Hello hello, testing testing. Is this thing on? Can everyone hear me? Can you all see me?
Oh good, it’s just the Conservatives and Labour who apparently have forgotten disabled people exist, again – right during a general election.
No general election ableist bullshit – which isn’t a good thing…
After months of making disabled people the enemies of the public who are stealing the taxpayer’s money, we appear to have turned invisible to the two major parties.
I was about to start writing this column earlier in the week when I realised I had nothing to write about. There has been no massive amounts of ableism this week, because they’ve just… stopped talking about us.
It’s like we’re in some weird twilight zone where they’re all just letting us get on with our lives without suggesting we shouldn’t be able to go on holiday or that we’re all lazy feckers who sit in front of the TV all day. I’m writing this whilst watching I Kissed A Girl and this is a safe space to say that now.
Disability is often condescendingly called a superpower, but is this what they meant? Have we all become invisible?
Has anyone checked on Mel Stride? He hasn’t been seen ranting about unemployed disabled people in TWELVE days. Is the wet wipe okay?
Has he been spotted wandering around Devon yet ranting incoherently asking random wildlife if they claim benefits, trying to convince them about “the benefits of work”?
It should be a comfort that they’re seemingly leaving us alone but after months of threatening to make our lives harder and years of actions that have led to our deaths. The silence is just as scary.
General election: a scary silence
While the prime minister, opposition leader, and candidates have been up and down the country and touted out across media for the general election, not one has mentioned anything to do with disability.
There’s been nothing to do with PIP reforms, the threats to the Work Capability Assessments, and any changes they would make to the DWP (for better or worse). Absolutely not a peep on how they’ll support us in the cost of living crisis.
It makes sense, almost for the Tories to be silent about us. After years of demanding us they no longer have to – the propaganda has already gotten to people. They also know that so many are turning away from them and I suspect they don’t want to give media pundits even more reason to hate them.
However, it makes zero sense for Labour to ignore us. Things like the fact both the EHRC and the UN have found them to be actively endangering disabled people’s lives would be great fuel for the Tory-hating fire.
Why aren’t they constantly pointing out that their policies have and will continue to kill disabled people? That their rhetoric has led to us being seen as lazy, workshy scroungers who want to leech off taxpayers.
At a time when the DWP are attacking neurodivergent people and those with mental health conditions, it’d be an absolute home run for any of the Labour lot to speak out about how abhorrent they’re being.
They must, therefore, be staying quiet for a reason.
Labour: letting a good thing go to waste?
This could be that they know how good a number the scrounger narrative has done on disabled people and they don’t want to lose the “hardworking” voters who might worry they’re going to give people who need it support at the expense of their taxes.
The most worrying conclusion is this: Labour hasn’t spoken up about disabled people because they share the same ideals as the Tories.
The only thing we’ve heard from the Labour election campaign so far is a line straight from the Tory playbook “Those that can work will”. There was also a vague idea yesterday that local government will support more disabled people in to work.
But this sounds a lot like Wet Wipe’s WorkWell and there was no talk of funding for local authorities who are already stretched enough.
As always, any focus on disabled people has been put on our ability to work, because humans are apparently only useful if they can make money and if they can’t well into the mixer with you.
With a bit of luck, we’ll be well shot of the Tories in a few weeks time, but there’s no doubt in my mind we’ve got a fight on our hands with Labour.
The Lib Dems a glimmer of hope? Yes, you heard that correctly
One glimmer of hope is that the Tories are set to be wiped out so hard that the Lib Dems could become the official opposition. Ed Davey shared yesterday that he’s the father of a disabled child, so hopefully once he’s stopped having a lovely little adventure holiday he’ll get to work holding them to account.
Until then we’ll have to do it ourselves, as always.
Don’t get me wrong, the Tories deserve an almighty drubbing of biblical proportions at the general election on 4 July, but is the Keir Starmer Labour Party a worthy benefactor of this rightful discontent for the Tories?
Of course it isn’t.
‘Tory enablers’… blah, blah, blah
No matter how often and how loud the supporters of no-change-whatsoever Starmer scream and shout that the general election is a binary choice, this is simply a lie.
Pointing this out will see you labelled a “Tory enabler”, which is pretty damn rich coming from the same puddles of piss that worked against Jeremy Corbyn to lumber the British people with a hard-right, headbanging Conservative government headed up by the preposterous Etonian scarecrow, Johnson.
There is no Corbynite-Tory axis. This is a bizarre invention from the Starmerites that makes even less sense when you consider their leader is quite clearly a Tory.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, possibly until I turn as blue in the face as the rosette pinned to Starmer’s chest. This is a Labour Party in name only.
The Labour Party: in name only
A Labour Party that commits to further NHS privatisation is a Labour Party in name only.
A Labour Party that brazenly takes cash from ex-Tory donors with interests in private health care is a Labour Party in name only.
A Labour Party that refuses to stand in solidarity with the working classes that have never needed a hefty pay rise as much as what they do right now is a Labour Party in name only.
A Labour Party that cannot lay out a comprehensive plan that is meticulously designed to put an end to homelessness and rough sleeping is a Labour Party in name only.
A Labour Party that treats millions of disabled people with the same vicious contempt as the Conservative governments of the past fourteen years is a Labour Party in name only.
A Labour Party that has abandoned even the slightest pretense of possessing a functioning internal democracy and continues to stitch up the selection process in favour of centre-right Starmer-sympathising carpet baggers is a Labour Party in name only.
Keir Starmer ditched the dissenting left some time ago. What you are seeing now is people on the soft left such as Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle — hardly raging Corbynites — being cleared out for fresh right-wing Starmer loyalists.
One particular imposition that caught the headlines was in North Durham where the director of ‘We Believe in Israel’, the hard-right NEC member Luke Akehurst, has been gifted a safe Labour stronghold.
Akehurst, who calls himself a “Zionist shitlord”, may well end up being given a minister of state position, or perhaps they can create a Secretary of State for genocide complicity for the malignant toad?
Reading that back, just how far has the socialist Labour party of Hardie, Attlee, Bevan, and Benn had to fall to become the crony capitalist party of Starmer, Akehurst, Streeting, and Reeves, under the guidance of Peter Mandelson?
I genuinely wish the leader of the Labour Party would take a week off from being a ridiculous affront to human decency. While the opportunist Starmer will only be thinking about the next election, it’s the next generation I feel truly sorry for.
Starmer: a ‘safe pair of hands’ – just not for you or me
Keir Starmer is undoubtedly a safe pair of hands for the ruling class, and that makes him an unsafe pair of hands for the millions of us that used to believe the Labour Party was the only credible vehicle for societal change.
You only need to look at where private healthcare cash is heading to get an idea of the access and influence being indirectly purchased behind the scenes in Keir Starmer’s “changed” Labour Party.
Why would Yvette Cooper take £295,000 from donors with links to private healthcare? What about Keir Starmer? Some £157,000 has ended up with the Labour leader. Why?
And then there’s the painfully obnoxious Pet Shop Boy, Wes Streeting, the shadow secretary of state for health and social care. He ended up with a very generous £193,000 from donors with links to private healthcare. Why? Are there no alarm bells ringing?
In total, Labour’s front bench has pocketed an eye-watering £783,000 from donors with links to the private healthcare industry, leaving us in absolutely no doubt as to why bleating Streeting said just this week:
We will go further than New Labour ever did. I want the NHS to form partnerships with the private sector that goes beyond just hospitals.
This isn’t Blairism on steroids but Toryism on Tramadol and Temazepam, washed down with a pint of Tequila.
Oddly enough, Wesley, private healthcare companies that have been awarded contracts to run NHS services need to make an obscenely immoral profit to satisfy their shareholders, and this ghoulish quest to make a killing out of our health has already lead to a mountain of catastrophic and expensive failures by private non-NHS organisations.
You can’t trust them
This rotten and corrupt Labour Party cannot be trusted with your NHS, no more or less than the bastards that have defunded and demoralised our greatest socialist creation over the past fourteen miserable years.
Do you really trust the Labour Party — proudly funded by Tory donors — to end the cronyism and corruption that has been synonymous with the last fourteen years of Conservative clusterfuckery? I don’t.
Fellow Canary columnist, Dr Julia Grace Patterson, summed it up quite nicely when she asked her 275,000 followers on X:
I wonder if Labour will have any socialist MPs left by the time we get to election day?
I must say, Dr Ju is a fantastic NHS activist and a bloody good author. But the shit she has received from the angry Starmerite mob for condemning the genocide in Gaza, and for consistently exposing the Labour Party’s profoundly concerning relationship with the private healthcare industry has been both utterly unwarranted and at times, typically vile and abusive.
The answer to her question is yes, probably just a few that will remain committed to firing-off a letter of disapproval on Socialist Campaign Group headed-paper every time another comrade from a Black or brown background is kicked out of the party for the crime of liking a Green Party tweet twelve years ago, or worse still, attending a protest in 1981.
We don’t need another Tory Party
The cull of the leftists isn’t over. I know of at least another six socialist left-wing candidates at risk of being axed by Morgan McSweeny and Keir Starmer.
And this only leaves me with one question to pose before we talk again on Wednesday:
Why on earth do we need another Tory Party when the Tory Party in power is dying on its arse?
The word “fascism” is a lightning rod. No one wants to be called a fascist. Everyone is ready to call someone else a fascist.
Like many highly charged words, the more common its usage becomes, the more inexact its meaning becomes.
Today, Trump is a fascist, Putin is a fascist, Modi is a fascist, Radical Islam is Islamofascism, the House and Senate members who passed the FISA renewal are fascists, Ukraine is a fascist country, political correctness is fascism, anti-Zionists are fascists, Zionists are fascists, and so on….
Clearly, the word “fascism” in these contexts is most often an expression of extreme disapproval– a kind of expletive.
A problem arises when the claimant– the person using the word– has something more definite in mind, something more exacting. A problem arises when the user of the word intends to draw an association with the real, historically concrete phenomena of fascism that emerged in the aftermath of World War I and rose tragically to ravage and terrorize nearly the entire world.
The idea that people or organizations are preparing to organize Blackshirts, Brownshirts, Silver Shirts or whatever to intimidate or overthrow conventional political processes is understandably reprehensible. But to conjure such an image in order to influence the political process, though without sufficient warrant, is misleading.
In a highly charged political context, it is not only misleading, but also unhelpful, and even incendiary.
Even a policy as sanctified by much of the left as the New Deal has been called fascist, proto-fascist, or fascist-tinged by commentators from across the political spectrum. And the “sainted” FDR has been labeled fascist by many. Critics from both left and right have seen parallels between elements of the New Deal and Mussolini’s corporatism. Still others have found similarities between the Rooseveltian Civilian Conservation Corps and Hitler’s German Labor Services. Since the New Deal was a mish-mash of trial-and-error pragmatism, it is a disservice to wed it with any particular ideology.
Of course, “fascism” depends on how we define it. Problems of definition arose immediately after World War II and the defeat of the major fascist powers. The emerging Cold War led to the US and its allies accepting a narrow definition when it came to new-found allies among former Nazis and Nazi collaborators. In its conflict with the Soviets, US leaders relied on Germans and Eastern Europeans with dubious, fascist ties to advance weapons programs, utilize intelligence, and bolster anti-Communism. Vetting of fascists by ideology was a haphazard process at best.
On the other hand, attempts to link fascism to Communism was an ongoing project. Determined efforts to find common features to justify anti-Communism led to a construct called “totalitarianism.” Popularized by Hannah Arendt, Cold Warriors wanted and got a tally of supposed similarities that served their purposes and served to generate a common definition of two disparate ideologies.
Thus, the Cold War created both a narrow and broad interpretation of fascism– one for practical purposes, the other for propaganda purposes.
As the Cold War warmed in the 1980s, academics like Stanley Payne (Fascism, Wisconsin, 1980), made attempts at more independent, nuanced, and objective definitions of “fascism.” Payne engaged in comparative historical analysis and arrived at his typological description of fascism. Unfortunately, it suffered somewhat from raw empiricism and a failure to properly weigh the factors disclosed. To its credit, it undercut the Cold War conflation of Communism and fascism by emphasizing anti-Communism as a common feature of fascism, and not conflating it with Communism.
Further, Payne in 1980 recognizes the historically met concept of “liberal authoritarianism” — a form of illiberal liberalism– that might serve to explain much of the confusion of our anti-Trump left today, who are anxious to dispense with the Bill of Rights to save “our” democracy.
In a recent essay regarding the “fascism is eminent” fashion of today, noted liberal commentator, Patrick Lawrence, riffs on the concept of “liberal authoritarianism.” Lawrence declares in his article “This Isn’t Fascism,” posted on Consortium News, that “I cannot quite tell what people mean when they speak of fascism in our current circumstances. And [as] far as one can make out, a lot of people who use the term, and maybe most, do not know what they mean, either.”
Unfortunately, while Payne still serves as a keystone for contemporary Western academic scholarship, the old Cold War conflation of Communism and fascism has resumed, particularly under a new wave of retro-Cold Warriors like Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder.
But more consequentially, the charge of fascism — invoked irresponsibly — has served as a weapon in electoral politics. Specifically, many in the Democratic Party — bereft of an appealing program — charge that a vote for Biden is a vote against fascism. Given that Biden’s failure on inflation and his bloody war-mongering are rejected, especially by youth and the Party’s left wing, portraying Trump as a fascist is an act of desperation, but an act that will ultimately do little to forego the rise of Trump and his ilk.
Again, invoking Lawrence:
Much of this, let’s call it the pollution of public discourse, comes from the liberal authoritarians. Rachel Maddow, to take one of the more pitiful cases, wants us to think Trump the dictator will end elections, destroy the courts, and render the Congress powerless. The MSNBC commentator has actually said these things on air.
One-man rule is the theme, if you listen to the Rachel Maddows. The evident intent is to cast Donald Trump in the most fearsome light possible, as it becomes clear Trump could well defeat President Biden at the polls come Nov. 5.
We can mark this stuff down to crude politicking in an election year, surely. There is nothing new in it. But this is not the point.
Opportunistic voices on the left will often draw a crude analogy with the rise of Nazism. They argue the simplistic and false case that disunity on the left opened the door for Hitler’s ascendency to the Chancellorship of Germany in 1933. They repeat an old whitewash of history — dismissing Hitler’s backing by the German capitalists, the perfidy of the weak government, and the betrayal of the Social Democrats. They ignore the economic crisis, the rulers’ failure to address the crisis, and the peoples’ desperate search for a radical answer to that failure. An unquestionable sign of that desperation was the continuing growth of the votes for the Communist Party, along with the decline in votes for the Social Democrats, and other centrist parties.
Nazism was not inevitable, but ushered in on a fear of revolution, of workers’ power, by a despairing ruling class. That was the reality wherever fascism seized power in twentieth-century fascism.
Today, the answer to a deepening crisis of capitalist rule that is losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the masses is not rallying support around the failed policies that created and deepened the crisis. The answer is not to cry wolf or remind the people that matters could get worse. They know that!
The answer is to develop real answers to the despair facing working people– reducing inequality, raising living standards, guaranteeing health care, increasing social benefits, improving affordable public transportation, protecting the environment, improving public education, and so on. These issues have existed for many decades, worsening with each passing year. There is no mystery. We are offered only two parties and they are determined to evade these issues.
Lawrence makes a similar point:
I suppose it might make America’s many-sided crisis — political, economic, social — more comprehensible if we name it [fascism] to suggest it has a frightening antecedent. But this is profoundly counterproductive. So long as we, some of us, go on persuading ourselves we face the threat of fascism or Fascism, either one, we simply obscure what it is we actually face.
We name it wrongly… I do not see fascism in any form anywhere on America’s horizon. To call it such is to render ourselves incapable of acting effectively.
But that still leaves us with the question: What is fascism? Is there no cogent definition?
Indeed, there is one that springs forth from a deep and thorough study by the late Marxist thinker, R. Palme Dutt. Published in 1934, soon after Hitler’s rise to power, Fascism and Social Revolution (International Publishers) locates fascism in the cauldron of the rise of Communism, a deep economic crisis, and the collapse of capitalist class legitimacy.
Dutt, unlike servile academics weaving a bizarre, historically challenged link between Communism and fascism, discovers direct ties between capitalism and fascism (p. 72-73).
Fascism manufactures its ideology around its practice. Dutt explains:
Fascism, in fact, developed as a movement in practice, in the conditions of threatening proletarian revolution, as a counter-revolutionary mass movement supported by the bourgeoisie, employing weapons of mixed social demagogy and terrorism to defeat the revolution and build up a strengthened capitalist state dictatorship; and only later endeavoured to adorn and rationalize this process with a “theory” (p. 75).
Dutt’s operational definition contrasts favorably with the failed attempt by writers like Payne who attempted to engage comparative studies in order to arrive at a superficial typography of fascism.
Dutt further adds the class dimensions, absent in nearly all non-Marxist definitions:
Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements, dominantly petit-bourgeois, but also slum-proletariat and demoralized working class, financed and directed by finance-capital, by the big industrialists, landlords and financiers, to defeat the working-class revolution and smash working-class organizations (p. 82).
Elegant in its simplicity, robust in its comprehensiveness, Dutt’s explication of fascism aptly characterizes historic fascism from the march on Rome to the Generals’ coup in Indonesia and Pinochet’s regime in Chile. When social conditions deteriorate drastically and workers and their organizations threaten the capitalist order, the rulers throw their support behind counter-revolutionaries prepared to defend and strengthen the capitalist order, even at the expense of bourgeois democracy.
