Privacy & compliance, reprised

I have had a look at the changes in Law, and thus the potential changes in data protection strategy since I first wrote about the conflicts between privacy, compliance and law enforcement.

The US courts have been siding with citizens and their privacy rights, the ECJ has been doing the same. Parliament has been going in the opposite direction, although the Supreme Court has declared the Data Retention laws to be contrary to Human Rights Law and should we actually leave the EU we will find obtaining an “Adequacy” agreement harder than we’d hope as the EU Parliament, Commission and the EU Data Protection Supervisory board focus on the rights of privacy from Governments. This will be a significant problem if the ECJ strikes down the model clauses and binding corporate rules.

I briefly touch on the fact that the European Laws are meant to be implementing the globally agreed seven principles of Data Protection, of Notice, Purpose, Consent, Security, Disclosure, Access and Accountability and that in a rights based jurisdiction, these rights must be protected from the Government as well as from Corporates.

 

The language has developed since 1980 but these principles were agree by the OECD in 1980.

I conclude the article by saying,

Today, under EU law, the lawful purpose would seem to be more flexible, cross border transfers are more restricted, and may become more so, and the EU is more concerned about nation state compliance; it’s what you’d expect from a political entity consisting of states and the children of people surviving fascist or Stalinist rule.

This political heritage should be remembered by those that see these laws merely as a business burden, …

Stop the Tory Brexit

And now I discover a reason for staying in Momentum, here’s a petition calling on Momentum to consult its members on the subject of Brexit.

Alena says,

We are proud members of Momentum and consistent supporters of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party and of the 2017 election manifesto. We deplore the persistent attacks of the right-wing of the Labour Party and their attempts to weaponise the issue of Brexit against our party leadership.

But we are equally opposed to the Tory Brexit now on offer. It is a disaster for working class people, public services, peace in Ireland, migrants, the environment, human rights, jobs and our children’s futures – the complete opposite of everything a socialist government would do. The so-called soft Brexit being pushed by neo-liberal “centrists” is hardly better: it threatens to turn us into a vassal state of Europe, making us rule takers not rule makers.

We call for a vote of all Momentum members this summer to decide whether to oppose Tory Brexit, and whether to campaign for Labour to hold a vote at Annual Conference in September on giving the people the final say on the Brexit deal.

We are a democratic socialist movement, and under Momentum’s constitution we can trigger a vote of all members with signatures from around 4000 Momentum members – please add your name today, and spread the word!

The petition form is also posted below the fold, to see it, Read More ….

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Lewisham East, Labour Hold

Congratulations Janet

How good was the victory? The turnout was low, 33.3%, as one might expect for a by-election held one month after Borough Mayor and Council elections.

Here’s how the vote share works over the last three elections. The Labour vote remains above 50% i.e. we beat all the rest put together. The chart below/overleaf shows the vote share in the last three elections … …

Marx in Lee

In Britain Elect’s pen picture of Lewisham East, they state that Karl Marx lived in Lee, one of the constituent parts of the parliamentary constituency although there seems little record of that fact, other than a plaque in a local pub and this video.

 

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Stand up to Racism

Lewisham has been the focus of some determined anti-fascist demonstrations over the last week provoked by the candidature of Ann Marie Waters of the current incarnation of the UK’s (or is it England’s) organised fascists. Yesterday, Lewisham’s anti-racist organisations led a picket of a so-called Hustings organised by John Hamilton once of Lewisham People before Profit but now organising as “Bring Back Democracy”. The reason for the picket was the proposed attendance of the fascist candidate.

SutR at Lewisham East (early)

The Janet Daby, Labour’s candidate rejected the invite as did the Tory candidate, although the latter claimed a diary conflict. This meant that the likely first two candidates were not attending; it’s not much of a hustings.

The Southern Press & Mercury report the event giving space to the Lib Dem candidate and Woman’s Equality Party complaining about a suppression of democracy, despite the fact that the Labour and the Tory candidates were not present. ( I am trying to find out what happened to the Greens.) The SPM does not report the early confrontation between demonstrators and a group of angry “For Britian” supporters.

They quote, Mandu Reid, the Women’s Equality Party candidate

“I wanted to go to the hustings to challenge the far-right’s hate-filled narrative and to expose their ugly ideology for what it is. Unfortunately, I was denied that opportunity and, more importantly, the residents of Lewisham East were denied the chance to question their future MP.

This is not true as the likely winner did not turn up.

It seemed the Police advised Ann-Marie Waters not to come; she didn’t.

The Hustings was a provocation, arguably designed to be. You can’t debate with Facists.

ooOOOoo

Many people argued with the event organisers to cancel it, and the hosting organisation had to change its branding several times. I believe that the final brand used was Lewisham’s “Bring Back Democracy”, which I have until recently supported as they sought to campaign for an end to the Executive Mayor system in Lewisham. I and  others will need to reconsider this.

In a private conversation, a correspondent of mine made the following comments, reproduced with permission.

