radiofree.asia

Category: UK

  • Pressure mounts on Cambridgeshire council to rethink nature-killing busway plan

    By Cambridgeshire County Council’s (CCC) own admission, Coton Orchard – a 100-year-old fruit tree, meadow, and hedgerow-filled ecosystem – is a buzzing community hub. Badgers, bats and other mammals, dozens of species of birds, along with with hundreds of invertebrate species, are all part of the orchard’s wider community.

    But despite this, the council plans to create a busway route right through Coton Orchard. The plan has attracted criticism and opposition, with the Woodland Trust becoming the latest to join the fray.

    Council needs to rethink Coton Orchard plan

    Cambridgeshire holds the unenviable position of being one of the most nature-impoverished counties in one of most nature-depleted countries on Earth.

    Unsurprisingly, then, the plan by the Greater Cambridgeshire Partnership (GCP) and CCC to build a road through Coton Orchard and surrounding areas has caused a stir. Thousands of concerned people have signed a petition against the plan for the Camborne to Cambridge (C2C) road.

    Meanwhile, the Coton Busway Action Group is furiously campaigning for the council to scrap the plan and opt for a less destructive – and existing – alternative. The Woodland Trust is also calling on the involved parties to rethink the route. Lead campaigner for the organisation Jack Taylor said:

    We are calling on GCP and CCC to rethink their plans for the busway which would have grave consequences for a number of veteran trees.

    These trees are particularly valuable for local wildlife populations, such as saproxylic (deadwood-dependent) invertebrates, as well as many important bird, mammal and fungi species.

    Threat to Coton Orchard invertebrates

    Like the Woodland Trust, the council’s own environmental assessment for the plan pointed to the importance of Coton Orchard for invertebrates, along with countless other animals. The assessment highlighted that the orchard supports:

    a diverse range of invertebrates, including 14 species currently regarded as nationally scarce, though with certain areas supporting more rarities than others.

    The assessment identified 239 species in Coton Orchard – including butterflies, moths, bees, beetles, and more.

    Protection of invertebrates, meaning the myriad of small animals without a backbone, is critical in tackling the extinction crisis. They are essential to healthy ecosystems, not least because they are a food source for other species.

    For instance, a recent study found that the dramatic decline in the abundance of birds in Europe over recent decades is due to intensive agriculture. In particular, it pinpointed the intensive use of chemicals, namely pesticides and fertilisers, as the main culprit in birds’ demise. This is in large part because many of the chemicals deliberately kill the invertebrates that birds depend on for survival.

    An ‘utterly destructive proposal’

    Responding to the Woodland Trust’s intervention, a GCP spokesperson said the project will cut congestion and air pollution and will enable people to travel “quickly, reliably and more sustainably”. In relation to the impact on biodiversity, they said:

    We are developing mitigation proposals to preserve views, screen infrastructure and limit the impact on the landscape. We are committed to planting 1,500 new trees along the route – significantly more than we will remove. Hedgerows will also largely be maintained as part of our commitment to deliver a minimum 10 per cent biodiversity net gain for the scheme overall, with the ambition of achieving 20 per cent.

    However, the environmental assessment said that 1.3km of existing hedgerow around Coton Orchard “will be lost”. Moreover, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species has challenged biodiversity net gain claims from the project’s proponents, arguing that:

    This utterly destructive proposal can never achieve biodiversity net gain due to the vast amounts of damage that it will do to an ancient orchard full of veteran trees, and the enormous impact of a road going through so much previously undamaged and unfragmented countryside.

    Biodiversity net gain (BNG) is the government’s controversial metric to facilitate continued development in nature-rich areas during the extinction crisis. It enables developers to secure a green light to destroy existing wildlife habitat. They can do so as long as their plans include promises to replace that biodiversity elsewhere and, in many cases, increase it overall.

    There is an alternative

    According to the Coton Busway Action Group, a much less destructive on-road alternative to the plan exists. Some proponents have warned that the alternative would threaten other biodiverse areas. However, the campaign group effectively characterises this as nonsense because it utilises existing roads:

    The campaign group says that:

    We are wholly in favour of public transport solutions and a better C2C bus service. But the GCP’s off-road scheme will not provide a solution or a good service.

    The on-road alternative, it argues, would be more economical, provide a good service and, critically, be less environmentally damaging. It insists that “we cannot afford this loss of habitat”.

    The diverse community of wild beings that call Coton Orchard home would undoubtedly and wholeheartedly agree with that conclusion.

    Featured image via Coton Busway Action Group

    By Tracy Keeling

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The UK was complicit in Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah’s torture. His lawyer says reparations should follow.

    Warning: this article contains links to graphic images and descriptions of torture.

    Earlier in May, the Canary reported on the publication of an academic paper regarding the art and diaries of Palestinian Abu Zubaydah. That paper included graphic descriptions of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) applied to Zubaydah.

    Zubaydah was classified by the US as a “High Value Detainee”. He was the first detainee US authorities subjected to EITs, effectively making him a “human guinea pig” for torture techniques. Before his rendition to Guantánamo Bay, the CIA held Zubaydah for 1,619 days at a number of “black sites”. These were located in Pakistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania, and Afghanistan.

    Allegations raised against Zubaydah were ultimately shown to be false.

    UK complicity in prisoner’s torture

    On 19 May, Zubaydah’s lawyer Helen Duffy stated:

    The UK has been found legally responsible for ‘complicity’ in our client’s torture and ongoing unlawful detention, and reparations should follow… This can include offers of relocation, recognition and apology, rehabilitation and compensation.

    Earlier, in November 2022, the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WAGAD) had declared that the:

    Governments of the United States, Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom… are jointly responsible for the torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of Mr. Zubaydah.

    That followed a UK appeal court ruling. The Guardian summed this up as follows:

    UK intelligence services who allegedly asked the CIA to put questions to a detainee who was being tortured in “black sites” were subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which he was being held.

    The ruling was significant, as it provided the opportunity for the detainee – Zubaydah – to accuse UK intelligence services of complicity in his torture.

    UK intelligence accused

    In 2018, the Canary published details about the UK personnel who had witnessed detainees’ mistreatment. Indeed, UK personnel supplied questions or intelligence for 232 cases.

    Also that year, a UK Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report made it clear the Zubaydah case showed “direct awareness of extreme mistreatment – and probable torture”. Furthermore, UK intelligence was complicit in almost 600 cases of prisoner mistreatment following 9/11. And the UK also planned and financed 31 rendition ops.

    The previous year saw a European Parliament report that expressed:

    serious concern about the 170 stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft at UK airports, which on many occasions came from or were bound for countries linked with extraordinary rendition circuits and the transfer of detainees

    The Rendition Project, however, listed a different figure, namely 391 alleged rendition flights via the UK or its overseas territories or crown dependencies. The CIA used these flights for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners.

    The torture

    The CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation programme led to the detainment and torture of over 130 individuals. A database produced jointly by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Rendition Project gave the number as 124.

    Torture is contrary to international law, including the UN Convention against Torture and the Nuremberg Code.

    Yet the Rendition Project noted that CIA records revealed how:

    39 prisoners were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” whilst in CIA detention. EITs were a set of eleven specific techniques approved by the Department of Justice for use by the CIA: the attention grasp; walling; facial hold; facial slap; cramped confinement; wall standing; stress positions; sleep deprivation; waterboard; use of diapers; and use of insects.

    An August 2002 memo to John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the CIA, described in detail the torture techniques, including waterboarding, used on Zubaydah.

    Orwellian nightmare

    Details of the CIA rendition programme, the torture, and the conditions prisoners were subjected to at Guantánamo Bay were first published by WikiLeaks.

    In 2021, award-winning film maker Alex Gibney released a documentary about Zubaydah. On arbitrary detention, Gibney referencing George Orwell’s famous description of torture said:

    It’s not the boot on the face forever, but it’s that sense of eternally not knowing what is going to happen to you or why. That is soul-crushing and has got to be psychologically destabilizing in some really potent way where you just don’t know.

    As to the current situation at Guantánamo, the Guardian reported that:

    There are 30 inmates left at the Guantánamo camp, of which only one has been convicted of a crime; 10 are involved in military tribunal proceedings, although in most cases, the trials have not even started; 16 have been recommended for a transfer to another country, pending security guarantees

    Reparations

    Regarding possible legal action against the UK, there is at least one precedent. Guantánamo detainees Bisher al-Rawi, Richard Belmar, Jamil el-Banna, Martin Mubanga, Omar Deghayes, and Binyam Mohamed sued the UK government, including MI5 and MI6.

    In November 2010 the UK agreed on a confidential settlement that included a payout of millions of pounds to those detainees. The settlement meant that UK authorities could avoid the release of confidential intelligence documents in court.

    Following the WGAD declaration, the UK government should immediately arrange reparations or agree on a settlement for Zubaydah, too. It’s the very least they can do after being complicit in Zubaydah’s torture for years.

    Featured image via HBO – YouTube

    By Tom Coburg

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The situation at the University of Brighton is worsening – but we’re fighting for justice

    In the last few weeks, staff and students have collectively organised to stop the University of Brighton making 140 academic and professional services staff members redundant. However, on 27 May, management sent another shockwave through the faculty and student body.

    Now, the university as announced it will close the Brighton Centre for Contemporary Arts (BCCA) due to alleged financial pressures. This is another blow to our institution – but also sums up a wider problem in UK universities.

    University of Brighton: the decimation of our institution

    As I previously wrote for the Canary:

    The University of Brighton announced the redundancies on 4 May. It said that it was asking staff to take voluntary redundancy first, before forcing people to leave. The university’s senior management team attempted to justify the decision. It argued that the freeze in regulated tuition fees has reduced the real-terms value of their primary source of income by around a third.

    Senior management also said that the situation has been compounded by current inflation levels reaching near-record highs. They claimed this has pushed up the costs of maintaining all areas of the institution…

    This round of redundancies is another blow to an academic institution that has faced years of brutal cuts. After the closure of the Hastings campus (and of the Eastbourne campus, due to be complete by 2024), along with years of wage stagnation, staff have reached breaking point.

    And now, university management are also closing the BCCA. This indicates a broader trend in devaluing the arts and humanities. For example, in 2021 controversial government reforms saw money taken away from the creative arts. This was to fund subjects such as healthcare, medicine and STEM.

    Moreover, the university’s executive board made no internal announcement about its closure of the BCCA. Students and staff found out via an article in the Art Newspaper. BCCA director Ben Roberts stated that the process felt “very top-down”. He also said:

    There was no discussion about what we might do to reduce costs or try to be part of a solution.

    Stop calling our supervisors ‘savings’

    The sentiment that the ongoing consultation processes are a farce came to the fore this week for post-graduate researchers (PGRs) at Brighton. After fighting to get a meeting with someone from senior management, on 24 May we met virtually with professor Rusi Jaspal. I was in attendance at this meeting. The answers he gave, and the way he spoke to us, shocked me.

    His tone was patronising, and he failed to answer a single question adequately. The moment which struck me the most in the meeting was when a peer asked Jaspal to apologise for the distress senior management had caused. PhD researchers like myself are at risk of losing entire supervisory teams. This has resulted in many researchers being unable to work and struggling mentally.

    However, rather than take accountability and offer a sincere apology, Jaspal apologised for the economic situation and for caring about the university’s financial sustainability. PhD student Mandeep Sidhu, who also attended the meeting, told me:

    I left the meeting feeling more outraged, frustrated and patronised than I had been before. Rusi kept on insisting the meeting was an “open dialogue”; it soon became clear that this was nothing more than a veneer for his condescending monologues, which he deployed to “respond” to students’ testimonies.

    As PGRs, we felt we needed answers. Where will the expertise come from if our supervisors are forced to leave? Why have we heard nothing from vice chancellor (VC) Debra Humphris? Why are the cuts not impacting senior management? Overall, management’s tactics have been silence or stonewalling. Hence, a group of anonymous students decided to take action.

    Student occupation of the vice chancellor’s office

    On 25 May, they occupied the VC’s office on the 8th floor of the Cockcroft building. They said they will occupy the building indefinitely until management meet their only demand – that no redundancies take place. Students said in a press release:

    The university’s complete lack of care and concern for the people whom they are most affecting by their financial mistakes to retain profit is unacceptable. Our staff are not disposable!

    There are students who are finding themselves in a position where choices they have made for their futures have been either completely cut off or severely limited as certain pathways have been cancelled by the cuts. They find themselves trapped after financially committing themselves to a course that will not run due to the university’s management failures and are unable to escape.

    The school of Humanities and Social Sciences will be disproportionately affected – 21 out of 54 humanities staff will be made redundant.

    A growing trend

    In response, the university threatened legal action against the students occupying the VC’s office. However, rather than communicating with the students directly, university management decided to serve the students with a solicitor’s letter. It stated that the university had reported the occupiers’ conduct to the police, and:

    intends to pursue disciplinary action under the student disciplinary process.

    Brighton is not alone in seeking to clamp down on students protesting. The University of Sheffield has been criticised for spending £40,000 on hiring a private investigator to look into the involvement of two student activists in an occupation. Similarly, the University of Manchester wishes to make an example of 11 students who protested over poor living conditions by disciplining them.

    Such actions taken by universities are all the more worrying in the context of the Public Order Act. It will infringe on our right to protest in the UK. However, at Brighton, such draconian measures are not directed at just the occupiers – they are now impacting our daily lives.

    Campus security crackdown

    Since the occupation, management has heightened security on campus. The university claims there is no money to retain staff, but it appears there’s money in the budget to hire private security firms to police students. Now you need to show your student or staff ID card in order to access campus buildings.

    On one occasion, after my colleague and I showed our ID to security, they questioned who I was, if I was a staff member, and where I was going. Security then followed me and my colleague to the elevators. They made us feel intimidated in the place where we work and study.

    This is not a one-off occurrence. Two undergraduate students, who wish to remain anonymous, told me:

    We went to Cockcroft’s women’s downstairs bathrooms at 7am this morning. We were in there a couple of minutes, then heard pounding at the door. It really made us jump. We came out, and it was two older men. One said, “Sorry girls” but he didn’t sound particularly sincere.

    It feels like we are being sussed out to see if we’re the “enemy”. We cannot go to the loo, fill up our water bottles, or walk past the front desk without being asked, “Where are you going” “what are you doing” or “Unicard entry only”, even with my Unicard in hand.

    There is only one demand: no redundancies

    Although the response from management has been hostility and intimidation, the students at Brighton should be commended. Their dedication and commitment to protecting their education have been incredible to witness. They should be proud of themselves. Since last writing, an open mic fundraiser and a study-themed sit-in have taken place to support our lecturers.

    Brighton’s staff and students are also participating in a no-confidence vote against the VC. On 10 June, a solidarity march and rally are planned, and we hope to see as many people as possible stand in solidarity with us.

    The petition is still available to sign here. And if you want to keep up to date with our actions, follow us on Twitter at @pgrs_brighton and @UOBSolidarity.

