A Positive Economy - Jobs, Public Services and Welfare

What we believe:

• We can balance this country's budget by taking back control of our banks, making sure the well-off pay their fair share of tax, and by creating a million new jobs as part of the Green New Deal. 
• Our public services - our NHS, our schools, our support services for the vulnerable and all the rest - are our nation's greatest assets and must be protected from cuts and interference.
• Welfare benefits are vital to support people to live dignified lives. Recipients should not be subject to humiliating assessments or unfair sanctions. We need a universal benefits system that gives everyone their fair share.

What we do:

We provide a strong political voice for an alternative to the government's austerity programme. We campaign alongside organisations like trade unions, the People's Assembly, and UK Uncut to demand a new approach to managing our economy, writing letters, supporting petitions, and taking part in street demonstrations that rally the support of tens of thousands of people, including recent major protests in Manchester and York and regular protest actions across the country. These activities put pressure on governments, both present and future, to scrap their most unpopular plans and come up with new solutions.

A positive, decent economy requires fair taxation to fund it, and a transformed banking system. We have campaigned for a Robin Hood Tax.

To help build the movement towards a better banking system, our MP Caroline Lucas spoke to bankiing campaign organisation Positive Money's conference - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmF2oshzen8 for what she said, and https://www.positivemoney.org/2012/03/green-party-gets-it-on-monetary-policy/ for their view of our policy.

Attacks on welfare benefits are often made by governments that want to force people into low-paid work to make profits for private companies. We have march against the bedroom tax, and the Green-led council in Brighton and Hove were the first to declare that no one would be evicted if they coluldn't pay it - see http://www.brightonhovegreens.org/news/greens-say-no-to-bedroom-tax-evictions.html. We campaign for a radical alternative to today's undignified benefits system; it's called the Citizens Income, and our leader Natalie Bennett will be speaking at a major campaign event in June to develop this idea - see http://www.citizensincome.org/.