In the second of a series of interviews with Green Left supporting candidates at the General Election, Mike Shaughnessy interviews the Green Party's Katy Beddoe, candidate for Caerphilly, Wales.
Tell me a bit about your background and how you came to join the Green party?
I grew up in the South Wales valleys in a working class
family, my mum a lolly pop lady and my dad worked in the local leisure centre.
Both my parents were very active in our community and particularly my dad
brought me up to be politically conscious and a Labour supporter. During
Thatcher’s reign I saw the harsh impact of right wing politics during the miner’s
strikes and how it affected people around me. Since I’ve seen the rapid decline
of the area, of people’s prospects and of community cohesion.
During a gap year of my fine art studies I became pregnant
with my son and lost my partner when my son was just two and a half. As a
single mother dependant on benefits and battling depression I stayed at home to
raise my son for a few years, then started volunteering and eventually returned
to university. This time to gain my degree in youth and community work, turning
my back on a future in the arts, by then in my mid-twenties I had developed a
strong social conscious and wanted to turn my experiences of life to make a positive
difference to others.
As my career developed within Youth Services, short term
funding making me flit from project to project, from working with young Muslim
women, LGB&T young people, ASB focused work, engaging young people into
politics in running the local youth council and now in a city centre based drop-in
dealing with the fallout of austerity and poverty every day. This vast
experience only added to my knowledge and anger at the injustices in our
society. Additionally, being the workplace union representative, I increasingly
became active in the working class struggle. As my son become older, it freed
up my time to progress from keyboard warrior to an active foot soldier, joining
marches to stand up for our pensions etc and caught the activist bug, no longer
could I justify not standing to be up to be counted. I got involved with the
People’s Assembly Wales, which I felt was the light at the end of the tunnel
amongst the blanket of neoliberal doom. That was when I met Pippa Bartolotti
who introduced me to the Green Party’s common sense policies. Growing up with
Tony Benn as my idol, I had still been holding on to the hope that Ed Miliband would
steer Labour back towards socialism, but was continuingly being disappointed.
I’m not sure what the last straw was but by early 2014 I had lost all hope in Labour.
Also the People’s Assembly had not made the impact I’d hoped, particularly in
Wales and the Bedroom Tax Campaign I was running was slow moving; I needed to
put my efforts into the heart of our broken political system. I looked more in
depth into Green Party policies and I was surprised that despite being a
political party they were in sync with my radical values and I haven’t looked
back since.
Why did you decide to join Green Left?
Once I joined the Green Party I understood that membership
was quite diverse, with people from all backgrounds and experience. As much as
I love that aspect about the party; I like the fact we are not classist, class
language, as much as I have a strong working class identity, is divisive
language and I have found a lot of inverted snobbery on the activist scene
which I’m uncomfortable with. Within the diversity of membership there is differences
in values within the party, some support some policies more than others. I had
spoken to few members of Green Left and wanted to join forces with the radical
bloc which I feel massively influences the socialist strand of the party. Also
I feel we have a lot of work to do to progress the party within much of the
left wing in the UK many who feel that we are ‘middleclass do gooders’, we’re not!
Green Left represents this work.
You are standing at the general election in Wales – from
this distance I’ve always felt that the Green party’s growth in Wales is
hampered by the existence of Plaid Cymru, who have similar green and left
policies – is this true?
There are some who believe Plaid is the Green Party of
Wales, it’s not. Whereas there are many similarities between us and Plaid, such
as anti-austerity and some of our Green Policies. However, there are also
massive variations which reflect the membership in both parties. I’m not comfortable
pointing out such differences as it is important we are not negative about our
allies. Currently I don’t feel like membership is hampered in Wales Green Party
as the green surge has seen us gain 1000 new members just within the last
month, though it may have contributed to the region being much smaller in the
past. Much of the new membership is like me from activists’ backgrounds who bring
new energy and focus we are establishing many new local parties across Wales.
Much of the growing sensitivity surrounding both parties at the moment is
regarding candidates standing in the same areas and splitting the vote,
particularly in Plaid marginal seats, though I don’t believe it’s a straight
forward as those that would vote Plaid would vote Green and vice versa. Also
the Green party is a grassroots up party, if local parties choose to stand a
candidate, who are we to stifle that democratic voice and insist they don’t do
this? New members want to vote Green and not Plaid. I think it is an absolute
shame there wasn’t an agreement earlier on to stand in some areas on a shared
ticket. I believe this combined vote would have ensured more anti austerity
representatives in Westminster after May.
I am anxious to ensure that we continue to grow our alliance
with Plaid. As the party grows we are
attracting powerful enemies, the neoliberal fight is going to be a tough battle
and it is integral where we put aside differences and align ourselves with as
many with anti-austerity partners as possible. I’m keeping my eye on Left
Unity; initially I hoped they would act as a left wing ‘umbrella’ Syriza style
party to bring this coalition together. I’m still holding on to that hope.
What are the main issues that you will campaign on?
Social Justice is my strength of knowledge so I will focus
more in this area. I have chosen my target ward, not on its strength in Green
support, but as the most deprived ward in Wales. This is where my professional
experience is, engaging with the most disadvantaged in society and also
connecting young people with politics. If I can just get the groups most
unlikely to vote, voting I’ll be happy, whilst promoting Green party policies
and challenging divisive tactics currently infesting the Welsh valley’s. I
don’t tend to talk much about our green policies as much as I am very much the
environmentalist I was brought up to be, people know we’re environmental, it’s
our other policies that need promoting.
How do you rate your chances in Caerphilly – and the Green
party more broadly in Wales (and England)?
It’s really hard to gauge how this election is going to turn
out. I hope as a party we will significantly progress our MP’s in England and
it will be amazing if we win a seat in Wales. Mostly it is about continuing our
growth, as a mum and a youth worker I’m terrified about the future for our
young people, therefore my vision is long-term.
Do you think the recent electoral success of the
anti-austerity SYRIZA party in Greece will impact on UK politics?
Hopefully, though I hate to think that it will take the suffering
to become as wide spread as it has in Greece before people start investing in
change here. Also the media has such as destructive influence in the UK, I’m
sure that the reporting for how things develop in Greece will be somewhat
skewed.
Some in the Green party are re-thinking opposition to nuclear power, as it looks to be the only way will get any action on climate change. What do you think?
Compromising ethics within a party will see us morph into something we are not. Look what happened to Labour, the Lib Dems? The risk of Nuclear is too big a risk to take and it is NOT green.
If elected to Parliament, would you vote for a Labour
austerity budget?
Absolutely not, there are something’s we should not cooperate on, austerity is one of them. We would be doing so much disservice to many of our new members who have joined due to our anti austerity stance and to the party as a whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment