Greens target Remain voters with attack on hard Brexit
GREEN PARTY leaders have claimed the country faces a “right-wing coup” as the Prime Minister goes ahead with “an extreme Tory Brexit”.
In a speech at the party’s spring conference in Liverpool, co-leaders Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley said they did not believe the British people had voted for the “extreme form of Brexit” adopted by the Government.
Mr Bartley said: “I know that the British people do not want their fellow Europeans, who’ve made their homes here in Britain in good faith, treated as hostages or bargaining chips whilst the Prime Minister gambles with their future.”
He added: “What we face is a right-wing coup. None of this was in their manifesto.
“None of this was in the referendum question put to the country last year.”
He said the Labour party had failed to hold the Government to account.
He added: “The truth is the Labour leadership are running scared – scared of some in their own party, scared of the right wing media and scared of Ukip.
“They’ve traded their red flag for a white flag.”
Ms Lucas said the Green Party offered a “hopeful alternative” to young people “let down by Brexit”.
Mr Bartley said the party should be willing to form alliances with other candidates as they faced the “prospect of a snap election”.
He said: “The path to reform of democracy must begin with a reshaping of the mainstream of British politics.
“And yes, friends, that means sometimes putting aside our differences when we face a lost generation of Tory rule under the influence of the likes of Farage, Nuttall and Arron Banks.”
Mr Bartley said 2016 was the year a “bigoted bully was elected to the most powerful job in the world” and “the response to the refugee crisis was to bulldoze a camp and build a wall”.
But he told supporters not to give up hope.
He said: “In the face of Trump and Brexit, terror, wars and environmental crises, it’s easy to only tell one story – one where things are getting worse.
“It’s easy to feel powerless. But that’s what the establishment wants.
“Cynics, motivated by greed and a thirst for power, they want us to think we cannot win.
“They want us to give up hope. But conference, we won’t give up.”
What we face is a right-wing coup. None of this was in their manifesto. Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party