Elected Greens are being systematically monitored by the Metropolitan police because we do not buy into the ideas that uphold the establishment status quo. We ask difficult questions, we often support people who are causing waves, and we promote policies that mainstream politicians feel threatened by.

We are part of a wider movement for change and we do our bit to defend people whose right to protest is under threat. For example, I have been a big defender of the monthly Critical Mass bike ride in London, the peaceful protesters at G8 and the student demonstrations. However it’s worth noting that I’ve also sat down with senior police officers to discuss issues such as how they deal with people trafficking, FGM, wildlife crime and hit-and-run drivers, and how they catch all sorts of other criminals. I’ve helped steer policing policy and earned respect from the senior ranks. Unlike most people on their domestic extremism database, I am known to them personally. We sit down for coffee, and we generally get on well.

I hope that the police see us as reasonable people, but I also hope that Greens at City Hall will continue to have a proud record of asking difficult questions about the anti-terrorism strategy Prevent, deaths in custody, stop and search and all the other civil liberties issues that other parties sometimes get cold feet over championing.

Above all, elected Greens have become effective at what we do. In the London Assembly, we have continued to ask difficult questions on numerous topics, including the excessive use of stop and search or the weak push for solar power in London, that have gradually become the basis for a cross-party consensus on what is going wrong. People I have met and championed in the early days of their campaigns, such as the women betrayed by undercover officers, have become well known as their stories get more coverage and traction. Policies that were seen as fringe, like cycling in London, or air pollution, have become part of the mainstream political agenda.

Unlike many of the fringe groups and parties to the left of Labour, we can no longer be dismissed as merely a party of permanent protest. Anyone who looks at the series of pragmatic initiatives put forward by the Greens in the London assembly and our long list of achievements, big and small, has to accept that we have got things done. That doesn’t mean that we have gone soft on wanting fundamental change. These achievements and the way that we have shifted City Hall’s priorities are part of a larger vision of a different kind of society and a very different kind of economy.

The police monitor us because we oppose the vested interests which exert undue influence over the running of our country

Perhaps the biggest reason why the police monitor the Greens is because we oppose many of the vested interests that exert undue influence over the running of our country. Nationally, Greens oppose nuclear power as an expensive, dinosaur technology. We have supported communities using nonviolent direct action to stop fracking, or big new roads being built. We support people making a clear moral case for animal welfare, or against arms fairs and nuclear weapons, such as Trident. All of this makes us a threat to the state, and to the less caring businesses linked to the government. In London we propose breaking the monopoly of big developers being given control over public land. They have failed to solve the housing crisis under the patronage of either Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone.

Greens are anti-establishment because we just don’t think the establishment does a very good job of running things. Elected Greens will act in the interests of the common good, not just the richest 1%, and that is why the Met police can’t take their eyes off us.