Flying is equivalent to knifing someone in the street, says Green Party

I’ve blogged before about some of the more bizarre ideas that the Green Party have, despite the cuddly image they like to give.  The latest one though is not only bizarre but shows quite how extreme some of their views are and how they can make an issue that has a good deal of public interest in to one where they are completely out of touch with reality.

It all comes about thanks to a comment by Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas MEP on the programme Leaders of Europe.  Until this moment I had tended to see Caroline Lucas as one of the more sensible people in the Greens – after all whilst you may not agree with a party you can usually find some of their politicians that you like or think are reasonable – but I am beginning to rethink that view.  God help the people of Brighton Pavilion and the rest of us if she succeeds in her bid to be elected as their MP.

The comment comes after about 14 minutes in response to UKIP Deputy Leader David Campbell-Bannerman telling Caroline Lucas that she was curbing people’s freedoms by making it more difficult to fly.  Caroline Lucas responds by telling him that you do have to stop activities when:

One person’s freedom is undermining someone else’s freedom… I would think that even you would agree people can’t go round knifing people in the street.

So far so reasonable.  It is also a classic dilemma for liberals.  We don’t believe in banning things, but of course there are some things you have to.  But where Caroline Lucas shows her illiberal tendencies is when questioned further:

CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: So is flying to Spain the same as knifing someone in the street?

LUCAS: Yes it is.  People are dying from climate change.  It’s very irresponsible.

She can’t say she didn’t know what she was saying as she even asked Campbell-Bannerman to repeat the question.

Now I think combatting climate change is one of the most important things that we need to do, but you can’t use an analogy that compares it to the gravity of knifing someone in the street.  Perhaps this is the prelude to a new form of carbon trading – people who haven’t used their quota of carbon emissions in a year, can instead offset what they haven’t used against someone who has commited a knife crime instead.

Perhaps I am being a bit too flippant, but this remark by Caroline Lucas adds to my view that for a party that attracts the votes of a lot of liberal-minded people they are anything but liberal.  Instead they are very intolerant of anyone who does not agree with them completely, as befits a party that was once jointly led by Derek Wall who describes himself as an “eco-marxist“.

Finally, thanks to Sara Bedford for drawing my attention to this story.