Latest news with #AdrianRamsay
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Fairer elections and the threat of Reform UK
George Monbiot captures the betrayal and despair felt by millions of Labour voters who thought they were voting for change at the last general election (How we can smash Britain's two-party system for good at the next election, 27 May).Less than a year later they have found themselves with a government pursuing much the same cruel austerity policies as the Conservative one it replaced. And he's right that Keir Starmer's cynical descent into inflammatory Powellite rhetoric is a gift to Nigel Farage. Most voters want nothing to do with the politics of fear and division, but the UK's antiquated and unrepresentative electoral system fails to reflect the wishes of the progressive left and centre-left majority. A hung parliament is now a very real possibility after the next election. This would indeed be a huge opportunity to scrap the first-past-the-post system that has blighted British politics for so long. As two Green MPs who overturned massive majorities to win our seats, we know it's possible for progressives to win against all the odds – and to change the electoral system, we will have to. The Green party has long championed electoral reform. As candidates for the party's leadership, our aim is to be heading a much larger group of Green MPs in parliament, giving us the leverage and negotiating power to actually achieve such transformational Chowns MPGreen party, North HerefordshireAdrian Ramsay MPGreen party, Waveney Valley George Monbiot is right to challenge the shortcomings of our electoral system. However, all electoral systems are flawed and in a democracy no individual decides what sort of government gets elected afterwards. Across Europe, where proportional representation prevails, the traditional parties of power are being replaced – not by a rainbow coalition of progressives, but by the seemingly inexorable rise of the hard right. In Scotland, the SNP-Green coalition broke down. In the UK, when the Liberal Democrats held the balance of power, they sided with the Conservatives in inflicting ideological austerity. When we had a referendum between engagement with Europe or isolation, the majority voted for the latter. The failure of our mainstream parties is that they have lost the ability to engage with ordinary people. Politics is the difficult task of leading the agenda while responding to the hopes and fears of wider society and all the ambiguities and compromises that are needed to do so. The government's shift in language from restraint to support for those most in need might be the beginning of something better – we can but BrownIlkley, West Yorkshire George Monbiot is spot-on in his analysis of the dysfunctions of our electoral system. One glaring danger he doesn't mention, however, can be seen in the steep rise of the Reform UK vote. We used to hear as one of the justifications of the current system that it prevented extreme parties from gaining a significant representation. Never mind that this revealed an arrogantly undemocratic mindset, the evidence now is that the distortions of the system may precipitate precisely the opposite outcome. Given the fragmentation of votes, it is entirely possible that, with fewer than 30% of the ballot, Reform could achieve an absolute majority in parliament at the next general election. That undemocratic disaster, quite apart from the other democratic imperatives George identifies, should be ringing alarm bells for urgent SmithGlasgow Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Bloomberg
7 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
The UK Green Party Has a Chance to Grow Up Now
As Kermit the Frog sang, it's not easy being green. Indeed, the Green Party of England and Wales faces a dilemma ahead of what will be the most consequential phase of its five decades as a political force. Its decision on who will next lead the party will shape whether the it remains a protest movement rooted in local government or becomes a genuine player seeking to wield power at a national level. The sliding doors moment centers on a forthcoming leadership election that runs through the summer. Continuity candidates in the form of current co-leader Adrian Ramsay and fellow MP Ellie Chowns are up against Zach Polanski, the more radical deputy leader who favors a bolder, avowedly left-wing approach.
BBC News
27-05-2025
- BBC News
Norfolk MP seeks assurances over safety of Rushall battery farm
The Green Party co-leader said he wanted to know how fire risks could be managed if plans for one of Europe's largest battery storage sites were want to install more than a thousand battery containers on land on the outskirts of the small village of Rushall, near Diss in the company behind the plan - Elmya - has said safety measures will be in place, residents fear the site could catch Adrian Ramsay – whose Waveney Valley constituency includes Rushall – said he did not "want to scaremonger" but would be meeting with Norfolk's fire chief to discuss their concerns. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are used to hold electricity generated by renewables like solar and wind farms, which can then be put into the grid when the lithium used in the batteries can cause explosions if it overheats.A fire at a small BESS site in Liverpool in 2020 took fire crews 59 hours to extinguish, whilst a blaze at a huge site in California was left to burn on the advice of fire experts. Ramsay said he would speak to Norfolk's chief fire officer about the proposed site at Rushall, as well as one that would be part of the East Pye solar said he wanted to know how fire risks could be managed and assessed, and how fire crews might access remote, countryside sites:"I don't want to scaremonger on that at all, but I do take the questions residents are raising seriously." Asher Minns, from the Tyndall Centre For Climate Research at the University of East Anglia, said data on BESS sites across the world "wasn't great" but he believed the risk of fire was "very low"."There's better [safety] guidelines coming out all the time," he – which has yet to submit its plans for the site at Rushall – said it would have "advanced monitoring, early fire detection, and suppression systems".Development director James Innes insisted the project's safety was "paramount" and the company would be "following National Fire Chiefs Council guidance".A Norfolk Fire and Rescue spokesperson said: "We continue to proactively work with site designers and operators of battery energy storage systems to help them improve both their site designs, and the accessibility for firefighting. "This is to reduce and mitigate for the likelihood of any fire on their premises." Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
