Letter: Green Party offers long-term solutions

Sir: Sara Parkin ("Support goes to greenest candidate", 23 April) gave her reason for withdrawing from the Green Party as its failure to think strategically about how to work in the British electoral system.

On the contrary, the Green Party has a very clear vision of how to work in that system, and is doing so with growing success at local level. That vision just doesn't happen to be the particular approach that Ms Parkin sought to impose.

The Green Party is building its support through local work and campaigning. There are hundreds of Green candidates in the English county council elections which coincide with the general election on 1 May. Greens are standing in selected parliamentary constituencies across the UK, to give the opportunity to put the green arguments in the general election, on key issues such as the economy, education, the environment and health.

The Green Party remains the only party committed to the ecological perspective, seeking a future for all of us which will last. This requires fundamental change in economic, social and environmental policies. Candidates of other parties may offer palliatives, but not the long- term solutions that are needed.

JOHN NORRIS

Richmond upon Thames, Surrey