What have Greens done?

Fairtrade in Enfield

Greens believe in fairness, and we don’t confine our outlook to narrow national interests. A higher profile for international development, and raising the proportion of GDP given in aid to poorer countries have been Green Party policy for many years.

The opportunity to put those ideas into practice locally comes in the form of the Fairtrade movement which has been growing within the UK at a phenomenal rate in the last few years. Products bearing the Fairtrade logo guarantee that a co-operative of poor farmers somewhere in the developing world have been paid a fair price for what they produced - a price that permits the farmers and their families to live a dignified existence with at least the minimum of life’s necessities, and for their community to begin to develop.

Garstang in Lancashire declared itself the world’s first Fairtrade Town in April 2000, and the idea caught on. Regulated in the UK by the Fairtrade Foundation, which sets 5 tough criteria based on population for a Fairtrade Town (or City, Village, Island, Area, County or even Country) to meet, there are now over 400 Towns (Cities etc) in the UK and over 600 worldwide.

The campaign to add Enfield to that number started in early 2005 and reached fruition in September 2008 when it was declared a Fairtrade Borough. For most of that period the cross-party campaign has been co-ordinated by Green Party member Bill Linton, acting in concert with Conservative Councillor Annette Dreblow as chair of the Steering Group, while Labour Councillor Chris Cole steered a motion supporting Fairtrade through the council. Enfield’s success was mirrored by London’s - the declaration of London as the world’s largest Fairtrade City came just days before ours.