    Featured image via the author

    By Kathryn Zacharek

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The state is now criminalising activists who tried to stop a racist deportation flight

    On Tuesday 30 May, the trial begins of three protesters who tried to stop a government deportation flight to Jamaica. The controversial flight caused uproar at the time – but thanks to the actions of lawyers and campaigners, the Home Office hardly managed to deport anyone. However, activists are now paying the price for defending people’s basic human rights. 

    Government deportation flights have rightly caused outrage in recent years. The Home Office runs these when it claims people are not British citizens, and sometimes when they’ve committed a crime. However, many of the people the government tries to deport have lived in the UK most of their lives. One particular flight in November 2021 summed up the scandal.

    Deportation flights in the spotlight

    SOAS Detainee Support is an abolitionist activist group. It supports people facing deportation. In November 2021, it was involved in protests against a flight to Jamaica. The government claimed the people it was deporting were “foreign national offenders” with “no right to be in the UK”. But SOAS Detainee Support tells a different story.

    It said in a press release that:

    The deportation flight to Jamaica in November 2021 was initially intended to carry as many as 50 people. They included a 20-year-old woman who had been in the country since she was 13 and has no relatives in Jamaica. Three allegedly had direct Windrush connections through grandparents or other older relatives.

    At least ten had come to Britain aged 16 or younger, and five had come at 10 or younger. Nine of them had been in the UK for 20 years or longer. Many of them have British children, and up to 24 children would have lost their fathers had the flight left with all intended.

    In the build-up to this flight on 9 November 2021, three protestors locked on to each other using metal pipes on a road outside the Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. In the end, just four people boarded the flight from Birmingham airport, from an original list of more than 50. So the protests as well as legal issues stopped most of the government’s planned deportations.

    But now, some protesters are facing the wrath of the state. 

    Protesters: penalised for defending human rights

    SOAS Detainee Support said in a press release that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has:

    charged [three protesters] with causing a public nuisance for blocking a road outside Brook House Immigration Removal Centre at Gatwick Airport in November 2021 to prevent people being forcibly removed on a flight to Jamaica. They will be tried by a jury, with the trial listed for seven days.

    They have crowdfunded almost £20,000 to support the costs of their case, with more than 750 people donating.

    The trial of these three protestors is taking place as the government cracks down further not only on the right to protest, but on people’s right to asylum, too. For example, as the Canary recently reported, the Public Order Act coupled with the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts (PCSC) Act will effectively allow police to stop all sorts of protest actions:

    The new Public Order Act powers include penalties of a year in custody for blocking roads, railways and airports. In addition, protesters who use the tactic of locking-on could face up to six months in prison.

    At the same time, the racist Nationality and Borders Act and the 2023 Illegal Migration Bill are entrenching the Tories’ hostile environment for Black, brown, and foreign-born people. 

    Fighting back against the government

    However, people are fighting back. On Saturday 27 May, thousands of people protested in London over the Public Order Act:

    Meanwhile, groups like Stop Deportations continue to fight the government’s racist agendas. Stop Deportations is supporting the three protesters on trial:

    A spokesperson for the group said:

    Blocking Brook House detention centre prevented people from being violently and cruelly taken away from their families and loved ones on a deportation flight. Many of those who were due to be deported to Jamaica arrived in the UK as children and have family here, including children of their own, some had Windrush connections and some are potential trafficking survivors. They did not receive proper legal advice or time to challenge their deportation, so direct action was necessary to prevent it.

    The government is now aggressively trying to suppress opposition and scare people from protesting and similar direct action by charging three people with such serious offences.

    Blocking the immigration detention centre condemns not only this charter flight but also seeks to show solidarity with all those locked in detention centres, subject to deportations and otherwise oppressed by racist border controls.

    On the racism inherent in forced deportations, they added:

    We reject the legitimacy of the entire deportation regime. It is premised on racist notions of racialised people – from their disproportionate treatment in the criminal injustice system to their demonisation by the Home Office.

    Racist borders, racist governments

    Overall, it is shocking yet predictable that the state would criminalise protesters who were defending people from its racist attacks on their human rights. SOAS Detainee Support said in a press release:

    The three blockaders should be praised, not prosecuted, for taking direct action to prevent a racist charter flight. Deportations destroy lives, tear families apart, and instill fear in our communities. If they are convicted, it will be a dark day for migrants in the UK – and for anyone who believes in the right to dissent against a government that is determined to divide, impoverish and disempower ordinary people.

    Against the backdrop of legislation designed to dismantle the remains of the asylum system, acts of resistance and solidarity will only become more urgent and necessary.

    So, not only is the government hell-bent on upholding neo-colonialist, white supremacist policies – it will also criminalise anyone who opposes them. While this isn’t new, in the case of the ‘Brook House Three’ it is particularly insidious, given the deportation flight was largely a failure, anyway.

    The trial will last around seven days. You can donate to the crowdfunder for the defendants here.

    Featured image via Stop Deportations

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The misconduct investigation into the EHRC’s Kishwer Falkner was over before it even began

    Before it had even begun, a misconduct investigation into Kishwer Falkner – the chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – has been halted. The EHRC issued a statement on 26 May, saying that:

    This investigation has been paused. This is while we seek legal advice on the impact of leaked confidential information. We must ensure its integrity and that it is fair to all parties concerned.

    Staff at the equalities watchdog had put together a dossier of 40 alleged instances of their boss’s discrimination, harassment, bullying, and transphobia. These include referring to Emma Laslett – a trans disability activist and Mastermind contestant – as a “bloke in lipstick” during an official EHRC board meeting.

    The news of the pause came just hours after 54 cross-party peers voiced support for Falkner. They called the claims “vexatious” and a “political chess game”.

    Bullying and harassment in the EHRC

    More broadly, the EHRC itself has also come under fire. Channel 4 collected statements citing a “lack of trust in the impartiality and independence of our Board” and “an increase in bullying, harassment and discrimination”. Marcial Boo, EHRC chief executive, responded by saying:

    We treat allegations of bullying and harassment with the utmost seriousness, following the proper process, and instructing independent investigators where appropriate, in order to provide assurance to all parties concerned. It would be wrong to comment on specifics when investigations are ongoing.

    She also claimed that the commission’s “annual turnover is in line with the average across the public sector”. This, however, may be difficult to believe. Fully one-quarter of staff left in 2022 alone, according to leaked figures.

    VICE originally broke the story of the mass EHRC resignations back in April. In particular, the article highlighted seven high-profile figures leaving the organisation. These included a commissioner, an executive director, four directors, and a committee member.

    One staff member told VICE:

    It’s not difficult to draw a line between the letter that was sent by the commission to the government and employees leaving. People have been involved in the current publications, and been very unhappy, and they’ve been expressing their discomfort for a while, so clearly now enough is enough.

    There has been no effort made to look for evidence on any actual real-life issues in relation to the policy of rights between (cis) women and trans people. And it just seems to be a case of going full-steam ahead without considering any evidence, and I think the commission is inflaming a culture war.

    Another ex-staffer later said:

    One paper was so heavily edited by Falkner that it left people speechless. She changed the case studies, the language… It was so transphobic, there was no way it would get published.

    Independence under question

    The claims that the EHRC lacks independence from the government echoed criticism levelled at the watchdog recently by Stonewall and other queer advocacy groups. In answer, an EHRC spokesperson stated:

    We take all decisions impartially, based on evidence and the law, both in the UK and internationally.

    Our independence is guaranteed in statute.

    The way the EHRC is governed, and Commissioners appointed, is set out in the Equality Act and has not changed since the Commission was established.

    However, this assertion is questionable at best. In recent years, the EHRC has been toeing very close to the Tories’ distinctly transphobic party line. Coincidentally, Falkner took over the commission in 2020. According to research collective The Trans Safety Network, she quickly made opposing trans rights an “early priority” in her work.

    Most recently, at the behest of Kemi Badenoch, the organisation offered advice on removing a huge swathe of protections from the Equality Act.

    Regarding this advice, an independent UN expert accused the EHRC of offering the government a ‘formula to discriminate’ against trans people. The EHRC replied:

    It is disappointing that trans people are being given the message that the potential change would make it impossible for them to live their day to day lives safely and with dignity. Such unfounded remarks simply generate more fear and concern among a community that already experiences too much discrimination.

    Again, though, the criticisms were far from “unfounded”. The potential effects on trans people’s lives are both clear and wide-ranging. Most obviously, it would strip the legal protections provided to trans people according to their lived genders.

    Spot the trans activist

    The Telegraph reported the pausing of the investigation as following:

    a growing backlash over an attempted coup by trans-activist civil servants.

    It should not be forgotten that these civil servants signed up to work at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. When they did so, they presumably thought that their labour would contribute to the advancement of those same human rights. Though it is increasingly clear that many members of the UK government disagree, trans people are included among the category of humans.

    The fact that human rights workers can be brushed off wholesale precisely because they are trying to advance human rights would be laughable, were it not so sickening. British society has reached a point where any attempt to prevent the destruction of existing trans protections makes one a trans activist. Then, in turn, being a trans activist means that one can be ignored.

    A foregone conclusion

    This applies across over and over. The results of the consultation on self-ID were ignored because they were overwhelmingly favourable. Officials claimed they were “skewed by an avalanche of responses generated by trans rights groups”.

    The census says there are too many trans people, so the census must be wrong.

    Trans activists are a “savage… mob” when they criticise a singer online. On the other hand, a hate campaigner who attracts literal salute-snapping Nazis to her rallies is a “women’s rights activist”.

    And, of course, critics of trans clinics like Tavistock are reported as “whistleblowers”. But the whistleblowers at the EHRC are partisan trans activists.

    You know what? Keep your fucking investigation. Even if it had found that Falkner was a bully and a transphobe, the government that appointed her would have clapped anyway. There can be no fair hearing for trans people or their allies in the UK.

    All of this was a foregone conclusion.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Roger Harris, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, resized to 1910*1000. 

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The DWP’s latest Universal Credit plans could see it stop 632,000 peoples’ benefits

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is once again shaking up Universal Credit. It’s to do with the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for people who are chronically ill, sick, and/or disabled. However, in the process it could deny benefits to over 600,000 people – many of whom are too sick to work.

    Universal Credit: a shake-up on the cards

    The DWP is planning to change the way it assesses chronically ill, sick, and disabled people. This has been in the pipeline since 2019. As the Canary reported at the time, the then-work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd wanted a single test for claimant eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), and Universal Credit. This would replace the current WCA. The idea then was that the DWP would run this in-house. However, since then, the department has tinkered with the policy.

    As John Pring at Disability News Service (DNS) reported, now the DWP will base chronically ill, sick, and disabled peoples’ entitlement to both health-related elements of Universal Credit and ESA on their PIP or DLA entitlement. That is, people will need to get PIP or DLA to get health-related out-of-work benefits. These include Universal Credit’s Limited Capability For Work Or Work-Related Activity (LCWRA).

    DNS noted that the DWP would manage this in-house, because the plans:

    would see DWP work coaches deciding if a disabled person could carry out work-related activity.

    However, the policy is littered with problems.

    Chronic illness: not fitting DWP criteria

    As the Canary previously wrote:

    The WCA and PIP criteria are completely different, as are the benefits. The DWP may be asking people for the same information about their illnesses or impairments. But the context is completely different. The WCA looks at what sick and disabled people can do regarding work. The PIP health assessment looks at what support people need. To combine both these assessments is simplifying people’s health. But more often than not, people’s health is not simple at all.

    However, the biggest problem now is that there are loads of people who currently get health-related out-of-work benefits but not PIP or DLA. Under the new regime, they may not be entitled to anything.

    The DWP denied to DNS that this was the case. However, DNS spoke to Ken Butler from Disability Rights UK. He said:

    The health element proposals will mean that around 632,000 disabled people who receive the employment and support allowance or universal credit support component will lose this as they do not receive PIP or DLA.

    What’s not clear is just who these people are. Anecdotally, people living with chronic illnesses, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), long Covid, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome struggle to get PIP. This is because the DWP designed the assessment around disabled people whose impairments are related to mobility, physical dexterity, and cognition. In short, many chronically ill people do not fit into PIP’s rigid criteria box. People living with enduring psychological distress, as well as other mental health conditions, also struggle with PIP.

    However, the WCA criteria fits both these groups of claimants’ support needs more. Therefore, if the DWP makes the entitlement for health-related out-of-work benefits solely based on PIP, it’s likely many chronically ill people, and those living with mental health issues, will be the ones to which it denies benefits like Universal Credit.

    Intentional denial

    Of course, the DWP changing the system so as to potentially remove chronically ill people’s support is not some accident. As the Canary previously reported, there are now over 360,000 more people who are chronically ill and not working than before the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The government classes these people as “economically inactive”. It’s currently on a drive to get some of the nine million people who are economically inactive into work.

    So, by removing the WCA and just relying on PIP entitlement, the DWP will be able to strip some of these economically inactive people of their entitlements. This will leave many with little choice but to try and work.

    However, as the Canary previously wrote there are already not enough jobs to go around anyway. Plus, stopping people’s benefits does not get them back into work. Moreover, the DWP denying chronically ill, sick, and disabled people support led to countless deaths in the 2010s. Any new push by the department to force people into work will end in disaster.

    Featured image via VideoBlogg Productions/the Canary and Wikimedia

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Food poverty in the UK: it’s time for critical change

    Across the UK, many of us have been increasingly feeling the financial pinch.

    With the cost-of-living crisis due to rising inflation, food prices have risen again and again.

    In fact, here in the UK, they’ve gone up by 19.1% (in the last 12 months up to March 2023).

    Everyday products such as butter, pasta and bread getting more expensive. Research has found that some products have more than doubled in price.

    As a result, more and more people are struggling to make ends meet.

    The UK charity Trussell Trust recently recorded more than 760,000 people were forced to reach out to one of their food banks for the first time between April 2022 and March 2023.

    But for millions, this isn’t new.

    Food poverty has long been an issue across the country. Before the Covid-19 hit, over five million people were food insecure. That was 8% of the British population.

    For people on low incomes and particularly vulnerable communities such as the homeless and asylum seekers (who are not legally permitted to work and forced to live off £6.43 a day), food poverty is an all too real reality.

    Today, we’re facing the reality of nearly 8.4 million people living in food poverty across the UK.

    This includes four million children – a figure that’s almost doubled since last year.

    As a country, we’ve now got one the highest rates of food poverty in Europe. It’s time for change – starting with the UK Government.

    The right to food is a human right (right to health). But here in the UK, it’s not enshrined in law. This needs to change.

    In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has proposed free school meals for all primary school children for a year, starting September 2023. But: we want to see more action. 

    Here’s how you can take action to fight food poverty – and access support if you’re in need.

    Take action / access support:

    1. Join the Right to Food Campaign
      • Sign the petition: call on the UK government to enshrine the right to food in UK law
      • Ask your MP: call on them to also sign the petition!Add your signature: email Ian Byrne MP saying you want to add your signature to the #RightToFood campaign pledge
      • Find out more about the campaign: visit Unite and René Cassin
    2. Donate or reach out to your local foodbank for help: visit Trussell Trust for UK services
    3. Feed your community: invite neighbours and colleagues over for a meal/summer BBQ, host a lunch/dinner in your cultural/religious community centre or volunteer your services at a local centre offering support in your area (search here)
    4. Find out more: learn about “cooking on a bootstrap” with Jack Monroe, who offers recipes for dishes starting at 41p

    The right to food (and to health) is a human right.