These institutions and organizations fester within bourgeois society as latent counter-revolutionary forces ready to be unleashed at the right moment by a desperate capitalist ruling class.
Clearly, Dutt’s study and elucidation of fascism clears the muddy waters stirred by today’s alarmists and opportunists. There is no imminent threat of revolution; the revolutionary left and the workers’ organizations currently pose little threat to the capitalist order, unfortunately.
There is no emergent organized mass movement responding to a counter-revolutionary call. The mass movements of the right — the Black Legions, the KKK, the Proud Boys, the militias, etc. — do exist, should conditions ever ripen for a mobilization against the working class; but for today, they remain unacceptable to most of the ruling class.
For the most part, the capitalist class, especially its dominant monopoly sector, is satisfied to conduct its business within the confines of bourgeois democracy. “Finance-capital… the big industrialists, landlords and financiers…” defend and protect the two-party system because they regard it as functioning adequately, though the “lawfare” attacks piling up on Trump and the rabid media attacks against him show that an important section of the ruling class considers his unpredictability to be a threat to stability.
Others think that his buffoonery and bluster serve as a safety valve for the discontent infecting the citizenry, much as Berlusconi’s clown-act pacified and entertained Italians unhappy over their political fate for three decades.
In any case, Trump does not pose the threat of fascism that many would like us to believe.
We need to find other words to describe the deep crisis of bourgeois legitimacy that we are enduring, words that do not force us into a frenzied defensive posture that deflects us from finding real solutions to a real and profound problems facing working people.
We have come together as Palestinian academics and staff of Gaza universities to affirm our existence, the existence of our colleagues and our students, and the insistence on our future, in the face of all current attempts to erase us.
The Israeli occupation forces have demolished our buildings but our universities live on. We reaffirm our collective determination to remain on our land and to resume teaching, study, and research in Gaza, at our own Palestinian universities, at the earliest opportunity.
We call upon our friends and colleagues around the world to resist the ongoing campaign of scholasticide in occupied Palestine, to work alongside us in rebuilding our demolished universities, and to refuse all plans seeking to bypass, erase, or weaken the integrity of our academic institutions.
The future of our young people in Gaza depends upon us, and our ability to remain on our land in order to continue to serve the coming generations of our people.
We issue this call from beneath the bombs of the occupation forces across occupied Gaza, in the refugee camps of Rafah, and from the sites of temporary new exile in Egypt and other host countries.
We are disseminating it as the Israeli occupation continues to wage its genocidal campaign against our people daily, in its attempt to eliminate every aspect of our collective and individual life.
Our families, colleagues, and students are being assassinated, while we have once again been rendered homeless, reliving the experiences of our parents and grandparents during the massacres and mass expulsions by Zionist armed forces in 1947 and 1948.
Our infrastructure is in ruins
Our civic infrastructure — universities, schools, hospitals, libraries, museums and cultural centres — built by generations of our people, lies in ruins from this deliberate continuous Nakba. The deliberate targeting of our educational infrastructure is a blatant attempt to render Gaza uninhabitable and erode the intellectual and cultural fabric of our society.
However, we refuse to allow such acts to extinguish the flame of knowledge and resilience that burns within us.
Allies of the Israeli occupation in the United States and United Kingdom are opening yet another scholasticide front through promoting alleged reconstruction schemes that seek to eliminate the possibility of independent Palestinian educational life in Gaza. We reject all such schemes and urge our colleagues to refuse any complicity in them.
We also urge all universities and colleagues worldwide to coordinate any academic aid efforts directly with our universities.
We extend our heartfelt appreciation to the national and international institutions that have stood in solidarity with us, providing support and assistance during these challenging times. However, we stress the importance of coordinating these efforts to effectively reopen Palestinian universities in Gaza.
We emphasise the urgent need to reoperate Gaza’s education institutions, not merely to support current students, but to ensure the long-term resilience and sustainability of our higher education system.
Education is not just a means of imparting knowledge; it is a vital pillar of our existence and a beacon of hope for the Palestinian people.
Long-term strategy essential
Accordingly, it is essential to formulate a long-term strategy for rehabilitating the infrastructure and rebuilding the entire facilities of the universities. However, such endeavours require considerable time and substantial funding, posing a risk to the ability of academic institutions to sustain operations, potentially leading to the loss of staff, students, and the capacity to reoperate.
Given the current circumstances, it is imperative to swiftly transition to online teaching to mitigate the disruption caused by the destruction of physical infrastructure. This transition necessitates comprehensive support to cover operational costs, including the salaries of academic staff.
Student fees, the main source of income for universities, have collapsed since the start of the genocide. The lack of income has left staff without salaries, pushing many of them to search for external opportunities.
Beyond striking at the livelihoods of university faculty and staff, this financial strain caused by the deliberate campaign of scholasticide poses an existential threat to the future of the universities themselves.
Thus, urgent measures must be taken to address the financial crisis now faced by academic institutions, to ensure their very survival. We call upon all concerned parties to immediately coordinate their efforts in support of this critical objective.
The rebuilding of Gaza’s academic institutions is not just a matter of education; it is a testament to our resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to securing a future for generations to come.
The fate of higher education in Gaza belongs to the universities in Gaza, their faculty, staff, and students and to the Palestinian people as a whole. We appreciate the efforts of peoples and citizens around the world to bring an end to this ongoing genocide.
We call upon our colleagues in the homeland and internationally to support our steadfast attempts to defend and preserve our universities for the sake of the future of our people, and our ability to remain on our Palestinian land in Gaza.
We built these universities from tents. And from tents, with the support of our friends, we will rebuild them once again.
This open letter by the university academics and administrators of Gaza to the world was first published by Al Jazeera. The full list of signatories is here.
For once, the waste-of-space fraud unit at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has actually caught some real-life fraudsters leeching British taxpayers out of a tidy £53.9m. So naturally, the right-wing corporate media had a field day crowing about Mel Stride’s wet wipe army’s sudden DWP benefit fraud breakthrough. Of course, there’s nothing curious about the timing at all – it’s not as if there’s an election on the horizon or anything – oh, wait.
DWP benefit fraud: a media field day
Surprise, surprise, GB Newswas all over this case of DWP benefit fraud. It reported how:
A Bulgarian gang which fraudulently claimed over £50million in Universal Credit “poked fun at the naivety” of the Department for Work and Pensions, a court has heard.
Cue the corporate media smears – with an (un)healthy dose of rancid racism thrown in for good measure. Right-wing shill Matthew Lynn was laying it on thick with the anti-migrant, benefit scrounger rhetoric. And that’s not to forget his anti-woke ‘work from home’ culture war prattle too. He wrote that:
the civil servants who are meant to monitor claims are all working from home, or attending compulsory “unconscious bias” courses, and are too terrified of accusations of xenophobia to start checking whether all the claims from Bulgarian sounding names might mean there is something fishy going on.
Naturally, the DWP press goon managed to shoehorn in the whole benefits are “too generous” steaming pile of shit to boot. Clearly he missed the memo about a key UN committee finding the UK’s benefit system is rife with “grave” and “systemic” rights violations, for the second time. Or the one about it callously cutting thousands from people’s benefits through its bullshit Universal Credit ‘mass migration’ process.
Fast-and-loose with the truth on fraud
Here’s the thing though, as the Canary has consistently reported, benefit fraud is largely non-existent – and this Bulgarian benefit fraud racket is the anomaly. For instance, the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously underscored how a sizeable proportion of the DWP’s fraud estimates are not in fact from actual claimants at all. Instead, Topple has detailed how:
much of the £8.3bn the DWP promotes as fraud (and that the media dutifully laps up) is just based on assumptions and guesswork.
Then, take Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey recently pointed out that the government’s own data found that cases of PIP fraud were next-to-nothing at just 0.1%. Funnily enough, as Charlton-Dailey also highlighted, the DWP were a little quiet on this:
When they made a massive stab-vested song and dance about DWP fraud decreasing in 2023, you have to wonder why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops that PIP fraud is now at 0%. The only conclusion to be reached is that low-or-no DWP benefit fraud doesn’t fit their narrative of how much disabled people are wasting taxpayers money. So nothing to see here.
Unfortunately then, it never actually matters that the proportion of fraud in the benefits system is infinitesimally small. What matters isn’t fact or fiction – it’s the cherry-picked, fast-and-loose with the truth that feeds their foul agenda.
But of course, there’s a more serious side to all this too. That’s because, the stream of articles from the Tories devoted media lapdogs played up its usual toxic line. Specifically, it feeds into its narrative that benefit claimants are laughing all the way to the bank. In reality, the UK’s benefit system is screwing over poor and disabled people as regularly as Tory corruption scandals brew.
The DWP are the real fraudsters
So after a two-year investigation, the DWP has “cracked down” on a four-person benefit-laundering gang. It has exposed them for fraudulent claims of £53.9m.
Meanwhile, the average salary for an employee in the DWP’s so-called ‘Targeted Case Review’ is around £30,000 a year. With plans in the works for 2,000 more ‘external agents’, the DWP has said this will swell its ranks to 6,000 employees working in fraud detection.
So chasing after the big bucks, the department will pay its benefit snoops, wait for it: £1.8bn a year. In other words, the DWP is throwing billions at recovering millions – slow-clap, long eye-roll.
At the end of the day, that’s where the money is: because it’s the DWP that’s defrauding the British taxpayer, with its ceaseless “crack down” crock of shit.
Taylor Swift fans are urging the megastar to “speak now” on Israel’s genocide in Palestine. So far, across over 30 concerts she has held since Israel began its murderous assault, Taylor hasn’t uttered a word. That is, while Swift has danced around a stage, in a storm, in her red dress, Israel has been raining down bombs and turning Gaza red with blood – and she has stayed silent. Now, Swifties For Palestine are getting “tired waiting, wondering if” she’s “ever gonna come around”.
What’s more, as Swift gears up for her tour debut in Edinburgh, her concerts there are set to push homeless people out of the city.
Fans might worship her music, but it’s time to stop idolising ultra-rich celebrities for any claims to moral acuity.
Swifties For Palestine
On May 24, Swift fan Sofia Martins draped a Palestinian flag over the balcony at the music megastar’s concert in Lisbon, Portugal.
Then, on May 29, fellow fan Robin posted an open letter to the touring musician calling on her to “speak now” on Palestine:
Robin cleverly invoked the title of Swift’s third album ‘Speak Now’ to demand the singer use her enormous platform for Palestine. In fact, in the liner notes to the album, Swift had penned:
There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you so clearly know what you need to say, you’ll know it.
I don’t think you should wait. I think you should speak now.
Admittedly, this prologue is a somewhat vapid, insular commentary on telling a boy she loves them. Ostensibly, it’s not intended as a radical, stirring call for solidarity in the face of social injustices. However, music and lyrics take on a meaning all of their own. Fans are now using her own words to tell Swift to do just as she herself once wrote.
From there, the letter instigated the hashtag ‘#SwiftiesForPalestine’ – which fans have pushed up the trending charts all across the world:
— Liam panic adopted a family from Gaza (@MsAmericslaya) May 29, 2024
At the time of publication, the singer-songwriter has yet to raise her voice on Palestine. Meanwhile however, her tour support act Paramore has issued a statement. Naturally, this has had many asking why exactly the superstar hasn’t spoken out:
Let’s get this out of the way first: I’m an unabashed Swiftie. But like others in the fan community, I am ashamed to see her perform gig after gig without the slightest mention of Gaza. So, you could say right now, “we got bad blood”.
Some fans have begun to float the feeling that it doesn’t matter if the megastar speaks now, or not. To some extent, I agree – but for wholly different reasons. For one, any statement she makes at this point, will be at best, performative. In short, speaking now would be little more than a nauseating display of grifting to her fanbase.
However, Taylor Swift actually could make a difference, if she chose to. In the past, she has made generous donations to a number of causes. Right now, she could put her money and her mouth to mutual aid. As one Swifties For Palestine pointed out, she could fund every individual Gaza crowdfunder going and barely see a dent to her fortune:
So why doesn’t she speak now, or use her vast billions to help people escaping Israel’s horrific genocide? Some have suggested that it could have something to do with her tour sponsor One Capital:
Taylor isn’t speaking out about Palestine because it’s “unsafe” she’s silent bc her tour sponsor is one of the largest sources of funding for Israeli weapon manufacturers. https://t.co/UZ5KRiOgGl
The bank holding company has previously financed notorious arms manufacturer and Israel munitions supplier Elbit Systems.
Then of course, there’s her deal with Disney. Swift has streamed her ‘Eras Tour’ on Disney+ across the globe. However, the company is a ‘pressure’ target of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Partly, this is owing to its upcoming ‘Captain America’ film. In this, a character personifies – and by extension, glorifies – apartheid Israel. Palestinian cultural institutions have called for widespread boycotts of the movie.
On top of this, the company donated $2m in support to Israel after the 7 October Hamas attacks. Conversely, it too has stayed silent as the apartheid regime continues its brutal assault on Gaza.
What’s more, during Israel’s genocidal siege, cinemas in settler-colonial state were screening Swift’s movie.
Of course, Swift wouldn’t be the first mega-rich musician to loan cultural legitimacy to murderous regimes. In the 1980s, plenty of morally vacuous musicians like Elton John, Queen, Dolly Parton, and Liza Minnelli readily broke the blanket boycott of South Africa’s apartheid state.
Granted, she hasn’t performed a gig in Israel, but her silence, coupled with the screenings, is at best, a mark of indifference to Israel’s despicable violence. At worst, it’s a tacit show of support for its genocidal actions.
Swift swoops in and leaves homelessness in her wake
Many fans have also expressed their disappointment at Taylor Swift after her purported political awakening.
Specifically, in the star’s 2020 documentary film Miss Americana, Swift regaled viewers with the tale of her journey to political activism. This referred to her decision to come out in support of the Democrats in her home state of Tennessee in 2018. Following this, she then blasted Trump on X in the 2020 elections and endorsed Biden.
In the documentary, Swift revealed her unease after years of apoliticism, saying:
I need to be on the right side of history
Yet some have suggested her silence on Gaza shows her newfound politicism is selective:
Now, her upcoming concert in Edinburgh is pitching her on the wrong side once again. As the BBCreported:
A number of homeless people have been sent out of Edinburgh to make way for tourists ahead of Taylor Swift performing in the city, BBC News has learned.
Shelter Scotland said several homeless people it supports had been sent via taxi to Aberdeen and Glasgow amid a shortage in accommodation, and one person was offered temporary accommodation as far away as Newcastle.
Essentially, Swift’s concert is causing a shortage of temporary accommodation for homeless people in the city. This is because, as the BBC explained, the council currently utilises tourist accommodation due to a lack of social rented homes.
Moreover, the BBC noted that:
campaigners fear the sheer scale of Taylor Swift’s appearance has caused a surge in demand.
Ostensibly, Swift is swooping in without consideration for the impact her concerts have on marginalised people.
Swifties For Palestine: we’ve “never heard silence quite this loud”
Swifties For Palestine are lamenting that, as Swift herself says in one number, they’ve:
never heard silence quite this loud.
After eight long, hellish months of Israeli impunity and flagrant war crimes in a literal, livestreamed genocide – that silence is unconscionably deafening.
Yet while Swift herself has kept her lips zipped tight on Israel’s ongoing abhorrent genocide, her fans have have not. By contrast, they have used the Swifties For Palestine hashtag to spread awareness, amplify mutual aid requests, and point other fans towards educational resources:
EDINBURGH SWIFTIES!
I think we have a chance to make a statement. Make Palestine bracelets, bring Palestine flags, front rows take signs!! The impact Taylor could have is insane, and we cannot let it slide.
At the end of the day, billionaires of all stripes are the embodiment of a capitalist, colonial status quo. Ultimately, it doesn’t pay to challenge the imperialistic hegemony. For those at the back – billionaires aren’t going to overhaul the injustices at the heart of the Western-dominated global economic system.
If anything, they only serve to entrench it. And Taylor Swift, with her silence on Palestine, and concerts pushing homeless people to the margins, is only more glaring evidence of this.
On Friday 24 May, 2024, I was one of the three European people released from Amygdaleza Deportation Camp, outside Athens, Greece. Nine non-Greek European passport-holders were amongst 28 people arrested on Tuesday 14 May, during a police raid of the Athens Law School, which had been declared occupied in solidarity with Palestine and in support of al-Aqsa Flood, the ongoing liberation struggle, waged by the Palestinian Resistance, since 7 October.
The occupation of the law school entailed demands for academic boycott and divestment from any affiliated parties supporting or profiting from the Zionist entity’s retaliatory genocidal warfare, witnessed by the world for the last eight months.
After a typically long and inconvenient detention and arrest procedure, followed by a night in the cell, all 28 defendants were declared free to go from the Evelpidon Courthouse, the next day – Nakba Day – pending a postponed hearing for charges of disturbing the peace.
Upon the adjournment of the session, however, the police continued to cuff and detain the nine non-Greek European passport holders and conspired to lie to the legal representatives that the 9 people were required to return to the central police head quarters, where their documents would be checked to determine the ‘legitimacy’ of their presence on Greek territory.
The deception of the ‘law enforcers’ was quickly realised due to the direction of travel; soon, the bus transporting the nine arrived at Allodipon, the immigration processing centre.
Through extrapolation of the circumstances and rumours, the nine people gleaned the possibility they may be facing deportation, although this was never formally expressed by any police official and was only confirmed upon the visitation of lawyers.
