300 words on why I stand again for the Green Party in the 2015 general election

This is the second time that I have stood in Cotswolds. In the previous election, I got 1.7% of the vote, well behind the 4.2% that the UKIP candidate obtained and even further behind the Geoffrey Clifton Brown's 53%.

Despite this, Skip Walker, the editor of the Gloucestershire Wilts and Standard, said of the debate that she chaired that I was by far the best and most credible candidate!

This caused me to question what is the point of standing and more fundamentally the point of democracy when populations vote for parties that either are not prepared to take action on climate change or, as with UKIP,  even believe it.

However, not to stand is to surrender to ignorance. The facts in front of us are dire. Atmospheric CO2 is increasing super exponentially; the Trident replacement is being progressed and despite a tax payer bail out that allowed the haves to take from the have-nots the financial system remains on the point of collapse.  Despite years of brave and peaceful protest where people have risked their liberty to stop these injustices, and in many cases their lives, the tide of progress in each of these areas is increasingly against that of  natural justice.

I stand not because I want power, but because I believe in the message of the Green Party. It is the only party that unequivocally acknowledges the crisis of climate change and ecological collapse, it is the only party that stands unequivocally against Trident, and it is the only party that offers an alternative to economic growth by supporting a carbon rationing scheme.

Not standing would be to forsake those who have made so much sacrifice for the causes they have fought. It would also forsake those in the future who will have to fight with far more fortitude that I could ever muster.

It is for these reasons that I put my name forward as the Green Candidate for the Cotswolds.