20-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Water companies should be taken into public ownership now
I welcome the government's decision to block Thames Water from borrowing money to pay bosses' bonuses (Report, 15 May), but this is only a first step to tackling the crisis in our water industry – a crisis that will only intensify if excessively dry conditions persist. As if mismanaging our precious water wasn't enough, many companies haven't hesitated to take on unsustainable debt or pay billions to shareholders: £78bn has been paid out in dividends over the last three decades. For every pound of your water bill, an estimated 35 pence goes on debt or dividends. Our rivers and streams are full of sewage and 3bn litres of water are lost to leaks every single day. Private water companies have failed to prepare for drought and dry weather, says the Climate Change Committee. It's high time to end the disastrous experiment with privatisation and take these companies back into public Ramsay MPCo-leader, Green party How can Thames Water say it is close to running out of money? Most of us pay by direct debit and Thames has increased bills by 46.8%. That's a more reliable flow of income than the water from my taps. If customers could adjust their income as easily and with as little justification, none would say they're hard CooperBromley, London Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
My advice to the new Green party leader? It's time to expose the climate deniers
When I announced recently that I won't be standing in this summer's elections for the Green party's leadership, many people wanted to know why. My answer is that I've always been guided by the question: 'How can I make the biggest positive impact?'. I'm so proud of what Adrian Ramsay and I have accomplished over the past three and a half years: taking our party from one MP to four, from 450 councillors to more than 850, and growing and diversifying our membership. Having achieved what I set out to do, I've decided that for the next few years, I'll pour all my skills, passion and energy into being the best MP I can be for my constituents in Bristol Central, using my seat in parliament to fight for the changes this country needs. Since becoming an MP in July last year, I have found my ikigai – a Japanese concept describing the intersection of work that you love, you're good at, and is what the world needs. There's plenty I don't love about how parliament works, but I feel incredibly motivated to be a voice asking 'why can't it be better?', and a pair of hands working with others to try to build a better country. I joined the Green party because I wanted to change the country for the better, and I believed the best way to do that was by getting more Greens elected. In 2015 I was persuaded to stand for election myself – first as a councillor, then as an MP and then, at the insistence of friends and party colleagues, as co-leader of the Greens in 2021. I'm incredibly grateful to those who gave me that push. Few moments more perfectly capture that journey than standing at my own election count in the early hours of the morning, about to be interviewed, and hearing reports come in from around the country that we had hit our target and secured not only my seat, overturning a 28,000 Labour majority, making a total of four constituencies, along with an amazing 40 second-place results. We had absolutely smashed our previous records. Before I got into politics I was a renewable energy engineer. I got my first job in the sector in 2008, in Newcastle. It was clear to me that there was a massive opportunity to use the skills and experience of workers in the oil and gas industry to move this country forwards. I worked on a report about making British North ports into locations where offshore wind turbines could be manufactured and then shipped. For a while, working as an engineer was how I made my contribution to resolving the climate crisis. I wanted the UK to build more wind and solar projects, faster. It quickly became clear to me that the real barrier wan't engineering but government inaction. Since I wrote that report 17 years ago, there have been countless missed opportunities. Successive governments have held their hands up and watched as people are forced out of work, communities lose their industries, and young people made to choose between poor-quality employment at home or taking jobs abroad. It's no wonder people feel let down, nor that the climate denialism peddled by politicians who are funded by the fossil fuel lobby is beginning to resonate. This government, like its predecessors, has allowed climate action to become synonymous with closed factories, personal hardship and decline. The reality is that oil and gas giants have exploited workers and poisoned our environment, extracting maximum profits and taking them offshore. Now the oil is running dry and the industry is dying, they're cutting their losses, laying off workers and hollowing out communities. It's time for government to wake up and grasp what's in front of its eyes: thousands of skilled and knowledgable workers – and a booming green energy industry just crying out for the government to tap into it. That's why I've introduced the energy and employment rights bill to parliament: it would compel the government to work with unions and communities in order to secure British jobs and put the UK at the centre of the industries of the future. It would make big polluters pay for workers to learn new skills. And it would ensure that investment in the government's new GB Energy supported jobs and industries here in the UK, rather than losing them abroad. The Green party's voice has never been more needed – not only to take the fight to a Labour government that is making all the wrong choices, but because we are the antidote to Reform UK. We offer genuine solutions to the very real grievances that Nigel Farage's party is tapping into. I'll be handing over the baton to a new Green leadership team in September, but I'm not going anywhere. I will continue to be a loud and persistent part of the Green team, fighting for the future we want to see. Carla Denyer is co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales and MP for Bristol Central
