Politics – Page 75 – davelevy.info

Labour’s Socialist Societies

I decided to have another go at a Socialist Societies submission to the Democracy Review

I wrote about the socialist societies and have been researching how they work and would like to add some supplementary evidence.

I believe that real and effective special interest groups will add to the Labour Party’s policy making and campaigning capability. They are also a recognition of Labour’s federal history. I believe they should be retained.

They are also subject to abuse as the stories about the Labour Party Irish society show.

I recommend that,

There needs to be a minimum level of activity and democracy in a socialist society before it is allowed to affiliate to the Labour Party and its CLPs. This minimum activity to include an AGM, the election of a secretary & committee, the possession of a bank account from which affiliation payments can be made and in the case of affiliation to CLP, the branch affiliating must be greater than 10 members and should be ‘locally’ defined, i.e. the SocSoc’s regional structures are not to be permitted to affiliate to CLPs.
two tier affiliations should be permitted, possibly based on size with the lower tier excluded from CLP affiliation, but permitted national & regional conference representation.
That CLP affiliations should be only made by local branches and that the allocation of delegates be based upon one per 25 members resident in the CLP. (Possibly plus the secretary, if a member of the CLP.)
That those socialist societies, mirroring Labour’s ‘forum’ structures be disaffiliated.
Phantom affiliations, i.e. those without delegates should not be permitted.

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Brexit’s Red Lines

Last month, was it really under 30 days ago, Michael Barnier produced a slide, showing the impact of the British Government’s self-imposed Red lines on the likely end-state of the UK’s relationship with the EU.

It shows that the only option is a bespoke trade deal on the lines of the Canadian/EU one, which famously took 7 years to negotiate. It also shows that the only other option is a No Deal Brexit. …

Investigatory Powers revisited

In December, the CJEU stated that the British and Swedish investigatory powers laws were in contravention to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. This was in the case of the UK partly based on the litigation started by Tom Watson MP, initially with David Davies MP. This was reported in the Register, here, and the Guardian here. The Open Rights Group have asked for people to engage in the Home Office consultation; they propose to put a judicial warrant requirement on investigation requests for suspect internet data. This blog discusses my contribution. If you want to follow me, you’ll have to be quick the consultation closes tomorrow. …

On Plebiscites

I have been looking to see what there is to be said about Referendums and their role in democracies. Much has been said that Referendums or more accurately Plebiscites are the tools of dictators, but I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why! As I explored the issues, it became clear to me that I was pretty ignorant about the development of political theory and its application to the politics of government. I would be happy for any guidance from people more expert to me. …

Oops

Jeremy Cliffe, Berlin Desk Chief of “The Economist” reports on the state of “negotiations” between the UK and the EU27, the remainder of the EU. It’s not pretty.

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Racism in culture & politics

Two stories, one personal and one public showing the endemic racism in the UK in Thatcher’s ’80s and wondering how much things have changed. Originally posted as a storify, rescued and back dated to the original date.

The personal story related to watching an episode of Minder, “Poetic Justice, Innit!” and the endemic, unnecessary casual racism within it. This was cross referenced with yet another shock story of racists in the Tory cabinet.

The Minder episode was published a year after the Brixton riots, and the video copy on youtube, pointed to in the story is no longer available there. The story was made in 2017, posted here in 2020 and backdated to the date of its first publication. …

Democracy Review I

This is a submission for Labour’s Democracy Review, since the hub is, still, not available, I am posting this to my blog, I will send it to the review via email in 7 days, please free to comment over the next seven days. …

E-Voting

At my last Union branch meeting, we heard from Gemma Short of the right to strike campaign. As one part of her presentation she mentioned that one of the Unions’ response to the recent Trade Union laws is to demand that they can run strike ballots (and the mandatory political levy and elections) using e-voting technology. I have been thinking about this for a while and its fans need to take stock; there’s some inconvenient truths. …

At Orgcon 17

I am just back from orgcon17, and here are my notes; this was a two day conference, with many sessions on issues of concern to digital liberty campaigners on regulation of the use personal data. It took place over two days, consisting of lectures & panels and workshops. On the first day, at Friends House, where we had the use of the amazing central meeting room it looked at the coming legislation on investigatory powers, the use of the law to make political advances (it’s slow & uncertain), an interview with Caroline Criada Perez, the campaigner who got the first woman on British bank notes and a women’s statue in Parliament Sq.. It looked at e-voting systems in Taiwan where the government used a consensus building software product to engage the population in traffic management solutions design. Jamie Bartlett spoke about privacy vs. security. There was a session on Digital Liberty & regulation in Nigeria. There was also a session on the privacy vulnerability to the coming “age verification for porn users” regulations. Much of these lectures are available on the ORG’s Video channel.

The second day consisted mainly of workshops focused on campaigning. There was a workshop that reviewed the technical architecture of the investigatory powers bill (as they then were i.e. the architecture and legislative stage). There was a workshop in using the Freedom of Information Laws to enhance campaigning, and also about the likely campaigning tools to be offered by the coming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) i.e. enhanced subject access requests, the right to be forgotten, of remediation and to object and stop processing.

There were sessions on building local Open Rights Group groups, how to perform IT security effectively for campaigners and a review of the ORG’s Blocked tool.

I chaired a session on building a Charter of Digital Rights, with Richard Barbrook and Mara Leverkuhn. Richard announced his initiative to put some more detail behind the Jeremy Corbyn’s Digital Manifesto which they created to support his 2016 Leadership Campaign. I documented/advertised this session on my blog https://davelevy.info/digital-liberties/

ooOOOoo

The relevance of this conference to CISSP certification is in the Regulation & Compliance domain. One of the critical to IT organisations is failing to keep up with laws and regulations. The ORG focuses on the law as it relates to privacy, censorship & intellectual property. Businesses need to keep these laws in mind when designing their risk taxonomy and control catalogue.

This was written in Oct 2018, nearly 12 months after the event; I did it to claim CISSP CPD Credits. I have as normal, for me, in these circumstances backdated the article to the time of occurrence. …