Beginning Wednesday 15 May – Nakba Day – the nine people were detained under administrative detention at Amygdaleza Deportation Camp. The subsequent Saturday, all nine people were handed deportation orders, which are currently being challenged; the administrative detention was also appealed. On Friday 24, three people were released from detention, while six remain, awaiting a response, which is anticipated to be delivered on Monday 27 May.
The judge handling my case made their decision quicker than the others, which we were advised could happen. Many of us have visited the various detention camps and centres around Athens, before. Many of our friends have also been held inside such camps. But, it is a different to have been processed and detained, and then to leave the reality behind. I feel sick with rage.
Not just for the comrades with European passports – if they let me out, the others are smooth sailing. But there are many others who’ll spend much longer, under worse conditions, awaiting their fate.
The nine of us were separated from the general population, secluded to a segregated container compound, closed off at each end with barbed wire fencing, we suspected this had something to do with our status as ‘unwanted aliens’ who present a ‘threat to national security’. Seclusion was also no doubt due to fears we’d be exposed to the realities and conditions experienced by non-white, non-European people, despite the aforementioned, preexisting knowledge and interactions with these institutions, which has also been well documented by refugees and migrants.
We had air conditioning, hot water, food delivered by a supportive network of comrades, lawyers on call, access to our phones. While inside, I learned in some camps the police remove inbuilt cameras completely from electronic devices belonging to detained people. Our period of detention was tainted with rage due to this shared understanding of the realities for others.
I received the news that I would be free, while I was on the phone to Abdullah, a friend of mine who lives in Gaza. We had not talked for a while. He conveyed his deep faith in Allah, his family’s resolve to remain, and of course the urgency and necessity of raising funds to survive the unimaginable reality of genocide enacted by the imperialist-backed Zionist entity. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has amplified and donated to his fundraiser.
The place in which Abdullah and his family are currently located, there is nothing; no infrastructure, just tents and makeshift living environments. The IOF-guarded and polluted sea is the only source of water.
His family’s survival is indeed by the grace of God.
Bathing in the sea, eating scarcely, drinking less. Sick, tired and exhausted. Physically and mentally drained. Witness to unspeakable atrocities. We strained a conversation through bad network reception; me from the camp, Abudllah from a particularly exposed and dangerous location. We talked about the fundraiser; how to amplify it; the complications with international money transfers; fundraiser accessibility issues for his Arabic speaking colleagues.
The lawyer said me and two others would be free to go in a few hours. I was interrupted during a precious phone call; we don’t know when – or if – the next one will occur. Abdullah said he would go, to be “safer” – he was at increased risk in the area where internet access can approximately be found. He reiterated the need to purchase an e-sim compatible phone and hung up.
The time came for me to leave the camp. Leave the others behind. Leave the 40 men from various non-European countries, cramped in the containers running parallel to ours, who announced a collective hunger strike in recent days.
The European comrades I left behind have also announced a hunger strike, following the decision to release just three of us today. Like the 40 other detainees, the demands of the hunger strike pertain to the living conditions in the camp, the random and repressive structure of administrative detention and the release of those who remain.
Medical negligence, withholding food, nutritionally-insufficient meals, arbitrary rules and abuse of power as a vehicle for psychological abuse; we experienced all these punitive measures and rights violations in 11 days of administrative detention. For us, it was 11 days. Some will spend months, years… When I think “11 days”, May 2021 comes to mind. Saif al-Quds, the 11-day battle sparked by the Unity Intifada, a collective uprising that erupted across Gaza, West Bank, and inside ‘48, duo to the increased colonial violence in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
While being held under administrative detention, I thought of my friend Khalid.
I met Khalid through We Are Not Numbers, an initiative in Gaza that provides training and workshops in creative writing, digital journalism, videography and presentation skills. Participants in Gaza and journalists aboard are paired up through a mentorship scheme. I was incredibly lucky to be introduced to Khaled, who had written an article about the Occupation’s use of administrative detention. I learnt then, how the Occupation entangles Palestinian prisoners in an endless loop of torturous incarceration.
At present almost 10,000 Palestinian people – men, women and children – suffer under Zionist lock and key, a number which increased exponentially since 7 October. Prisoners are the compass of the struggle, negotiating their release was one of the principle motivating factors behind the inception of al-ِAqsa flood.
In November, 2023, and multiple times since, the Resistance has indeed been victorious in forcing the Occupation to liberate streams of prisoners, including high profile people like Israa Jaabis. The release of the imprisoned exposed the horrors of detention.
Needless to say, knowing the extent of abuse Palestinians face at the hands of their jailer made my detention at Amygdaleza practically inconsequential.
As I departed the camp, I scrolled through the Resistance News Network; the occupation extended the administrative detention of Wissam Abu Zeid, a Palestinian resistance fighter from the Jenin Brigades, for a further four months. Abu Zeid has been imprisoned since Zionist soldiers failed to assassinate him, almost three years ago. Resistance in the West Bank, and especially in Jenin, has exploded in response to increased IOF invasions, since 7 October.
For those who are not martyred while actively fighting for Palestine, the Occupation prisons – referred to as ‘slaughterhouses’ – are often the locations of slow and painful deaths due to torture, medical negligence, poor sanitation and ‘food’ that is better described as a health hazard. For all these reasons and more, Palestinian prisoners have long harnessed hunger striking as a form of protest, reclaiming their right to bodily autonomy in defiance of the Occupation’s grip on their freedom.
Since 7 October, regimes around the world have resorted to myriad repressive tactics to silence Palestinians and the voices of their allies. Arrest, brutality, torture, administrative detention and deportation have been wielded with increased frequency. Deportation and displacement are weapons of repression straight from by the Zionist playbook.
Since the waves of al-Aqsa Flood engulfed the world, Palestinians from Gaza have been detained in both the West Bank and ’48, with random releases and transfers back to Gaza taking place; hundreds of martyrs have ascended due to torture, malnutrition and medical negligence. Inside Gaza, vicious collective punishment has led to consistent scenes of mass kidnapping, humiliation and execution of civilians.
Mass graves continue to be discovered, revealing decomposing bodies with their hands tied behind their back; wrist ties for babies, children and adults have been unearthed from shallow graves, pitifully covered.
In the weeks before the Athens Law School action, the Hellenic police had cracked down severely on all and any expressions of solidarity with Palestine. On one occasion the mass detention of 42 people from solidarity gatherings outside the courthouse and the police HQ shocked the movement in Athens, highlighting, with utmost clarity, the need to assemble and organise in strong and protective numbers. One arrest followed the detention of 42, which was a pathetic move, aiming to deter and criminalise support for victims of the police state’s fascistic behaviour.
The strategy of deportation is now being leveraged by repressive regimes across the world; last year, Jerusalem-born, French-Palestinian, Saleh Hamouri, was deported to France for his consistent resistance to colonial subjugation in Palestine. This marked a significant shift and revived the spotlight, internationally, on the illegal practice of deportation and the denial of the right to return. The lack of action from the international community and the direct collaboration between the Zionist entity and European regimes has now seen this silencing strategy spread to the European continent.
In recent months, Samidoun Network have launched campaigns for Mohammed al-Khatib and Zaid Abdul-Nassr, who risk the revocation of their residency and refugee statuses, as well as deportation, from Belgium and Germany, respectively.
In Jordan, after weeks of mass mobilisation in support of the Palestinian Resistance have triggered continued police sweeps. Various people were taken hostage by Jordanian authorities, crystalising the traitorous and normalising attitude of the Kingdom and it’s complicity with Zionism.
For Jordanians citizens, the ramifications are bad, but for the refugee community, especially Syrian refugees, who have been ostracised, mistreated and segregated from Jordanian society, the threat of deportation back to a hostile homeland is enough to trigger hunger strikes. Syrian nationals, Wael al-Ashi and Atiya Abu Salem, are just two of the people holding refugee status who face the reality of deportation. Last week, Abu Salem comitted to a hunger strike in protest, as our comrades in Amygdaleza.
Now, retaliation for Palestinian advocacy has become widespread, regardless of nationality, country of origin or documentation. Greece has entered the conversation with its recent move to deceptively administratively detain nine European passport holders, and threaten them with deportation. The decision to do so is, of course, not a deterrent for determined strugglers, but a catalyst for robust resistance and refusal to submit to techniques of silencing.
While we witness the same fascist and intolerant practice rolling out across continents, it’s crucial to remember the impact will never be the same for everyone. Deporting Europeans back to France, Italy, Spain, the U.K and even Germany is a mere inconvenience, as opposed to a fearful prospect with deathly potential. In the US, international students participating in university campus uprisings are also increasingly facing threats to their immigration status and visas.
During our time at Amydaleza, the authorities withheld food, refused access to visitors from outside, enacted medical negligence, prevented access to doctors, psychological support and other basic rights. Despite this, there was an ever-present cognizance of the dramatically different effect these abuses of power can have.
The role Egypt plays in besieging Gazans, for example, through the application of restrictions on goods, services and rights violations. The decision of Egyptian authorities to prevent aid and access to Gaza has exacerbated the impact of the Occupation’s maniacal obliteration of all life-sustaining infrastructure, including disabling the healthcare system through incessantly bombing hospitals.
Waves of starvation and sickness have spread rapidly across the strip due to Egypt’s prevention of aid and healthcare. This, twinned with the policies of extortion and bribery amounting to human trafficking, perpetrated at the Rafah crossing by the spineless Sisi regime, condemns Palestinians to confront their murderous oppressor with no way out.
This despicable cheapening of Palestinian life contradicts the vast sums of money demanded for emergency evacuation through Rafah. This exorbitant cruelty puts a price tag on the right to seek safety from genocide, to the tune of thousands of dollars, depending on the size of families wishing to leave.
The cost is inhumane and inconceivable, especially for a population of people who’ve spent eight months livestreaming their mass murder to little effect. The millions of social media followers who have borne witness, digitally, to the genocide are now rallying to share fundraisers, which aim expressly to raise money for the corrupted movement of people.
These fundraisers are a veritable point of contention – from calls to boycott Zionist Go Fund Me, to abhorrent reports of disingenuous people stealing funds they assisted in raising – the fundraising last resort accentuates the crucial need to destroy and build alternative’s to the pervasive hegemony of racial capitalism.
The tentacular spread of fascism, emanating from the beastly body of imperialism, grows audaciously each time the popular masses submit to repressive control by ‘authorities’ and governments. These entities pacify and condition their citizens – beneficiaries of exploitation – while scrambling to protect their economic and political interests. But, increased repression with always entail increased resistance. The call to escalate for Palestine is echoing around the world, strengthened by each reverberation.
Actions and movements aiming to break international support and involvement in the genocide are increasing, not only in frequency, but also in militancy. As the wider axis of armed resistance across the Arab world continues to overwhelm the capabilities of the Occupation Forces, it is the duty of every person outside Palestine to heed the calls of the Palestinian people and their resistance.
Now is the time to locate our positionalities in the struggle for collective liberation and to act upon our revolutionary duties. By any means necessary, we owe it to the Palestinian people to sacrifice and defy our personal, social, vocational, economical and political involvement in genocide.
Actions speak louder than words, but never forget: silence is violence – don’t stop talking about Palestine.
Electoral democracy, like the upcoming general election, functions as it was made to: as a tool for maintaining a power establishment, and to preserve those who move within it. It is also perhaps true that periodic elections are the strongest pillar of the illusion (and convenient fiction) that democratic processes are completely free and fair. But is this always the case – especially with candidates like Jeremy Corbyn?
General election: voting for the prize hen of the corporate class
Public discourse in the run up to an election is at best biased and at worst propagandist manipulation. Such malignant narrative management makes it impossible for people to reach an informed choice based upon impartial and accurate data, a forebear of sustained democratic health.
Media and political broadcasting corral people into marching formation to vote for the prize hen of the corporate class. Another aspect of deleterious corruption suggesting democracy is only notional is the fact of enduring relationships between super rich donors, politicians and party leaderships, the secretive, protected lobbying industry.
Electing people who end up making policy reflecting the influence and needs of corporations, rather than public needs, is not meaningfully democratic.
The existence of corporate lobbying and the democratic dysfunction it creates suggests that the surface rift between the main parties in the UK bipartisan system is illusory.
Both teams are unified at the core by clear contempt for the sovereignty of parliament and the sovereignty of the public, an attitude blatantly obvious to anyone observing the recent deluge of dangerous anti democratic and illiberal policy.
Corbyn launched a sea change
All those moving in the corridors of power, regardless of party affiliation, share tendencies to neglect public interest issues, seldom pursuing the common good. Significant numbers of politicians breach the parameters of parties, the bipartisan divide, in shared pursuit of a narrow calculus of self interest.
As a result most policies benefit only the upper and corporate classes, far removed from addressing concerns of everyday people.
Jeremy Corbyn’s ascent to Labour Party leader in 2015, a shock result, was sunny with the promise of deep reform to this flawed, failing system. He galvanised one of the most vibrant, hopeful, and inspiring examples of a powerful popular resistance movement in recent British political history.
His ascent heralded a new era of rehabilitation for original, founding Labour values, a mission to bring the soul and substance of the party back to life. This was a promising time in which mass enfranchisement significantly expanded, particularly amongst a hitherto apolitical youth constituency, driving a profound forward shift in political consciousness, political literacy, and social awareness.
Corbyn’s tenacity, resilience, and grace in dealing with a vile, relentless smear campaign marks him out as a person who leads by example, with more integrity in his little finger than most politicians have in their entire body.
Starmer: coiled up in the corporate corruption
Should his successor Keir Starmer command a victory in the upcoming general election, the only thing we can look forward to with any certainty is the continuing retrenchment of the ideals, values and altruism Corbyn symbolised.
A glimpse into Starmer’s professional history helps us understand why and how he became the reactionary figure he is recognised as today by many leftists.
His professional timeline began, promisingly, as a senior human rights lawyer, with a vast portfolio of casework relating to human rights abuse, which he tended to conclude successfully and according to the path of justice.
However, when he was later appointed as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, it turned out to be a juncture in his career in which he gravitated heavily in the direction of serving the empire, phasing out his earlier orientation in human rights activism.
Such seniority, power and authority in an office that is an auxiliary and subsidiary of the crown inevitably corrupted the man. Many decisions made by the CPS during his tenure have proved questionable at best, downright sinister and dubious at worst.
One suspects that if all the truth were told about Starmer’s intentions, that he is a composite element in the ongoing attack on socialism and the working class, that he is as coiled up in corruption as the conservatives, his opinion poll advantages would collapse, as well as the pledge of votes he has marshalled.
A vote for Corbyn may well not be wasted
To conclude, the aggregate result in a general election, such as the one we are about to face in the UK, is not necessarily a vote of approval for, or confidence in, those who attain power, despite the declarations of politicians that it shows people trust them.
Deep down many voters don’t believe those they vote for deserve a mandate, and recognise them as reactionary, but vote anyway, to assert what’s left of the slim bargaining power of the vote.
The peril to the establishment of Corbyn is that he explicitly sought to fix and reform this dysfunctional political system, whose dysfunction benefits elites.
The real story of how he “failed” is not that he lacked political competence, but that he was subject to a deep, coordinated attack, to neutralise the existential threat he posed to the status quo, even from within his own party.
Ultimately, to topple the status quo we must go beyond merely voting in a general election. However, voting is completely justified where the candidate is a threat to the status quo. There is one running in Islington North.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has declared he is a socialist and a progressive.
No laughing at the back please.
Tony Benn was a socialist.
Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist.
Robert Owen was a socialist.
Nye Bevan was a socialist.
Diane Abbott is a socialist.
Keir Starmer is a Tory fraud.
Starmer: a neoliberal Trojan horse
Of course, Starmer isn’t the first centre-right neoliberal Trojan horse to rebrand their snake oil as a palatable medicine of hope for the masses.
I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality.
that was Tony Blair’s maiden speech in the House of Commons, 1983.
You see, Keir Starmer can call himself a socialist in the same way I can call myself an astronaut, an Olympic gold medalist, or even the 15th Dalai Lama in-waiting. But without a shred of meaningful evidence to support my claims I cannot expect anyone to take them seriously.
Around about now, raging little Starmerrhoids will be searching the darkest corners of the internet to prove their socialist, soft left, social democrat, liberal centrist, conservative with a small “c”, neo-Thatcherite, Farage-approved flag-shagging slosh bucket of a leader did actually once stand on a picket line at Paddington.
If such a thing does exist you would do well to make sure the mundane plonker isn’t waiting to be served at Pret.
Never forget where he’s coming from
We won’t ever forget when Keir Starmer — seeking left-wing votes during the 2020 Labour leadership election — turned up to ‘support’ striking McDonalds employees, agreeing with their demand for a £15 an hour wage.
“I’m really pleased to be here this morning supporting the staff at McDonald’s, and they’re not asking for the Earth, they’re asking for the basics – £15 an hour”, said Starmer, lying through his teeth as always.
Just a year later, shadow employment rights secretary, Andy McDonald, quit in protest at being told to argue AGAINST a national minimum wage of… £15 per hour.
No part of the Overton Window is safe from a Starmer solidarity encampment. How long will it be before Starmer discusses his profound revolutionary communism in an interview with the new Labour MP for Tel Aviv South, Tommy Robinson?
What part of Keir Starmer’s socialism thought it was fair game for Israel to withhold water and power from the people of Gaza? Is this wretched, opportunistic chameleon for real?
What part of Keir Starmer’s socialism thinks it is a good idea to employ failed Tory policies to confront and conquer the numerous Tory crises left behind after fourteen years of Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and little Rishi Sunak?
Changing your shirt when you’ve shit your trousers
The desperation of the British people to get shot of the Tories is utterly palpable. But getting rid of Sunak and replacing him with Starmer is like changing your shirt when you have shit your trousers.
An uncomfortable part of me still expects Starmer to quietly agree with Sunak’s ridiculously rushed national service plan.
I can picture these kids being dragged off to some military camp with Prime Minister Keith standing in the background telling a reporter how a bit of conscription before the Battle of the Home Counties never did his old man any harm, and probably made him the renowned toolmaker that he was.
Keir Starmer is not a socialist. I can’t believe I even need to say that. He is an accomplice, not an antagonist, because he is one of their own. Appealing to jingoism with union jacks might work for some, but it does nothing for me.
The Labour Party will be fielding three former Conservative MP’s at the general election on 4 July. No socialist would welcome Natalie Elphicke into their party.
What is the point in talking about Labour’s so-called “broad church” when the cathedral is blatantly positioned in the centre and only actively encourages and welcomes parishioners in from the right while using every undemocratic power within its means to turf out the left?
These factional degenerates that support the ignoble and contemptible Starmer hate socialists more than Tories because their anti-state, pro-big business, fuck human rights ideology is a million miles closer to the Tories than it will ever be to those of us with a social conscience.
Starmer, you ain’t no socialist bro
I am a socialist. The word may well have been sullied by the establishment media, but when have they ever told the truth? I cannot give my vote to a man and a party that has done more to attack socialism and socialists than the Conservatives.
The 93-year-old Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers was absolutely right when they declared the anti-socialist Keir Starmer as “unfit for membership”.
A motion passed at the society’s annual meeting condemned the Labour leader as ‘demonstrably not a socialist’. Among the items on the charge sheet were ‘appalling policy positions’, ‘his behaviour over schools during the pandemic’ and ‘his inaction over abuse of transgender people’.
You ain’t no socialist, bro.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask how a young socialist lawyer went from being massively critical of paramilitary policing methods in 1986 to working tirelessly in later years to shield the police from facing accountability, do you? Starmer was (and still is) a servant of the security state.
In the same breath, I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask how a young socialist of apparently working class origins ended up espousing policies barely distinguishable from those of his Conservative opponents, do you?
Power without principles
There’s a long answer, of course, and I’m sure a few of the numerous new left media outlets have covered it. But they need a parliamentary press pass, so they will dilute the truth to keep the politicians on side.
I don’t have such issues, so I’ll give you the short answer.
Power without principles. The fastest route to the top is to abandon any sense of morality, and that is why Keir Starmer is seen by the establishment as a safe pair of hands while the Tory party does a bit of soul searching and gets its shit together.
Keir Starmer, a socialist? This is taking gaslighting to a whole new level.
It’s not been a good first week of general election campaigning for Rishi, has it? Along with an abysmal few days full of embarrassing press moments, he seems to have been deserted by all his pals in the cabinet. What other explanation can there be for how much the DWP‘s wet wipe Mel Stride – MP for Devon Central – and his annoying face has been all over TV?
It’s no secret that I cannot stand the secretary of state for the Department for Works and Pensions. The Tory goon has spent the past two years fearmongering about workshy scroungers who are committing benefit fraud and coming to steal your pensions.
At best he’s another over-privileged tosser who’s never had to worry a day in his life. At worst, he’s an evil pathetic little man who seems hell-bent on destroying disabled people’s lives with his disgusting policies and constant dangerous rhetoric.
Rishi no mates
So imagine my glee when I discovered, whilst I was preparing to write this, that ol’ wet wipe had been gurning all over the breakfast media circuit yesterday morning.
You can really tell how little the Tories want to be associated with Rishi when the person being whored out to the media the most (second only to Cleverley) is someone who most reporters would’ve gone “Who?” about a year ago. Whilst he may be called a ‘top Tory’ by some papers, if you look at the cabinet homepage he’s not even in the top 10. The DWP boss is all the way down at ranking number 16.
Ever Rishi’s faithful little gimp, Mel, was across all manner of media – and the word vomit just kept coming.
DWP Mel’s daily gaff dump
When LBC’s Nick Ferrari asked him if he could rule out any announcements on income tax thresholds he smarmed, ‘It isn’t for me to start announcing policy on the hoof.’ which is weird because that’s exactly what he seems to be doing with anything concerning the DWP and disabled people.
On BBC Breakfast he said there’d be no sanctions for parents of kids who don’t want to do national service. It took all of six seconds for him to contradict himself and say the government would be looking into incentives and sanctions.
But his really truly inspired moment came when he decided to pull out a totally original nickname for Keir Starmer.
Absolutely nee banter
He told Kay Burley:
‘He should debate with the prime minister every week and we should be applying that scrutiny so we can actually find out what No Idea Keir is all about’
When Kay congratulated him on it he desperately said ‘I made that up this morning did you like it?’ exactly like a sad little yes man yearning for daddy’s approval would.
Well if we’re doing ‘clever’ nicknames Mel you already know I’ve got one for you – and a new slogan to go along with it too. Having previously branded him the Human Wet Wipe, I today would officially like to gift you all with a new campaign idea.
It’s time to bin the DWP wet wipe, Devon Central
What is clear is that Mel’s got about as much chance of being in charge of the DWP in two months’ time as the amount of disability benefit fraud was committed last year – almost zero.
However, there is still a very very slim chance that he could still be an MP after the next election. I say ‘very very’ because Electoral Calculus currently puts his chances of holding onto his seat in Devon Central at just 17% (though EC has been wrong before.)
There’s nothing the rest of us can do now but urge the people of Devon Central to vote this fucker out.
Judge him on his voting record not just his shite jokes
This is a man who has consistently voted for the privatisation of the post office, raising uni fees, and against LGBTQ+ rights. Some other things he’s against are landlords having to pay to make their buildings safe, stronger fire safety measures, and even improving air quality.
On the DWP and welfare he consistently voted for the bedroom tax, reducing welfare spending, and increasing the state pension age. He voted against giving those with long-term disabilities or illnesses that mean they can’t work a higher rate over the years. He also voted against raising DWP benefits in line with inflation.
In parliament, he voted to reduce local government funding and against local governments having more power. And in his own constituency, he has been accused of not holding surgeries and forgetting his constituents in order to rise up the ranks of government. On that last point, I can’t help but agree.
You know what to do Devon
This is a man who is desperate to cling to power that he doesn’t care how many disabled lives he ruins on the way. But his time is ending, as it is for hopefully most Tories.
So Devon Central this all rests on you now. Surely you don’t want this man sticking around for another four years?
There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.
Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.
The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.
Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.
The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.
Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.
Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.
Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.
But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.
Green MP Teanau Tuiono (left) with organiser Ena Manuireva at the Mā’ohi Lives Matter solidarity rally at Auckland University of Technology in 2021. Image: David Robie/APR
Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.
But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.
As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.
Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.
But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.
There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.
Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.
But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.
Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.
However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.
Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.
New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.
The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.
Kanaky Au Pouvoir.
Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
With the Labour Party enjoying a strong lead in the polls ahead of the general election, many people are watching what Wes Streeting says closely about the NHS. After all, he hopes to become our next secretary of state for health and social care in a matter of weeks, and he’s certainly not the quiet, retiring type.
In fact, he has a particular style of communication which has emerged over the past year or so, and I thought I’d explain what I’ve observed.
Wes Streeting: a journalist’s dream – especially for the right
Wes Streeting is a journalist’s dream, because he makes bold statements which lend themselves to the sort of inflammatory headlines which drive a huge amount of outrage, clicks, and ad revenue. Streeting has also been interviewed by a whole range of media outlets in recent months, which allegedly span the range of the political spectrum.
This, in itself, is incredibly revealing. We’re meant to believe that certain media outlets have a politically progressive editorial agenda, when they’re printing very similar content and opinion pieces to some proudly right-wing publications.
I’ve been campaigning for the NHS for almost a decade now, and I’ve learnt that politicians have different styles when they want to convince us that they will save the NHS.
For many years now, politicians have undermined the NHS through the policies they have pushed through parliament, and through budgetary restraints that they have intentionally enacted. Meanwhile, they have enabled the proliferation of privatisation in various ways, and there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that it has helped.
During this time, however, those in charge have been keen to tell the public that they are doing these things to help, and that their actions are in the best interests of the public and the future of the NHS.
The personas of health secretaries
Each health secretary has taken on a different persona; a political personality.
Matt Hancock liked to be seen as a nice guy. He’d tell us that he loved the NHS, and seemed to take every opportunity to associate himself with the service, in a bid to bask in the glow of its public support.
Sajid Javid had a tougher approach; he seemed to like pitching himself as a sensible person who was willing to have the tough conversations that others avoided.
Wes Streeting’s persona is different to both of these, and all of the other recent health secretaries too. In fact, it’s a persona which only seems to emerge in reaction to other things, other people, who he sees as threats.
He is very keen to impress upon us that he is not afraid of any of these imaginary threats, and will fight them (presumably on our behalf?).
Streeting likes to tell us that he’s unafraid of pushing back on trade unions, and he would like you to know that he “won’t give in” to striking NHS workers who are fighting for a fair wage.
He received a lot of attention recently when he attacked “middle class lefties”, who he is concerned are somehow trying to thwart his planned revival of the NHS.
Those pesky trade unions, and NHS workers holding our crumbling health service together, and politically active members of our society who are advocating for an end to profit-creation within public healthcare! If any of these groups feel irksome to you, then don’t worry, Streeting’s on the case!
Streeting: NHS privatisation via the backdoor
However, the case he is actually making, when it comes down to it, is to involve more privatisation in the NHS, which he claims will help to bring down the waiting lists.
The waiting lists are terrifyingly long, even longer than they were when Rishi Sunak pledged to reduce them back in January 2023, with around 7.5 million cases currently awaiting treatment. It therefore makes perfect sense for any new government to tackle the situation.
However, Streeting has the wrong approach.
The private healthcare sector does not have any meaningful “spare capacity” to save the NHS, and the vast majority of doctors working in the private healthcare sector in the UK have NHS jobs too. If Labour wins the next election and expands the workload of the private sector, this will simply result in private healthcare companies poaching (yet more) NHS staff to do the work.
For months now, NHS campaigners have been speaking up about this, because the plan simply isn’t logical, and we haven’t been alone.
If Wes Streeting wants to be taken seriously as a future health and social care secretary, and truly wants to rebuild the NHS, he needs to have a re-think.
Firstly, he and Keir Starmer need to change their plans, because their bid to increase NHS privatisation isn’t going to help patients.
Secondly, Streeting needs to stop attacking the people who are holding the NHS together, and those fighting for its future too.
The coverage by the New Zealand media over the brutal crackdown in New Caledonia by the French on the indigenous Kanak people as they erupted in protest at France’s naked gerrymandering of electoral law has been depressingly shallow.
To date most mainstream NZ media (with the exception RNZ Pacific, Māori media and the excellent David Robie) have been focused on getting scared Kiwi tourists back home, very few have actually explained what the hell has been going on.
This sudden eruption of protest follows a corrupt new draft law French law allowing French people to vote after only 10 years living there.
A typical NZ media headline during the New Caledonia crisis . . . trapped Kiwis repirted, but not the cause of the independence upheaval. Image: NZ Herald screenshot APR
This law is a direct attack on Kanak sovereignty, it’s a purely gerrymandering response to ensure a democratic majority to prevent any independence referendum.
Pacific civil society and solidarity groups today stepped up their pressure on the French government, accusing it of a “heavy-handed” crackdown on indigenous Kanak protest in New Caledonia, comparing it to Indonesian security forces crushing West Papuan dissent.
A state of emergency was declared last week, at least [seven] people have been killed — [five] of them indigenous Kanaks — and more than 200 people have been arrested after rioting in the capital Nouméa followed independence protests over controversial electoral changes
In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association declared it was standing in solidarity with the Kanak people in their self-determination struggle against colonialism.
Don’t stand idly by
We should not as a Pacific Island nation be standing idly by while the French are giving the indigenous people the bash.
We need to be asking what the hell has France’s elite troops being doing while no one is watching. The New Zealand government must ask the French Ambassador in and put our concerns to them directly.
Calm must come back but there has to be a commitment to the 1998 Noumea Accord which clearly stipulates that only the Kanak and long-term residents prior to 1998 would be eligible to vote in provincial ballots and local referendums.
To outright vote against this as the French National Assembly did last week is outrageous and will add an extra 25,000 voters into the election dramatically changing the electoral demographics in New Caledonia to the disadvantage of indigenous Kanaks who make up 42 percent of the 270,000 population.
This was avoidable, but the French are purposely trying to screw the scrum and rig the outcome.
We should be very clear that is unacceptable.
Our very narrow media focus on just getting Kiwis out of New Caledonia with no reflection whatsoever on what the French are doing is pathetic.
And we’re off! This week, of course, saw Rishi finally put his big boy pants on and call a general election – which conveniently buried a load of news about the DWP.
General election shambles
It was an utterly baffling decision for everyone. Not only are the Tories further behind in the polls than ever but the little snake gave everyone just a few hour’s notice. Even poor ole pig fucker David Cameron was getting some bizarre dictator-style welcome in Albania that he had to call off.
And now we’re seeing the absolute shambles that is Rishi’s campaign playing out. In the first few days of the campaign alone we’ve seen him:
Of course, we know what the Tories love doing more than anything else is burying news that makes them look bad, and this is especially true for anything DWP-or disability-related.
So whilst they’re shitting themselves in public and hoping we don’t go looking at the real issues, here I am to bring them to the front – not the front Rishi wants our teenagers on though.
Human rights watchdog investigating if the DWP are murderers
Way back on Wednesday morning – before Rishi stood in the pissing rain – it was announced that the EHRC would be launching an inquiry into DWP treatment of disabled benefits claimants. There would be a particular focus on DWP benefits deaths, which is interesting when the new policy would cause far more deaths.
It’s interesting this was rushed out on the same day that the will-he won’t-he tension reached a fever pitch. This meant any reporting on the watchdog holding the DWP to account was as drowned out as Rishi was by Steve Bray’s sound system.
Only fraudsters are the ones in the cabinet
While the government and especially the DWP have been fearmongering about benefit fraud and cracking down on disability benefits for months, their own figures found that there was almost no cases of disability benefit fraud last year.
That’s right, the government’s own data found that in the financial year ending in April 2024, there was 0% PIP fraud, while DLA stood at 0.1%. Universal Credit overpayments still stand at 10.9% – however, this is down from 11.4% last year.
When they made a massive stab-vested song and dance about DWP fraud decreasing in 2023, you have to wonder why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops that PIP fraud is now at 0%. The only conclusion to be reached is that low-or-no DWP benefit fraud doesn’t fit their narrative of how much disabled people are wasting taxpayers money. So nothing to see here.
DWP snooping thrown out of the Lords on a technicality
This last one is a bit of good news for disabled people. For the past few months the DWP and government have been trying to push through the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
The proposed bill would allow the DWP to snoop on the bank accounts of anyone in receipt of benefits and anyone connected to them. It would mean the government scrutinising what you spend your benefits on and using that to take them away.
The bill had already passed through the Commons, but thanks to the rules around general election season it has fallen foul to ‘wash up’ season and been binned off. Let’s hope it’s gone for good
They don’t want you to talk about it – so let’s shout instead
Whilst Rishi and his lot come up with the shittest ideas possible and Labour come back with even shitter banter, it’s important that DWP news like this doesn’t get forgotten.
One of my favourite things about disabled people is our sense of humour. When you’ve been in the gallows for as long as us there’s nothing else for it. But in amongst the laughing at terrible Tories and endless memes, we also need to keep informing people of theirs and the DWP’s incompetence and lies.
The Tories are trying to make disabled people the enemy of the electorate, but we’re louder and funnier than you fuckers.
We have arrived at that place. A general election. The one where our two main political parties are campaigning to see who’s going to be burying the bodies of the people their policies kill.
The Tories have proven over the last 14 years that they don’t give a shit about anyone who is disabled, trans, not British, mentally ill, young, old or poor. Basically, if you’re not an Oxbridge educated, racist, corrupt prick who likes to avoid paying their taxes – you’re pretty screwed.
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition has made more U-turns than a drunk guy on a unicycle. From scrapping the two-child limit, tuition fees, and renationalising our public services, to blocking new oil and gas exploration in the north sea.
But here’s the thing. As a proud Gen Z, people have told countless times over the years that I have to tolerate, or even be friends with, people who have opposing political opinions to me. Honestly, I’ve always agreed. I’ve never even thought about it too much. Everyone disagrees sometimes, right?
Who lives and who dies
However, recently a sense of hopelessness has struck me. Somewhere along the line, we moved away from discussing – and even disagreeing – about politics, to disagreeing on fundamental morals and human rights.
When did our politicians stop asking ‘how are we going to solve this issue?’
Why is the new default ‘should we even bother trying to solve this issue?’
Why do the looney tunes in charge get to decide who lives and who dies? How does the colour of my skin and where I was born mean my life is more valuable than children in the Middle East?
Basic human rights should not be a political issue. Clearly they are – now more than ever before – but they shouldn’t be. It’s so much more than politics. It’s literal life and death.
Sneaky and calculated or downright cruel?
Currently, our main two political parties are condoning the murder of Palestinians in the name of colonialism. There are literal disabled people dying because the government doesn’t give a shit about systematically screwing them over. Meanwhile Labour made zero mention of disabled people in their pre-election pledges.
If one of my close friends told me they were voting Tory – I wouldn’t be angry. I’d be sad, but mainly disappointed. To me, that says they’re okay with Israel needlessly killing Palestinian children. It says they’re okay with systematically excluding disabled people. It says they’re okay with young people literally killing themselves because they can’t access mental health care.
As someone who has personally experienced homelessness, it tells me they don’t have a problem with thousands of people sleeping on the streets every night. That becomes even more of a problem when you realise that homelessness is a political choice. Which they proved during Covid, bringingeveryone inside practically overnight.
And getting really honest for a minute – voting Labour isn’t much better. Unless it’s tactical to keep the Tories out. Because whilst they might appear on the surface to be a little less cruel – many of their policies will have the exact same impact as the last 14 years of Tory hell.
Not so Great Britain
At some point, politics stopped being about politics. The muppets in charge changed the game. From being about who could create the most well-thought-out policies and making the country a better place to live in. To one which they trivialise suffering and question people’s value.
Maybe it’s naive of me to expect any less from a bunch of overpaid pillocks. But I don’t believe its naive for Gen Z’s to dream of a country where the core values of our politicians – and consequently the people voting for them – are not questioned every two minutes.
“You’re joking. Not another one? Oh for God’s sake… I can’t stand this”.
Brenda, Bristol.
It’s another general election
Twenty points behind in the polls, an absolute drubbing at the local elections that were held just three weeks ago, and half of their candidates are yet to be selected. Don’t let anyone tell you that an expensive private education and a job with Goldman Sachs somehow makes Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak more intelligent than your average Joe Bloggs.
Sure, polls can narrow, and local election turnouts are usually considerably less than the turnout at a general election, but even the most ardent of Tory voter knows there is very little prospect of Britain voting for a man that can’t even announce a general election without it turning into a rain-drenched farce.
Unlike the previous two general elections, Keir Starmer will be the main beneficiary of a massive anti-Tory vote.
But this isn’t an election like we experienced in 2017 and 2019. This isn’t really a battle of red versus blue. This illusion of democracy is no more than a baton handover.
I supported and voted for Labour at the last two general elections. But the thought of supporting and voting for this grotesque variant of the Conservative Party leaves me feeling like a half-cut Speedo-clad Nigel Farage has just jumped in my bath and offered to scrub my back without using his hands.
Eating breakfast? You’re very welcome.
Who are the Tory enablers?
If I was to put a penny in a jar for each and every time a new New Labour patriot called me a “Tory enabler”, or told me I was gifting Sunak “another five years of Tory rule”, I would most probably have enough to fund Starmer’s ten pledges, six fixes, five missions and the utterly fraudulent Great British Energy facade, twice over, before the polls close on 4 July.
Let’s be honest, it takes some serious brass neck from these centre-right Starmer supporters to call us “Tory enablers” when they have opened their arms to three Tory MPs.
One sold-off the UK’s blood plasma supplier to an American private equity firm, another attacked footballers for supporting free school meals for hungry children, and the other voted to cut £20 a week from the pittance that is Universal Credit, yet it is *US* that are enabling another Tory government because we refuse to support these fucking Tory parasites?
Before the Canary saved me from the bloggers scrap heap I used to regularly remind people that they wouldn’t get the Tories out of power until they get the Tories out of the Labour Party.
And less than six weeks away from when Keir Starmer gets his chance to prove he will put the security of Israel before the needs of the British people, my reminder is as true today as it ever has been.
It isn’t compulsory to vote Labour or Conservative. We do have other choices — candidates with socialist values that stand against genocide. You don’t have to give your vote to Keir Starmer to stop the Tories. To stop the Tories, you need to stop Keir Starmer.
By the way, did you know Keir Starmer was the former Director for Public Prosecutions? Oh, and did you know his dad was a toolmaker?
Enter Collective… and some chap named Corbyn
One individual attempting to break the duopoly, some chap named Jeremy Corbyn, announced his candidacy for the Islington North constituency, this week.
Jeremy is supported by Collective — a mass movement that will eventually transform into a new political party, one that can take on both the Tory-Labour establishment and our rigged political system to restore democracy and hope for all.
Remember what hope used to feel like? That burning desire to build a Britain where opportunity is available for all? We didn’t need two flags behind us, or an expensive podium in front of us to show how much we cared about a just and decent society. Our patriotism was in our actions. We didn’t need to create division because our message of hope would go on to bring people together.
Jeremy isn’t the only independent candidate that will be standing on an anti-genocide platform. Andrew Feinstein, Claudia Webbe, Tasnime Akunjee, Tahir Mirza, Pamela Fitzpatrick, and many other first class candidates — all supported by Collective — will be taking the fight to the Tories, both red and blue.
Talking of genocide…
Apparently I should speak with Hamas to negotiate hostage releases
If the propagators of the Israeli state insist there are “no innocent Palestinians”, by their same logic there are no innocent Americans, no innocent Brits, and there are certainly no innocent Israelis.
Those are the rules, don’t blame me, I didn’t make them up. Although international law doesn’t look kindly upon the perpetrators of collective punishment, apparently.
These are the same dangerous genocidal maniacs that appear on my timeline underneath my posts telling me to “speak with Hamas”.
SPEAK WITH HAMAS? Do these deluded gaslighters with a thing for ethnic cleansing think I’ve got a direct line to Mr Qassam?
“Hi Al, it’s Rachael of the Swindon martyrs brigade here, you know, Corbynite leftist, lives near the magic roundabout? Home of Diana Dors? 10cc? Billie Piper?… Anyway, my friend @DavidBunchanumbers on X wants me to tell you to release the hostages. Are you down with that?”
Be in absolutely no doubt, Gaza will still haunt the conscience of the world long after the genocide comes to an end.
For seventy-six years Israel has been allowed to kill and maim under the Western colonialists shield of impunity. Until last Monday.
Gaza should be front and centre of your general election vote
In seeking an arrest warrant for the baby-killer-in-chief, Netanyahu, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has trampled upon the myth that Israel is beyond accountability. There has been no greater criminal in Israeli history than Benjamin Netanyahu and the chief prosecutor is absolutely correct in his decision to request a warrant for the butcher of Gaza.
The ICC is facing incredible pressure from the United States to drop the warrant request. They have bullied and threatened the court, not only ensuring the absolute death of the illusion of Western moral superiority, but equally ensuring the ICC simply cannot cave in to the American and Israeli threats and demands, because this will only result in the end of the very existence of international law itself.
Collective-backed independent candidates will put the Gaza genocide front and centre of their respective campaigns, and rightly so, because the Israeli monsters will continue to act with the full support of the pro-Israel lobby funded Labour and Conservative establishment cabals.
EDITORIAL:By Fred Wesley, editor-in-chief of The Fiji Times
So 40 Fiji members of Parliament voted in favour of the Special Committee on Emoluments Report on the review of MPs’ salaries, allowances and benefits in Parliament on Friday.
Now that’s not going down well with the masses, with many venting their frustrations on social media. From the outset, it appears there are many people frustrated by the turn of events in the august house.
Many also sent in letters to the editor expressing their disappointment. There was the odd one out though, reflecting on the need for a pay rise for parliamentarians. So in effect, we have both ends of the spectrum covered.
That’s democracy for you. People will have differing opinions on what constitutes the right action to take at this moment in our history.
Seven voted against the motion and five abstained.
There are differing opinions as well in the House.
The National Federation Party voted against the motion, pointing out their position was in accordance with the directive of the party.
Opposition leader Inia Seruiratu insisted government must be seen as an equal opportunity provider and an employer of choice.
In saying that, we reflect on a number of factors. They are intertwined with this change in financial status of our MPs.
There will be the line taken about the importance of the work and salary comparisons initially, the duration of their stint in Parliament, status and expectations from voters, and the argument about attracting and retaining professionals, against the impact this will have on our coffers, pinning down taxpayer dollars.
We have a scenario that isn’t a pleasant one at all. We have a competitive salary against timing, and expectations of a nation that isn’t well off at all.
We have a delicate situation. Sceptics will wonder about what is fair compensation against the financial strain this places on taxpayers.
Let’s face it. There are economic challenges, and this increase will no doubt be seen as an insensitive one.
For what it is worth, what we have now is a situation that raises the importance of transparency and public trust in government decisions.
There will be issues raised about the independence of the process, and references will no doubt be made back to earlier emolument committees, and the processes they followed.
There will be questions asked about the need for people independent of Parliament.
In saying that, we are reminded about the taxpayer having every right to hold our MPs up to scrutiny!
We again raise that delicate balance between effective governance and the concerns of the people!
Fred Wesley is editor-in-chief of The Fiji Times. Republished with permission.
The winning candidate, Salvador Illa of the PSC (Catalan branch of the PSOE), is hardly mentioned, because he does not seem to have won because of who he is, but because he is in charge of the state campaign to try to electorally defeat Catalan independence, a movement that has won every election since 2012 with an absolute majority.
And from ‘Catalan independence has lost!’ they want to conclude ‘Catalan independence is over!’, even though it is not clear that Illa will be able to form an anti-independence government (because he would need the participation of ERC, a pro-independence party). And ERC may rather support Puigdemont to form a pro-independence government or, if there is no agreement, we will go to new elections.
Catalonia’s elections: results don’t match the reality
The PSC (pro-Spanish social democrats) got 42 MPs, Junts (pro-independence social democrats and liberals) got 35 MPs, 20 for ERC (pro-independence social democrats), 15 for the PP (pro-Spanish right-wing), 11 for VOX (Spanishist extreme right), six for the Comunes (nationally undefined left), four for the CUP (pro-independence left) and two for Aliança Catalana (a new extreme right-wing pro-independence party, in line with what is happening in Europe, but contrary to the anti-fascist tradition of the pro-independence movement).
Despite the fact that an amnesty law is about to be passed to defuse the ‘lawfare’ (judicial dirty war) that Spanish nationalism has been using against Catalan independence, there has still been persecution in these elections.
Puigdemont has had to campaign from Northern Catalonia (currently in French territory), unable to tour Catalonia because he would have been arrested, and also unable to participate in televised debates. And despite this disadvantage (which in other countries would have annulled the elections due to the lack of equality between the contenders), Puigdemont’s result has been very acceptable: he has surpassed his previous result by 100,000 votes and has come within seven seats of the winner.
Pro-independence movement holding ground
The pro-independence movement as a whole has maintained the votes of the previous elections, but has lost 700,000 votes compared to 2017. This loss was mainly due to ERC, which had already been losing votes for some time and has now lost 170,000 votes compared to the previous elections, but 500,000 compared to 2017.
The electorate has punished the Catalan government of ERC for changing course, for wanting to stop the emancipation movement, for talking about postponing independence for more than 20 years, and for continually submitting to the designs of the Spanish government. This electoral setback has pushed the ERC leadership to resign and announce a process of self-criticism and redirection.
Therefore, anyone who wants to see in the loss of the absolute majority of the pro-independence movement that this movement is over will have difficulty understanding what is to come, because the yearning for freedom is still alive, and this has only been an electoral turbulence due to the difficulty of agreeing on how to manage Spanish hostility.
So this electoral defeat, therefore, is not the defeat of those who are still at loggerheads with the state, but of the party that had relegated the struggle for independence to the management of domestic affairs.
Catalonia elections: the anger is rising
And stretching this feeling of anger, many voters do not forgive that, in general, all pro-independence parties did not dare to undertake independence in 2017 (for fear that Spain would provoke a bloodbath), nor that, having had 52% of the votes in the Catalan Parliament, they have been inhibited from moving towards independence.
Returning to the present, it remains to be seen who will end up forming a government in Catalonia, but even if the pro-independence parties are unable to do so, it will continue to advance because (unlike what they think in Madrid) the parties are not the driving force behind independence, but rather it is a transversal social movement born of a real and historically omnipresent yearning in Catalonia.
However, given that this struggle also needs institutional force, if the electoral penalty serves to break the deadlock and causes the movement to advance together, the road to independence will once again be inexorable.
The following article is a comment piece from the Peace and Justice Project
It’s confirmed! Jeremy Corbyn is standing as an independent candidate in Islington North at the general election on 4 July.
Jeremy has proudly represented his constituency for over 40 years and has built a reputation as a committed local member of parliament who stands up for democracy, equality, and peace.
In the past, Jeremy has been elected as a Labour MP on huge majorities. But this general election will be different. He is running as an independent candidate without major party support, so it is absolutely vital that we get organised and mobilise our movement to get him re-elected.
We believe that Jeremy will win, but it won’t be easy. That is why we’re asking for your help.
You can sign up here to help Corbyn win in Islington North.
Watch Corbyn’s video below, explaining what he stands for, and share the video widely:
But it’s not just Jeremy who is standing up against the political establishment and the despicable suffering inflicted on our country.
The Collective is a political grouping organising campaigns around the Peace and Justice Project’s 5 Demands to build a real alternative to the misery faced by millions.
The Collective includes Andrew Feinstein in Holborn and St Pancras, Pamela Fitzpatrick in Harrow West, and Leanne Mohamad in Ilford North.
With the Conservatives in government and Labour in opposition, it has become clear that neither has the policies or political will to bring about real change or an alternative to the misery faced by millions – but our movement does.
With Jeremy Corbyn and the Collective, we will build hope for the many.
“Only the struggle counts . . . death is nothing.” Éloi Machoro — “the Che Guevara of the Pacific” — said this shortly before he was gunned down by a French sniper on 12 January 1985.
Machoro, one of the leaders of the newly-formed FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — today the main umbrella movement for New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people — slowly bled to death as the gendarmes moved in.
The assassination is an apt metaphor for what France is doing to the Kanak people of New Caledonia and has been doing to them for 150 years.
As the New Zealand and Australian media fussed and bothered over tourists stranded in New Caledonia over the past week, the Kanaks have been gripped in an existential struggle with a heavyweight European power determined to keep the archipelago firmly under the control of Paris. We need better, deeper reporting from our media — one that provides history and context.
According to René Guiart, a pro-independence writer, moments before the sniper’s bullets struck, Machoro had emerged from the farmhouse where he and his comrades were surrounded. I translate:
“I want to speak to the Sous-Prefet! [French administrator],” Machoro shouted. “You don’t have the right to arrest us. Do you hear? Call the Sous-Prefet!”
The answer came in two bullets. Once dead, Machoro’s comrades inside the house emerged to receive a beating from the gendarmes. Standing over Machoro’s body, a member of the elite mobile tactical unit said: “He wanted war, he got it!”
Weeks earlier, New Zealand journalist David Robie had photographed Machoro shortly before he smashed open a ballot box with an axe and burned the ballots inside. “It was,” says Robie, “symbolic of the contempt Kanaks had for what they saw as the French’s manipulated voting system.”
Every year on January 12, the anniversary of Machoro’s killing, people gather at his grave. Engraved in stone are the words: “On tue le révolutionnaire mais on ne tue pas ses idées.”You can kill the revolutionary but you can’t kill his ideas. Why don’t most Australians and New Zealanders even know his name?
Decades after his death and 17,000 km away, the French are at it again. Their National Assembly has shattered the peace this month with a unilateral move to change voting rights to enfranchise tens of thousands of more recent French settlers and put an end to both consensus building and the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for self-determination and independence.
Thanks to French immigration policies, Kanaks now number about 40 percent of the registered voters. New Zealand and Australia look the other way — New Caledonia is France’s “zone of interest”.
But what’s not to like about extending voting rights? Shouldn’t all people who live in the territory enjoy voting rights?
“They have voting rights,” says David Robie, now editor of Asia Pacific Report, “back in France.” And France, not the Kanaks, control who can enter and stay in the territory.
Back in 1972, French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer argued in a since-leaked memo that if France wanted to maintain control, flooding the territory with white settlers was the only long-term solution to the independence issue.
Robie says the French machinations in Paris — changing the boundaries of citizenship and voting rights – and the ensuing violent reaction, is effectively a return to the 1980s — or worse.
The violence of the 1980s, which included massacres, led to the Matignon Accords of 1988 and the Nouméa Accords of 1998 which restricted the voting to only those who had lived in Kanaky prior to 1998 and their descendents. Pro-independence supporters include many young whites who see their future in the Pacific, not as a white settler colonial outpost of France.
Most whites, however, fear and oppose independence and the loss of privileges it would bring.
After decades of calm and progress, albeit modest, things started to change from 2020 onwards. It was clear to Robie and others that French calculations now saw New Caledonia as too important to lose; it is a kind of giant aircraft carrier in the Pacific from which to project French power. It is also home to the world’s third-largest nickel reserves.
How have the Kanaks benefitted from being a French colony? Kanaks were given citizenship in their own country only after WWII, a century after Paris imposed French rule. According to historian David Chappell:
“In practice, French colonisation was one of the most extreme cases of native denigration, incarceration and dispossession in Oceania. A frontier of cattle ranches, convict camps, mines and coffee farms moved across the main island of Grande Terre, conquering indigenous resisters and confining them to reserves that amounted to less than 10 percent of the land.”
It was a pattern of behaviour similar to France’s colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Little wonder the people of Niger have recently become the latest to expel them.
Deprived of education — the first Kanak to qualify for university entrance was in the 1960s — socially and economically marginalised, subjected to what historians describe as among the most brutal colonial overlordships in the Pacific, the Kanaks have fought to maintain their languages, their cultures and their identities whilst the whites enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world.
“There was no consultation — except with the anti-independence groups. Any new constitutional arrangement needs to be based around consensus. France has now polarised the situation so much that it will be virtually impossible to get consensus.”
Author Dr David Robie . . . warned for years that France is pushing New Caledonia down a slippery slope. Image: Alyson Young/PMC
Macron also pushed ahead with a 2021 referendum on independence versus remaining a French territory. This was in the face of pleas from the Kanak community to hold off until the covid pandemic that had killed thousands of Kanaks had passed and the traditional mourning period was over.
Having created the problem with actions like the disputed referendum and the current law changes, Macron now condemns today’s violence in New Caledonia. Éloi Machoro rebukes him from the grave: “Where is the violence, with us or with them?” he asked weeks before his killing. “The aim of the [law changes] is to destroy the Kanak people in their own country.” That was 1985; as the French say: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same thing.
Kanaky and Palestine . . . “the same struggle” against settler colonialism. Image: Solidarity/APR
Young people are at the forefront of opposing Paris’s latest machinations. Hundreds have been arrested. Several killed. The White City, as Nouméa is called by the marginalised Melanesians, is lit by arson fires each night. Thousands of French security forces have been rushed in.
Leaders who have had nothing to do with the violence have been arrested; an old colonial manoeuvre.
“What happened was clearly avoidable,” Robie says “ The thing that really stands out for me is: what happens now? It is going to be really extremely difficult to rebuild trust — and trust is needed to move forward. There has to be a consensus otherwise the only option is civil war.”
Nadia Abu-Shanab, an activist and member of the Wellington Palestinian community, sees familiar behaviour and extends her solidarity to the people of Kanaky.
“We Palestinians know what it is for people to choose to ignore the context that leads to our struggle. Indigenous and native people have always been right to challenge colonisation. We are fighting for a world free from the racism and the theft of resources and land that have hurt and harmed too many indigenous peoples and our planet.”
Eugene Doyle is a Wellington-based writer and community activist who publishes the Solidaritywebsite. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at Solidarity under the title “The French are at it again: New Caledonia is kicking off”. For more about Éloi Machoro, read Dr David Robie’s 1985 piece “Éloi Machoro knew his days were numbered”.
Is it just me or is it not more than a little odd that coverage of current events in New Caledonia/Kanaky is dominated by the inconvenience of tourists and rescue flights out of the Pacific paradise.
That the events are described as “disruption” or “riots” without any real reference to the cause of the actions causing inconvenience. The reason is the armed enforcement of “order” is flown into this Oceanic place from Europe.
I guess when you live in a place called “New Zealand” in preference to “Aotearoa” you see these things through fellow colonialist eyes. Especially if you are part of the dominant colonial class.
How different it looks if you are part of an indigenous people in Oceania — part of that “Indigenous Ocean” as Damon Salesa’s recent award-winning book describes it. The Kanaks are the indigenous Melanesian inhabitants of New Caledonia.
The indigenous movement in Kanaky is engaged in a fight against the political structures imposed on them by France.
Obviously there are those indigenous people who benefit from colonial rule, and those who feel powerless to change it. But increasingly there are those who choose to resist.
Are they disrupters or are they resisting the massive disruption which France has imposed on them?
People who have a lot of resources or power or freedom to express their culture and belonging tend not to “riot”. They don’t need to.
Not simply holiday destinations
The countries of Oceania are not simply holiday destinations, they are not just sources of people or resource exploitation until the natural resources or labour they have are exhausted or no longer needed.
They are not “empty” places to trial bombs. They are not “strategic” assets in a global military chess game.
Each place, and the ocean of which they are part have their own integrity, authenticity, and rights, tangata, whenua and moana. That is only hard to understand if you insist on retaining as your only lens that of the telescope of a 17th or 18th century European sea captain.
The natural alliance and concern we have from these islands, is hardly with the colonial power of France, notwithstanding the apparent keenness of successive recent governments to cuddle up to Nato.
A clue — we are not part of the “North Atlantic”.
We have our own colonial history, far from pristine or admirable in many respects. But we are at the same time fortunate to have a framework in Te Tiriti which provides a base for working together from that history towards a better future.
Those who would debunk that framework or seek to amend it to more clearly favour the colonial classes might think about where that option leads.
And when we see or are inconvenienced by independence or other indigenous rights activism in Oceania we might do well to neither sit on the fence nor join the side which likes to pretend such places are rightfully controlled by France (or the United States, or Australia or New Zealand).
Rob Campbell is chancellor of Auckland University of Technology (AUT), chair of Ara Ake, chair of NZ Rural Land and former chair of Te Whatu Ora. This article was first published by The New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Today in “that bump under the rug? Oh it’s just important disabled news don’t look at that”, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has announced they are launching an inquiry on the DWP.
The failing department is being investigated due to its the inhumane ways they treat disabled people who claim benefits. This will include the link between vulnerable people losing benefits and their deaths.
The EHRC will examine whether DWP ministers and the policies they were responsible for not only failed to protect disabled people including those with learning disabilities and mental illnesses – but actively harmed them and contributed to their deaths.
Strongest possible action against the DWP?
The inquiry will focus on benefits assessments and how health decisions are made to award or deny disabled people benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as well as the Work Capability Assessment that are used to force disabled unemployed people into work – or worse deny them benefits that allow them to live.
The chair of the EHRC, Kishwer Faulkner said:
We are extremely worried about the treatment of some disabled benefits claimants by the DWP. We suspect the department may have broken equality law. We have decided we need to take the strongest possible action and that’s why we’ve launched this investigation.
Whilst past and current ministers and senior officials will be called to explain themselves, there’s of course a catch. The scope of the inquiry is only from 2021 to now.
Biggest offenders let off the hook
This means that although Mel Stride will have to answer for his crimes, Therese Coffey’s inhumanity will be limited to just the last year of her stint. This means she still won’t have to reveal the true scale of benefits deaths that she refused to disclose under the loophole of it being the previous minister Amber Rudd’s investigation.
Chloe Smith who was in the role for just seven weeks during the Liz Truss fever dream of 2022 will have to report to the inquiry. Yet Iain Duncan Smith who was responsible for the cruellest policies from 2010-2016 will get off scot-free.
The investigation won’t include the deaths of claimants such as Errol Graham who starved to death in 2018 after his payments were stopped or Michael O’Sullivan who died by suicide after being declared fit for work.
DWP want to add more disabled deaths to the list
And while all this happens the DWP are pushing on with their plans to “reform welfare” which will, you’ve guessed it, kill more disabled people.
Following on from announcing that we can no longer trust doctors to give out fit notes and the ludicrous idea to give disabled people vouchers instead of benefits, wet wipe Mel Stride was at a Jobcentre this week.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t signing on.
Instead he was there to announce that businesses should employ unemployed people. Yes really. He announced that the DWP will be utilising AI to deny benefit claimants instead of just people. That people will be sent to work “Bootcamps” to force people back into work.
He laughably claimed that the plan will show “Fairness for those who can’t work and are in the most need of the state’s help.”
However, he forgets to include that the DWP, who are already responsible for until deaths, will be the ones deciding who can and can’t work. It’s understandable then that the government are trying to downplay this damning inquiry, and what’s the best way to distract attention
Today? Finally???
It’s a funny old game being a political journalist.
You’re usually always acutely aware that time is of the essence, but today there’s an impending sense that my story is going to become irrelevant as soon as I’ve written it. The reason? Well social media is abuzz with rumours that the general election may finally be called today.
When I last checked we’d reached fever pitch as someone had spotted Rishi’s usually buttons illiterate chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith wearing a tie – this MUST mean he’s preparing to solemnly stand in front of cameras!! Commentators speculated.
No such thing as chance
It feels like no coincidence that the prime minister may finally be giving the people what they’re crying out for on the same day that an inquiry is launched into the treatment of the very people his government have spent decades demonising and killing.
If the announcement does come this week we must do everything we can to hold the Tories – and the next government – to account. We can’t let this DWP inquiry and the treatment of disabled people be brushed under the rug.
I’m supposed to be writing about something completely different right now, but as I was working on that I got some news that made my blood curdle. The DWP has stopped my PIP (Personal Independence Payment).
An expected DWP PIP review
On 5 April, I received a text from the DWP saying the review into my PIP claim had opened. Even though the review period is four years and it’d only been two since my last review, I had been expecting this. They said the forms would be with me in two weeks.
As a disabled person who has spent the last 20 years in the DWP system, this news filled me with dread. Once again I would have to dredge up the worst and most traumatic parts of my life, for someone who doesn’t know me or my conditions to decide if I was worthy of support.
On 20 April I attempted to contact the PIP helpline because the form hadn’t turned up, but I was cut off after 45 minutes. I’d spent the day before across the media analysing the prime minister’s speech in which he declared unemployed disabled people the enemy.
Finally, on 25 April the forms turned up, with the deadline of 4 May. Allowing postage time that gave me just five days to complete the form – which was 40 pages long and required such information as whether I was incontinent. The day before this, a UN report on the government found them to have dangerously failed disabled people.
I sent the forms back on 30 April and heard nothing.
Writing on DWP chaos is my job
Whilst I waited the Tories unveiled their plans to “reform” the very benefit I was applying for.
They said that the financial assistance I and so many rely on (because life is so much more damn expensive as a disabled person) wasn’t practical. Instead, they proposed a system where people are given vouchers. This would work alongside disabled people being required to invoice their expenses to the DWP and have them paid back.
And I gladly ripped their plans to shreds. How are we supposed to wait for something to be paid back when we don’t have the money in the first place? Will our energy suppliers or housing take vouchers? All the while I pushed the nervous thoughts to the back of my mind about the fact that I could lose the benefit that enables me to live my life.
My own terrifying chaos
Then finally on Tuesday 21 May I received word. My PIP was being taken away, because apparently, I hadn’t returned the form in time.
I rang the helpline and waited over half an hour whilst trying not to cry. When I finally got through I tried to explain the situation to the advisor.
“Do you have proof of postage?”
“No, it was a free post envelope, your envelope”.
I was put on hold again, and when she came back she informed me a case manager would call me back. A little while later he did, and informed me my form hadn’t been received until 17 May – almost three weeks after I sent it. He told me that because the case had already been closed they’d have to submit a “mandatory consideration”, an appeal of sorts for them to reopen the case.
To be clear this isn’t to decide whether they should award me the benefit. No, it’s to decide whether they’ll even look at the forms. The actual assessment could take over a year, as the current wait time is 59 weeks.
My DWP PIP entitlement, lost – and countless other people’s too
There’s no way of knowing whether this was the fault of the failing postal service or that the DWP simply hadn’t read it. I suspect a combination of both. Either way due to government error, I now will be without a vital benefit for around two months.
And I’m not the only one this has happened to.
When I shared my frustrations on Twitter I received dozens of replies and DMs from people all having the same or worse experiences. Forms being sent out past the deadline to return them, returned forms lost, benefits stopped because the DWP sent the forms to the wrong address, the list goes on and disabled people suffer because of the government’s incompetence.
You have to laugh then (if I don’t I’ll cry) at the fact that the DWP is proposing an elaborate system where they reckon they’ll process thousands of expenses claims a month when they can’t even open the post they already get.
I see every day the cruelty that the DWP and this government subject disabled people to. However, I was truly lost for words that they so casually would just cut my benefits off, all because of their own error.
The Tories are doing everything they can to blame disabled people for the state of public services, but you only have to look at the state of the DWP to see who’s really harming this country.
14 years of a revolving door of ministers, slashed budgets, and carving off services to their mates has left the DWP on its knees. And disabled people are paying the price.
The following article is a comment piece from Palestine Action
On Tuesday 21 May, secretary of state James Cleverly will present former Labour MP John Woodcock (otherwise known as Lord Walney)’s 240-page review on disruptive protest to the House of Commons. The report’s release, initially set to be on Wednesday 15 May (Nakba Day) was delayed, after Palestine Action’s lawyers pointed out Woodcock’s failure to meet his legal obligations as an independent advisor to the government.
Namely, he did not consult Palestine Action and the other groups mentioned in his report on its contents, nor provided the opportunity to ask for clarifications or a right to reply.
Woodcock: avoiding accountability via parliament
Cleverly will now lay the document before MPs following the ‘Motion for Unopposed Return’ procedure, under the pretext that it was written by an independent advisor.
This enables the report to be published as a House of Commons paper, which means it comes with the protection of parliamentary privilege — a form of legal immunity that prevents any group named in the report from claiming defamation.
By publishing the review in this manner, Cleverly and Woodcock are using procedure in a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability – described by Shami Chakrabarti in a recent news article published by the Guardian as an ‘abuse of parliamentary privilege.’
John Woodcock, the so-called independent advisor responsible for writing the report, claimed to apply an “objective standard” throughout — though it was only in October 2023 that he referred to Palestine Action in a tweet as “Hamas’s little helpers.”
Far from impartial
This assertion of impartiality seems even more dubious, when one considers his ties to the arms industry and long-standing connections with the Israel lobby group “Labour Friends of Israel” — where he acted as chair of the organisation from July 2011 to January 2013. He also makes frequent visits to Israel, with his most recent trip taking place between 2-7 January 2024. Described as a “solidarity visit,” Woodcock’s flights and accommodation were paid for by the European Leadership Network (ElNet UK) – all amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Currently, Woodcock is advisor to the “Purpose Business Coalition”.
One of its clients is Leonardo UK, which has worked with the Purpose Coalition since March 2022. Palestine Action identifies Leonardo UK as an arms company that is facilitating Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
The weapons manufacturer has been a key focus of the group’s direct-action campaign to shut Elbit down and all its affiliates, with sites across the country repeatedly targeted — from activists occupying one of Leonardo’s factories in Edinburgh, to spray painting the London HQ.
The PDC website was promptly removed, alongside a page on Leonardo and the Purpose Coalition, over the weekend after Woodcock was questioned on it. At the PDC’s launch event on 18 July 2023 in Parliament, which was “powered by Leonardo UK”, Woodcock said the following [emphasis added]:
Russia’s war on Ukraine has caused a seismic shift in the world. It has highlighted the crucial nature of defence in upholding our values and the need for a vibrant, well-regulated defence industry. The best defence companies have always acted with high ethical standards but their central role in helping the Ukrainian people to defend their sovereignty, and the significant investment they make in the communities where they operate, is rightly prompting ESG investors to look again at the sector.
That is why I am proud to launch the Purpose Defence Coalition, part of the wider Purpose Coalition, to bring together the defence sector’s most innovative leaders and businesses to share best practice and develop policy solutions.
Of course, we have the excellent Nadia Whittome, Debbie Abrahams, Emma Lewell-Buck, and future prime minister (in my opinion) Zarah Sultana.
But someone else who regularly shows the Tories up is shadow minister for disabled people Vicky Foxcroft. Her previous includes asking why she had no counterpart when Rishi first downgraded the ministerial role in 2022 and her excellent work on holding the DWP to account over the WCA debacle.
Vicky Foxcroft, living legend
This week Vicky provided one of my favourite moments of the week and it only goes to show not only how incompetent the DWP are but that they truly can’t see how ridiculously bad they are at this.
During the Access to Work debate in the Commons, Vicky asked minister Mims Davies about the backlog, and quoted some damning stats:
On 1 January 2024, there were 24,874 people awaiting an Access to Work decision, on 1 February, 26,924, on 1 March, 29,871 and on 1 April, 32,445. Every month, the figure keeps increasing, so since the beginning of 2024 the Access to Work backlog has risen by more than 7,500. Does the Minister really think this is supporting more disabled people back into work.
Mims’ response was truly outstanding:
If we are trading figures, at the close of business on 7 May 2024, there were 36,721 applications awaiting decision.
What basically happened was the shadow minister went “Access to Work is a bit shit” and the minister replied “Actually you’re wrong, it’s even shitter than you thought”.
I find it truly outstanding that the Tories are so out of touch that they see any high number as a brag. There was no effort to apologise for an increase of 4,000 in the space of a month or promises to do better. Of course there wasn’t, because they don’t actually care.
The week in wet wipe
Meanwhile the wet wipe of state for the DWP Mel Stride was bragging about ONS employment figures and how they were “helping” (forcing) disabled people into work. He slathered on Twitter:
We are leaving no stone unturned to get people back to work, rolling out the most radical changes to welfare in a generation
He then proceeded to bang on about how they were helping one million people find and stay in work, “stemming the flow” of over 400,000 people getting the highest rate of incapacity benefits, and overhauling fit notes.
What that actually means
In case you need a Tory bullshit translator, what it actually means is they’re powering on with their mission to kill disabled people.
Forcing one million people back into work whether they can work or not, with no support. Denying 400,000 people who can’t work the benefits they need and not trusting doctors to treat their own patients.
One vital thing to mention here is the language being used. As with ‘sicknote culture” the Tories are deliberately using phased-out terms because they know these are the ones their core voters will still know.
Incapacity Benefit hasn’t existed since 2013, but using that term appeals much more to people who think we spend all our benefits on booze and iPhones than ‘Employment and Support Allowance’.
And finally…
I’m so sorry to bring this to your attention but I’ve been thinking of little else since the local elections. Here for your viewing pleasure is the wet wipe himself making the best possible gaff on live TV. #GennyErecs
I started campaigning for the NHS just under a decade ago. I was working as a junior doctor in London; austerity cuts from the Conservative Party government were having an impact on patient services and, even back then, many NHS staff could see that things were going to get a lot worse.
As cuts were made our workload grew, and it became harder to give our patients the time they needed, we lost key members of staff within the mental health teams in which I was working, and all of this had a direct impact on patients.
A mental health service needs allied health professionals with a wealth of experience in different areas. If you cut things back to the bare bones, as the Conservatives did, what you ultimately cut back on is decent patient care.
