Don’t vote red and get blue – go Green!

In the dying light of 2014, Jarrow Labour MP Stephen Hepburn wrote a rousing piece for the Shields Gazette, where he slammed ‘Tory austerity’ and told the Gazette’s readers that “Labour would be very different. We’re on your side.”

Well, actions speak louder than words, and to show whose side he and Labour are on, today he voted with the Tories in support of their ‘budget charter’ bill, rubber stamping another £30 billion of cuts. Predicably, South Shields Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck also voted with the Tories, but when it comes to voting against the interests of the people of South Shields who are suffering under Tory-Lib Dem coalition austerity, she already has form for putting the whip before people. Now it’s election year, Hepburn is toeing the Blairite line too.

Hepburn is right about one thing. There is a ‘momentous choice facing us’, and it’s a choice between voting for a fairer society where everyone benefits, or the status quo. As we’ve seen today, the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour will do anything to keep the fat cats purring, even if it means making life harder for the people who are already struggling.

For me that momentous choice is simple. The Green Party is the only party that still holds to the principles of Bevan and Beveridge, now abandoned by a Labour Party that looks to Thatcher and Blair for its inspiration. The Green Party wants to bring our society back together, where every citizen shares in Britain’s success. To stop Britain being a cow to be milked by the haves, paid for by the have nots, we do need to make that momentous choice. Something different, something better, for everyone – the Green Party.