Co-Chair of LGBT Greens standing for election in Brighton

Good to see my friend Phelim Mc Cafferty, who has done so much on LGBT issues both inside and outside the Green Party standing for election in the forthcoming council elections in Brighton. He is standing for Brunswick and Adelaide ward in May. In a city which has the highest proportion of LGBT voters in the country I am sure that his hard work and radical stance on LGBT rights and equalities issues in general will serve him well. Phelim did a great deal of work on the LGBT manifesto for Brighton and also on the Green Party's general election LGBT manifesto for last year's contest. Together with the other Co-Chair of the LGBTIQ Group, Lesley Hedges, who unfortunately has had to retire from active politics due to ill health, and also myself when I was on the party's Regional Council, he considerably strengthened the LGBT and equalities section of the manifesto, which meant that the Greens had the most progressive policies in this area last year.

I will be going down to Brighton over the next few months to help in his campaign and also trying to galvanise the LGBT and trade union vote in the area behind him. Phelim has also done a great deal of work on trade union issues and like myself is an active member of the Green Party Trade Union Group, as well as being on the National Council of the Coalition of Resistance and a leading member of Green Left. With this government cutting services for all marginalised groups in the community, the SE region of the TUC is about to launch a new group called 'Queers against the Cuts' demonstrating how many LGBT organisations are threatened with closure and how the health cuts will impact on the treatment of HIV. Again, having someone like Phelim as a councillor with really strengthen this campaign and bring the needs of the LGBT community to the fore. He is a person of considerably political integrity and courage who to use a phrase which for me is still powerful "speaks truth unto power."