European candidate urges people to vote Green next May to protect animals

Last week I became a candidate for the Green Party for the European Parliament for the North West of England region. Elections will be held next May along side local elections, for which I will also be a Green Party candidate in the Manchester City Council elections, for the Chorlton ward. As a vegan and an animal rights activist I urge all who care passionately about animals to vote for the Green Party in the European elections, and I will explain to you why this is one of the best things we can do to help animals.

From a purely animal rights point of view there really are not many political parties in the UK worth bothering with. There's only really the Green Party and the Animal Welfare Party (AWP) who are active and have even semi-decent animal rights policies. You can take a look at the Green Party's animal rights policies here: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ar . Both the AWP and the Green Party are standing in the European Parliament elections next May hoping to gain seats. The AWP (under their former name Animals Count) only stood in the Eastern region in the 2009 European election and received 13,201 votes (around 0.8% of the vote). This time round they are committed to standing in the London region, but will not stand in other regions unless they can get hold of enough funding/donations. They say they need 140,000 votes in London to get an MEP elected claiming that there are around 500,000 vegetarians/vegans in London and therefore they only need a small percentage of their votes. It is very unrealistic that they will achieve that quota given that the Green Party only managed to achieve 190,589 votes at the last European election and UKIP only managed 188,440 votes at the last election. The AWP does not have the national, regional or local presence and has not built it's name up enough to achieve that level of success. They need improve their vote by more than 10 times the amount they received in 2009, yet their profile has not significantly grown at all since 2009 and they still no not have a single person elected at any level.

The Green Party's MEPs (Member of European Parliament) have an excellent record when it comes to animals. Every few months the Green MEPs publish a newsletter on the work that they and the Green group in the parliament have been doing to improve things for animals (latest issue can be read here: http://www.keithtaylormep.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Final-Making-Tracks-Compressed.pdf ). Keith Taylor, MEP for the South East for example worked hard to keep the EU wide ban on the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals to 2013 when the industry was putting on pressure to delay the ban. Green MEPs worked hard to ensure the ban on battery hens was achieved. The Green group has worked hard to tighten up regulations on fishing so that fishing trawlers do not destroy our oceans. These achievements wouldn't be possible without Green MEPs. Voting for the AWP in London could prevent the Green Party's animal spokesperson Caroline Allen from being elected as she is second on the Green Party list. Being very generous, if the AWP get around 30,000 votes that could be the difference that the Green Party need to getting Caroline Allen elected. In many parts of the country the Greens were just less than 2% away from getting someone elected. In the North West where I am a candidate they were 0.3% away from defeating Nick Griffin.

If more animal advocates voted for the Greens next May it might be that extra amount we need to get a handful of extra MEPs. Since the last Euro elections in 2009 the Greens have grown tremendously, in 2010 Caroline Lucas was elected as the first ever Green MP. In 2011 Brighton & Hove City Council became the first Green-led council ever, which has led to vegan options becoming available in council owned canteens and other places where the council has influence. This year Jenny Jones became the first Green Party politician to be appointed to the House of Lords. We have never had such a great opportunity to make so many gains nationally. Good results in the European elections will do wonders for our chances in the General Election in 2015 when Caroline Lucas is up for re-election as an MP. Caroline Lucas does a lot of great things for animals in parliament. She has fought against the badger cull and has fought for the ban of wild animals being used in circuses amongst other things. If she did not get re-elected it would be a great loss for British politics at a time when people have very little faith in politicians. Well the Greens are something different. We care about the common good. We care about creating a society that benefits the planet and all beings living here, including animals.The very realistic alternative if people don't vote Green is that we will get more UKIP and Labour MEPs and they will not champion animal issues.

Further reading on Green Party animal rights campaigns, especially regarding the European parliament:

• Caroline Allen - Green Party animals spokesperson and 2nd on London European election list: carolineallengreenlondon.blogspot.co.uk
• Greens for Animal Protection: https://www.facebook.com/GreensForAnimalProtection
• Making Tracks - the Green MEPs animal welfare publication Autumn 2013 edition: http://www.keithtaylormep.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Final-Making-Tracks-Compressed.pdf
• Jean Lambert MEP animal protection page: http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/issue_detail.php?id=2
• Keith Taylor (Green MEP for South East) animal rights page: http://www.keithtaylormep.org.uk/category/animal-rights/
• Keith Taylor celebrating the EU-wide ban on sale of cosmetic products tested on animals: http://www.greens-efa.eu/stopping-experiments-on-animals-for-cosmetics-9492.html
• The Greens/EFA (the Green group in the European Parliament) animal welfare campaigns: http://www.greens-efa.eu/animal-welfare-44.html

Introducing: Greens For Animal Protection

Anyone who knows me will know that I have two massive and major political loves that dominate my life. Veganism/animal rights and the Green Party. The Green Party has by far the best animal rights policies of any party which isn't a single issue animal party in the UK. This was a really important factor for me joining the party. Our animal policies include banning all forms of animal testing and putting research into alternatives, banning zoos, opposing the badger cull, banning the sale of fur, banning factory farming, ensuring all companion animals (often called pets) will be microchipped and registered while breeding of such animal monitored, banning all animal circuses, banning whaling and introduce animal rights officers for all local authorities. There's still a lot of work to be done to improve these policies, but there is also only so far we can go before we start to alienate the general public who by large are not abolitionist animal rights activists.

Greens For Animal Protection members at recent Green Party conference in Brighton. Source: http://carolineallengreenlondon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/green-party-calls-for-immediate-end-to.html

I am delighted to announce the formation of Greens For Animal Protection, a group of individuals in the Green Party who care passionately about animal issues. The groups aims include improving the animal rights policies of the Green Party, promoting the animal rights policies of the Green Party, ensuring the Green Party works with animal rights groups and ensuring the Green Party is a part of the animal rights movement. The group is in it's early stages, only forming a few months ago. What the group plans to do has not been decided yet and it will all be decided over the forthcoming months when we hold a few meetings. I'm really excited about this group though, and it has gained a lot of support at the Green Party's recent Autumn conference in Brighton last month. The group also has had a presence at national marches including the national march for badgers and the march against the Tory conference last month where thousands of badger cull protests were involved in the wider anti-Tory march, and is starting to have a presence at vegan fairs around the country.

Green For Animal Protection at the nation badger march. MEP Jean Lambert is directly to the right of the banner

Greens For Animal Protection members and supporters include:

• Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party -  http://www.nataliebennett.co.uk/
• Caroline Allen, Green Party spokesperson for animals and No. 2 on London list for European elections - http://carolineallengreenlondon.blogspot.co.uk/
• Jean Lambert, MEP for London - http://www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk/
• Rupert Read, Norwich councillor and European election lead candidate for Eastern Region - http://rupertsread.blogspot.co.uk/
• Andrew Cooper, Kirklees councillor and European election lead candidate for Yorkshire & Humberside region
• Danny Bates, former convenor of the Green Party animal rights group and European election candidate for London region - http://greendannyb.wordpress.com/
• Ronnie Lee, founder of the Animal Liberation Front - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Lee

So far we have a Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/GreensForAnimalProtection and a Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/Greens4Animals . One day we might set up a website or a blog and when that happens I'll hopefully let you all know. Our email is: greensforanimalprotection@gmail.com and phone number: 07703 558724.

If you'd like any speakers from Greens For Animal Protection to come and speak at a meeting please do not hesitate to get in touch via Facebook or Twitter or email or phone.  I'll also give updates on this blog about Greens For Animal Protection activities.