Street protests here and abroad against the unfairness and destructiveness of so-called "free trade" attracted a lot of sympathy, but the violence spoiled it for most of us. The ballot box gives us a chance to register our protest in perfect peace and legality.

Now that I've joined the fray I can see that the Green message is closer to many people's deepest concerns than taxes and public services and the rest of the big-party stuff. It isn't difficult to find people who care more about human rights - and the rights of children still unborn and of non-human species - than endless economic growth. They sense that perpetual growth in a finite world is an absurdity.

Yet all the main parties support nonstop expansion in world trade and services although we all know it harms the health of the planet, makes rich people richer and poor people poorer and robs governments of the power to help their citizens.

A Green vote signals that we want to reverse the process, rebuild local economies and local communities, eat more locally produced food and develop organic agriculture. Safe and healthy food is more important than "cheap food" - which isn't cheap at all because it's produced unsustainably and shipped around the world at heavy social and environmental cost.

Environmental policies often generate more jobs because sustainable practices in farming and other occupations are more labour intensive and not dependent on the balance sheet of a transnational corporation.

It saddens me that so many people share the Greens' values but don't think of voting Green. Sixty-one per cent want to stop roadbuilding and invest in sustainable alternatives, 52% want at least a third of Britain's agriculture to be organic, 45% want GM foods banned, 76% want to renationalise the railways. All those things are in our manifesto.

After BSE, GM food and foot and mouth, most people know we must stop shipping live and dead animals around needlessly. Britain imports 61,000 tonnes of poultry meat from the Netherlands in the same year that it exports 33,000 tonnes of poultry meat to the Netherlands. We import 240,000 tonnes of pork and 125,000 tonnes of lamb while exporting 195,000 tonnes of pork and 102,000 tonnes of lamb.

T o save this crazy meat trade from foot and mouth, we have slaughtered 3.5m animals, mostly healthy. Another 500,000 are awaiting slaughter. When the damage to the tourist industry is added, the cost of foot and mouth will exceed the cost of BSE (£5bn). Only the Greens dare to denounce the lunatic practices that caused this crisis. For the first time the Green movement's arguments about food can claim to be widely shared - yet this is hardly reflected in the main parties' manifestos.

Lots of people want decent public transport and clean air more than they want cheap petrol and the ever- increasing flow of goods and people from place to place. The outgoing government reneged shamefully on its splendid promises for public transport: the next one should be in no doubt that this really matters to us and we are not afraid of radical solutions. Very many of us are happy to go by bus or train if these come up to scratch.

Lots of people want a fair deal for the poor in developing countries, who should be helped to grow basic food for themselves instead of being displaced by rich landowners growing luxury food for export. But only Green policies are radical enough make it happen.

Do you want to tell the next government to get serious about installing new energy sources to improve our environment and slow global warming? There is no better way than voting Green. If you would like our nuclear weapons decommissioned and our withdrawal from the arms trade, now is your chance to make your point.

Since we can't win, you probably won't bother reading our manifesto but that, too, is part of the message for the next government. It includes eco-taxes levied on polluters and a basic income for all, paid for by the rationalisation of the economy. We say international trade organisations like the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF should be put into reverse gear: instead of intensifying the rush of goods and services around the world they should encourage every country to choose its priorities in developing its local economy. Not trade wars or protectionism but a phased and negotiated return to sanity.

And of course we want proportional representation so that, next time, voting Green can elect real MPs. Even me.

Walter Schwarz, a former Guardian foreign correspondent and religious affairs correspondent, is the Green party candidate for Maldon and East Chelmsford.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001

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