It shouldn’t be a crime to join IS or Al Qaeda, says leader of Greens
BELONGING to a terror group such as Al Qaeda or Islamic State should not be a criminal offence, the leader of the Green Party said yesterday.
Natalie Bennett said members of banned extremist groups should not be punished for what they believe in as she outlined a series of radical proposals.
Her eyebrow-raising election manifesto included plans to downgrade the Army to the status of a ‘home defence force’ and gradually remove all immigration controls. The Australian-born politician also confirmed a policy to give everyone in the country a ‘basic citizen’s income’ of £72 a week regardless of wealth – at a staggering cost to the country of £280billion. The party also backs zero economic growth and falling levels of personal consumption and wealth as a way of protecting the environment, it emerged.
Recent weeks have seen the emergence of a ‘ Green Tide’, with Miss Bennett’s initial exclusion from the TV election debates helping to fuel a surge in support and membership.
Several polls have put the Leftwing environmental party ahead of the Lib Dems and one even predicted it could secure 11 per cent of the vote.
Research by the University of Manchester yesterday claimed the Greens could take up to 22 seats from Ed Miliband in May as Left-leaning voters and students abandon Labour.
Experts identified marginal seats in Manchester, Bristol, South London and Cardiff where Green votes could deprive Labour of a crucial seat. How- ever, the surge in support for the Greens has come with a greater scrutiny of its policies, and yesterday Miss Bennett was subjected to forensic questioning on the party’s radical policy platform by Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics.
She said membership of banned terror groups would not be a criminal offence, with only those who incite or commit violence facing the ‘full extent of the law’.
Defending the policy, saying it dated back to ‘the age of the ANC and apartheid South Africa’, she added: ‘We do not protect freedom by destroying it.’ The Greens also claim ‘richer regions do not have the right to use migration controls’.
Miss Bennett said ‘ open door’ migration was a policy for up to 30 years’ time when society is ‘more equal, more balanced’.
She endorsed a gradual relaxation in immigration controls, more assistance for asylum-seekers and more liberal policies on bringing in foreign spouses.
Defending her military plans, she said Britain has a ‘ real responsibility as a rich country’ to contribute to UN peacekeep- ing forces. Income tax relief on those earning around £10,000 would be scrapped, but Miss Bennett claimed ‘no one on a low income will be worse off’.
The basic citizen’s income would mean lower paid ‘nasty jobs’ would be harder to fill and would see wages rise, she said.
‘Maybe we will have to pay sewer cleaners more than bankers, that might be a good thing,’ she said. The Greens are now like to feature in any television debates, after a U-turn by the major broadcasters.