    Let’s fight food poverty together.

    This post was originally published on Voice of Salam.

  • DeSantis announces White House bid following long campaign of discrimination

    On 24 May, Florida governor Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign. The Republican said in a video posted to Twitter:

    I’m Ron DeSantis and I’m running for president to lead our great American comeback.

    He released the footage moments before the scheduled start of a chaotic livestreamed Twitter chat with Elon Musk, during which he was planning to make his formal announcement.

    In his speech, DeSantis vowed to lead Americans into a new era of success and fight for their freedoms. However, his recent streak of lawmaking shows that his commitment to ‘freedom’ is far from the actual case.

    Campaign of discrimination

    Back in April, DeSantis brought in a 6-week abortion ban. This makes his state one of the most restrictive in the US regarding abortion rights. The same law also requires that survivors of rape and incest show ‘proof’ of what happened to them in order to qualify for a termination.

    On May 10, he signed what he called the “strongest anti-illegal immigration bill in the nation” to bar undocumented workers from jobs in the state. Starting July 1, businesses will be required to use the federal E-Verify system to check the legal status of all new employees. They would also face heavy fines for defying the law and employing undocumented people.

    Likewise, healthcare providers would be required to collect immigration status in order to provide treatment. This would be a strong deterrent to undocumented individuals, massively restricting their access to healthcare.

    Then, on May 15, the governor signed legislation regarding diversity in universities. It prohibits Florida’s public higher education institutions from spending federal money on diversity and inclusion initiatives. He also placed limits on courses and materials teaching critical race or gender theories in both schools and universities.

    And none of this is to mention the prolonged campaign of discrimination he has launched against queer, and particularly trans, people in his state.

    Travel warnings

    In fact, the situation for minorities in Florida has become so dire that two separate human rights bodies have issued travel warnings. They are advising people to take extreme caution in visiting the state.

    The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the US’ largest LGBTQ+ organisation. It issued a joint statement with Equality Florida warning on the risks of movement to or within the Florida. It stated that:

    Taken in their totality, Florida’s slate of laws and policies targeting basic freedoms and rights pose significant risk to the health and safety of many considering relocation and/or temporary travel to the state. We deeply regret that these attacks have already led LGBTQ families and others to flee the state and are driving more to consider relocation. And, in a state whose economy is fueled by visitors from around the world, it is with great sadness that Equality Florida has had to take the extraordinary step of responding to inquiries by issuing an official advisory warning of the risks associated with travel to the state.

    Nadine Smith – director of Equality Florida Executive Director – added that:

     Governor Ron DeSantis has inflicted deep and lasting damage upon our state, eroding the fundamental rights of our residents and visitors while exploiting the word ‘free’ as a hollow campaign slogan.

    In a similar move, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) also took the drastic measure of issuing a travel advisory. The NAACP is a major campaign group which advocates for the civil rights of Black people in America. It’s statement warned that:

    Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.

    NAACP president Derrick Johnson added that:

    Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon.

    The warnings issued by these campaign groups are stark. But, more than that, they are so intensely disheartening. Marginalised people should not need to be scared when moving about a country, but this is the point that America has reached.

    If DeSantis’ treatment of the people in his own state is anything to go by, we should all be worried about the prospect of him becoming president of the US.

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Office of Governor Ron DeSantis, public domain, resized to 1910*1000. 

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UCU have an uphill battle to restore confidence in their own members

    Many casualised staff have felt increasingly let down by the University and College Union (UCU) over the last year. Casualised staff – that is, staff on zero-hours, fixed-term insecure contracts – made up 33% of academic staff in 2021/22. In December, general secretary Jo Grady leaked the indefinite strike action plan via Twitter. This alarmed members and gathered support for her alternative plan of scattered days of action throughout Spring.

    In January, a winter marking and assessment boycott was called off at the last minute. Then, in February, members heard on a Friday evening that strike action beginning on the following Monday was cancelled. As the Canary reported at the time, many members were left scrambling over the weekend to prepare their classes.

    Many students had been supportive of UCU and the strikes. However, for those students who arrived in my classrooms that week in February, I couldn’t explain to them what was happening and why.

    Those that didn’t attend the reinstated classes told me that they couldn’t rearrange childcare, they couldn’t come to classes unprepared because of disabilities, and they couldn’t afford last-minute travel costs. These are the same reasons that staff couldn’t manage a last-minute pause of strikes.

    Bosses at the universities and the union enjoyed two weeks of ‘calm’. Meanwhile, anxious members desperately needed progress on the pay and conditions dispute, but saw none. The issue wasn’t just the chaotic strategy, but the framing of a proposal that offered next to nothing to casualised members as a ‘win’.

    Is union membership worth it?

    On top of this, UCU membership fees are high. Perhaps that’s fair: a permanent lecturer earning £58,000p.a. might easily afford the £27.75 per month UCU charges. But is a temporary lecturer at the bottom of the same pay bracket in the same boat?

    Don’t get me wrong, £40,000 is a high salary, but a temporary lecturer earning that could take home about £2,200 per month for a few months, and then be unemployed again. They may be justifiably bitter about paying the same £27.75 per month as a permanent staff member, especially when it’s paid to a union which has failed to protect them from their impending unemployment.

    Further down the payscale, the trade-off looks similarly miserable. A member earning a salary of only £22,000 (before tax) will be paying UCU nearly £20 (£19.91) per month. For contrast, Unite ask for £9.32 from members earning £21,500 (after tax), and £14.95 for members earning more.

    Last week, UCU announced that their fighting fund would be increased by £750,000, from £250,000. This week, on May 23, they expanded eligibility for the fund. Previously, only those facing 100% pay cuts for participating in the marking and assessment boycott could claim. Now, this applies those facing 50+% pay cuts.

    UCU’s leadership celebrated the difference this will make for members:

    There are 145 universities participating in the pay and conditions dispute. So, there is a question around how far £750,000 can actually go towards supporting all those staff.

    How far does the fund stretch?

    Let’s look at one example to see the scale of the problem. The University of Sheffield is imposing 100% pay deductions from 19th June – 7th July. Any staff member who has boycotted marking and assessment work, regardless of the other work they do, will be paid nothing between those dates. A full-time staff member participating in the boycott is likely to lose over £1000.

    If UCU’s fund covered all of that lost pay, then they’d run out of money after reimbursing fewer than 1000 staff. There are over 120,000 UCU members in total, and nearly 2000 at Sheffield alone. Not all members will have marking assigned, but if more than 0.01% of UCU’s total members participate, the fund cannot fully support them.

    Now, UCU are not offering to cover all lost pay. Members can claim up to £50 per day, or £75 if they earn under £30,000p.a., for up to 20 days of action since November. Staff have already had 15 days of strikes, and could previously claim for 11. As such, they might get nine days of new lost pay reimbursed from the fund. Ultimately, this cap means that more members could receive this partial support, but it would still be a tiny proportion of said members.

    Chaotic communications

    Throughout March, UCU exhausted members with endless e-ballots (sometimes on decisions that had already been made). Division escalated when it asked members if they supported:

    voting on the proposals that have been negotiated in both disputes, and pausing strike action.

    Many members wanted to get a vote on the proposals without pausing strike action or abandoning one of the disputes:

    This was the moment myself and my colleagues felt the balance had shifted among casualised members. They moved from broad support of the union, to widespread anger and distrust. Members of colour and disabled members have long been critical of UCU’s lack of support of the members who need a union the most, but in February to March 2023 masses of their colleagues realised that faith in UCU was misguided.

    Members were particularly unhappy about celebrations of pension wins, without mention of the pay and conditions dispute:

    Where are we now?

    Three months after the chaos in February and promises of “significant progress”, members have yet to see progress on zero-hour contracts, casualisation, workload, pay cuts, or race, gender, and disability pay gaps. The blame lies with university bosses (the Universities and Colleges Employers Association) but members also feel sold out by their union painting small wins on pensions as ‘job done’.

    Fortunately, UCU hasn’t given up the dispute yet, and the boycott is having an impact. However, the union needs to promise more than a £750,000 fighting fund if they’re hoping to win back the support of their casualised members.

    UCU has a reputation as a union for permanent lecturers. The last few months have done little to shift that perception, and when UCU leadership say ‘we have your backs,’ it’s very difficult for the rest of us to find a reason to believe them. 

    The author is a UCU member and member of staff at a UK University on a fixed-term contract. 

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/UCU – University and Colleges Union

    By Anonymous

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Former PM Johnson faces fresh police investigations over partygate

    Former prime minister Boris Johnson is facing further potential police investigations into the “Partygate” scandal. This comes after a government ministry handed two police forces material about alleged coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown breaches.

    The Metropolitan Police confirmed they were “assessing” new information it has received over the last week related to “potential breaches” of the coronavirus rules in Downing Street between June 2020 and May 2021.

    Meanwhile, the Times said Thames Valley Police were also analysing new evidence related to possible rule-breaking at Chequers, the prime minister’s country estate outside of London. Multiple sources told the newspaper that the alleged breaches involved Johnson’s family as well as his friends.

    On top of all that, Johnson has sacked his legal team ahead of the hearings next month. Adding insult to injury for the public, taxpayers will still fund his new lawyers. Then, according to the Guardian, the official public inquiry has threatened the Cabinet Office with:

    criminal sanctions over its refusal to share Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and diaries from during the crisis without heavy redactions.

    The chair of the inquiry, Lady Heather Hallett, suggested that if the Cabinet Office considered the request to share WhatsApp messages illegal it should to a pursue a judicial review.

    Partygate rumbles on

    All this is typical of the increasingly chaotic behaviour from ministers and former ministers. After the cronyism of the pandemic, and the revolving door of ministers, the partygate allegations are still rumbling on. The longer they do, the more frustration from the public spills over.

    Lecturer Kit Yates described the “contempt” of Johnson’s behaviour:

    Member of Independent SAGE professor Christina Pagel reflected on Johnson’s “shamelessness”:

    Professor of accounting Prem Sikka detailed the income streams available for the former prime minister:

    Sikka also summed up how much legal aid Johnson will be receiving:

    Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke mourned those who died “apart”:

    And ITV presenter Paul Brand brought up the characteristic chaos Johnson brings:

    Chaos and more chaos

    After everything Johnson oversaw – chaos, chaos, and more chaos – it figures that even more investigations into his behaviour are none incoming. All of this begs the question – was there any point during his time in Downing Street that he wasn’t breaking lockdown rules?

    None of this is surprising, either. We can all see these slippery politicians picking and choosing which laws they obey. Johnson’s behaviour smacks of the entitlement that has cushioned his actions his whole life. Whilst it remains to be seen what will come of the inquiry’s findings, it will be genuinely surprising if it has any consequences for the coddled and privileged former prime minister.

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/BBC News

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Fury over Suella Braverman escaping inquiry into speeding row

    Home secretary Suella Braverman will not face an ethics investigation into her handling of a speeding ticket she received last summer. Prime minister Rishi Sunak said he had consulted an ethics advisor, and concluded that the allegations “do not amount to a breach of the ministerial code”.

    Braverman faced calls for investigation after asking civil servants to set up a one-to-one driving awareness course, instead of taking penalty points on her license. Opposition politicians claimed she may have breached the ministerial code of conduct by requesting non-political civil servants to help deal with a private matter.

    Braverman released a statement saying:

    I sought to explore whether bespoke arrangements were possible, given my personal circumstances as a security-protected minister. I recognise how some people have construed this as me seeking to avoid sanction – at no point was that the intention or outcome.

    I deeply regret that my actions may have given rise to that perception, and I apologise for the distraction this has caused.

    Meanwhile, Sunak added that:

    a better course of action could have been taken to avoid giving rise to the perception of impropriety.

    Is it perception, or reality?

    Of course, people have taken a rather dim view to all this on Twitter. After all, Braverman has form. She was forced to resign under previous prime minister Liz Truss for using her personal email to send an official document to a colleague.

    Labour MP Clive Lewis said Tory rule breakers were a feature, not a bug:

    Author and lawyer Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu had scathing words for Sunak and Braverman:

    MP Dawn Butler argued that Sunak was avoiding an investigation because he knew Braverman wouldn’t survive its outcome:

    Byline Times political editor Adam Bienkov also made the point that Sunak was avoiding an investigation in order to protect himself:

    Crumbling Home Office

    This speeding scandal, however, is far from the only trouble Braverman is facing. The Guardian reported that civil servants had to fact-check Braverman frequently, writing:

    Government sources told the Guardian Braverman has repeatedly got things wrong… one insider said she made “basic errors”, while another said she “keeps getting facts wrong”. After meetings with other senior ministers, the Cabinet Office was said to have had to contact officials from the Home Office, who were asked to “factcheck” her claims.

    I News also cited senior Tory sources who claimed that Braverman was not fit for office, with one MP claiming:

    She should never have been appointed in the first place. She was sacked for breaching the ministerial code. She is not fit for office.

    More seriously, there are now emerging claims that Braverman has undisclosed links to the Rwandan government. The Independent reported that the current home secretary co-founded a charity called the ‘Africa Justice Foundation’ with Cherie Blair. The charity trained lawyers between 2010 and 2015.

    It appears that several workers from the charity are key members of the Rwandan government. And, of course, the UK government is now involved in a £140 million deal to use Rwanda to detain and process refugees arriving on UK shores.

    As with the speeding debacle, Braverman could still wriggle out of this one. The Independent cites a “source close to the home secretary” who told them:

    This was charity work carried out by Ms Braverman before she was an MP, and for which she wasn’t paid.

    Immoral truth-twisters

    The real scandal here is not that Braverman might wriggle out of breaking the ministerial code of conduct (again). It is the policies she’s overseeing normalising racist hatred and the shocking treatment of refugees.

    Braverman has proven herself to be not only incompetent, but also morally deplorable. Based on the fucked-up standards of modern politics, Braverman should face investigations and accountability for her breaches of conduct. However, it’s hard to muster up the will to care, overshadowed as they are by her behaviour on policies that dehumanise Black and Brown refugees.

    This government are a craven bunch, driven entirely by their will to make personal connections and profit from their time in office. Why should we have to rely on a broken standard of ministerial conduct for accountability?

    Instead, we need to be able to resist Braverman’s horrific policies whilst tearing apart the system that makes it acceptable to allow Black and Brown refugees to die in the sea, or else be detained and deported by our racist system.

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Sky News

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • After cops shut down its coronation demo, campaign group Republic is coming out against the Public Order Act

    After the Met Police targeted anti-monarchy campaigners at Charlie Windsor’s coronation, it became clear that the Tories‘ Public Order Act is every bit as dire as people predicted. However, despite it now being law, campaign groups like Republic aren’t done with this dire piece of legislation. They’re preparing to tell parliament exactly what they think of it.

    Public Order Act: what a shitshow

    As the Canary previously reported:

    The draconian Public Order Act was given royal assent on 2 May, dramatically increasing police powers to arrest protesters.

    Tom Anderson wrote that:

    The new Public Order Act powers include penalties of a year in custody for blocking roads, railways and airports. In addition, protesters who use the tactic of locking-on could face up to six months in prison.

    Moreover, he also noted that the Act massively widens the definition of ‘serious disruption’.

    This means traditional protest behaviour can now be criminalised, more so when you factor in the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts (PCSC) Act. We’ve already seen the police attempt to do this.

    As the Canary previously reported, when Charles Windsor was crowned, cops arrested a group of Republic members – simply for having placards and planning to protest. Police also accused them of having lock-on kit – which was actually just luggage straps to keep their placards together.

    Cops partly used the Public Order Act to do all this. It’s of little wonder, though, really. As the Canary‘s Glen Black previously wrote, the Public Order Act was:

    rushed through [parliament] in order to deal with protesters during the coronation.

    However, Republic and other groups are not taking this draconian attack on people’s basic rights lying down. It and other organisations have organised a protest against the Public Order Act.

    #NotMyAct says Republic and others

    At 12pm on 27 May, Republic, Jeremy Corbyn‘s Peace and Justice Project, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Croydon, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, and others will converge on Parliament Square:

    Republic will be out again for the demo, presumably with placards and luggage straps once more:

    The protest is using #NotMyBill – a follow-on from Republic’s #NotMyKing. The group Extinction Rebellion Families explained on Twitter why it’s joining the demo:

    The new powers in the Public Order Act are an attack on our right to protest which is a fundamental right & a vital way for children to make their voices heard in a democracy when they aren’t allowed to vote.

    The Public Order Act is a blatant attempt to silence dissent and, as ever, marginalised communities are most at risk from the abuse of these powers.

    Solidarity is key to resisting this bill, so come together in Parliament Square to tell the government this is #NotMyBill.

    Republic said:

    While we’re still focusing on our main goal, to push for an end to the monarchy, we realise that to achieve this, we must stand up for the right of freedom of speech, assembly and democracy in this country.

    If your political/activist group is also interested in joining, please get in touch at notmybill@proton.me – organisers will be in touch. If you’re thinking of attending, please also sign up to the Eventbrite page

    You can sign up to show interest in the demo here.

    A bit of irony

    It’s quite the irony that the Tories have maneuvered society into such a stranglehold that protesters have to protest to defend their right to protest (it’s quite a mouthful, as well). However, that’s where we’re at.

    How cops will respond to the demo on 27 May is unclear. Given that some of the groups involved are fairly non-confrontational when it comes to activism, the police response might be low-key. However, the presence of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion may change that.

    Whatever happens, though, at least these groups are actively doing something about our right to protest. If you feel the same, then we’ll see you at Parliament Square on 27 May.

    Featured image via Republic 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Riots break out in Cardiff after two teenagers died following apparent police chase

    Anger poured out onto the streets of Ely, Cardiff on the night of Monday 22 May after two teenagers died in a collision on the road. The boys have been named as Harvey Evans, 15, and Kyrees Sullivan, 16.

    Alun Michael, the Police and Crime Commissioner in South Wales, initiallly denied widespread community accusations that a police chase caused the teenagers’ deaths. He told the Independent on 23 May that:

    It would appear that there were rumours, and those rumours became rife, of a police chase, which wasn’t the case…

    However, later that same day, evidence started to emerge that the police’s account of events in Ely was untrue. CCTV showed two people on an electric bicycle being followed by the police just before 6pm, moments before the crash took place.

    Despite the CCTV footage, Michael continued to insist that the boys weren’t chased. He repeated his claim on the morning of 24 May on Radio Wales Breakfast. Then, at around 11am, he conceded that there was a “possibility” of a chase.

    Provocation

    Confrontations with the police broke out in Ely after a 100-150 strong crowd gathered to mourn the boys. A clear story emerged on Twitter that the heavy police presence provoked the mourning crowd, and that officers assaulted people:

    At least fifteen police vehicles were on the scene by just after 9pm. Officers appeared in riot gear, and deployed dogs and surveillance drones.

    By the end of the night, vehicles had been set on fire. Police officers charged the crowd on several occasions, and deployed horses. The crowd fought back, throwing bottles and cans at the police.

    John Urquhart, who witnessed events unfold, took matters into their own hands and brought water and medical assistance to the crowd. They also handed out masks. In one of their last tweets of the night, they expressed anger at what had happened:

    Some local people’s property was damaged, including cars. Campaign group Anarchist Federation urged people to not let this break their community solidarity:

    Cops lie

    Commissioner Michael’s backtracking regarding police involvement is by no means an isolated incident, either. The force often put out false statements after they have caused people’s deaths. To give just one example, Territorial Support Group (TSG) officer Simon Harwood killed newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson in 2009.

    Police initially said that Ian had died from existing health conditions, and that his family had said they were “not surprised” by his death. The Met closed ranks, getting a tame pathologist to do the autopsy. Disgraced pathologist Freddy Patel said that Ian had died of a heart attack. He was later discredited, and struck off the register of forensic pathologists.

    Video footage of the incident showed that Ian had been a bystander at the G20 protests, and had been struck from behind by PC Harwood, causing his death. He’d done nothing to provoke the TSG.

    What happened in Ely should remind us that we should take police statements with a generous helping of salt. We should also see the riot in Ely for what it was – an expression of grief over the deaths, and an outpouring of community anger against the police.

    An expression of grief and rage

    Back in 2021, another confrontation with the police broke out in Mayhill, in nearby Swansea. A confrontation with the police took place at a vigil for local teenager Ethan Powell. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) threw the book at those who got arrested, charging 27 people. 18 adults convicted got a total of 83 years in prison. The CPS charged the Mayhill defendants with riot, which is the most serious public order charge in English law, carrying a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.

    Similarly, 35 people have been jailed for a total of 112.5 years so far after a 2021 anti-police uprising in Bristol. The vast majority of them were initially charged with riot.

    Bristol Anti-Repression Campaign (BARC), which consists of some of those who were arrested in Bristol, as well as their supporters, sent a message of solidarity to the community of Ely. The group said:

    In the classic deceiving and manipulative nature of the police, they have openly and confidently lied about their involvement, and the media has lapped up their story, condemning those who took to the street in rightful anger, diverting people’s attention from the truth.

    We hope that people will see that this is not an isolated incident but that this has happened time and time again. We think of Mark Duggan, we think of Cynthia Jarret, we think of Chris Kaba; our thoughts go out to all of those families too at this time. The police, and only the police are to blame for every part of this incident.

    BARC continued:

    Our hearts are truly shaken and we can’t begin to know how those close to the community feel at this time. We hope that the community can find strength and not allow the cowardliness of the police or the deception of the media to shake them.

    Community self-defence

    Riot has previously been a seldom-used charge. For example, the CPS charged the 2011 UK riot defendants with less serious offences. But in the current political climate, there is a serious chance that the CPS could charge the people arrested in Ely on Monday night with rioting.

    The courts will do whatever they can to criminalise and imprison those who stood up to the police in Ely. Community self-defence doesn’t end with confronting the police on the streets; it also means supporting those arrested. If events follow a similar course to those in Mayhill and Bristol, then the people of Ely are going to need our solidarity and support.

    Featured image via BBC/Screenshot

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Bristol Kill the Bill protester who was kicked and beaten by the police is sentenced to prison

    Richard Fox was savagely beaten by police officers on 21 March 2021, after he had fallen to the ground. Footage seen by the court showed Richard being kicked repeatedly while lying prostrate on the road. On Monday 22 May, Bristol Crown Court sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison, after he accepted a plea to violent disorder.

    Richard is one of several defendants who have accepted plea bargains this month, rather than take the risk of going to trial. Defendants get time off their sentences for guilty pleas, while those who are found guilty after a trial are often given oppressively long sentences.

    Plea bargains are where the Crown Prosecution Service offers to drop the more serious charge, in return for a guilty plea to a lesser charge. In a ‘criminal justice system’ with no justice, plea bargains can often be the lesser of two evils for those in court. Richard had originally been charged with riot, which carries double the maximum sentence to violent disorder.

    The assault by the officers happened outside Bristol’s Bridewell police station, during the 2021 Kill the Bill demonstration.

    A response to police violence

    The 21 March demonstration was in response to the Tory government’s push to introduce the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill (which has now been passed). The PCSC Act criminalises many forms of protest, and is a direct attack on the lives of Travelling people.

    The protest also happened in the context of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens. On top of that, Mouayed Bashir and Mohamud Mohammed Hassan had died after being in police custody in Newport and Cardiff earlier that year.

    When the demonstration reached Bristol’s Castle Park, protesters gave a speech over a megaphone, suggesting that the march continue on to Bridewell police station to protest what one of them described as “the encroachment of the police state into our lives”. However, when the protesters reached Bridewell, police officers attacked them. Cops deployed batons, dogs, and horses, and repeatedly used their shields as weapons against the crowd.

    Richard Fox was in the crowd outside Bridewell. In many of the Bristol ‘riot’ cases, defence lawyers provided the court with a compilation of video footage showing the police violence on 21 March 2021. The footage shows that officers repeatedly kicked Richard. Cops also struck him with batons, and brought a police riot shield down on his head.

    Richard’s sentencing comes on top of the 4.5 years of prison time handed to Daniel Ellis last week. It brings the total number of people sent to prison for the Bristol uprising to 35. Bristol Crown Court has now handed them a total of more than 112.5 years altogether.

    The courts cannot break our solidarity

    Bristol Anti Repression Campaign (BARC) is one of the groups organising political support and solidarity for the people in court. They made the following statement:

    Danny, pleading to riot and arson against a police vehicle, was given a heavy 4.5 year prison sentence by Judge Patrick. And Foxy [Richard Fox], pleading to violent disorder, was given 2.5 years.
    We’re sending them both so much love and solidarity.
    Leah Brenchley and Carmen Fitchett were also in court last week. Judge Patrick gave them both suspended sentences. BARC explained:
    With our hearts heavy over long prison sentence, we are happy to announce that Carmen and Leah were both handed suspended sentences (10 month suspended for Carmen for affray, two month suspended for Leah for criminal damage and assaulting an emergency worker).
     
    Both have been given two months on tag with curfew, and have to do unpaid work. The violence of the carceral state stretches out well beyond the prison walls, and we recognise that surveillance technologies (like electronic monitoring) extend the reach of that violence even further.
    The group concluded:
    We will never let our comrades go down quiet and alone. Thank you to all the defendants’ friends and families for their support, as well as Bristol Defendant Solidarity (BDS) and Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) for their amazing solidarity work.

    ‘Shocked and disgusted’

    Justice for Bristol Protesters (JBP), a group organised by the families and friends of the Bristol uprising defendants, sent the Canary some reflections on the sentencings over the past weeks.
    Jackie Ellis, mother of Daniel Ellis, said:
    I am totally shocked and disgusted at the sentence my son Danny received on Friday. It is totally out of proportion to other non riot-related sentences that people receive for far worst crimes. The judge even admitted he didn’t do anything really violent and then sentenced him to four and a half years. It is an unbelievable sentence for a young person without a criminal record who got caught up in a peaceful protest that went wrong. My family feels totally failed by a justice system that is not fit for purpose.
    Cathy, mother of Carmen Fitchett, added that:
    We have waited more than two years from charge to sentencing and the wait has been horrible, the numerous delays leaving us feeling completely powerless and frustrated. The whole Criminal Justice system seems designed to disempower, confuse and exclude. If it wasn’t for the solidarity, support and guidance BDS/JBP have offered, the process would have been even worse. I have been stunned by the harsh and obviously politicised sentences handed out to young people for daring to stand up for the right to protest; having seen footage, and heard from people who were there, about how the police behaved that day, the Crown Prosecution Service’s response to our children is doubly twisted. 

    People in Bristol are raising funds for those sentenced. Click here to find out how to write to the people in prison, or donate to their crowdfunder here. 

    Featured image via Bristol Anti-Repression Campaign

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Bosses are taking disciplinary action against UoM students – all because they protested over their digs

    The University of Manchester (UoM) is taking disciplinary action against a group of students who exercised their right to free speech and protest. The situation arose due to uni bosses hiking rents on student accommodation, which saw students respond with occupations and demos. Now, the university is attempting to make an example of 11 of these students. However, they are rightly not having it.

    UoM: dire accommodation and inflated rents

    As the Canary previously reported, in February the group UoM Rent Strike occupied various campus buildings. It was in protest against uni bosses increasing rents on halls by up to £450 for the 2022 academic year. The quality of the rooms is pretty dire as well – as photos from UoM Rent Strike show:

    mould in a building

    a mouse

    Meanwhile, the university itself is making over £119m a year. Plus, it doubled its financial surplus since 2020. So, UoM Rent Strike took action – occupying buildings in protest over bosses’ treatment of students:

    As the Canary previously wrote:

    One of the highlights was students occupying the bosses’ offices – including one of a dame on £260,000 a year, no less – and then locking security out

    Uni bosses were clearly rattled – because now, they’re taking what UoM Rent Strike call “unprecedented and heavy-handed” action.

    University bosses are ‘setting an example’

    The group said in a press release that bosses are taking disciplinary action against 11 students over the peaceful occupation. It wrote:

    The potential punishments range from warnings to fines to expulsion from the University, and it is believed that they intend to expel the students, to set an example. This has created a chilling effect on protest in university campuses amid the wider clampdown on freedom of speech against activists across the country.

    This comes after the uni bosses took the students to court in March. It issued a 12-month ban on occupations – with UoM Rent Strike saying the legal and associated costs to the university around their occupation were around £100k. This included £40k on bailiffs alone – who forcibly removed students:

    bailiffs removing students

    Bailiffs removing students

    Of course, all this could have been avoided. UoM Rent Strike says it tried to reach out to uni bosses, but they failed to enter negotiations with the group.

    Majority support

    Moreover, UoM Rent Strike has the support of the majority of students. The UoM Student Body backed the actions by a 97% majority. Plus, the action isn’t confined to a small number of students.

    Students forced the university to reveal – via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request – that as of 10 March, 385 students were withholding rent – as part of a rent strike. UoM Rent Strike now estimate this number to be 650.

    The university told the Manc Union, among other things, that:

    We have provided special Cost of Living payments to students recently in recognition of the pressures many are facing. Every full-time student has received a special £170 payment and can apply for grants of up to £2000. This totals £9m.

    We also share concerns with students that the recent increase in maintenance loans falls far short of keeping pace with inflation and we are advocating strongly on behalf of our students to see this position change.

    However, the 11 students disagree.

    ‘Unprecedented and heavy-handed’: bosses in a nutshell

    They said in a statement that university bosses:

    are claiming that we have committed “serious misconduct”, with a list of false allegations including damage, disorderly and offensive language and behaviour, and health & safety breaches. They are attempting to misrepresent us as a small, extreme and violent group – the report even compares us to terrorists – and completely disregards the reasons why we feel the need to protest.

    This is an unprecedented and heavy-handed response from the University of Manchester. Protest occupations have a long history at this university and across the country. This is a clear attempt to set an example of a small number to deter the wider student body from taking part in protests.

