Natalie Bennett, leader of the recently resurgent UK Green party, spoke at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on Friday to a packed room of 100 or more students. She began by giving a half hour stump speech covering a number of the Green party’s major policies, including proposing a living wage, stopping tax inversion, being smarter with food production, and addressing the issues surrounding the environment. In this monologue she also spent a few minutes outlining the value of a universal basic income. During her time discussing the basic income, she outlined its ability to free people from undesirable jobs and labeled it a long-term plan of the Green party.
After her policy speech, she took questions from the audience for another 45 minutes. I (Josh Martin) am a Masters student at LSE, and I was able to ask the very first question to her. I first mentioned the Patrick Wintour article in the Guardian that mistakenly conflated the Citizen’s Income Trust’s revenue neutral basic income scheme with the Green party’s plan for a basic income, and then asked whether or not she would, in fact, prefer a revenue neutral scheme or one set at a higher level that would probably require increased taxes or another form of funding. In response, she first reiterated the Green party’s policymaking process where any members can put forward policy proposals, so she is not solely responsible for Green party policy. She thus was unable to directly answer my question, but she noted that a Green party basic income costing scheme will be published in March for consultants to revise. However, she stated that the basic income will not be a part of their 2015 election manifesto; she did not see it as a part of the Green party’s five year plan, but rather as a longer-term policy.
Due to the Wintour article and the other negative press that surrounded the UK Green party’s support of a basic income in recent weeks, it was refreshing to hear Bennett discuss the basic income unprompted in her brief policy speech. Even though the Greens will not include the basic income in their manifesto this year, it seems they still support it seriously enough to develop a costing plan this year.
