Green Party Leader Gives Support to Occupy London Stock Exchange

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the England and Wales Green party, will today attend the protest by ‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’, which has continued for the last three days, with hundreds of demonstrators camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, close to the heart of the City of London financial district.

Initially, the police had tried to disperse the crowd on Sunday, but were stopped by the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, canon chancellor of St Paul’s, who was happy to see the peaceful protest continue.

The Green party leader said, “As awareness increases of the injustice and unsustainability of the global economic system, more and more people are taking to the streets in opposition.

"The camp that has been set up a stone's throw from the London Stock Exchange is an opportunity to explore a different kind of future to the one the mainstream political parties have constructed.

"The authorities must now respect the right to peaceful protest.

"If they have any sense, they will also start to listen to the voices of those ordinary - and extraordinary people - who want to invest in a greener, fairer future rather than the stocks-and-shares house of sand that sustains corporate capitalism."

The demonstration was inspired by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement in the United States, and spread to many cities financial districts all around the world, with the same aim, of calling for an end to the disastrous corporate capitalist system which is ruining lives everywhere, and is the effective cause of the worldwide financial crisis.

The London group have released this statement about why they are protesting:

The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.

We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

We support the strike on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!