Conference Report

Just back last night from the Green Party Spring Conference in Blackpool. The Winter Gardens was a wonderful location and was the site of many Labour and Conservative conferences when Blackpool was more in vogue and before Labour decided that they did not want to be associated with working class towns and communities. The town itself is very run down and suffering tremendously from unemployment and the collapse of small businesses. At the local B&B run by a very nice and hardworking couple, we were told that the local estate agent had over 200 guest houses for sale on its books. There was a session at the conference about regenerating seaside towns but unfortunately I was not able to attend.

The highlight of the conference for me was getting the Migration motion passed. As Peter Cranie, the lead European Parliamentary Candidate in the North West said in his opening speech, combating the BNP is essential in the region and across the country. Nick Griffin is pushing hard to secure a seat there on June 4th and the Greens will be fighting hard to ensure that we block him.

The motion, which commits the part to supporting the migration policy of the European Green Party was passed unanimously and we enter the European election with one of the most progressive and radical policies on migration in the country. When one compares that with the xenophobic and anti-immigrant cant coming out of the mouths of ministers such as Phil Woolas, it makes me proud to be a Green. New Labour is seeking to draw votes away from the BNP by mirroring their discourse about waves of immigrants and drawing up the drawbridge. But as Greens recognise, we live in a global society and simply cannot turn away when others are seeking either refuge or employment in our priveliged part of the world.

Anyone having seen Panorama last week on the plight of the thousands of illegal immigrants having to live and work in a shadow economy and society, where even Boris Johnson is calling for an amnesty, will feel revulsion for New Labour's tactic of bashing some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society in order to garner white working class votes, which they feel they are losing to the BNP. This at the very time that the same government is introducing a new law, the Welfare Reform Bill, which will plunge thousands more of that very same grouping into poverty and make the unemployed work for lower than the minimum wage in order to draw benefits. Far easier to blame the immigrants and asylum seekers, many of whom are here or trying to gain entry because of New Labour's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq anyway.

The main points of the policy are here but the full details can be seen on the website of the European Green Party http://www.europeangreens.org/cms/default/dokbin/230/230557.europe_is_a_continent_of_migration@en.pdf

Stop the detention of asylum seekers, minors and vulnerable persons!

Remove or amend of the Dublin Convention in order to lighten the burden of Border States of the EU!

Share responsibility between EU member states, to allow refugees or persons granted temporary protection to move from one Member State to another!

Asylum seekers who are not able to return within three years should be granted a permanent residence permit!

Regularise rejected asylum seekers or irregular migrants who cannot be deported back to their country of origin!

Regularise irregular migrants who have lived a life similar to the one of citizens of the host country!

Limit the use of detention to last resort cases, such as irregular migrants refusing to help with identification procedures and are about to be deported!

Foster other solutions than detention!

Respect human dignity and fundamental rights of irregular migrants!

Ensure the right to an individual and fair assessment of the claims of all asylum seekers and ensure access to asylum procedure to asylum seekers trying to enter the EU!

Grant asylum seekers the right to work while their application is processed!

Equal EU-citizenship for citizens from the “new” Member States!

Full access to labour market and education for all residents in the European Union!

Free movement for migrants after three years residence in a Member State!

Blue card also for less skilled and unskilled workers!

European minimum standards on social rights for labour migrants!

Temporary labour migrants must have the chance of getting a permanent residence permit!

For a generous policy of readmission, short-stay visa, facilitation of remittances!

Access to basic provisions for irregular migrants and regularisation after a certain term!