https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/sep/04/green-spending-could-help-rescue-uk-after-debt-crash

Green spending could help rescue UK after debt crash

A £50bn-a-year green infrastructure quantitative easing programme is feasible, say Prof Richard Murphy and Colin Hines

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has opened the way to a possible Green New Deal, write Richard Murphy and Colin Hines. alt=”Bank of England governor Mark Carney,” itemprop=contentUrl v:shapes=”_x0000_i1025″>

Letters

Tuesday 5^th September 2017

Zoe Williams is right: another credit crunch-induced “crash” is likely and the only affordable rescue package will be some form of quantitative easing (With Britain’s addition to debt, another crash is certain, 4 September). This time it must generate jobs for the “left behind” and others, rather than today’s beneficiaries – the property- and share-owning rich. The Green New Deal group showed the potential of such an approach in its proposal for a £50bn-a-year green infrastructure QE programme.

This would pay to make the UK’s 28m dwellings and 2m commercial and public sector buildings super energy efficient, dramatically reducing energy bills, fuel poverty and greenhouse gas emissions. It could also tackle the housing crisis by building affordable, highly insulated homes, predominantly on brownfield sites. This form of QE would provide job security and local business opportunities in every constituency, since its infrastructure improvements would take place across the UK.

Such an approach is feasible, since the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, in responding to questions from Green New Deal group member Caroline Lucas MP, is on record as saying that if the government requested it, QE could be used to buy assets other than government debt. He and the government should work on this jobs-everywhere approach. If they don’t, Labour could be on to a winner with its “peoples QE” proposal to fund economic improvements nationwide.
Prof Richard Murphy
City University, London 
Colin Hines 
Convenor, UK Green New Deal Group

Guardian Letters

Monday 24 July 2017

• The EU itself is under enormous internal pressure to renounce neoliberalism, as anti-austerity sentiment grows across the continent, along with the questioning of the free flow of people. Such shifts could make a call for managed migration within the EU more plausible, hence addressing the major reason for Brexit. “Remain and reform” would keep us part of a continent powerful enough to stand up to international capital, compared to a Brexit Britain, battered and bullied into submission by such forces. Continue reading →

Time for Labour to champion a ‘No Brexit’ position

Guardian Letters

Wednesday 13 July 2017

Tempting as it is for Labour to let the Tories dangle on a noose of their own hubristic making (May appeals to Labour for policy ideas, 10 July), they should instead use Theresa May’s call for policy ideas as an impetus to sort out their own Brexit vulnerability. Promising to protect jobs while having managed migration was a successful election wheeze and minimised the Continue reading →

Before next election Labour must replace its ‘cake and eat it’ Brexit for ‘No Brexit’

 New Statesman Correspondence

23-29 JUNE 2017

Jason Cowley (Editor’s Note, 16^th June) is right to call for someone to say “No Brexit”. That someone should be the Labour Party. During the election, Labour was able to get away with a Boris-like “cake and eat it” approach by saying it wanted to have managed migration and have all the advantages of access to the Single Market without membership. That probably succeeded in ensuring that the flow of voters who had shifted from Labour to Ukip did not vote Tory. Instead they liked Labour’s manifesto and it sounded like the party was anyway going to do something about controlling immigration.

This studied ambiguity won’t survive a new election and to strengthen its position it should take note of Michael Heseltine recent suggestion that Macron and Merkel might team up to offer a deal on immigration such that the UK could stay in the EU. Were Labour to champion such an approach, the party could show its support for internationalism by bringing to an end the permanent theft of the brightest and the best from generally poorer European countries.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Hines

Twickenham Middlesex

There are internationalist ways to manage immigration and still stay in the EU

Colin Hines argues for an amendment of the treaty of Rome

Letters

Thursday 22^nd June

What a relief to read the letters from Dick Taverne and others saying that Brexit should be fought rather than meekly accepted as inevitable (Letters, 19 June). However, I’m afraid that none of your correspondents mentioned the key change required before a “remain and reform” package has a cat’s chance in hell of succeeding in a second referendum. That is the need for the EU to amend the treaty of Rome to allow member states to decide how many people they want to come into their countries. The Continue reading →

To win next election Labour needs to promote the ‘People’s QE money tree’ and intergenerational solidarity

Guardian Letters

Tuesday 13 June 2017

• Sorry Brenda from Bristol, but another election looms, and this time a progressive alliance of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid and the Greens need to get their policy ducks in a row to win it. Firstly, these must provide hope, not just for the young, but for every community in the country. To do this Jeremy Corbyn must revisit and vigorously shake his people’s QE “money tree”. Continue reading →

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/29/closer-polls-a-boost-to-tactical-voting

Closer polls a boost to tactical voting

‘Our window poster will proclaim Greens for Vince Cable’, writes Colin Hines.

Guardian Letters

Tuesday 30th May 2017

• As a supporter of a progressive alliance, I was delighted that in my Twickenham constituency and in neighbouring RichmondPark, the Green party has stood aside to give the Liberal Democrats a better chance of winning. To try in a small way to get tactical voting into the minds of the sensible majority who are not obsessed by politics, in the days before the election, our window poster will proclaim Greens for Vince Cable, and I hope local Labour supporters will do the same. In a way it’s a pity we don’t have a Lynton Crosby, hectoring our side to repeat endlessly that the weak and wobbly Tories’ pro-austerity, coalition of cruelty must be constrained, and most importantly, keep it simple: Vote ABC – Anything But Conservative.
Colin Hines
East Twickenham, Middlesex

The bits of my letter to the Guardian that were edited out might also be of interest:

Zoe Williams’ view that nothing is certain in this election and anything could happen https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/28/uncertainty-politics-u-turns-polls is born out by the narrowing gap between ‘weak and wobbly’ May and Jeremy Corbyn, whose increased media presence appears to make many voters’ hearts grow fonder. Against this it must be remembered that for some who voted UKIP in the last election, this could well turn out to be a ‘gateway drug’ for former Labour supporters to migrate to the Tories. This will be tested by the ‘regressive alliance’ of UKIP candidates standing down to attempt to ensure that many who once voted Labour turn to their new Nigel in drag candidate, Theresa May.

NEW STATESMAN 19-25 May 2017

Correspondence

LETTER OF THE WEEK

The many not the few

The rupture between Tory free marketers and those that wanted to control the imports of corn in the 1840s was the defining split in the party, leading to a determination to prioritise internal solidarity as a way to ensure the power necessary to benefit their wealthy backers http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2017/05/why-tories-keep-winning

Labour’s equivalent is the division between those who now realise that opening the borders to uncontrolled immigration from eastern Europe in 2004 sowed the seeds for Brexit, versus those (to paraphrase the wonderful Four Seasons hit) who kept crooning in Corbyn’s ear ‘Jerry, Jerry baby, don’t you dare be UKIP lite’.

To prevent annihilation, Labour must use its imminent defeat as a reason to prioritise policies for managed migration and protection of local jobs. Only this approach will eventually put it in an electoral position to take power on behalf of the many, not the few. In the meantime all that can be done in the run up to this ominous election is to drop party tribalism and Vote ABC: Anything But Conservative.

Colin Hines

Twickenham, Middlesex