Emergency Motions

There were a large number of Emergency Motions tabled. The key rules are that it relates to an event occurring after the closing date for motions which is the end of January.

In this blog post, I identify what I consider the important emergency motions, two because they are important statements of policy and one because it managed o raise an issue nearly 50 years old. This is an important issue to me as I sought to get an Emergency Motion tabled on the basis of an event two months old and was told that it wasn’t an emergency.

EM6 dealt with the scandal of the forced adoptions for single mothers that occurred in between 1949 and the eighties. The issue had become live due to a Parliamentary Education Select Committee where the Government had raised the issue of an apology. The debate is on the feed, and I have posted the motion to this blog.

The Union debated the issue of Trans-rights in the light of the updated EHRC guidance. The text of the motion is posted on this blog, perhaps its central piece, is

The new guidance is discriminatory, unworkable and effectively excludes trans, non binary and gender diverse people from swathes of public life including working life the Lords. The law must be changed.

The motion notes that the law not only oppresses trans people but also places a duty on managers and workers that may breach their free speech rights. It also noted that the advice becomes law after a scrutiny period and called for action to oppose its passage in Parliament. The debate is on the video feed.

On the 9th June, riots broke out in Northern Ireland where the victims/targets were immigrants. Further protests occurred in Glasgow, Scotland and Southampton. At Congress, one of the delegates present made a fabulous and well received speech expressing the Union’s intolerance of racial hatred and solidarity with the communities effected. (I am looking for the video feed URL). We also debated an Emergency Motion, the text of which is on this blog. A critical quote is,

We say no to racism, we say no to violence incited by those who do not live in or care a one bit for our communities.

Due to the high number of EM’s neither the agenda document nor the time tables were amended, and at the time of posting there was no single document containing the emergency motions. I hope to take better notes next year if fortunate enough to be elected a delegate. I have obtained a copy of the emergency motions.  …

The GMB & LME

The GMB & LME

At the GMB Congress, my Region, London, organised a fringe meeting on the “The rise of the far right and worker’s rights“. This was jointly organised with the Labour Movement for Europe who had planned to put their President, Stella Creasy, up to speak. I had originally planned to use the meeting and Congress as a last attempt to get better policy on trade and relations with the EU but the announcement of the election obviously changed this, and meant that Stella could not make it. My speech to the fringe, spoke of workers rights, sovereignty and its constraints and looked at the European Parliament results which has occurred on the previous weekend. You will find below my speech notes, although I did not use them all as I was unable to time the speech in practice and had too cut the speech short. …

More racism from the Nationality & Borders Bill

The nationality and borders bill has been rightly criticised for demonising refugees and asylum seekers, the Acts last year have given the police immunity from prosecution for illegal acts, but I have just discovered, by looking at the New Statesman, that it plans to increase the powers of the Home Secretary to remove the citizenship rights, rendering them stateless,of people she believes have a claim on citizenship of a second state. It is one of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, not to be stateless. The ‘Statesman, rather dramatically suggests 6 million people could be in jeopardy.

In the article in the ‘Statesman, the show more button works.  …

Black Lives Matter

Over the weekend, there were many protest demonstrations about racism in the UK under the slogan #blacklivesmatter

There was violence at the demo in London, a police horse bolted after the police had decided to charge a bunch of protesters; it injured a protester, several statues inc. that of Churchill were defaced. In Bristol, the statue of Edward Colston a slaver, later a Tory MP and philanthropist was pulled down and thrown in the Avon. Both these actions have started debates, about Churchill, slavery, museums and how we do history in the UK.

The establishment was quick to apportion blame on the protesters, with Johnson calling them thugs, and Priti Patel yet again disgracing herself, but this is to avoid examining the racism within British society, the Tory led state and the Tory Party itself. Only when we, i.e. the people of the United Kingdom, have satisfactorily resolved the Windrush scandal, the hostile environment and, most recently the suppression of the report into BAME propensity and deaths from CV19 can the Tories have anything to say about anti-racism demos.

The Labour Party has its own demons to exorcise, apart from the record of the Attlee government in India and Africa, more recently there is the allegations of racism at the most senior levels of the Party towards its leading black MPs, and Keir Starmer, albeit in a longer interview criticised the Bristol demonstrators who had pulled down the Colston statue. He has been rebutted by Marvin Rees, the black Mayor of Bristol, who also criticised the Govt’s priorities and Dawn Butler, the black MP for Brent Central.

Len Duval, the Leader of London’s GLA Labour group issued a statement, in which he says, this must be a turning point. Anyone who disagrees is just not listening to their friends, co-workers, family and neighbours.

This is a challenge for everyone in the UK, together we can make a better society and move towards eliminating racism within our society.  …

First they came …

 

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the sick, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not sick.

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

This is based on speeches made by the anti-nazi German priest Martin Niemöller and sourced from Wikipedia; most versions of the poem seem not to include the sick, the so-called incurables, but I wanted a longer version and think its more relevant to the UK today. …

Racism in culture & politics

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.  …

The day after the night before

The day after the night before

That was a shock, a soul deadening shock. In the words of the meme, I felt a grief for the loss of the future I thought I and my children had. How did this happen? How could we have voted to follow the corrupt and the vain, Johnson and Farage. The answer may have been most rapidly and accurately identified by John Harris of the Guardian in an article, entitled “If you’ve got money, you vote in … if you haven’t got money, you vote out” in which he identifies those whom we’ve known about for years, who can be described in a number of ways. In my micro blog post, “Pebbles”, I describe them as ‘globalisation’s losers’, the working class whose towns, communities and institutions have been smashed during the neo-liberal ascendency, communities that Labour stopped listening to and representing in 1997 leading to a loss of 5 million votes between 1997 and 2010. Making this even more problematic for Labour is that nearly ⅔ of Labour’s voters, voted remain, and just as globalisation’s losers cannot be ignored, nor can Labour’s majority of remainers. What is to be done? …

learnings of deptford, on the doorstep

New Cross in the a.m., 7:00 a.m.

I was out on the doorstep tonight, campaigning for Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s candidate for MP in Deptford. I met a number of interesting people and these are my notes, thanks to those who spoke to me about tactical voting, the middle east, racism, welfare and Labour’s representation of its core suport, the working class. …