    The University has also breached official guidelines in how this process is run, including not providing information or evidence to the students until after the investigation was complete. They are attempting to use collective punishment, accusing students of being responsible for actions that they have no evidence of their involvement in. This should be a fair process, but we believe it is being influenced by senior management’s political disagreements with us.

    We call on UoM to address our demands for more affordable accommodation, better cost-of-living support and to listen to the UCU, not to take disproportionate punitive action.

    So, it seems that uni bosses will quite happily come down hard on these 11 students just to make an example of them. Moreover, the goal is clearly to send a message to the rest of the student body that dissent won’t be tolerated.

    In some ways, it’s preposterous that uni bosses think they can quell radical, rebellious voices within higher education – but clearly that’s the goal here. However, UoM Rent Strike – along with the other students – won’t take this lying down.

    You can sign a letter of solidarity with the students here. 

    Featured image and additional images via UoM Rent Strike

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A reflection from the Canary team on our international coverage

    Our team has noticed over the past year or so that when we cover global politics, particularly in relation to Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia, our coverage often elicits comments from self-proclaimed anti-imperialists. Recently, some of this criticism has intensified in relation to articles we’ve put out about Imran Khan and Kurdistan. We’re no strangers to criticism, but we’ve noticed a pattern to comments that crop up repeatedly. We’d like to respond as a team to this pattern of criticism, and make our position clear.

    People, not states

    These claims centre around the apparent belief from a group of people that all our coverage of international politics should be doggedly anti-US with no exceptions. They believe such a position to be inherently anti-imperialist. The problem with this is that these anti-imperialists believe state actors like Putin and Erdoğan – vocal critics of US domination – should be supported in their efforts to dismantle US hegemony. This is in spite of the documented atrocities both have visited on ethnic minorities in their respective countries.

    For example. one author has dedicated an entire article to claiming that the Canary is intentionally pushing “Anglo-American empire” propaganda with our coverage of both Khan and Turkey. On social media, we’ve been accused of taking “Qatari blood money” over this. The Canary has also been said to be “deliberately omitting” US imperialism from our Pakistan and Turkey coverage, and trying to shape a “US/West-friendly perspective”. We’ve also come in for repeated attacks, historically, for criticising Russia and its invasion of Ukraine.

    At the Canary, we believe this to be a deeply dangerous set of beliefs that harms the people caught up in geopolitical battles. We are not oblivious to the fact that other emerging powers wish to exert their influence in Pakistan, Ukraine, Turkey, and other areas. However, criticism of populist figures is not an open invitation to Western war hawks to charge into countries that have already been ruined – and also formed, in the case of Pakistan – by genocidal powers. Our politics has always been, and will always be, guided by a commitment to reporting on the people caught up in these battles, not the states that wage them.

    We’ll now respond more specifically to two instances where recent reporting has been criticised by so-called ‘anti-imperialists’.

    Kurdish revolution

    We’re proud to support Kurdish people in their struggle for freedom, and we have a long history of doing so. Critics have claimed that supporting the revolution is tantamount to supporting the US. They say this is because the Kurds’ tactical coordination with the US in the struggle to defeat Daesh amounts to a “US-backed illegal occupation.” To call the autonomous administration an ‘occupation’ is a mind-bendingly warped take on the reality of revolutionary struggles in North and East Syria.

    What would critics have done if they had been living in Kobanî during the Daesh siege? Would they have watched their community die, rather than accept the limited US support on offer? Military coordination with the US has been a survival tactic for the revolutionary forces of North and East Syria. The movement knows that US imperialism is opposed to their revolution, and only supports them militarily when it aligns with US interests. The coordination with the US remains a contradiction for Rojava’s radicals, but one they are all too aware of. One of the impressive things about the Kurdish Freedom Movement is its ability to remain true to its revolutionary spirit while sitting with the contradictions that arise from the practical reality of the struggle.

    It is a grim reality that our critics – who claim they are steadfastly against US imperialism – ignore the bloody authoritarianism, colonialism, imperialism, and racism of Putin, Assad, Erdoğan, and the rest. It cannot be acceptable to align one’s politics with blood-soaked dictators at any cost – particularly when that cost is ignoring the struggles of oppressed communities fighting for their survival.

    As radicals, we need to be allies to people struggling for freedom globally, not to states. We need to remember the spirit of revolutionary internationalism, and to do what we can to materially support our comrades who are fighting against imperialism around the world.

    Racial literacy

    We have also received criticism of our coverage of Khan’s arrest in Pakistan. This criticism is from the same purported ‘anti-imperialist’ crowd mentioned above, who argue that by criticising Khan (who has nominally opposed US influence) we’re implicitly advocating for US influence and control in the region. Criticism in itself is not our issue, but such bad-faith analysis rankles.

    If commenters cannot understand why articles written by Pakistani people living in Pakistan, and edited by Pakistani editors, are critical of Imran Khan beyond ‘you want to prop up Western neo-imperialism’, then we cannot help you.

    Some criticism has also claimed that, in spite of writers and editors working from what they know and experience, our education in the West invalidates our reporting on Pakistan. We would argue that colonisers devalued or outright eradicated native centres of learning and processes of knowledge production. Colonisers created a hegemony of Western languages and epistemology, forcing Black and Brown people to speak their language and study in their systems in order to be heard. As a result, Black and Brown people had to become proficient with the colonisers’ tools in order to advocate for our humanity. So we jumped through all the hoops, only to be told by ‘anti-imperialists’ that their education makes us too privileged to speak for our own people.

    Accusing us of lacking anti-imperialism is laughable, but more than that, it is dripping in colonial racism. The Canary is one of few politics-focused media outlets in the UK where people of colour make up the majority of its editorial team. The people of colour who work and write at the Canary routinely risk their safety and wellbeing in confronting and demonstrating the violence of settler colonial states like the UK and the US. It is not by being ‘pro-intervention’ that they ended up on no-fly lists and Prevent’s radar.

    Internationalist solidarity

    We will not allow such criticism to go unchecked, because it is exactly the kind of bad-faith reading which seeks to dismiss valid critique with misinformed and baseless accusations. At best, such analysis of our coverage is purposely obtuse. At worst, it’s blatantly racist, diminishing the right of people from the Global South to tell their own stories and be an authority on their own struggles. It disregards the working class and multiply-marginalised people caught up in these struggles across the world. Instead, it originates only from the contrarian interests of people untouched by colonialism and racism.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Tories’ racist, floating refugee prison once again faced the wrath of Cornwall locals

    The Tories floating refugee prison barge the Bibby Stockholm has once again seen protests – this time, with dozens of groups and hundreds of people turning out in Cornwall.

    Bibby Stockholm and the racist Tories

    The Bibby Stockholm is an already notorious barge the Tory government will be using to detain refugees. As the Canary previously reported:

    The government announced it would be using it to detain male refugees and would be operational for “at least” 18 months. It also said that more of these barges were on the way. The government also noted how barges will “cut the cost to the taxpayer” – blaming refugees for trying to come here, and not the government for its disastrous hotels policy. Of course, this also ignores the fact that the problem is not where and how the government detains people – but the fact that it does so in the first place.

    Campaign groups have hit back at the Tories for using a barge to detain refugees. Moreover, when the Dutch government did the same thing with the Bibby Stockholm staff abused refugees on board. The government had to take it out of service. Not that any of that has stopped the racist Tories from pushing this policy forward.

    So, currently, the Bibby Stockholm is in Falmouth, Cornwall. However, people have already protested it. And on Sunday 21 May campaigners were once again out in force resisting the barge and what it represents.

    Cornwall resisting, again

    Cornwall Resists is a network of grassroots anti-fascist groups in the county. As the Canary has documented, it has been prominent in resisting both the far-right’s and the state’s racist abuse of refugees in Cornwall. The group has recently turned its attention to the Bibby Stockholm and held its first demo on Wednesday 10 May. Now Cornwall Resists, other groups, and local people have protested again:

    Cornwall Resists said in a statement for the Canary that around 300 people joined the protest. It noted that:

    The protest – Resist Border Violence – No Floating Prisons – United Against the Bibby Stockholm – was supported by local groups including Cornwall Resists, Divest Borders Falex, Falmouth and Penryn Welcomes Refugees, Radical Pride, Reclaim the Sea, All Under One Banner, the Bakers’ Union, and Falmouth and Penryn Acorn.

    A concurrent protest also took place in London at the Home Office.

    In Falmouth, the protest was varied – with some people even sailing a protest boat in front of the Bibby Stockholm:

    Anti Raids Plymouth made the point of the demo pretty clear:

    Bibby Stockholm protest one Cornwall Falmouth

    Bibby Stockholm protest two Cornwall Falmouth

    Falmouth is just the beginning

    Cornwall Resists told the Canary:

    Sunday’s protest was an amazing display of community action and solidarity. However, as speaker after speaker made clear, this needs to be the start of our resistance and not the end of it. Attending one or two protests is not enough. It is the responsibility of every one of us to act against this floating human rights violation in our dock.

    Indeed, as the Canary previously said:

    a hostile environment where humans are housed on barges simply for fleeing war, persecution, or to seek a better life, is exactly what the colonialist UK government and its agents want. The only way to begin to stop this is to resist, like Cornwall did. It’s certainly not begging the government for reforms and fairness.

    So, the Tories (and by default their racist, nasty barge) can expect more protests in Falmouth. They can also expect people to protest wherever the Bibby Stockholm ends up.

    Featured image via Cornwall Resists

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • PizzaExpress launches a record label just as it’s cutting workers’ hours – oh, and don’t mention its taxes

    Bosses at PizzaExpress are hammering workers. Oddly, though, it comes just after the hospitality chain launched its own record label, of all things. However, what’s not so unusual is that PizzaExpress is shafting workers while also being rather unclear about just how much tax it’s paying.

    PizzaExpress: cutting workers’ slice of the (pizza) pie

    Bosses at PizzaExpress are cutting workers’ hours. Unite Hospitality, part of Unite the Union, said in an open letter to PizzaExpress CEO Paula MacKenzie:

    The mass roll-out of your ‘labour management scheme’ would effectively remove non-salaried managers from the rota for lunchtime shifts.

    This policy could see thousands of waiters lose hundreds of hours without proper consultation, and managers having to do even more work for the same wage!

    The impact this will have on the most financially insecure part-time workers who need these lunchtime hours to fit around school and childcare is catastrophic.

    The Guardian reported that the changes will hit around 400 hourly paid staff. Bosses could end up cutting hundreds of pounds from people’s wages. Yet, PizzaExpress is arguing that it’s doing it for its customers. It gave the Guardian some corporate BS:

    Customer habits are always changing, and we have to adapt to that. As part of this we’re tweaking our operational system, so we always have the right number of team members in our restaurants to serve the number of customers dining.

    In reality, the Guardian saw an internal memo which said bosses were cutting the hours in order to ‘hit budgets’.

    No stranger to treating workers like shit

    Of course, PizzaExpress is no stranger to controversy regarding the way it treats front of house (FoH) staff. As the Guardian previously reported, in 2021 bosses tried to cut FoH workers’:

    share of tips and service charges paid on credit and debit cards… from 70% to 50%

    Bosses wanted to give the additional tips to kitchen staff. This would have left FoH team members on average £2,000 a year worse off. Essentially, bosses were trying to avoid giving kitchen staff a decent pay rise.

    However, thanks to Unite – along with solidarity between front and back of house staff – PizzaExpress was forced to back down over the planned policy.

    Yet here we are again – with PizzaExpress once more trying to hammer FoH staff. This time round, though, and it comes just after the company launched a new venture.

    Not music to workers’ ears

    PizzaExpress launched PX Records in April – part of PizzaExpress Live, its music arm, which hosts music events at some venues. Food Service Equipment Journal reported that:

    The next chapter in the organisation’s story is the launch of PX Records and the release of a selection of live albums recorded across its venues – PizzaExpress Live in Holborn, the historic PizzaExpress Jazz Club in Soho, and The Pheasantry in Chelsea – which will feature performances from a broad mix of established artists and emerging talent from across the worlds of jazz, soul, blues and more.

    The first run of releases will feature albums from master US saxophonist and mainstay of the international jazz scene, Scott Hamilton, incendiary UK soul outfit, Mamas Gun, genre-blurring multi-instrumentalist and producer, edbl, and one of the most hotly-tipped new bands on the UK scene, Native Dancer.

    Lovely, if you’re a jazz and soul fan – not so lovely if PizzaExpress employs you. When bosses are cutting workers’ hours, you’d be forgiven for wondering why PizzaExpress would spaff money up the wall on PX Records.

    Plus, what’s unclear from the record label is just where the money will be going.

    Where does the money go?

    PIzzaExpress Live’s website says it is part of PizzaExpress (Restaurants) Limited. This company made a £45m profit in the 52 weeks to January 2022. But the brand includes lots of different companies. For example, ‘PizzaExpress Limited’ showed a loss (£18m) on the 52 months to January 2022. Meanwhile, the ultimate parent company, ‘PizzaExpress Operations Limited’, made a £164m profit. Yet somehow, the company (or one of them, anyway) is still cutting staff hours.

    Moreover, PizzaExpress’s finances are interesting to say the least. Its ultimate parent company is Wheel Topco Limited, which is registered in the tax haven of Jersey. PizzaExpress’s main accounts show it funnelling money backwards and forwards between its subsidiaries and parent companies. The main company owes over £1bn to other companies in the group.

    It is unclear whether PizzaExpress or any of its associated companies paid full tax on this or not. This is because Wheel Topco’s accounts are not public, due to it being based in Jersey.

    However, back in 2013, the Independent reported that PizzaExpress was among a number of companies caught up in the Eurobonds tax avoidance scheme. These companies borrowed money from their parent companies in the Channel Islands via its stock exchange. In this way, they avoided paying taxes. This all looks very similar to what PizzaExpress’s accounts are showing now.

    Workers shat on by bosses? Mamma Mia!

    So, from record labels to offshore accounting via turning a profit while cutting staff hours, PizzaExpress sure knows how to look after bosses and shareholders while screwing over workers.

    Fortunately, Unite Hospitality is supporting the workers in fighting back. It’s helped workers organise PizzaExpress United – a “collective campaign” to take on the bosses. The group said on its social media that:

    Restaurant workers are sick of being taken advantage of and gaslighted by Pizza Express. We will not stand for it anymore!

    You can support the PizzaExpress workers in their fight against the bosses by signing this petition, and sharing it. If you’re a PizzaExpress worker, you can find links here on how to get involved with the campaign.

    Workers in hospitality are one of the most exploited, yet under-unionised, groups in the UK. However, this has been changing in recent years – with workers fighting back, and organising, at companies like McDonald’s, TGI Fridays, and coffee chains like Starbucks. PizzaExpress staff not having it from the bosses is just another example of the power in grassroots union organising. Now, other workers in hospitality need to join the fight back.

    Featured image via Unite Hospitality 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Democracy groups are meeting MPs to push the voting system senior Tories are panicking about

    According to the campaign Sort The System, “politics isn’t working”. It argues that this is chiefly because Westminster’s first past the post election system fails to reflect how people actually vote in elections. So, to aid its mission, the group will be convening in Westminster to tell MPs that “it’s time to sort the system”.

