Scott Bartle of the Green Party: every single piece matters

Scott Bartle
Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti

Scott Bartle, 31, parliamentary candidate for the Green Party in Brent North, said, “People just have enough of the other old politics.”

A little far away from the clattering saucers in the café where we met, Scott Bartle told me about the changes occurred in his lifestyle since joining the Greens.

“I have never taken part to a political party before. I couldn’t even stand those fancy rosettes politicians wore. And now I got rid of my gym membership, because walking from place to place for meeting people is enough training.”

He does not wear any rosette, but he supplies it with a small badge.

Speaking with politicians and learning about things face-to-face – and not by secondary means – are among others practices he has added to his daily routine.

However, why such a decision?

“Sometimes you have just to go for yourself and try to encourage people to stand for what they believe in. Half of the young audience voted in2010 general election. The majority of them do not trust politicians. The result is a never-ending circle: the more people don’t take part, the more things will not change.”

Brent North, London
Photo Credit: By Greater London UK district map (blank) 

The main objectives of the Green Party are the defence of Human Rights as well as more funding for public health and Education.

Scott Bartle works within NHS, close to people with learning disabilities. “You see how difficult society makes them to achieve everyday life: getting a job, even having a relationship.” He called it a “general day-by-day discrimination”, that, indeed, he first encountered during the adolescence.

When he was fifteen years old, his best friend was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The boy was brought to an abusive NHS hospital. What Mr Bartle saw when visiting him made him standing against the inequality and bad treatment that were in act. “I kept that in my mind,” he told me, and for this reason, when he came back to university, he took a degree in Psychology and Human Rights, followed by a Masters in Intellectual Disabilities and Development Disorders.

In the 2014 local election, he gained 8% - one of the highest results for an individual Green Party candidate in the constituency – running for Mapesbury Ward Brent, where he lives.

@WembleyMatters Congratulations you are literally the third political party in #Brent

— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) 25 Maggio 2014

With a green manifesto, which includes environment actions and more public spending for health, the Green Party England and Walesmemberships has passed 50.000.

By this way, it becomes the fourth major political party in the country, while the countdown for May General Elections starts.

The main change they want to carry on is to re-establish a real democracy.

Scott Bartle showed me many campaign leaflets that he designed, created and paid by his own.

The Green Party does not receive money from anywhere, but just relies on its memberships.

It is the same for their policy. According to Bartle’s opinion, what their leader said is not decided by someone, but made up by all the members.

“Party of the hope,” he called it as we talked about the idealistic basis of the party and about what prompted many others to take part.

The general elections, as he said, are important, but the change is brought on a day-to-day basis.

UK General Election will be held in May 2015
Photo Credit: UK Ministry of Defence
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