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There is a positive case for staying in the European Union - but we don’t hear enough about it, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas says.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, Ms Lucas said the EU has helped make our air cleaner, keep the cost of mobile calls down and prevented war.

But you probably wouldn’t know it from listening to the official campaigns both for and against EU membership.

The remain campaign has focused on threats to jobs and the economy if we leave, issuing dire warnings about the impact on businesses such as West Midlands carmakers.

Meanwhile, the leave campaign is promoting fear about immigration, with claims that Turkey could join the EU, giving its 75 million citizens the right to come to the UK.

But this sort of negative campaigning fails to appeal to many young people - whose votes could decide the outcome of the EU referendum on June 23, Ms Lucas said.

She was speaking as she prepared to address a rally in Birmingham organised by a campaign calling itself “Another Europe is Possible”.

This is urging voters to support staying in the EU when the referendum comes - but it offers a “radical” vision of a European Union promoting democracy, human rights, and social justice, in contrast to what supporters would see as the right-wing vision of the EU offered by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

Also speaking at the rally were Owen Jones, the left-wing author and blogger, and Salma Yaqoob, the anti-war campaigner and former Birmingham councillor.

Ms Lucas is the Green Party’s only MP and a former party leader. She said: “We are trying to reach people the mainstream campaigns haven’t yet inspired with a good reason to stay inside the EU.

“People want a vision of what the EU could be.

“We are saying we believe we should remain in the EU, but we are not blind to the fact that we would love the EU to be more democratic and accountable - just as we would love Westminster to be more democratic and accountable.”

The campaign’s proposals include ensuring that Government Ministers make a statement to Parliament before EU meetings, setting out what they plan to do and taking questions. It would be a change from the current system, in which they attend EU summits first and then tell Parliament what they did.

The campaign is also suggesting that EU summits should be broadcast live online, instead of taking place behind closed doors.

But isn’t there a danger of asking people to vote for an option that isn’t actually on the ballot paper? After all, the June 23 referendum will ask people whether they want to stay in the EU as it exists now - not the reformed EU campaigners such as Ms Lucas wants to see.

What does she say to critics on the left who see today’s EU as a free-trade, capitalist institution which does little to promote the values they believe in?

Ms Lucas argues that despite its faults, the EU is already a force for good.

“Even now you are getting better policies from the EU when it comes to restraining the unfettered power of global capital. That's why the hedge funds by and large are against the EU. They want to come out.

“So when you are looking at things like a tax on bankers bonuses, a tax on currency transactions - the so -called Tobin tax - or looking at cracking down on tax avoidance or evasion, actually the EU is going far further than the British government is.

“So I would really counter the idea that the EU even as it is now is a negative force. I think by and large it tends to be a positive force.

“That doesn't mean we are happy with everything.

“But I think when you looking at workers rights, when you are looking at environmental protection. when you are looking at beginning to try to constrain the worse of footloose capital, then actually the EU is doing far more than successive UK governments ever have.”

This positive message appears to be at odds with much of the debate about the EU, which has largely involved scaremongering and negative campaigning.

“That’s why I feel this movement we are part of is so important. A lot of people are put off by a debate that is just dominated largely by internal discussions in the Tory Party, with Gove and Boris on one hand and Cameron on the other. That just leaves them really cold and feeling that it’s nothing much to do with them.

“The more we can underline that the EU affects them in very practical ways, from the quality of the air that we breathe to our mobile phone charges to our chance of keeping the peace on this continent, the more people recognise that the EU has a much wider role than the one that you currently pick up in some pretty negative campaigning.”

And there’s a chance that negative campaigning could lead to the UK quitting the EU - because younger voters, who tend to support EU membership, aren’t being given a good reason to take part in the referendum, she said.

“I think there is a very danger that we could leave, and that’s why I am very passionate about making sure young people register to vote in particular. We know that young people are more likely to be pro-EU but are also a lot less likely to be registered.

“We are running out of time on that. the deadline to register is June 7.”

The Green Party has begun the process of electing a new leader and Ms Lucas, who did the job once before from 2008 to 2012, has put her name forward for the role, this time as a job-share with the party’s work and pensions spokesman, Jonathan Bartley.

Other candidates may also stand, in which case there will be a ballot of party members. If there is a contest then the winner will be announced at Green Party’s national conference, at the University of Birmingham between September 2-4.

Watch: Conservative Michael Gove explains why the UK is better off outside the EU, in a visit to Birmingham