    The move comes as senior Tories are expressing their dismay at the prospect of the electoral system changing:

    First past the post versus proportional representation

    There are now multiple groups in the UK campaigning for proportional representation:

    Make Votes Matter has organised Sort The System. It argues:

    Over the past few hundred years, our society and democracy have developed and changed beyond recognition. However, our voting system has failed to keep pace.

    It goes on to explain:

    The idea of a minority ruling over the majority goes against our most basic ideas about democracy. But with First Past the Post, it’s the norm. For about 90% of the time since 1935 we’ve had single-party ‘majority’ governments, but not one of them had the support of a majority of voters. The Conservatives currently hold a majority of seats with just 43.6% of the votes. In the 2019 election they gained an extra 48 seats despite an increase of only 1.2% of the vote share. Almost since the first general election, politicians who most of us didn’t vote for and don’t agree with have had the power to govern the UK however they like.

    In contrast, Make Votes Matter notes that:

    With Proportional Representation [PR] political diversity is reflected in Parliament, not suppressed. PR makes sure the share of seats each party gets matches the share of votes they receive. It would mean that if a party gets 20% of the vote, it wins 20% of the seats. Parliament would accurately represent the people’s range of views and perspectives.

    Sort the System

    On Wednesday 24 May, Sort The System will “bring hundreds of people from across the UK to Westminster to meet with MPs”. Organisers state in a press release that:

    MPs will hear first-hand from constituents that the political system is not working for ordinary people because, under First Past the Post, Parliament does not properly reflect their views and needs as expressed at the ballot box.

    The mass lobby will underline that, nearly 100 years since the Representation of the People Act was expanded to extend the franchise on equal terms to both women and men, the fight for equal votes is still ongoing.

    For example, 71% of voters were unable to affect the outcome of the last general election, either because their votes went to candidates who lost, or went into padding the majorities of winning MPs.

    In giving voice to the public demand for change, Sort The System seeks to apply pressure on all parties to commit to introducing Proportional Representation.

    Klina Jordan, CEO of Make Votes Matter, commented:

    Despite all that suffrage campaigners achieved a century ago, votes in this country still don’t count equally: First Past the Post means the votes of millions of people effectively go to waste, with elections decided in a cluster of marginal seats that are unrepresentative of the country at large. Polling shows the public is eager for change – it’s time their voices were listened to.

    Politicians including baroness Natalie Bennett and Clive Lewis MP will be among those speaking at the event.

    Sort The System encourages attendees to ask their local MP to meet them at the event to discuss the matter. The group also wants to know how MPs respond to the request.

    Political divide

    The prospect of switching to proportional representation has recently incited a strong response from the political right:

    Keir Starmer, however, has a “long-standing view against proportional representation”, his official spokesperson claimed in April. The comment came with no explanation as to why Starmer opposes the system. Others within Labour have shown more support:

    You can find out more about Sort The System’s lobby on 24 May here.

    Featured image via Sort The System

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Luke Brooks died after the council failed to order his landlord to remove mould from his home

    A Manchester coroner has ordered an inquest into the death of Luke Brooks. Luke died after developing breathing difficulties linked to his “heavily mould-infested” rented accommodation.

    Luke lived in Oldham, not so far away from the Rochdale social housing flat where two-year-old Awaab Ishak died after prolonged exposure to black mould, as a coroner’s court recently ruled.

    London Renters’ Union tweeted a stark message:

    Coroner Joanne Kearsley – who recently presided over Awaab Ishak’s inquest – ruled that there should be an investigation into Luke Brooks’ death.

    Complaints ignored

    27-year-old year old Luke lived with his parents in their rented accommodation. They told the Manchester Evening News that he was a “fit lad” and a talented artist.

    Luke developed a rash before his death, and complained of difficulty breathing. He developed fatal pneumonia, which caused acute respiratory distress syndrome. The coroner’s court found provisionally that this was due to mould at his home.

    Luke’s family have lived at the property for eight years. They complained to the council about the state of the accommodation. Environmental health officers visited last November.

    The landlord was instructed to make some improvements, but crucially they were not told to address the mould issue. This is despite the inspectors finding mould in Luke’s room.

    ‘Corporate manslaughter’

    Luke died just weeks before the inquest into Awaab’s death. Steve Topple previously wrote for the Canary:

    The coroner ruled that Awaab died due to mould exposure that RBH failed to deal with. The housing association repeatedly ignored Awaab’s family’s desperate pleas for help. Since the coroner’s verdict, RBH has sacked its boss after he refused to resign.

    The bottom line is this housing association committed what some people are saying is corporate manslaughter against him.

    Topple described how RBH initially blamed the mould in Awaab’s house on his family. Their response was clearly racist. The barrister for the Ishak family said that:

    At first, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing said that [the cause of the mould] was due to the ritual bathing practices of the family, or the cooking practices that are common among some cultures, all with no evidence.

    Blatant classism

    In Luke’s case, the environmental health officers found mould in his room, when they visited in November. However, they chose not to order the landlord to deal with it. They clearly felt it was ok for Luke to live in mouldy accommodation. This is a classist attitude that devalues the lives of renters. It’s an attitude that places more importance on the rights of landlords to make a profit, than on the health of their tenants.

    One of the police officers who accompanied the environmental health officer said – in evidence at the Coroner’s Court – that Luke’s room was “untidy” and there were “animals present”. These remarks reek of classism: the implication being that we shouldn’t be blaming the landlord for the mould, but blaming Luke for how he kept his room.

    The inquest into Luke’s death will examine whether his landlord bears criminal responsibility and whether the council should have intervened.

    The housing crisis is forcing us to live in dangerous squalor

    Luke’s family are private renters, while Awaab lived in social housing. But the underlying reasons for both their deaths stem from the state. Luke and Awaab – like many of us – were forced to live in unsafe conditions by the classist, racist society that we live in. Authorities allowed Luke to die because of classism, while RBH is responsible for Awaab’s death due to its institutional racism, and its classism, too.

    If you want to fight back against your housing conditions, then you might want to join a renters’ union. Check out the Acorn, Living Rent, and London Renters’ Union websites, and get organised.

    The featured image is of mould in a rented flat, via screenshot/ITV News

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Fifty years of tiger reserves in India bring the tiger population to over 3,000, but displaces over a hundred thousand people

    Fifty years of tiger conservation in India has increased the big cat’s population to over 3000. However, during the same period, some estimates suggest that these projects have displaced at least a hundred thousand forest-dwelling people from their homes.

    On Sunday 9 April, the government of India released a new tiger census. The report estimated that there are at least 3,167 tigers living in the wild across the country. This is up from 2,967 reported in the last exercise in July 2019.

    Prime minister Narendra Modi lauded the successful conservation efforts, which he called a “proud moment”. However, the news comes just weeks after hundreds of indigenous people from across India held a week-long march and demonstration to denounce Protected Areas (PAs). They did so to protest the devastating impact that these PAs – including tiger reserves – have had on their communities.

    Project Tiger

    The government of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) released the new census to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of Project Tiger. Project Tiger is a government-funded scheme to establish tiger reserves across the country. It initially covered nine reserves across nine Indian states.

    To date, the government has sponsored state authorities to set up 54 of these PAs across 17 states. State governments have designated these areas to protect tiger populations from significant threats which have caused their numbers to plummet.

    Deforestation, poaching, and human encroachment on habitats have decimated tiger populations across Asia. In 1900, 100,000 tigers roamed the planet. However, that fell to a global record low of 3,200 in 2010.

    Modi said India is increasing its tiger numbers thanks to “people’s participation” and the country’s “culture of conservation”.

    Conversely, for many indigenous and local communities, the country’s “culture of conservation” has been a legacy of violence, eviction and violation of their rights.

    According to the World Rainforest Movement, as of 2019, NTCA data showed that state governments have evicted 56,247 families for tiger conservation across India since 1972. These families were from 751 villages across 50 tiger reserves.

    In addition, the “people’s participation” Modi celebrates has also involved coercion and abuse. In establishing the tiger reserves, state officials have excluded villages from newly designated areas without their consent.

    While conservation organizations and officials claim that the relocations are voluntary, research by Survival International shows that in reality tribal peoples have been harassed, threatened, and intimidated into ‘agreeing’ to leave.

    Tiger forests and fortress conservation

    During the launch of the new tiger census, Modi visited two tiger reserves in adjacent Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, in the southwest of India. The states host 10 tiger reserves, and sit within the Western Ghats landscape – a stretch of hills running alongside the Arabian Sea coast.

    At the Mudumalai reserve in Tamil Nadu that he visited as part of his tour, indigenous communities continue to resist displacement.

    In 2015, the state prepared plans to relocate seven villages from the core area of the reserve. However, indigenous families refused the move. In part, this was due to the fact that authorities only offered them monetary compensation. According to Down to Earth, by September 2019, state authorities had yet to pay compensation to 93 tribal families. Authorities had moved these families out of the park between 2016 and 2018.

    Moreover, some villagers alleged that park rangers had harassed them into leaving the park. In 2020, a villager from Benne told Rural India Online that rangers had threatened that they would evict the community without payment if they refused to move.

    In March, the Hindu reported how indigenous communities from Mudumalai are still suffering the impacts of the relocation. Between 2016 and 2017, the Forest Department moved Bennai villagers during the first phase of relocations. However, members of the Kattunayakan tribe from Bennai said the government had not delivered on the promise of money, housing, and land. Many experienced alleged fraud at the hands of landowners and compensation middlemen. As a result, around 40 families from Bennai village have since returned and built houses in the reserve.

    Protests at Nagarhole

    Modi also visited Bandipur, one of the first Tiger Reserves that India established at the advent of Project Tiger in 1973. Additionally, the government designated the area a National Park in 1985. There, authorities have displaced multiple communities from their forest lands. Since the state established the reserve, it has removed at least 417 families from the core area. In 1993 alone, 65 families were forced out of their homes in the park.

    At another reserve in Karnataka, communities gathered to protest the PAs that have annexed their forest commons. Between 15 and 20 March, indigenous communities convened a protest march at the world-famous Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.

    In 2007, the state government designated the reserve. However, it imposed the PAs, without consent, on the ancestral land of the Jenu Kuruba. The reserve was also home to other indigenous communities, such as the Beta Kuruba, Yarava and Pania tribes.

    During the march, protesters chanted:

    The Nagarhole forests belong to our ancestors. The animals and forests are part of us – our families.

    The Nagarhole indigenous communities were joined by people from many PAs across India. Protesters from tiger reserves and PAs such as Kaziranga, Similipal, Achanakmar, and Udanti-Sitanadi attended the march.

    Indigenous and local communities held the protest to highlight how in conservation areas across India, tribal people have been evicted from their ancestral lands. According to Survival International, state authorities continue to threaten communities with eviction in the name of conservation.

    A report by human rights advocacy and research charity the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) echoes this continued threat. The charity produces annual reports on forced evictions in India. As of April 2022, the HLRN estimated that state authorities were threatening 110,000 people with eviction for tiger conservation. These figures refer to communities from 273 villages that fall in ‘core’ areas inside 28 tiger reserves.

    Destructive industries in tiger reserves

    Following the march, Community Networks Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) hosted an inter-communities dialogue. They titled the two-day event ‘Debunking the idea of Protected Areas – Community ownership of forests and commons … where forest, peoples and animals are equals’.

    The group highlighted what they feel is the hypocrisy of the “colonial” conservation model. While state authorities exclude indigenous and local communities from these reserves, they welcome the very industries and infrastructure that have been destroying tiger habitats. Therefore, CNAPA pointed out that:

    It is important to underline that the relocation programmes run by NTCA are increasingly being financed from CAMPA [Compensatory Afforestation Fund] money – money that mining companies deposit with the government in lieu of forest diversion, read destruction, required for their mining operations.

    As a result, they said that:

    the linkage between mining, deforestation, and eviction is part and parcel of the ‘fortress conservation model’ (parks without people) being pursued in India.

    Echoing this, a report by the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) in India documented a number of infrastructure projects damaging habitats in tiger reserves. The report explored infrastructure projects and their impacts across 10 reserves. The CFA said that mining, roadways, railways, transmission lines and other large-scale projects:

    pose an existential threat to the flora and fauna in the regions where the tiger reserves are located, along with endangering the existing tiger population.

    The NTCA report itself also acknowledged that extractive industries are destroying crucial tiger habitat. Moreover, it recognised that this destruction poses a significant threat to tiger populations.

    Nevertheless, the government continues to greenlight these industries in and adjacent to areas designated for tiger conservation. Meanwhile, state governments evict communities from these same lands. The rise in tiger numbers should be a cause for celebration for people across India. Instead, fifty years of colonial conservation is a cause of marginalisation and oppression for indigenous and local communities.

    So long as this model remains, and states fail to recognise indigenous peoples’ forest and land rights, these unjust evictions will continue – even as tiger populations rise.

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

    Feature image via Fitindia/Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Junior doctors begin four-day strike

    Junior doctors are once again striking today over pay and conditions. Their four-day strike threatens to be the most serious action yet.

    National medical director of NHS England, Stephen Powis, stated that:

    This is set to be the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history, and the strikes tomorrow will bring immense pressures, coming on the back of a challenged extended bank holiday weekend for staff and services.

    The NHS has been “preparing extensively” for the strikes, said Powis. However, he added that the task was made “much more difficult” due to the number of rescheduled appointments.

    The walkout began at 7am on Tuesday 11 April, and will run until the morning of 15 April.

    Breakdown in talks

    Health secretary Steve Barclay claimed that it’s “unreasonable” to call for a 35% pay rise, claiming that this has led to a breakdown in talks.

    However, since 2008, junior doctors’ pay has stagnated. This meant that their pay has fallen by 26% in real terms. So, when you factor in soaring inflation, the British Medical Association (BMA) is only really asking for a restoration in pay, rather than a real-terms pay rise.

    Mike Greenhalgh, deputy co-chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, told BBC News that:

    It’s hard to negotiate when only one side is doing it and we’re not getting anything back from the government on that front.

    Public support for junior doctors

    When it comes to negotiations, the Tory government will always do its best to stop the ball from rolling. It then has the audacity to blame workers for the state of the health service.

    But as much as they want to turn the public against them, they’re failing. 54% of the population back striking junior doctors. This figure rises even higher for patients – 61% of people who have a health condition support the strike.

    NHS workers are in desperate need of a pay rise. It’s estimated that nearly 5,000 of them use foodbanks on a daily basis, which is disgraceful.

    The Canary has made this point before, but people clapped for the NHS during the pandemic, and the government thanked them. Former prime minister Boris Johnson even praised the NHS as Britain’s “greatest national asset”. But when it comes to actually compensating NHS workers, the government has shut down.

    Claps and supportive words don’t pay the bills. It’s time the government reached into their pockets and start putting money where it’s needed – in the NHS.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/ Roger Blackwell, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license resized to 770*403

    By Curtis Daly

  • UK sued after refusal to accept all Windrush scandal reforms

    On 6 April, Britain’s government faced legal action by campaigners over its refusal to accept key recommendations made by an inquiry into the Windrush scandal, which affected thousands of Black post-war immigrants.

