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My name's Zach Polanski, and I'm the deputy leader of the Green Party, and this is a huge time for our party
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In fact, in the last seven years, every single year, we are the only party that has increased its number of councillors year on year
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And as I've been going round the country at the moment, as have the co-leaders, we've been visiting all sorts of places where this kind of excitement is echoed all over the country
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From Mid-Suffolk, where we are running, the council is a majority who are doing lots to protect community services
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I was recently in Worcestershire, and just this weekend I was in Lancaster for the Lancashire City Council elections
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They're building hundreds of social and council homes and creating a new solar farm
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But enough from me, I'm delighted to welcome to the stage the MP for Bristol Central and the MP for Waverley Valley
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That's our co-leaders, Carla Dania and Adrian Ramsey. Thank you so much for being here today in sunny Warwickshire to launch our local election campaign 2025
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It's the first set of elections since our historic wins last July
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where we quadrupled our number of MPs in Parliament with nearly 2 million votes
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But it isn't just in the general election that we've been breaking records
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We have a record-breaking number of councillors, more than 800 in 170 councils
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We're already part of running 40 of those councils all across England and Wales
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Now these elections aren't as big as any of us were expecting
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and in changing the rules, Labour have robbed millions of people across the country
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of their right to have a say in how their local government is run. And we strongly oppose that decision
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But even with this disappointment, the elections coming up on the 1st of May are incredibly important
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Labour have had nine months to prove themselves, and yet they've failed at every turn
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We, like so many others, were hoping that the change in government would make things better
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after so many years of the Conservatives' cruel and short-sighted cuts to our public services
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We said all along that we congratulate Labour and support them where we think they heading in the right direction And we push them and call them to be more ambitious where we think they getting it wrong
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Needless to say, we've not done as much congratulating as we would have liked since they came to government
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We were hoping for some positive change, and that just isn't happening
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And with every day, it's looking less and less likely that it will. Cutting the winter fuel allowance, refusing to end the two-child benefit cap, slashing benefits for disabled people
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Labour are making choices that increase poverty, making things so much worse for so many people
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and burdening councils with an ever-increasing demand for services on only a fraction of the financial support they need
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After 14 years of failure from the Conservatives, voters are telling us that this Labour government has been a crushing disappointment
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unwilling to equip councils with what they need to actually support our communities
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So we know that in these local elections, where they're still happening, many people are looking for something different
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So which way should people turn? Well, on the one hand, we have the far right, reform
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A party that uses the politics of fear to divide our communities
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and whose policies are explicitly designed to only benefit a small number of the very richest
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Reform is a party that wants to privatise our NHS. They want to halt action that would create a healthy, liveable environment
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They'd let rich oligarchs buy up our democracy while sowing division in society
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instead of making the case for the investment that our public services need
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And most importantly for these local elections, reform has no track record of delivering at any level of government
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Reform's trying to make gains on the back of a weak and lacklustre political old guard
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Guess they shout the loudest, I think we can all agree on that. But when it comes to getting anything done, offering any real solutions, reform's rhetoric evaporates
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and they will soon crash back to reality and disappear into the ether like UKIP and the BNP before them
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Meanwhile there are people like our councillors up and down the country some of whom are with us today but most of whom are out knocking on doors speaking to voters right now The over 800 Green councillors across England and Wales who between them already represent millions of people in this country
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who are working hard every day to make a difference for their communities
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working all year round on practical solutions, not just turning up on the doorstep at election time
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These people are offering hope, not division, community, not chaos. You already heard from Zach about our tours around the country
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our visits to places where we're hoping to gain even more Green councillors
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Because we know that when people vote Green, they get the real change that we so desperately need
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That's why we've seen Greens continually grow our councillor numbers, growing year on year, election after election
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In fact, we're the only party in the UK to have grown our number of councillors every year for the last seven years
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because voters are liking what they see and voting for more of it. Take housing, which is so important to every one of us
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Here in Warwick District, where we lead the council, we've invested millions in making council homes warmer and cheaper to run
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And in Mid-Suffolk, in my area, another Green Run Council, in one year, we've prevented hundreds of people from becoming homelessness
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by building new affordable housing. And in Bristol, where I'm an MP, the Green Run Council is building hundreds of new
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warm, affordable homes on brownfield sites near the city centre so that people can live in the heart of their communities
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They're also investing in making improvements to council homes so that residents can be proud of where they live
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Our councillors are embedded in their communities, listen to the needs and concerns of their residents, their neighbours
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and take action to improve their quality of life every day. We feel so proud to lead this party full of brilliant people like these, like you
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a party which has something meaningful and worthwhile to offer. Which isn't stuck in the past, trotting out the same old, tired policies
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which didn work then and won work now which already represents people millions of people in cities on the coast in market towns and rural communities It experienced principled hard and will
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always put our communities at the heart of everything we do. We know people are struggling
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and that many councils are struggling to help them. Close to breaking point after 14 years of
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conservative cuts followed by the crushing disappointment of a new Labour government
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failing to support them. At a time when local councils are facing major reorganisation and
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underfunding, Green councillors will fight for a healthy local democracy and the rights of
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residents to shape their own communities. These local elections are important. We can see that
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reform is throwing everything at them because they want to take advantage of voters feeling
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understandably let down by both Labour and the Conservatives. But we are here to say that voters
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have another choice, a positive choice. Instead of one of the tired old parties or worse a party
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that is divisive, dishonest, in disarray, that wants to tear things down, not build communities
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up and has no track record of delivering, we are offering a party that listens, that
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responds to the needs of communities. We're offering a party that's growing, has increased
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its councillors nearly fivefold over the last five elections, and that's part of running
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over 40 councils across the country. A party that delivers and helps make life better
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We know that politics in this country isn't providing people with what they need
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that disillusionment is high and morale is low. But up and down the country, Greens are making a difference
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We are smashing through records, getting more and more hard-working councillors elected
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Taking votes from the old, tired parties to offer something different, the positive change that's so desperately needed
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And with the support of voters on the 1st of May, we will be making that difference
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offering that positive change to even more communities. Thank you
