The Government鈥檚 planned high speed rail network will make Birmingham 鈥渙ne of London鈥檚 commuter suburbs鈥, according to Green Party leader Natalie Bennett.
And while there may be some economic benefits to Birmingham, which is set to get a new city centre railway station, the 拢50 billion line will do nothing but harm to many other parts of the West Midlands, she said.
Ms Bennett spoke to The Birmingham Post as she prepared for her party鈥檚 annual conference at Birmingham鈥檚 Aston University in early September.
And she was upbeat about the party鈥檚 prospects, following a strong showing in the European and local elections.
Anti-EU party 海角视频IP benefited from extensive publicity in the run-up to May鈥檚 elections and ended up coming first in the European poll, narrowly beating Labour in terms of share of the vote with Conservatives not far behind in third place.
But fourth place went to the Greens, who managed to beat the Liberal Democrats despite being largely ignored by the media.
The party also gained council seats, and is now the official opposition in Solihull Council.
And new members are flocking to the party, with membership growing by 28 per cent so far this year.
Greens hope that their conference will provide an opportunity to reach out to voters who have had enough of low-paying and insecure jobs, massive inequalities in wealth and the continual privatisation of public services - and are ready to back a party with a radically different approach to the traditional parties.
HS2 will make Birmingham "a London commuter suburb"
The high speed rail line known as HS2 is one issue where Greens differ from the Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats, who all have an official policy of backing the planned service.
Ms Bennett said: 鈥淲e are totally opposed to HS2. It is simply going to concentrate resources, money and people even more on London which is actually the opposite of what we need to do.
鈥淢ost of the journeys on it will be journeys into London.
鈥淚t is not going to benefit the North and the Midlands.鈥
This is a stance that most of Birmingham鈥檚 business leaders, councillors and MPs - although not all - would strongly disagree with.
But Ms Bennett asked: 鈥淒oes Birmingham really want to become a London commuter suburb? Which is one of the things HS2 does.
鈥淏ut also, the whole of the Midlands is not Birmingham. It鈥檚 true there might be some benefits for Birmingham but what about Coventry, what about all the places that aren鈥檛 going to have a stop and aren鈥檛 going to see any transport improvement? Instead they will see a big slicing through the countryside with all sorts of negative environmental and social impacts.鈥
Greens want greater focus on connecting the regions outside London to each other, as well as better local transport.
鈥淥ne thing that illustrates the problems in our economy well is that we have a huge problem with housing costs, a housing shortage in the south east and south - and yet there are a million empty homes in Britain. A lot of those are in the North and Midlands.
鈥淧eople don鈥檛 have opportunities there, and so they are forced to move down to London.
鈥淎nd if you actually had a proper investment in railways that run east-west across the country, railways that aren鈥檛 focused on London, and improve transport links between and across regions instead, then that鈥檚 one of the important aspects of a sensible regional development policy.鈥
There鈥檚 no doubt that Greens have a range of policies which mark them out as different to the traditional major parties.
Tax the rich and raise the minimum wage
They include raising the minimum wage, currently 拢6.31 an hour, to the living wage, which is 拢7.65 an hour.
They want to allow local councils to impose extra business rates on out-of-town supermarkets, allowing them to use the money to support smaller local businesses.
And the party is calling for wealth tax of one or two per cent on people worth 拢3 million or more, so that they would pay 拢30,000 to 拢60,000 each year.
A traditional objection to such proposals is that they might simply drive people to take their wealth elsewhere - but Ms Bennett has little time for this sort of argument.
She said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a recognition of the fact that inequality has utterly got out of control in our society and the wealthy are just sucking more resources out. This is a chance to rebalance society.鈥
The very rich would be unwilling to move overseas for the sake of 拢30,000 to 拢60,000 a year, which they could easily afford, she said.
However, she added: 鈥淚f you really say that you don鈥檛 want to make this contribution to the society that鈥檚 made you wealthy, my reaction is 鈥楬eathrow is that way鈥.鈥
Greens also have a different vision of what a successful economy would look like, calling for 鈥渟trong local economies built around small businesses and co-operatives鈥.
Renationalise the railways
And the party is committed to nationalising the rail network, by bringing each franchise back into public control when it expires rather than putting it out to tender.
Ms Bennett contrasted this with Labour鈥檚 鈥渢entative鈥 plan to continue tendering rail franchises but to allow a state-owned business to submit a bid.
鈥淭heir idea of having a nationally-owned company that can bid for train operating contracts - my question is what happens when it bids and loses, and you鈥檝e just spent a lot of public money participating in a failed commercial system?鈥
She added: 鈥淧rivatisation on the rail network is costing us all more than 拢1 billion a year.
鈥淭he way we are running the railways now makes no sense.鈥
The future's bright for the Green Party
This was the type of issue that saw people turning to the Greens, she said.
鈥淵ou can really feel that the time is coming when there are going to be big changes in terms of our politics, our economics, the way our society runs.
鈥淎nd yet the three largest parties haven鈥檛 really got that.
鈥淲hat that means is we need to have jobs that you can build a life on.
鈥淲e have been making our employment lower paid and more insecure - the horror of zero hour contracts.
鈥淎nd if we are going to build a sustainable society and economy we actually need jobs that pay you enough to live on. Where you have a reasonable amount of job security, you are able to think about signing a six-month rental agreement, thinking about having a mortgage, having children.鈥
There鈥檚 just one Green MP at the moment representing Brighton Pavilion, but the party is targeting other seats such as Bristol West and Norwich South.
Realistically, it鈥檚 hard for a smaller party to win Parliamentary seats in our political system. and Ms Bennett won鈥檛 make predictions about the 2015 general election.
But she said she was encouraged by the European Election results and the number of people who hadn鈥檛 voted for years who were now backing the Greens.
She said: 鈥淚 had a guy who hadn鈥檛 voted for 30 years, didn鈥檛 really believe in the political system, but said that he was going to vote for us.
鈥淎 lot of people have realised that if we鈥檙e going to change the way things work then we have to change who we send to Westminster.鈥
