• UNUSUALLY, the May 3 council elections have national and international significance because they are a last chance for pro-EU Camden voters to show Labour MPs Keir Starmer and Tulip Siddiq that they are out of step with most of their constituents.

Camden benefits massively from EU membership, including funding for locally-based centres of scientific and academic excellence (the Francis Crick Institute, University College London), medical staff in our world famous hospitals, communities enriched by European residents and immigrants over the ages (from Sigmund Freud to Lucian Freud and many Arsenal footballers) and jobs with global corporations such as Google, which have their European HQs here.

Not to mention the importance of EU standards in tackling our filthy air and ensuring food safety, or the EU workers who carry out the essential tasks of bin collection, construction, working in care homes and much more.

Camden’s Green councillor Sian Berry in Highgate and Lib Dem Flick Rea in Fortune Green have continued to make the case for the EU against a Labour leadership and Tory opposition bent on pushing ahead with Brexit.

The Green Party has consistently opposed leaving the EU and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas is working with other progressive parties to put a motion to parliament calling for a people’s poll on the final Brexit deal to stop the Tories marching us towards a national calamity.

This ratification vote is particularly important given the lies about NHS funding and probable breach of spending rules and misuse of personal data by the Brexiteers during the campaign. However, the Labour Party is against any such people’s poll and its Camden MPs are toeing the party line.

Voting Green on May 3 will show the strength of pro-EU feeling across the borough and might just be enough to persuade Keir and Tulip to defy the Labour whip and vote to give the people of Camden a proper say about all of our futures.

DEE SEARLE
Co-Chair, Camden Green Party