[I have] … Spoken to many colleagues today who were lifted by the news of yesterday’s demo after the weekend. I think there are important discussions needed on the strategy and tactics of the labour movement in combatting the far right. The situation has to be weighed up each time…. There will be times where a different approach might have to be taken and decided upon democratically. I think “no platform” was a correct approach last night after what had happened at the weekend, the attempts by ANW to bring people to the borough off the back of it and the very low numbers of unaligned voters compared to a mobilisation of the organised far right.

On the far right’s social media response, had ANW been able to stroll into the hustings unchallenged they would’ve spun it in a different way, suggesting she was a strong, credible candidate with a broad base of support in the area. Obviously, in the heat of a demo like that some things will be said or done that we would do differently if we were able to reflect on it coolly from afar. There does need to be some consideration of what slogans can be used to counter the far right but also raise a positive working class alternative to racism. But the strategic task of the left in Lewisham has to be to pull the rug from underneath the far right by opposing austerity and fighting for better conditions so that disaffected working class people are not drawn to the right in any way. That means Labour councils not making cuts anymore. Damian’s speech on Saturday raised a very positive policy of the council housing 100 refugees. That needs to be coupled with a comprehensive council house building plan. It means the families in Milford Towers in Catford, many of them migrants, being guaranteed social housing in the regeneration scheme rather than being kept on short term contracts and a set % not being assigned for social housing because “it might scare developers away”. In 2011 the TUC demo was approx 750,000 and when UKIP called a demo in favour of cuts a few weeks later they mustered a couple hundred. That’s a sign of the balance of forces when the labour movement takes a lead.

On the issue of organising an independent hustings, my correspondent says,

On John ‘doyen of community cohesion’ Hamilton: he had it explained to him very clearly how he could’ve avoided having ANW on the platform by gaining agreement for parties to declare it as part of electoral expenses.  … To put on an event consciously requiring the police to facilitate and then calling 999 on the demonstration without reflecting about what others steps could be taken is reprehensible. To come out today and denounce ‘mob rule’ goes even lower. This is a man who used to lambast Bullock for the use of the ‘rent-a-mob’ line when there was a community demo or when the Council called in the riot police in 2010 or to get him off the roof of Lewisham Bridge.

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Labour’s rules & PR Lists

As far as I know, we already have proportional voting systems in the UK, in Scotland & Wales for the their Assemblies, in London for the GLA and for the Members of the European Parliament. I have experience of standing for and/or selecting/triggering Labour candidates in the latter positions.

While much focus of late has been on selecting/re-selecting MPs in the House of Commons these positions represent a special case.

Labour’s re-selection processes for “list” based seats in local government in England, currently only the GLA, unless we remain in the EU requires that incumbents are confirmed or otherwise as candidates (via a trigger ballot), and that new candidates are found and approved by panel. All the candidates are then ordered by a member’s vote, with the incumbents guaranteed the highest places.

This protection i.e. the guarantee that incumbents must get the highest ranking places on the list should be removed; the member’s votes should determine the order that incumbents and challengers are placed on the list, subject to the gender quota rules. The members should be offered an additional two candidates, who then become available for call up in the case that any of the selected candidates are unable to run. …

Deal or No Deal

I was reading my news feeds this morning and of course Brexit comes up. Richard Corbett, now the Leader of the European PLP writes that when Labour in the Commons considers the Lord’s amendments to the European Union Withdrawal Bill, while there is a lot of noise about remaining in the single market or the European Economic Area, a more important amendment might be the establishment of a parliamentary “meaningful vote”. At the moment the Government plan to offer Parliament a “Deal or No Deal” vote, the opportunity to tell them to think again or remain must be on the table.

Anthony Barnett, writes an open letter to Remainers, where the thrust of the article is to pose a new hope, probably arguing “Remain but Reform” which is something a Labour Government might realistically undertake but he points at a blog by Dominic Cummings, the former Director of “Vote Leave” who is more than a little disappointed with the progress made in negotiating Brexit. Cummings’ diatribe reflects in my mind the foolish simplicity, held by, it would seem, many Tory’s that Government’s decide and people follow.

In James Graham’s play, “This House”, possibly the central speech is between the two party deputy chief whips where they reflect on the growing split between both the Parties as butskellism ended and the growing dichotomy between the government and governed. Both Harrison and Wetherill had served in the wartime military, and both had worked outside politics; they became parliamentarians with a hinterland in the real economy and thus understood that people are complicated. The growth of the career politician has led to a fantasy understanding of how society and politics work.

During the Coalition, it seemed that they thought they could press policy buttons and it would have the effect they wanted. There was never any plan as to what would happen if the great unwashed masses misbehaved, as we always will. It’s the result of apprenticeships formed in the student movement and the advancement of sea lawyers with no experience of real life, and often little connection with their electorates.

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Re-selection goes to Conference

The Young Labour National Committee have submitted a rule change on mandatory reselection to LP National Conference. Sara Doyle posts the text on twitter ….

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