are facing local government that's totally, or almost, a one-party state.They are finding that they're not having the tough questions asked. The local council isn'tgetting the scrutiny it needs.
So, sure, local councils are suffering enormously under the government's hideous program ofausterity, but we should always be asking: Can they do better? Can they look after particularlythe more vulnerable in their community better? Can they do a better job with their localenvironment?
So, in the Council elections, we're looking to really grow our number of Green councillors acrossEngland and Wales.
And then we've got the assembly elections in Wales and in London. And these are the chancewhere we can significantly grow our representation, win our first assembly members in Wales inwhat are fair proportional elections, in which people can be sure that their vote counts. If youvote for what you believe in, you can get it.
And of course, our sister party up in Scotland is looking forward with real confidence andenthusiasm to the Scottish Parliament elections there.
What we want, one of the things we need to be getting out of 2019, is the same kind ofelections, fair proportional elections all around the county, particularly to Westminster and ofcourse getting rid of our un-elected House of Lords.
It was in 1918 when women got the vote. That was the last time we saw significant reform inthe Westminster Parliament.
Now, it really is time for us to think again, look again, plan again, and get real change in ourdemocracy. To get to a situation where people know that their vote counts, they don't have tomake complicated calculations about what other people are going to vote, they can simplyvote for what they want and get it.
That's what I would urge everyone to make a resolution for 2019. To do your bit towardselectoral reform. It is, after all, our human right to have a fair democracy that reflects ourpolitical will. And of course, in 2019, we're also going to have to be defending our human rights.Human Rights Act is under attack from our government and we need to stand up and defendit.
So a new year, new possibilities. We've got a government that doesn't have a mandate for thehideous austerity that it's imposing, for the disastrous environmental policies, for its threatsto our human rights.
This government only won the support of 24% of eligible voters. That's no kind of mandate.
Let's pledge in 2019 to ensure that we make real progress toward the real change we need, apolitical system that works for the common good, not just for the few of the richest and apolitical system that delivers a society where we're living within our environmental limits.
And after all, at the end of the day, that's not politics, it's physics. We have to do it. We have tohave real change in Britain.
以上内容是小编为你推荐，希望大家喜欢。