X marks the spot

I've got to decide shortly how to vote in the elections for the European Parliament, and I've made up my mind to vote Green.

I've always had greenish leanings, being a keen organic gardener and an enthusiast for renewable energy - especially micro-generation schemes like community wind and water projects.  They've also been resolutely behind renationalisation of the railways and promotion of affordable, integrated public transport, another policy close to my heart.  But it's the Greens' line on that devalued concept of 'social justice' that caught my eye for this election.

To quote their website: 

We do not believe in blaming those on benefits, or in blaming migrants for our problems. Human rights are not a barrier to progress. Circumstances mean that some of us need more help than others and that help should be available to everyone who needs it.  We will end the race to the bottom on welfare: we will not kick people when they are down.

The Green Party would:

• Oppose austerity. There is an alternative – investment in a low carbon economy, creating real jobs of the future.
• Turn the national minimum wage into a genuine living wage so that everyone can put food on the table and pay the bills.
• Build truly affordable housing, and stop demolishing existing homes.
• Scrap the welfare cap to ensure that we can truly help the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
• Enforce a cap on bankers’ bonuses and reduce the pay gap between those at the top and those at the bottom.

Browsing Labour's 2014 European Election manifesto - for some bizarre reason, to be found on a site called 'Your Britain' not apparently accessible from the Party's main website (and if there are any actual policies on there, I didn't track them down), I found only one reference to Social Security.  And as if to make the point above, it's framed purely in the context of making sure that Johnny Foreigner doesn't exploit it:

Action is also needed to deal with the impact of immigration on the welfare system and public services. British people recognise that most people who come to Britain from the EU work hard and contribute more in taxes than they use in public services or claim in benefits. However, they also want the system to be fair. For example, they don’t believe that people newly arrived should have exactly the same rights as people who have contributed throughout their lives. So Labour would look at increasing the period for which people have to be present in the UK before they can claim unemployment benefits from three months to six months. And we would pursue reforms in Europe so that child tax credit and child benefit are no longer paid to families living abroad.

Tougher than the Tories?  No thanks. 

And if you've ever tried to find financial support for an EU worker unable to work due to illness, accident or pregnancy, you'll know that it never has been the case that 'newly arrived' migrants had 'exactly the same rights as people who have contributed throughout their lives'.  That's the kind of misleading rhetoric that a truly progressive party should challenge, not deploy in its own cause.

I don't think the author of this policy wants you to think of the people who would be left destitute as families with children, women trapped in violent relationships or young people vulnerable to criminal and sexual exploitation - but they will be.

There is, of course, no point in reading the LibDem manifesto as we know from experience that no matter how nice it might be, it's all expendable.  Indeed, I can't help thinking that the biggest boost to the assorted anti-EU camp was probably the sight of Nick Clegg leading the charge for the pro-European cause. 

Anything Right of that is also unworthy of consideration, except for softness and absorbency in the unexpected absence of conventional toilet tissue.  Sadly, that's what has been falling through the letterbox with monotonous regularity - UKIP (and a couple of similarly strident splinter groups) and the BNP managing glossy fliers which must have cost a fair sum to print and distribute, but are sadly quite unsuitable as a loo paper substitute.  By the way, don't try this yourself at home - the UKIP one has staples!  

I did allow myself a chuckle at the irony that UKIPs might very well have been funded by that ex-pat Greek donor of theirs with the very strange views about women's right to wear trousers, but the tragedy is that thousands of working and workless men and women will pick them as their 'protest' vote, because the media have done a splendid job of promoting UKIP as edgy and rebellious and anti-establishment, while the Greens struggle to get an equal platform, even when they're getting arrested fighting fracking.  

You'd almost think it wasn't just UKIP's deranged donor who didn't like women wearing the trousers...