    Interior minister Suella Braverman in January refused to accept three of the changes previously promised by the Conservative government.

    The group Black Equity Organisation, created last year to campaign for the civil rights of Black Britons, said it was seeking a judicial review of the home secretary’s decision.

    The group’s chief executive Wanda Wyporska said in a statement:

    The Home Office must be opened up to independent scrutiny and forced to honour the promises made in its name.

    Windrush survivors have been through enough and this latest twist in a shameful story adds insult to injury.

    The group will also present a petition with some 50,000 signatories to PM Rishi Sunak’s offices at 10 Downing Street.

    Windrush

    The MV Empire Windrush ship was one of the vessels that brought workers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and other Caribbean islands to help fill UK labour shortages after World War II.

    As the Canary previously stated:

    The Windrush scandal refers to the Home Office‘s unlawful detention, deportation and denial of hundreds of Commonwealth citizens’ rights, having destroyed thousands of immigration records. At least 21 people have died before receiving the compensation they applied for.

    Five years ago, campaigners revealed that thousands of the British citizens had been wrongly detained or deported. This was under the Conservative government’s hardline immigration policies.

    Many lost homes and jobs, and were denied access to healthcare and benefits. Some died before their names could be cleared.

    The subsequent independent inquiry issued 30 recommendations, which Braverman’s predecessor agreed to adopt in full.

    However, Braverman rejected more powers for Britain’s independent chief inspector of borders. She also refused a commissioner to safeguard migrants’ interests, and the holding of reconciliation events. There was no immediate comment from her ministry as to the legal action.

    In their open letter to the government campaigners wrote:

    Instead of scrapping key commitments, we urge your government to stick to the promises made – there is still an opportunity to show that you and your ministers are serious about righting past wrongs.

    To do anything less sends a clear message that the suffering of the Windrush generation was in vain and the hostile environment still exists.

    Featured image via Youtube/Sky News

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Finland’s NATO membership may increase international tensions

    Finland has joined NATO, but campaigners warn that it will increase tensions internationally. Meanwhile, Turkey is still blocking Swedish membership as supposed allies jostle between themselves.

    Helsinki’s shift ended decades of military non-alignment. The move also doubled the length of the US-led alliance’s land border with Russia, and drew an angry warning of “countermeasures” from the Kremlin.

    Finland’s foreign minister formally sealed Helsinki’s membership as the Finnish flag was raised outside NATO’s Brussels headquarters.

    Dire warnings

    Finland has a history of conflict with Russia, whose brutal war in Ukraine helped shift the country towards NATO membership. However, some campaigners warn that membership will increase tensions between the US and Russia.

    As a full member, Finland will be subject to NATO’s Article Five. This means that any attack on a member state will be treated as an attack on all member states.

    Stop the War Coalition’s Andrew Murray wrote:

    NATO’s policy is set by Washington. US power underwrites the alliance’s every move. Ultimately, the US is responsible for the illegal NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, the disastrous 20-year NATO occupation of Afghanistan and the equally catastrophic NATO attack on Libya in 2011.

    While Britain and France played a prominent part in some of these aggressions, they would have been unable to act without US support.

    So whether or not NATO membership protects Finland from Russia, the Baltic state’s future is now tied to the whims of the US.

    He added:

    Finland will now be committed to such policies in future. The list of NATO aggressions should remind us that it is not a defensive alliance, nor does it confine its military operations to the North Atlantic.

    Slippery slope

    NATO members are continuing to bicker among themselves about who can join. Sweden’s membership is being held back by Turkey and Hungary.

    Sweden has upset Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban – one of Putin‘s closest allies in Europe – by expressing alarm over the rule of law in Hungary. It has also angered Turkey by refusing to extradite dozens of suspects that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan links to a failed 2016 coup attempt and the decades-long Kurdish independence struggle. Until these issues are dealt with, petty politicking will likely continue.

    Internal friction is one thing. However, it is clear that Finland’s long border with Russia, Baltic location, and substantial military capacity could be a game-changer in Europe. And that’s before we consider Russia’s increased isolation and belligerent statements. If it is stability and security we want to see in Europe, it’s hard to see how NATO can deliver it.

    Either way, Finland – and perhaps Sweden down the line – are now integrated into a rapacious US-dominated military alliance whose interests extend far beyond Ukraine.

    Additional reporting by Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Levvuori, cropped to 770 x 403.

    By Joe Glenton

  • UK government’s “green day” electric car policies will sacrifice the Global South for transition minerals

    The UK government’s electric vehicle expansion plans risk escalating human rights abuses in the Global South for transition minerals.

    On Thursday 30 March, energy security secretary Grant Shapps made a series of announcements on the UK’s net zero ambitions. Whitehall initially billed the day as a “green day”. The government was set to publish a raft of green energy policy updates. They released multiple documents detailing new climate policies. These policies are designed to advance the progress towards its 2050 net zero-emissions target.

    Significantly, the new strategy demonstrates how the government anticipates that shifting to electric vehicles will play a key role in its efforts to reduce emissions.

    However, new reports from indigenous and human rights organisations show that the government’s reliance on electric vehicles could come with heavy costs. Specifically, the focus could cause an expansion of the extraction of critical minerals. Furthermore, multiple non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have linked the mining of these minerals to corporations violating the human rights of communities in the Global South.

    Expanding extractive industries

    The government’s new Carbon Budget Delivery Plan illustrates how the shift to electric vehicles is central to its decarbonisation strategy. The delivery plan itself aims to quantify the potential emissions reductions of its policy announcements. As CarbonBrief identified, the government anticipates some of the largest cuts will come from the domestic transport sector. CarbonBrief pointed out that the majority of these reductions result from the shift to electric vehicles.

    The government estimates that Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) will make up 52% of the total car fleet by 2035. It also anticipates that 43% of vans and 37% of Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) will be ZEVs by the same date.

    In 2019, leading scientists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) highlighted the immense resource challenge of accelerating the shift to ZEVs. Professor Richard Herrington and NHM researcher colleagues wrote a letter to the Committee on Climate Change. They explained that replacing all vehicles on the road in the UK today:

    would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper.

    Furthermore, they calculated that this represents:

    just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and 12% of the world’s copper production during 2018.

    In short, the UK government’s plan to increase uptake of ZEVs will require an expansion in mining industries. However, the extractive sector in its current form has caused multiple examples of human rights violations.

    ‘Green colonialism’ for transition minerals

    On 29 March, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre released a new report on transition minerals in the Andean region of South America. It focused on the impacts of mineral extraction on communities in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

    Moreover, the report uncovered that mining companies are causing harm. These corporations are inflicting damage on the environment and the territories of peasant farmers and indigenous peoples.

    The Centre explained that the Andes is a rich source of the critical minerals essential for green energy technology. These include minerals and ores such as copper, gold, silver, lithium, and molybdenum. Consequently, the report highlighted how the region is at the crosshairs of the global energy transition. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s senior researcher for South America Amanda Romero said:

    Those who have preserved the land for generations are now being harmed by irresponsible business practices.

    Romero stated how these mining companies have harmed local communities:

    those who have participated in peaceful resistance and demonstrations have faced attacks, intimidation and legal threats. All the while, labour opportunities promised to them through the mining activities do not always materialise.

    Moreover, the Centre’s transition minerals tracker identified 495 allegations of human rights abuse between 2010 to 2021.The tracker monitors the human rights practices of companies that mine six key transition minerals.

    In other words, the companies currently engaged in the extraction of transition minerals in resource-rich Global South countries are violating the rights of marginalised peoples. As a result, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre said that this “extractivism and exploitation” is fuelling a new kind of “green colonialism.”

    Transition minerals and uncontacted tribes

    Already, demand from the Global North is exacerbating the harm that transnational corporations are inflicting on agricultural and indigenous communities.

    Survival International has highlighted how a transition mineral project in Indonesia is endangering an indigenous community. The indigenous rights organisation reported that Weda Bay Nickel (WBN) is ramping up mining in the forest territory of an uncontacted indigenous tribe. This indigenous community live in voluntary isolation, with little or no contact from the outside world. French company Eramet owns the joint venture.

    The vast nickel mining concession on the island of Halmahera overlaps with the territory of indigenous Hongana Manyawa tribe. Between 300-500 uncontacted members of the tribe inhabit the forest area where WBN plans to mine. The mining project is part of the Indonesian government’s plan to become a major producer of electric car batteries. A recently-contacted Hongana Manyawa woman said that WBN:

    are poisoning our water and making us feel like we are being slowly killed.

    Meanwhile, the UK government aims to facilitate UK corporate investment in Indonesian nickel and electric battery production. As part of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office’s (FCDO) ‘UK-Indonesia Partnership Roadmap 2022-2024’ the government targets investment at enabling:

    business-to-business discussions on the development of electric mobility ecosystem, including battery production such as processing of mineral resources, including nickel.

    The roadmap built on November 2021 discussions between the UK and Indonesian governments to jointly invest in an electric battery supply chain partnership.

    Green capitalism is a colonial ‘solution’ to the climate crisis

    Furthermore, the UK government seeks to meet the increased demand for transition minerals, in part, through diversifying international supply chains. On March 13, it published a refreshed critical minerals strategy. Echoing the ambition to develop electric batteries, the strategy states that the UK will:

    Develop our diplomatic, trading and development relationships around the world to improve the resilience of supply to the UK.

    As the government scales up plans to meet its green energy transition through ZEV expansion, this increasing demand for transition minerals could therefore risk further harm to communities in the Global South.

    Ultimately, however, this is green capitalism operating as intended. Economic anthropologist Professor Jason Hickel highlighted how the shift to electric vehicles will render the Global South a “sacrifice zone”:

    In his book Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, he argues that Global North governments’ emphasis on electric vehicles will:

    exacerbate an already existing crisis of overextraction.

    Furthermore, he stated that in the regions where corporations exploit key mineral resources:

    some countries may become victims of new forms of colonisation.

    Indeed, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre report showed how this is already becoming a reality for countries in the Andean region. The outgoing United Nations (UN) special rapporteur Tendayi Achiume has also raised concerns over capitalist solutions to the climate crisis. Echoing the problem of ‘sacrifice zones’, she told the Guardian in 2022:

    Indigenous communities and racially marginalised communities are being displaced by innovations that are supposed to be leading us towards clean energy.

    Crucially, she highlighted how these green capitalist solutions operate by magnifying existing racial injustices:

    And there you see how a green transition, unless it explicitly centres racial justice, can come at the expense of and reproduce these sorts of racial injustices.

    The shift to electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help the UK combat the climate crisis. However, the transition will rely on expanding extractive industries that destroy the environment and harm people in the Global South. Electric vehicle solutions entrench colonialist and exploitative resource drain from Global South countries. In addition, far from addressing the racial capitalist inequalities of the climate crisis, their production exacerbates these injustices. On top of this, the UK government’s ZEV plans will benefit mining corporations, manufacturing companies, and Global North consumers at the direct expense of marginalised communities in the Global South.

    In short, the UK government plans to sacrifice the Global South on its altar of climate commitments.

    Feature image via Michael Movchin / Felix Müller/ Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 770 x 403, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

    By Hannah Sharland

  • After the EHRC’s latest ‘gender critical’ proposal, a reminder that one watchdog organisation has already named similar acts as genocidal

    On Monday 3 April, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the UK’s equalities watchdog – issued a letter advising on changing the legal definition of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 (EA). It was in response to a February letter from notoriously transphobic Women and Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

    Redefining ‘sex’

    The proposed change would redefine ‘sex’ in the EA as ‘sex assigned at birth’. The EHRC stated that any possible redefinition has:

    advantages and disadvantages for one group or another. There is no straightforward balance, but we have come to the view that if ‘sex’ is defined as biological sex for the purposes of EqA [Equality Act], this would bring greater legal clarity in eight areas.

    Trans people across the UK have been understandably fearful. This potential re-definition could have massive detrimental effects on their rights, removing a large portion of protections under the law.

    The Canary will publish a more in-depth article next week, after some time to digest this distressing news. However, this is a prudent moment to point out the fact that one genocide-prevention organisation has already named so-called ‘gender critical’ moves – like this one from the EHRC – as acts of genocide.

    The Lemkin Institute

    The Lemkin Institute grew from the Iraq Project for Genocide Prevention and Accountability. Its intended mission is to “fill a gap in the global prevention protocols”. It was named for Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’ after World War II.

    Back in November 2022, the Institute turned its sights to the transphobic ‘gender critical’ movement. It stated that:

    The Lemkin Institute believes that the so-called “gender critical movement” that is behind these laws is a fascist movement furthering a specifically genocidal ideology that seeks the complete eradication of trans identity from the world.

    Here, the Institute was talking about the recent raft of anti-trans laws in America. However, the same analysis can easily be applied to the rights removal proposed by the EHRC.

    ‘Centerpiece of right-wing ascendency’

    Just as the EHRC letter talked about balancing the rights of women and trans people, the Lemkin Instuitute warned earlier last year that:

    Many gender critical ideologues identify themselves as feminists and believe themselves to be protecting women from men. They accuse transgender women of being stealth men and of transgender men of being self-hating women. The movement, a centerpiece of right wing ascendancy in the Western world, calls for discrimination against and harrassment of transgender individuals and the transgender community through laws and policies that criminalize trans identity and trans life.

    And, sure enough, the Institute’s statement even foresaw the EHRC’s focus on sex-assigned-at-birth:

    The movement alleges that people cannot determine their own sex or gender, and that the genitalia observed by doctors at birth are the final determinants of biological sex as well as the permanent markers of gender belonging.

    The gender critical movement is not liberatory anywhere in the world. It does little to protect women or other marginalised people. Instead, as the Institute pointed out, it seeks to have “control over the bodies of marginalized people”.

    A dangerous distraction

    Finally, the Lemkin Institute chose to leave off with a warning:

    The real challenges to human life, to safe and secure families, and to healthy communities are historical injustices and structural inequalities, not people attempting to live full lives in their true identities.

    Both main political parties in the UK are waging a culture war against trans people. In doing so, they’re carrying out sustained violent attacks on the very existence of trans people. In reality, there are a whole other set of issues they’re trying to move attention away from. The Tories have no answers to the cost of living crisis. They are exacerbating the climate crisis. Attacking trans people will do nothing to solve the real issues in people’s lives – but it does take attention away from the failings of a useless political class.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Ehrc123, via CC 4.0, resized to 770*403

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

  • Cost of living hits worshippers during Ramadan

    Despite the enticing produce in their windows, Muslim-owned retailers on East London’s Brick Lane are unusually quiet as the cost of living crisis bites into Ramadan earnings. The historic street is the hub of London’s Bangladeshi community. It’s normally a central destination for shoppers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

    However, this year, Muslims have had to pare back on non-essential items. That’s according to Taj Stores co-owner Jamal Khalique, who has had to put up his prices to keep pace with double-digit inflation.

    Jamal told Agence France-Presse (AFP):

    This makes it a bit more difficult for people already suffering from high costs of living.