Now, in 2024, 14 long years since the Conservatives came to power, things are much worse.
The NHS: undermined in various ways
The NHS has been undermined in various ways. Staff have been significantly underpaid for many years, the service has not received enough investment, and in England alone the NHS now has an unmet repair bill of almost £12bn.
This isn’t just a repair bill for minor things like peeling paint or replacing furniture. A recent report judged that £2.4bn of the repairs are “high risk”, and unless they’re done soon, could spell disaster for NHS patients and the staff who care for them.
In the past few months alone, a ceiling has fallen on a patient, and a lift has plummeted several floors with a surgeon inside, injuring his leg.
There have been reports of thousands of vermin infestations within NHS buildings – cockroaches, wasps, rats, and lice in hospitals. Is this what the public deserves when they pay their taxes?
However, the problems don’t stop with the buildings.
The government is breaking all our health service’s core principles
Millions are on NHS waiting lists, unable to access the treatment they need, with far-reaching consequences. If you’re unwell and you can’t get care, your symptoms may worsen, and your need for medication might increase. You might not be able to work anymore, your mental health may suffer, your personal relationships may deteriorate.
Health does not sit in isolation; peoples’ illnesses impact every area of their lives, and waiting is not just an inconvenience. Put bluntly, it can be the difference between life and death.
The NHS has several clear core principles – they are even featured on the government’s own website. They stipulate that the care provided will be ‘comprehensive, equal, and available to all’.
Yet the government is breaking these principles now.
Care is no longer comprehensive for many people, the provision of services across the country is patchy, and there are instances where patients are now charged within the NHS too.
What’s more, this government has enabled the infiltration of privatisation into the NHS. There are now thousands of outsourced NHS services, many of which are run by private companies. There is no evidence that privatisation benefits the NHS, and patients have not been consulted on the legislation that has made privatisation possible, and yet politicians have got away with doing all this.
Labour will not be the change we need to see
It would be incredible to think that if the Conservatives were voted out at the next general election, things would improve, but I’m worried about Labour Party proposals for the NHS too.
Wes Streeting, shadow health and social care secretary is enthusiastic about the involvement of private companies in the NHS and the proposals don’t seem to include enough support for NHS staff either.
Doctors, nurses, and every worker in the NHS has been treated appallingly for many years. The pressure on the workforce has been relentless, and they are scapegoated in the press for many problems that they have not caused.
It’s often difficult for doctors and nurses to speak up safely when problems arise, and their pay has fallen far below countries which are comparable on economic terms. We’re facing a significant brain drain as professionals, understandably, leave the NHS for countries where they’ll be better supported.
We all deserve so much better than this, and it is possible to change things, so it’s time to get much louder, and fight for the NHS together.
The fight for the NHS must go up a gear
I’m the Canary’s newest columnist, and I’ll be updating you with NHS news, calling attention to important developments, and explaining why we can, and should, rebuild the NHS.
We don’t need more empty promises from politicians, or any more half-baked or unambitious plans either. The NHS was built 75 years ago after the second world war, when the country was financially broken, and millions had endured immeasurable trauma.
If it was possible then, it’s possible now. We need hopeful, transformative policies for the NHS and the first step towards those is through raising public awareness of what’s going on.
The British media — fervently committed to talking about anything other than Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza — have spent much of the past week trying to present Keir Starmer’s SIXTEENTH Labour Party relaunch as a leadership-defining moment for the amoral leader of the opposition.
Starmer’s insidious relationship with the right-wing billionaire corporate media becomes more apparent as the days and weeks pass.
But yes, SIXTEEN relaunches. Just imagine having to sit through sixteen of those with the ham-faced hypocrite Starmer droning on.
16 relaunches in, and ham-faced Starmer still isn’t the messiah
Let me jog your memory with just a small selection of the focus-group-created slogans we have seen during these frequent relaunch events:
Under New Management.
A New Chapter for Britain.
Secure, Protect, Rebuild.
Security, Prosperity, Respect.
Build a Better Britain.
We’ve had 10 pledges, five missions, six fixes, four years of lies and deceit that gives the Johnsonite Tories a run for their money, three Tory MPs that now feel at home in the Labour Party, Lord only knows how many major U-turns, at least 13 of his shadow cabinet taking donations from the pro-Israel lobby – yet they want us to believe Keir Starmer is the new Messiah rather than a duplicitous bore with the charm of an untreated dental abscess?
I bet you didn’t know his dad was a toolmaker.
The deceit and the duplicity of Starmer and his Tory-lite Labour Party is quite staggering. Never before has a political party made this many commitments just to tear them to shreds at the first sign of a sympathetic audience with the unscrupulous elite.
Labour is now an entirely unsupportable entity for the left. It thrives on nepotism and cronyism, and is institutionally racist, no different to the divisive and hateful Conservative governments of the past fourteen miserable years.
Keir Starmer did manage to uphold one of his promises — just the one — when he said he was going to change Labour, because Labour is now a party that is reliably obedient to power.
The elite switching from Tory to Labour
The immoral wealth of the elite has switched from the Conservatives to Labour in the blink of an eye.
What the hell is the point in power without principles? When your decisions are influenced not by the needs of the nation, but the greed of your super rich donors?
I will keep repeating this until I’m blue in the face. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the likely next prime minister and secretary of state for health and social care, both receive vast sums of cash from donors with private healthcare interests.
If you think the next Labour government is going to ride to the rescue of the NHS there’s probably very little hope for you, in all truths.
Your NHS will not be safe under a Labour government led by an indolent Keir Starmer and advised by wholly discredited stains upon the fabric of humanity, such as Epstein Mandelson and Baghdad Blair.
The Labour Party is back in the establishment fold, freed from the politics of hope, and Keir Starmer has secured his place as the first ever leader of the opposition to completely sell out before they have achieved power.
Was this the sort of change you had in mind when Keir Starmer fooled the Labour Party membership into voting for him with yet another slogan?
The Labour leader insisted “Another Future is Possible”, back in 2020, when the left commentariat insisted we would be getting “Corbynism without Corbyn”.
But this future with the malevolent Labour leader looks remarkably like the increasingly-authoritarian recent past and present under the current fascist Tory government.
But a glimmer of real hope is on the horizon in the shape of Collective.
There is an alternative
Not heard of us? You will soon, from me in the unashamedly-left, anti-establishment Canary, and a bonafide broad coalition of left-wing groups, organisations, independent parliamentary candidates, and grassroots activists.
Seen and heard it all before? Give Collective a chance, because we are growing a movement based around the principles and values of Jeremy Corbyn and the Peace and Justice Project.
We are utterly determined to turn Collective into the political party that we so desperately need and want and I am convinced we have the right people and political figures in place to make this a HUGE success.
Wink wink, nudge nudge.
We have already been accused of being a “front”, and I absolutely cannot deny that because we are a front for peace, justice, equality, and humanity, and you know what? I’m really proud of that.
I cannot simply abandon my principles to fit in with the mainstream narrative, and why should I?
Sure, the Green Party has a tonne of Corbynesque policies and commitments that are being touted on social media, and I absolutely applaud them for that.
But I wholeheartedly believe we need something new to build upon with a leadership team that can be trusted, and I’m afraid I just don’t get that vibe from the Green’s deputy leader – a man that once offered hypnotherapy to women who were seeking breast enlargement, and happily joined in with the ‘Corbyn is an antisemite’ lie.
It was a scam. I won’t forget what the nasty bastards did to Jeremy, and I won’t forgive anyone that was a part of spreading these vile, hurtful lies for the sake of a few likes and a pat on the head from your media friends.
Starmer must at least be on history’s right side
Change is inevitable. Starmer will have his moment, but I predict it won’t be anything like the 200+ seat majority some of the polls are throwing up.
Before I go and do Sunday things I have a plea to make.
Please don’t stop talking about Palestine. Distractions will come and go, but the issue of Palestine will not be resolved until Israel is held to account for its brutal genocide and the state of Palestine is free from Israeli occupation.
And for their part, the next Labour government must commit to ending arms sales to Israel, call for an immediate end to the Gaza genocide, and unilaterally recognise the state of Palestine within the first 100 days of government, not just for electoral necessity but also to find themselves on the right side of history.
Today is the 24th anniversary of renegade and failed businessman George Speight’s coup in 2000 Fiji. The elected coalition government headed by Mahendra Chaudhry, the first and only Indo-Fijian prime minister of Fiji, was held hostage at gunpoint for 56 days in the country’s new Parliament by Speight’s rebel gunmen in a putsch that shook the Pacific and the world.
Emerging recently from almost 24 years in prison, former investigative journalist and publisher Josefa Nata — Speight’s “media minder” — is now convinced that the takeover of Fiji’s Parliament on 19 May 2000 was not justified.
He believes that all it did was let the “genie of racism” out of the bottle.
He spoke to Islands Business Fiji correspondent, Joe Yaya on his journey back from the dark.
The Fiji government kept you in jail for 24 years [for your media role in the coup]. That’s a very long time. Are you bitter?
I heard someone saying in Parliament that “life is life”, but they have been releasing other lifers. Ten years was conventionally considered the term of a life sentence. That was the State’s position in our sentencing. The military government extended it to 12 years. I believe it was out of malice, spitefulness and cruelty — no other reason. But to dwell in the past is counterproductive.
If there’s anyone who should be bitter, it should be me. I was released [from prison] in 2013 but was taken back in after two months, ostensibly to normalise my release papers. That government did not release me. I stayed in prison for another 10 years.
To be bitter is to allow those who hurt you to live rent free in your mind. They have moved on, probably still rejoicing in that we have suffered that long. I have forgiven them, so move on I must.
Time is not on my side. I have set myself a timeline and a to-do list for the next five years.
Jo Nata’s journey from the dark, Islands Business, April 2024. Image: IB/Joe Yaya/USP Journalism
What are some of those things?
Since I came out, I have been busy laying the groundwork for a community rehabilitation project for ex-offenders, released prisoners, street kids and at-risk people in the law-and-order space. We are in the process of securing a piece of land, around 40 ha to set up a rehabilitation farm. A half-way house of a sort.
You can’t have it in the city. It would be like having the cat to watch over the fish. There is too much temptation. These are vulnerable people who will just relapse. They’re put in an environment where they are shielded from the lures of the world and be guided to be productive and contributing members of society.
It will be for a period of up to six months; in exceptional cases, 12 months where they will learn living off the land. With largely little education, the best opportunity for these people, and only real hope, is in the land.
Most of these at-risk people are [indigenous] Fijians. Although all native land are held by the mataqali, each family has a patch which is the “kanakana”. We will equip them and settle them in their villages. We will liaise with the family and the village.
Apart from farming, these young men and women will be taught basic life skills, social skills, savings, budgeting. When we settle them in the villages and communities, we will also use the opportunity to create the awareness that crime does not pay, that there is a better life than crime and prison, and that prison is a waste of a potentially productive life.
Are you comfortable with talking about how exactly you got involved with Speight?
The bulk of it will come out in the book that I’m working on, but it was not planned. It was something that happened on the day.
You said that when they saw you, they roped you in?
Yes. But there were communications with me the night prior. I basically said, “piss off”.
So then, what made you go to Parliament eventually? Curiosity?
No. I got a call from Parliament. You see, we were part of the government coalition at that time. We were part of the Fijian Association Party (led by the late Adi Kuini Speed). The Fiji Labour Party was our main coalition partner, and then there was the Christian Alliance. And you may recall or maybe not, there was a split in the Fijian Association [Party] and there were two factions. I was in the faction that thought that we should not go into coalition.
There was an ideological reason for the split [because the party had campaigned on behalf of iTaukei voters] but then again, there were some members who came with us only because they were not given seats in Cabinet.
Because your voters had given you a certain mandate?
A masked gunman waves to journalists to duck during crossfire. Image: IPI Global Journalist/Joe Yaya/USP Journalism
Well, we were campaigning on the [indigenous] Fijian manifesto and to go into the [coalition] complicated things. Mine was more a principled position because we were a [indigenous] Fijian party and all those people went in on [indigenous] Fijian votes. And then, here we are, going into [a coalition with the Fiji Labour Party] and people probably
accused us of being opportunists.
But the Christian Alliance was a coalition partner with Labour before they went into the election in the same way that the People’s Alliance and National Federation Party were coalition partners before they got into [government], whereas with us, it was more like SODELPA (Social Democratic Liberal Party).
So, did you feel that the rights of indigenous Fijians were under threat from the Coalition government of then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry?
Perhaps if Chaudhry was allowed to carry on, it could have been good for [indigenous] Fijians. I remember the late President and Tui Nayau [Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara] . . . in a few conversations I had with him, he said it [Labour Party] should be allowed to . . . [carry on].
Did you think at that time that the news media gave Chaudhry enough space for him to address the fears of the iTaukei people about what he was trying to do, especially for example, through the Land Use Commission?
I think the Fijians saw what he was doing and that probably exacerbated or heightened the concerns of [indigenous] Fijians and if you remember, he gave Indian cane farmers certain financial privileges.
The F$10,000 grants to move from Labasa, when the ALTA (Agricultural Landlord and Tenants Act) leases expired. Are you talking about that?
I can’t remember the exact details of the financial assistance but when they [Labour Party] were questioned, they said, “No, there were some Fijian farmers too”. There were also iTaukei farmers but if you read in between the lines, there were like 50 Indian farmers and one Fijian farmer.
Was there enough media coverage for the rural population to understand that it was not a one-sided ethnic policy?
Because there were also iTaukei farmers involved. Yes, and I think when you try and pull the wool over other people, that’s when they feel that they have been hoodwinked. But going back to your question of whether Chaudhry was given fair media coverage, I was no longer in the mainstream media at that time. I had moved on.
But the politicians have their views and they’ll feel that they have been done badly by the media. But that’s democracy. That’s the way things worked out.
“The Press and the Putsch”, Asia Pacific Media Educator, No 10, January 2021. Image: APME/Joe Yaya/USP Journalism
Pacific journalism educator, David Robie, in a paper in 2001, made some observations about the way the local media reported the Speight takeover. He said, “In the early weeks of the insurrection, the media enjoyed an unusually close relationship with Speight and the hostage takers.”
He went on to say that at times, there was “strong sympathy among some journalists for the cause, even among senior editorial executives”.
David Robie is an incisive and perceptive old-school journalist who has a proper understanding of issues and I do not take issue with his opinion. And I think there is some validity. But you see, I was on the other [Speight’s] side. And it was part of my job at that time to swing that perception from the media.
Did you identify with “the cause” and did you think it was legitimate?
Let me tell you in hindsight, that the coup was not justified
and that is after a lot of reflection. It was not justified and
could never be justified.
When did you come to that conclusion?
It was after the period in Parliament and after things were resolved and then Parliament was vacated, I took a drive around town and I saw the devastation in Suva. This was a couple of months later. I didn’t realise the extent of the damage and I remember telling myself, “Oh my god, what have we done? What have we done?”
And I realised that we probably have let the genie out of the bottle and it scared me [that] it only takes a small thing like this to unleash this pentup emotion that is in the people. Of course, a lot of looting was [by] opportunists because at that time, the people who
were supporting the cause were all in Parliament. They had all marched to Parliament.
So, who did the looting in town? I’m not excusing that. I’m just trying to put some perspective. And of course, we saw pictures, which was really, very sad . . . of mothers, women, carrying trolleys [of loot] up the hill, past the [Colonial War Memorial] hospital.
So, what was Speight’s primary motivation?
Well, George will, I’m sure, have the opportunity at some point to tell the world what his position was. But he was never the main player. He was ditched with the baby on his laps.
So, there were people So, there were people behind him. He was the man of the moment. He was the one facing the cameras.
Given your education, training, experience in journalism, what kind of lens were you viewing this whole thing from?
Well, let’s put it this way. I got a call from Parliament. I said, “No, I’m not coming down.” And then they called again.
Basically, they did not know where they were going. I think what was supposed to have happened didn’t happen. So, I got another call, I got about three or four calls, maybe five. And then eventually, after two o’clock I went down to Parliament, because the person who called was a friend of mine and somebody who had shared our fortunes and misfortunes.
So, did you get swept away? What was going on inside your head?
George Speight’s forces hold Fiji government members hostage at the parliamentary complex in Suva. Image: IPI Global Journalist/Brian Cassey/Associated Press
I joined because at that point, I realised that these people needed help. I was not so much as for the cause, although there was this thing about what Chaudhry was doing. I also took that into account. But primarily because the call came [and] so I went.
And when I was finally called into the meeting, I walked in and I saw faces that I’d never seen before. And I started asking the questions, “Have you done this? Have you done that?”
And as I asked the questions, I was also suggesting solutions and then I just got dragged into it. The more I asked questions, the more I found out how much things were in disarray.
I just thought I’d do my bit [because] they were people who had taken over Parliament and they did not know where to go from there.
But you were driven by some nationalistic sentiments?
I am a [indigenous] Fijian. And everything that goes with that. I’m not infallible. But then again, I do not want to blow that trumpet.
Did the group see themselves as freedom fighters of some sort when you went into prison?
I’m not a freedom fighter. If they want to be called freedom fighters, that’s for them and I think some of them even portrayed themselves [that way]. But not me. I’m just an idiot who got sidetracked.
This personal journey that you’ve embarked on, what brought that about?
When I was in prison, I thought about this a lot. Because for me to come out of the bad place I was in — not physically, that I was in prison, but where my mind was — was to first accept the situation I was in and take responsibility. That’s when the healing started to take place.
