I WAS surprised by the letter (SNJ, September 28) from the chair of Ukip Stroud, comparing the abysmal performance of Nigel Farage as an MEP (drawing an MEP’s salary and expenses for 17 years for a job he didn’t believe in) with our own Stroud resident Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato.
In just one-and-half years, Molly has helped raise corporate tax evasion to the top of the EU agenda, argued effectively for support to farming and disadvantaged communities and showed us what an MEP can do when they work hard to hold the executive to account.
Molly and other Green MEPs have also been at the forefront of exposing the desperate plight of refugees; and European governments’ failure, including the UK, to work together to address the humanitarian crisis.
This includes our own government’s inadequate efforts to resettle very vulnerable children from the “Jungle” at Calais, preferring to spend money building walls and fences instead.
I am proud that here in Stroud the community has been more welcoming, including Green, Labour, Lib-Dem and Conservative councillors uniting to support motions to welcome and assist Syrian refugee families coming to Stroud and against all forms of xenophobia.
But this is just a drop in the ocean; we need to do much more to tackle the security, economic and environmental crises that drive the underlying causes of refugee flight and migration.
Martin Whiteside
Leader of the Green Group of Councillors, Stroud District Council
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