    Khalique added that people are “purchasing what they need, necessities, not extra things like they normally do.”

    Business is also depressed across the road at Rajmahal Sweets, which would normally be bustling with shoppers picking out Iftar treats to break the daily fast. Rajmahal worker Ali, who declined to give his last name, said:

    People have no money because of this crisis.

    England and Wales are home to nearly four million Muslims. According to census data released in 2022, just under 40% of these Muslims live in the most deprived areas. That makes the cost of living crisis particularly painful for communities like those around Brick Lane, one of the poorest parts of London.

    Supermarkets muscle in

    A November 2022 survey by the campaign group Muslim Census found that nearly one in five British Muslims were relying on handouts from charitable food banks.

    Sahirah Javaid works with Muslim Hands, a charity that runs two community kitchens in London and Nottingham. She told AFP:

    It’s shocking to see how dependent people are becoming on food banks.

    Food poverty makes Muslims unable to break their fast with their community.

    Huzana Begum is another one of those feeling the bite of inflation. Whilst browsing the shelves of Brick Lane’s Zaman Brothers store, she said:

    Before, if we brought £20 here, we would get everything. It’s very expensive now.

    While Begum has tried to cut down on groceries in general, Ramadan poses a unique challenge.

    Iftar meals after sunset bring together relatives and communities, and she is hosting and cooking for extended family. That usually means spending rather than saving. Begum said:

    We have a plan, me and my husband, every month we can save money from my work and from his salary as well. But this month, we can’t.

    Independent retailers such as those on Brick Lane are seeing more competition from supermarket giants like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda, which have been targeting Muslims with their own Ramadan ranges.

    Khalique, of Taj Stores, said:

    They can afford to slash their prices. We can’t. So obviously, they do divert the customers to them.

    We’ve been established since 1936, I’ve been in the family business for 34 years, and I’ve never felt hardship in my life. But I’m feeling it now.

    If this continues, God knows if we can carry on.

    Featured image by Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    By Maryam Jameela

  • Pointless voter ID initiative from the Tories is another blow to democracy

    New voter ID legislation from the Tories is proving to be as pointless as we all thought it would be. From 4 May, the next round of elections in the UK, voters will have to show photo ID in order to vote. This includes local elections, police commissioner elections, by-elections, and recall petitions. From October 2023, voters will also have to show photo ID at general elections.

    However, just this week, it emerged that there hasn’t been a single proven case of in-person voter impersonation. As campaigners suspected, the government’s reform of the voting process is proving to be a “waste of time and resources.” On top of that, statistics from February 2023 showed that of people applying for a free voter ID document, less than 6% were under 25. This is in spite of under-25s being one of the groups most likely to lack the necessary ID.

    The Electoral Reform Society has called the whole debacle an “expensive distraction”. Indeed, this mess is far from the first time in recent memory that our democracy has been chipped away at. In 2020, we reported that:

    The last decade has seen Britain’s electoral landscape move from the cash for honours scandal, various expenses scandals, to the recent flurry of elections and referendums that have come under scrutiny with accusations of electoral fraud and dodgy campaign finances.

    It’s little wonder that public confidence in politicians and the election process is so low.

    What’s wrong with voter ID?

    The Electoral Commission, which the Tories have threatened to dismantle, explained the problems. They wrote that “some groups are more likely to experience barriers with this change”, and listed these groups of people as:

    • Disabled people
    • Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
    • Older people
    • People experiencing homelessness
    • People who are registered to vote anonymously
    • Trans and non-binary people

    When news of the plans first emerged, voter suppression was a fear for many. Liberal Democrat levelling up spokesperson Helen Morgan said:

    Every council will have thousands of these applications to process before May, with no guarantee they can process them in time – taking critical council resources during a cost of living crisis.

    The Conservative government have taken away people’s unobstructed right to vote. These delays are nothing short of voter suppression.

    Age UK objected to the bill at the report stage, arguing:

    Age UK has significant concerns about the impact of the introduction of photo ID for in person voting.

    Older people are more likely to face hurdles when voting, including barriers to accessing transport and limited mobility which make getting to a polling station a lot harder. The proposed addition of compulsory photo ID, will further complicate in person voting.

    The Runnymede Trust also expressed concern at who exactly the changes will shut out from voting:

    Possession of a form of photo ID is not even across the population. The government’s own figures show that 24% of white people in England do not possess a full driving licence, compared to 39% Asian and 47% of Black people. According to the 2011 census, only 66% of those of Gypsy or Irish Traveller background hold a passport.

    Stonewall also identified how queer people are less likely to have photo ID:

    LGBTQ+ people are three times more likely than the general population not to possess any photo ID that could be used to vote.

    This disparity is driven by the figures for trans and non-binary people. Nearly a quarter of trans respondents (24%) and nearly one in five non-binary respondents (19%) said they do not own usable photo ID, and could potentially be disenfranchised by the Elections Bill. This compares to 3% of non-trans respondents.

    These changes have forced various groups into raising awareness around the types of photo ID needed in order to vote. The National Union of Students, British Youth Council, and Generation Rent have been campaigning to encourage young people to register to vote and obtain photo ID. In fact, the Good Law Project have called the potential blocking of young voters “generational gerrymandering”, adding:

    The vast majority of voter IDs approved by the Government are available to older people, whilst very few are targeted at people under 60.

    For example, an Older Person’s Bus Pass or 60+ Oyster Card will be acceptable, but an 18+ Oyster Card will not count. Moreover, 16-25 Railcards were approved during a voter ID pilot that took place in Woking in 2018, but they have now been inexplicably excluded by the Government.

    Widespread objections

    It’s outrageous that the government are trying to tackle a problem that doesn’t even exist. It’s difficult to imagine that new voter ID laws aren’t intended to suppress the votes of otherwise disenfranchised and vulnerable people. Policy officer David Arnold of UNISON, the public service union, said:

    UNISON is saying that this is a blatant piece of voter suppression that will prevent tens of thousands of citizens from exercising their democratic right to vote.

    And, finally, the Electoral Reform Society argued:

    Unlike in mainland Europe where everyone has a mandatory national ID card, in the UK and USA the richer you are the more likely you have ID. Many citizens who can’t afford to go on foreign holidays don’t have passports, and those that can’t drive don’t have driving licences.

    Everyone the Electoral Commission lists as being at risk of not having photo ID are all the more likely to be poor people. It’s not an accident that young people, queer people, disabled people, and people of colour are the ones at risk of voter suppression. Just like it’s not an accident that the Tories are trying to suppress the democratic rights of the people most affected by their draconian policies.

    Featured image by Unsplash/Steve Houghton-Burnett

    By Maryam Jameela

  • Almost half of children of colour in England and Wales live in poverty

    Content Warning: This article contains reference to suicide.

    Almost half of all children of colour in Wales and England are living in poverty right now, according to research from campaigning organisation the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). On top of that, new figures show the extent of the over-policing of kids of colour.

    CPAG has recently released statistics saying that:

    48% of children from black and minority ethnic groups live in poverty

    In total, 4.2 million children in England and Wales are currently living in poverty. That’s 29% of young people. This is an increase of 350,000 since last year.

    The highest possible price for poverty

    CPAG also calculated that 450,000 fewer kids would be in poverty if child benefit was increased by just £10 a week. The group argued that the government should extend the provision of free school meals, and scrap the two-child cap. The cap means that families don’t receive any extra Child Tax Credit or Universal Credit if they have more than two children.

    CPAG Chief executive Alison Garnham said in a statement:

    Children pay the highest possible price for poverty – they pay with their health, their well-being and their life chances. Our research shows the country also pays a heavy financial price.

    Black children are 11 times more likely to be strip-searched by police

    On top of this, the UK’s systematic racism discriminates against children of colour in a whole multitude of additional ways. The same weekend as CPAG released its figures on child poverty, news broke of fresh findings that Black children are 11 times more likely to experience being strip-searched by police than their white peers. This reflects the massive over-policing that Black people have to endure in the UK.

    The Children’s Commissioner found that police had strip-searched at least 2,847 children between 2018 and 2022. 38% of these children were Black, despite them making up less than 6% of the population.

    The Canary previously reported how police strip-searched a Black schoolgirl, known as Child Q, while she was on her period. Cops and teachers carried out the search on the child because they were looking for cannabis. The Children’s Commissioner’s statistics show that Child Q was far from alone.

    ‘Withdrawing consent from policing’

    The Canary‘s Sophie Purdy-Moore suggested some ways that we could protect children from degrading, unnecessary strip-searches. She wrote :

    Teachers – don’t invite police onto school grounds. Police are not equipped to prevent harm or to deal with the complex social issues that impact children’s lives. Their job is to criminalise.

    For the rest of us, this means resisting the presence of police in schools and intervening in every police stop we witness on the streets. It means withdrawing consent from all forms of policing. And it means demanding funding for specialist services that support vulnerable children and young people.

    It’s not just in schools that Black kids have to endure degrading searches. Met police officers strip-searched Olivia, a 15-year-old dual-heritage autistic child at a London police station. Olivia was also on her period at the time of the strip-search. Four Met police officers are currently under investigation for the incident.

    Both Olivia and Child Q experienced significant psychological harm as a result of these intrusive searches. Olivia made an attempt to take her own life following the incident.

    These two sets of figures expose the racism at the heart of our society, and illustrate two of the ways it affects the lives of people of colour. Kids of colour are much more likely to face economic disadvantages. On top of that, they are forced to deal with the actions of a police force that is institutionally racist, too.

    You can learn more about the grassroots campaign to end strip searches here, and also find out about CPAG’s campaign for teachers about ‘the cost of a school day’ here.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Katie Crampton (WMUK), cropped to 770x403px, CC BY-SA 4.0

    By Tom Anderson

  • Starmer says schools should out trans kids to their parents – without caring how dire the consequences might be

    Last Friday, 31 March, marked another international Trans Day of Visibility. However, as the Canary tweeted, trans people aren’t struggling for visibility right now. What they *are* struggling for is a non-hostile mainstream press and politicians that aren’t happy to throw them under the bus. Kier Starmer – we’re looking at you.

    With the above in mind, lets take a quick look at what everybody’s favourite opposition leader has been up to.

    Starmer in the Times

    Well, as a true man of the people, Starmer is once again speaking to his public from behind a Times paywall. The Times ran with the headline “Keir Starmer: Trans rights can’t override women’s rights”. But to give the man his due, he doesn’t control the headline – let’s have a look at what he actually says.

    Most of the article isn’t about trans people or women. It’s a hollow puff piece about moving on from Jeremy Corbyn and reforming the party. However, in the relevant portion, on the definition of ‘woman’ Starmer did manage to squeak out:

    For 99.9 per cent of women, it is completely biological . . . and of course they haven’t got a penis.

    So, first up, his maths is a bit faulty there. The 2022 census told us that there are 30,420,202 women in England and Wales. About 48,000 of those are trans women. So that’s closer to 99.84% of women being cis. But that’s not the worst of it.

    ‘Safeguarding’

    The truly bloody stupid bit comes later. It was in reference to a recent piece of ‘research’ from right-wing think tank Policy Exchange which criticised the fact that some schools don’t routinely inform a child’s parents if they choose to socially transition at school. Here, ‘social transition’ means using a different name, pronoun, or presentation.

    When asked about the topic, Starmer replied:

    Look, of course I’d want to know. I say that as a parent. I would want to know and I think the vast majority of parents would want to know. That’s why we have to have national guidance on it and they should try to make it cross-party, because it’s not helpful to parents or schools to have this as just a toxic divide when what’s needed is practical, common sense advice.

    I fear that ‘common sense’ is sadly lacking here. Although Starmer got the ‘cross-party’ bit correct – his answer is remarkably similar to Rishi Sunak’s:

    we will make sure that we publish guidance for schools so that they know how to respond when children are asking about their gender.
    These are really sensitive areas, it’s important that we treat them sensitively, and that parents know what’s going on, and we’ll make sure that that happens.

    So, that’s the PM and the leader of the opposition in agreement, isn’t it? Except there are two problems here. Firstly, we already have guidance on this issue. It’s just being ignored because bullying trans kids is the mainstream media’s flavour of the day.

    And second – and I can’t believe I need to say this – outing queer kids to their parents is potentially incredibly dangerous.

    Existing guidance

    Only last year, in September 2022, the Department of Education (DoE) issued the last update of its guidance on pupil safeguarding. As a general guideline, the DoE stated that:

    Where there is a safeguarding concern, governing bodies, proprietors and school or college leaders should ensure the child’s wishes and feelings are taken into account when determining what action to take and what services to provide.

    Further than this, the document included more specific guidelines for queer children. It recognised that the danger for them is often magnified:

    Risks can be compounded where children who are LGBT lack a trusted adult with whom they can be open. It is therefore vital that staff endeavour to reduce the additional barriers faced and provide a safe space for them to speak out or share their concerns with members of staff

    So, far from Policy Exchange’s framing, schools are not failing in their so-called duty to inform parents of their child being trans. Instead, if a child has chosen – for whatever reason – not to come out to their parents, then that wish must be respected. If a child knows that speaking to staff members automatically means that their parents will be informed, then they lose a vital point of trust and contact.  The enforced outing of children would therefore breed more secrecy, not less.

    The dangers

    This brings us to the second issue. If a child is choosing not to come out to their parents, they probably have good reason for that. In a best-case scenario, this might be because they are simply unready to do so. This, in itself, should be enough.

    But it could also be the case that the child believes they would be unsafe if they came out to their parents. This belief is borne out in statistics. Research from the Albert Kenny Trust suggests that:

    • LGBT young people are disproportionately represented in the young homeless population. As many as 24% of young homeless people are LGBT
    • 69% of homeless LGBT young people had experienced violence, abuse or rejection from the family home
    • 77% state that their LGBT identity was a causal factor in them becoming homeless

    So, work with me for a second here. A trans child thinks that they will be beaten or thrown out of their home for coming out. However, they think their school will be more accepting. They choose to use a different name at school. Then, their school is compelled to out the child to their parents – that is if Policy Exchange, Starmer, and Sunak get their way.

    This is a clear safeguarding risk. What’s more, it should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of care for the children they’re speaking of. But apparently this goes out the window where trans kids are concerned.

    Hollow man

    To provide the benefit of the doubt, it could be the case that people imagine a set of loving parents who simply want to know what is happening to their child. But, as many queer adults know to their detriment, this is far, far from a guarantee. Schools cannot, and should not, make this assumption.

    Starmer, I’m at least vaguely sure, is not a fool. I struggle to think that it has not occurred to him that the forced outing of vulnerable children will put them in danger. The man was a lawyer, for Christ’s sake. Yet this doesn’t seem to matter one jot.

    Our leader of the ‘opposition’ is a man who will happily parrot conservative talking points like Sunak’s. He will accept – without criticism – the framing used by right-wing thinktanks like Policy Exchange. He’ll join in monstering the mainstream media’s demon of the day and dress it up as concern.

    I genuinely can’t tell what Starmer believes in, if anything. He’s not a leader of the opposition. He’s barely even a Labour politician. That right there is just a Tory with a ten second delay.

    Featured image via Youtube/Sky News

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.