The conference ran out of time
The Green Party’s spring conference has ended without a vote having been taken on the contentious issue of HS2. The Greens have long opposed the high speed rail project, but a proposal was put to the conference to change that. The motion would have seen the Greens support HS2, including the leg to Leeds, as well as Northern Powerhouse Rail.
However, the motion was not heard as a result of conference running out of time to debate it. With almost 90 minutes of debate on a substantial motion on defence, the HS2 proposals fell off the agenda.
Despite this, the party did pass a series of significant policy motions, including support for the right to family reunification for all migrants and a rewrite of the defence policy which saw the Greens abandon their opposition to NATO.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
This article was jointly published with Bright Green
Image credit: Les Chatfield – Creative Commons
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