And then I thought that I should write to people that I’ve hurt. I wrote about 200 letters from prison to anybody I thought I had hurt or harmed or betrayed. Groups, individuals, institutions, and families. I was surprised at the magnanimity of the people who received my letters.
I do not know where they all are now. I just sent it out. I was touched by a lot of the responses and I got a letter from the late [historian] Dr Brij Lal. l was so encouraged and I was so emotional when I read the letter. [It was] a very short letter and the kindness in the man to say that, “We will continue to talk when you come out of prison.”
There were also the mockers, the detractors, certain persons who said unkind things that, you know, “He’s been in prison and all of a sudden, he’s . . . “. That’s fine, I accepted all that as part of the package. You take the bad with the good.
I wrote to Mr Chaudhry and I had the opportunity to apologise to him personally when he came to visit in prison. And I want to continue this dialogue with Mr Chaudhry if he would like to.
Because if anything, I am among the reasons Fiji is in this current state of distrust and toxic political environment. If I can assist in bringing the nation together, it would be part of my atonement for my errors. For I have been an unprofitable, misguided individual who would like to do what I believe is my duty to put things right.
And I would work with anyone in the political spectrum, the communal leaders, the vanua and the faith organisations to bring that about.
I also did my traditional apology to my chiefly household of Vatuwaqa and the people of the vanua of Lau. I had invited the Lau Provincial Council to have its meeting at the Corrections Academy in Naboro. By that time, the arrangements had been confirmed for the Police Academy.
But the Roko gave us the farewell church service. I got my dear late sister, Pijila to organise the family. I presented the matanigasau to the then-Council Chairman, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba (Roko Ului). It was a special moment, in front of all the delegates to the council meeting, the chiefly clan of the Vuanirewa, and Lauans who filled the two buses and
countless vehicles that made it to Naboro.
Our matanivanua (herald) was to make the tabua presentation. But I took it off him because I wanted Roko Ului and the people of Lau to hear my remorse from my mouth. It was very, very emotional. Very liberating. Cathartic.
Late last year, the Coalition government passed a motion in Parliament for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Do you support that?
Oh yes, I think everything I’ve been saying so far points that way.
Do you think it’ll help those that are still incarcerated to come out and speak about what happened in 2000?
Well, not only that but the important thing is [addressing] the general [racial] divide. If that’s where we should start, then we should start there. That’s how I’m looking at it — the bigger picture.
It’s not trying to manage the problems or issues of the last 24 years. People are still hurting from [the coups of] 1987. And what happened in 2006 — nothing has divided this country so much. Anybody who’s thought about this would want this to go beyond just solving the problem of 2000, excusing, and accusing and after that, there’s forgiveness and pardon.
That’s a small part. That too if it needs to happen. But after all that, I don’t want anybody to go to prison because of their participation or involvement in anything from 1987 to 2000. If they cooked the books later, while they were in government, then that’s a different
matter.
But I saw on TV, the weeping and the very public expression of pain of [the late, former Prime Minister, Laisenia] Qarase’s grandchildren when he was convicted and taken away [to prison]. It brought tears to my eyes. There is always a lump in my throat at the memory of my Heilala’s (elder of two daughters) last visit to [me in] Nukulau.
Hardly a word was spoken as we held each other, sobbing uncontrollably the whole time, except to say that Tiara (his sister) was not allowed by the officers at the naval base to come to say her goodbye.
That was very painful. I remember thinking that people can be cruel, especially when the girls explained that it was to be their last visit. Then the picture in my mind of Heilala sitting alone under the turret of the navy ship as she tried not to look back. I had asked her not to look back.
I deserved what I got. But not them. I would not wish the same things I went through on anyone else, not even those who were malicious towards me.
It is the family that suffers. The family are always the silent victims. It is the family that stands by you. They may not agree with what you did. Perhaps it is among the great gifts of God, that children forgive parents and love them still despite the betrayal, abandonment, and pain.
For I betrayed the two women I love most in the world. I betrayed ‘Ulukalala [son] who was born the same year I went to prison. I betrayed and brought shame to my family and my village of Waciwaci. I betrayed friends of all ethnicities and those who helped me in my chosen profession and later, in business.
I betrayed the people of Fiji. That betrayal was officially confirmed when the court judgment called me a traitor. I accepted that portrayal and have to live with it. The judges — at least one of them — even opined that I masterminded the whole thing. I have to decline that dubious honour. That belongs elsewhere.
This article by Joe Yaya is republished from last month’s Islands Business magazine cover story with the permission of editor Richard Naidu and Yaya. The photographs are from a 2000 edition of the Commonwealth Press Union’s Global Journalist magazine dedicated to the reporting of The University of the South Pacific’s student journalists. Joe Yaya was a member of the USP team at the time. The archive of the award-winning USP student coverage of the coup is here.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Once upon a time, red squirrels in the UK lived peacefully, with plenty of food and habitat to share between them. But in the late 1800s, their harmonious balance was destroyed, when gray squirrels were brought into the country for the first time from North America. The gray squirrels were larger and far better at finding food, and the red squirrels couldn’t compete. Their numbers declined dramatically, and now, there are likely only around 120,000 reds left across the whole country. But while they are often painted as the big, bad grays, the North American squirrels are not the villain of this story. They didn’t swim the Atlantic to land in the UK, they were brought there by humans.
Back in the 1800s, people thought that gray squirrels would be a pleasant “ornamental species” for stately homes in the UK, reports British Red Squirrel. And so they were shipped over on boats, and by the time society realized they were invasive, they had spread across the country.
The tale of the red vs gray squirrels isn’t unique. Around the world, research suggests there are now more than 37,000 species around the globe that are considered invasive and destructive to environments. Most didn’t leave their natural habitat by choice but were removed due to various human activities—including the pet trade. Some believe that to get control over invasive species, we should start eating them. But is more animal consumption really the answer to this widespread problem?
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What is an invasive species?
An invasive species is, quite simply, a plant, animal, or microorganism that is not native to a specific ecosystem. Their presence is usually negative, and likely causes harm to the environment or even to human health. In North America, for example, carp is one example of an invasive species.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), invasive carp species, like silver, grass, and bighead, were brought to the US in the 1970s in a bid to control algal blooms in wastewater treatment plants and aquaculture ponds, but they escaped into the environment, and now cause havoc in large rivers across the Midwest, disrupting ecosystems by competing for food and habitat.
“These invasions can have negative impacts on ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss and the extinction of native plants and animals.” —Piero Genovesi, Chair of the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group
In Australia, cane toads were introduced in the 1930s in an effort to control pests in sugar cane fields, but now they have spread far out into the environment, where their poison kills native species.
These are just a handful of examples out of thousands, and the numbers are increasing. “We see a constant increase in the number of new invasions in all taxonomic groups and in all regions of the world,” Piero Genovesi, Chair of the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group, said in 2017.
He added that as well as the environment, this can also have a knock-on impact on humans, too. “[It] can have potentially devastating consequences on the food, medicines, clean water, and other benefits that nature provides, making it more challenging for the global community to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” he continued.
Should we eat invasive species?
Some believe that one of the best ways to deal with invasive species is simply to eat them—the approach even has its own name, “invasivorism.” In Edinburgh, Scotland one eatery, called Wedgwood the Restaurant, serves up squirrel haggis, for example, as well as invasive plant species like Japanese knotweed. In New England, US, some restaurants serve invasive European green crabs.
Conservationist and invasivorism advocate Joe Roman, who founded the website Eat the Invasives, told Salon last year that he doesn’t want to punish invasive species, as “they didn’t do anything wrong,” but the fact remains that they need to be dealt with in some way.
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For many, eating invasive species brings up welfare concerns. After all, just like all other animals that are slaughtered for meat, they do suffer and feel pain. And like Roman stated himself, they are innocent victims in the situation, too.
But ethical concerns aside, many experts note that it’s likely not possible to eat our way out of the invasive species crisis anyway. There are simply too many of them, and they’re not all good for us either. Take Burmese pythons, for example. They are an invasive species in Florida, but they’re likely not safe for consumption due to their high mercury levels.
What is the best solution for dealing with invasive species?
The invasive species crisis has several causes, and so it has many solutions, too. According to the National Wildlife Federation, it is working to deal with invasive species in the US by preventing more invasive carp from entering the waterways, and by advocating for the treatment of ballast water on ships. Ballast water is a key culprit for the spread of invasive species, as ships take in water in one area before discharging it in another, which spreads eggs and larvae across the oceans.
The federation also notes that it is “championing robust restoration” of areas that have been damaged by invasive species, too, and it is working to clarify the legal situation around the transportation of animal species both between states and into the US. Just like back in the 1800s, when English aristocrats wanted ornamental gray squirrels for their stately homes, today, people are still transporting animals around the world for their own pleasure—with major consequences.
The Argentine tegu, for example, likely made its way into Florida’s waters via the pet trade. And the same likely happened with the aforementioned Burmese python. The green iguana is a common sight in the wild in Florida, likely because of a pet trade boom in the late 20th century.
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Like the National Wildlife Federation, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is working to get control over the pet trade. It supports the introduction of a universal list, which identifies species that can be kept as pets and those that pose an invasiveness risk, and is working towards the adoption of better codes of conduct for online platforms, where many animals are bought and sold.
“Prevention and preparedness are the most cost-effective ways to manage the threats from invasive alien species,” notes the IFAW. “Policymakers have a big role to play—but it’s in every person’s best interest to understand the high cost of exotic pets.”
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a revered Kanak visionary, was inspirational to indigenous Pacific political activists across Oceania, just like Tongan anthropologist and writer Epeli Hao’ofa was to cultural advocates.
Tragically, he was assassinated in 1989 by an opponent within the independence movement during the so-called “les événements” in New Caledonia, the last time the “French” Pacific territory was engulfed in a political upheaval such as experienced this week.
His memory and legacy as poet, cultural icon and peaceful political agitator live on with the impressive Tjibaou Cultural Centre on the outskirts of the capital Nouméa as a benchmark for how far New Caledonia had progressed in the last 35 years.
However, the wave of pro-independence protests that descended into urban rioting this week invoked more than Tjibaou’s memory. Many of the martyrs — such as schoolteacher turned security minister Eloï Machoro, murdered by French snipers during the upheaval of the 1980s — have been remembered and honoured for their exploits over the last few days with countless memes being shared on social media.
Among many memorable quotes by Tjibaou, this one comes to mind:
“White people consider that the Kanaks are part of the fauna, of the local fauna, of the primitive fauna. It’s a bit like rats, ants or mosquitoes,” he once said.
“Non-recognition and absence of cultural dialogue can only lead to suicide or revolt.”
And that is exactly what has come to pass this week in spite of all the warnings in recent years and months. A revolt.
Among the warnings were one by me in December 2021 after a failed third and “final” independence referendum. I wrote at the time about the French betrayal:
“After three decades of frustratingly slow progress but with a measure of quiet optimism over the decolonisation process unfolding under the Nouméa Accord, Kanaky New Caledonia is again poised on the edge of a precipice.”
As Paris once again reacts with a heavy-handed security crackdown, it appears to have not learned from history. It will never stifle the desire for independence by colonised peoples.
New Caledonia was annexed as a colony in 1853 and was a penal colony for convicts and political prisoners — mainly from Algeria — for much of the 19th century before gaining a degree of autonomy in 1946.
“Kanaky Palestine – same combat” solidarity placard. Image: APR screenshot
Here are my five takeaways from this week’s violence and frustration:
1. Global failure of neocolonialism – Palestine, Kanaky and West Papua
Just as we have witnessed a massive outpouring of protest on global streets for justice, self-determination and freedom for the people of Palestine as they struggle for independence after 76 years of Israeli settler colonialism, and also Melanesian West Papuans fighting for 61 years against Indonesian settler colonialism, Kanak independence aspirations are back on the world stage.
Neocolonialism has failed. French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to reverse the progress towards decolonisation over the past three decades has backfired in his face.
2. French deafness and loss of social capital
The predictions were already long there. Failure to listen to the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) leadership and to be prepared to be patient and negotiate towards a consensus has meant much of the crosscultural goodwill that been developed in the wake of the Nouméa Accord of 1998 has disappeared in a puff of smoke from the protest fires of the capital.
The immediate problem lies in the way the French government has railroaded the indigenous Kanak people who make up 42 percent pf the 270,000 population into a constitutional bill that “unfreezes” the electoral roll pegging voters to those living in New Caledonia at the time of the 1998 Nouméa Accord. Under the draft bill all those living in the territory for the past 10 years could vote.
Kanak leaders and activists who have been killed . . . Jean-Marie Tjibaou is bottom left, and Eloï Machoro is bottom right. Image: FLNKS/APR
This would add some 25,000 extra French voters in local elections, which would further marginalise Kanaks at a time when they hold the territorial presidency and a majority in the Congress in spite of their demographic disadvantage.
Under the Nouméa Accord, there was provision for three referendums on independence in 2018, 2020 and 2021. The first two recorded narrow (and reducing) votes against independence, but the third was effectively boycotted by Kanaks because they had suffered so severely in the 2021 delta covid pandemic and needed a year to mourn culturally.
The FLNKS and the groups called for a further referendum but the Macron administration and a court refused.
3. Devastating economic and social loss New Caledonia was already struggling economically with the nickel mining industry in crisis – the territory is the world’s third-largest producer. And now four days of rioting and protesting have left a trail of devastation in their wake.
At least five people have died in the rioting — three Kanaks, and two French police, apparently as a result of a barracks accident. A state of emergency was declared for at least 12 days.
But as economists and officials consider the dire consequences of the unrest, it will take many years to recover. According to Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) president David Guyenne, between 80 and 90 percent of the grocery distribution network in Nouméa had been “wiped out”. The chamber estimated damage at about 200 million euros (NZ$350 million).
Twin flags of Kanaky and Palestine flying from a Parisian rooftop. Image: APR
4. A new generation of youth leadership As we have seen with Generation Z in the forefront of stunning pro-Palestinian protests across more than 50 universities in the United States (and in many other countries as well, notably France, Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom), and a youthful generation of journalists in Gaza bearing witness to Israeli atrocities, youth has played a critical role in the Kanaky insurrection.
Australian peace studies professor Dr Nicole George notes that “the highly visible wealth disparities” in the territory “fuel resentment and the profound racial inequalities that deprive Kanak youths of opportunity and contribute to their alienation”.
A feature is the “unpredictability” of the current crisis compared with the 1980s “les événements”.
“In the 1980s, violent campaigns were coordinated by Kanak leaders . . . They were organised. They were controlled.
“In contrast, today it is the youth taking the lead and using violence because they feel they have no other choice. There is no coordination. They are acting through frustration and because they feel they have ‘no other means’ to be recognised.”
According to another academic, Dr Évelyne Barthou, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Pau, who researched Kanak youth in a field study last year: “Many young people see opportunities slipping away from them to people from mainland France.
“This is just one example of the neocolonial logic to which New Caledonia remains prone today.”
Pan-Pacific independence solidarity . . . “Kanak People Maohi – same combat”. Image: APR screenshot
5. Policy rethink needed by Australia, New Zealand
Ironically, as the turbulence struck across New Caledonia this week, especially the white enclave of Nouméa, a whistlestop four-country New Zealand tour of Melanesia headed by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who also has the foreign affairs portfolio, was underway.
The first casualty of this tour was the scheduled visit to New Caledonia and photo ops demonstrating the limited diversity of the political entourage showed how out of depth New Zealand’s Pacific diplomacy had become with the current rightwing coalition government at the helm.
Heading home, Peters thanked the people and governments of Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Tuvalu for “working with New Zealand towards a more secure, more prosperous and more resilient tomorrow”.
The delegation is now heading home
Many thanks to the people and governments of Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu & Tuvalu for their kind hospitality – and for working with New Zealand towards a more secure, more prosperous & more resilient tomorrow.
His tweet came as New Caledonian officials and politicians were coming to terms with at least five deaths and the sheer scale of devastation in the capital which will rock New Caledonia for years to come.
News media in both Australia and New Zealand hardly covered themselves in glory either, with the commercial media either treating the crisis through the prism of threats to tourists and a superficial brush over the issues. Only the public media did a creditable job, New Zealand’s RNZ Pacific and Australia’s ABC Pacific and SBS.
In the case of New Zealand’s largest daily newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, it barely noticed the crisis. On Wednesday, morning there was not a word in the paper.
Thursday was not much better, with an “afterthought” report provided by a partnership with RNZ. As I reported it:
“Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, finally catches up with the Pacific’s biggest news story after three days of crisis — the independence insurrection in #KanakyNewCaledonia.
“But unlike global news services such as Al Jazeera, which have featured it as headline news, the Herald tucked it at the bottom of page 2. Even then it wasn’t its own story, it was relying on a partnership report from RNZ.”
Also, New Zealand media reports largely focused too heavily on the “frustrations and fears” of more than 200 tourists and residents said to be in the territory this week, and provided very slim coverage of the core issues of the upheaval.
With all the warning signs in the Pacific over recent years — a series of riots in New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu — Australia and New Zealand need to wake up to the yawning gap in social indicators between the affluent and the impoverished, and the worsening climate crisis.
These are the real issues of the Pacific, not some fantasy about AUKUS and a perceived China threat in an unconvincing arena called “Indo-Pacific”.
Dr David Robie covered “Les Événements” in New Caledonia in the 1980s and penned the book Blood on their Banner about the turmoil. He also covered the 2018 independence referendum.
Loyalist French rally in New Caledonia . . . “Unfreezing is democracy”. Image: A PR screenshot
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