Why exclude the Green party from the TV election debates?

When will the Green Party stop being treated as second rate? That’s the question thousands of Green party members, supporters and members of the public have asked since the nation’s major broadcasters unveiled their plans for televised leaders’ debates in the run up to the 2015 General Election.

The so-called 2-3-4 format gives two bites of the cherry to the Liberal Democrats who have slumped dramatically in the polls since 2010, from around 23 per cent to as low as 6 per cent. David Cameron and Ed Miliband get three chances to convince the public that they understand the lives of modern Britons of all ages—they will appear in all the debates. And a party that has only just got its first MP apparently trumps one that has had a representative in the House of Commons for four years.

The Green Party is surging out there in the real world—membership is at record levels and growing at a staggering rate, we beat the Lib Dems in the European Elections by 150,000 votes and won three times their number of MEPs, and our policies are more popular than any other party’s. It seems that only the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 haven’t woken up to this reality yet.

Democracy demands that the Green Party be present. It is ludicrous to suggest we can have a truly free and fair election in the 21st century if the Green voice is silenced.  Without us who will speak up for the poor and vulnerable? For policies that close the inequality gap rather than widen it? For a £10 minimum wage and a Wealth Tax on the top 1 per cent? For real action on climate change and an end to our addiction to fossil fuels?

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How can anyone believe that the establishment parties want to change the system so that it works for the common good? Different shades of austerity is the dominant offering, whether it's dressed up in Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or UKIP clothes. But the Green Party has always stood for something different—a better, more hopeful, greener country that looks out for the weak and takes on the strong.

For the leaders’ debates to mean anything they have to follow the public’s lead. Traditional party loyalties are fragmenting at an unprecedented rate. Voters want to see a real contest and a real debate—at the time of publication, a Change.org petition calling for the Greens to be added to the debates has over 120,000 signatures. The Green Party is determined to give it to them.