Green MP Sian Berry spoke to Left Foot Forward at her party’s conference
Green Party MP Sian Berry has told Left Foot Forward that being involved in successfully campaigning against disability benefit cuts is her proudest achievement since being elected to the House of Commons last July.
In an interview with Left Foot Forward at the Green Party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth, Berry was asked what she was most proud of since becoming an MP. She said: “I think the work I did on the benefit cuts, and obviously that was a team effort. There were lots of disabled people’s groups who led really strong campaigning, brought loads of evidence, loads of constituents in to talk to all their MPs. There was work done cross-party – my own APPG where I’m co-chair did some great work putting out a call for evidence, listening to people who are with lived experience of these benefits and knew what the cuts would do in terms of impact.”
She then went on to say: “I think that the way the position of the government was forced to change by campaigning within and out of parliament and how the momentum grew – MPs were emboldened to take part in what was essentially an opposition campaign, the way that escalated right up to committee chairs, I just think that was great to be part of and fascinating to be part of in terms of how things can be done within parliament.
“This is new to me to work in that environment. But to feel campaigning I’ve been a part of outside of parliament have an impact inside of parliament, to see the mechanism by which MPs team up to put motions to support each other’s ten minute rule bills and questions, to put together evidence, to hear from the ground up what was going on – and the work I did in my constituency as well to hear from people – I just found [it] very very rewarding to be part of that. And the fact that we succeeded in […] forcing the government to really back down on a lot of its proposals, at least for the time being, was a really big success for parliament, for democracy.”
Given Berry’s comments about cross-party collaboration within the House of Commons on specific issues, Left Foot Forward asked her what she makes of potential collaboration among the left in the form of electoral alliances. Specifically, we spoke about the touted ‘Red-Green’ alliance between the Greens and the new party being established by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana – provisionally named ‘Your Party’. Those calling for such an alliance have argued that it will be necessary to avoid splitting the progressive left vote at the next general election.
Berry described the question as “really interesting”, but didn’t explicitly say that this is something she thought ought to happen. Instead, she said: “People are trying to short-circuit the next election when it’s four years and we don’t even have that party established yet”. She went onto say that “It all depends on the context, it all depends on having different parties who’ve got their own strong ground to stand on, who have something they can negotiate with and the willingness to talk, discuss things and trust each other”, adding: “It can’t be done at the last minute, it can’t be done by outside people declaring which constituencies need to be what using some sort of sum.”
Alongside this, Berry also welcomed the prospect of ‘Your Party’, saying that they would be “creating another voice that’s on the broad left that’s going to be very, very good to have actually.” She went on to add: “I do hope that left politics as a whole does grow. I do know there are some people out there who would – at the moment – not see themselves as Greens. They might later [and] maybe joining ‘Your Party’ is a step along the way, maybe it’s their permanent home if it works out for them, but I’m not begrudging anyone giving them a look, I just think the Green Party’s a really great place to be doing your politics right now.”
Before we get to to the next general election though, and any prospective electoral arrangement in that, there are elections to local councils and mayoralties in England, and the Senedd in Wales. Asked what the Greens’ prospects in those elections were, Berry pointed to her old stomping ground of London (where she was previously a councillor, London Assembly member, and multiple time mayoral candidate).
“All of London is in play”, Berry told Left Foot Forward, adding: “We’ve really genuinely gained momentum with a lot of really good defections from Labour recently, we’ve been working well with independents in different parts of London, we’ve got a really fired up membership – did you see how many people came out in Hackney the other week?! – that’s enough to win dozens and dozens of council seats if they’re all going back to their areas and working that hard.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: UK Parliament – Creative Commons
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