The Green party has in the past year gone from fringe party to having more than 55,000 members, overtaking the Liberal Democrats in some polls. Prominent supporters include Jack Monroe, Vivienne Westwood and Russell Brand.
In the third in a series of leader interviews before the general election, the Green party leader talks to Phoebe Greenwood about how the threat of climate change and the state of the British economy are interlinked problems, and clears up a few questions about the party’s policies.
Bennett, the first Australian-born UK political party leader, says there’s “a very strong strand of anti-intellectual thought in Australian life” and talks of her love of British culture.
On her ‘brain fade’
She was “devastated” at the time of her famous LBC interview in February. “If nothing else it proved that I’m human,” she says, “and that I’m not a product of the spin machine.”
The reality of life is that you take a knock and have to move on, Bennett argues. She admits that she is doing media training ahead of the leader debates, but denies that she has been instructed to talk less about hedgehogs. “They are lovely animals and we’re seeing their numbers plummet as a result of the nature of what we’re doing to the British countryside,” she adds.
On Green policy
Bennett clarifies which of the policies reported in the tabloid media are in fact true. She says that the Green party is not in favour of unrestricted immigration, but “controlled, but humane and fair immigration policy”. The party would encourage the BBC to show educational programmes during prime-time, but it would not be a policy in the manifesto. She stresses that moving the Queen to a council house is “definitely not Green party policy” but confirms that the Greens would decriminalise brothels and encourage football clubs to become co-operatives.
On Brighton council
The Green party-led council in Brighton and Hove has been ranked 302nd out of 326 for its recycling record. The party is focusing on “changing the direction of travel” in Brighton, Bennett says. She stresses that the Greens are a minority administration and that she is proud of some of its achievements, such as ensuring that all council employees are paid no less than the living wage and that the highest-paid people in the council aren’t paid more than 10 times that of the lowest paid.
