For the last week, Britain has been consumed by drama surrounding ex-soccer superstar Gary Lineker’s temporary removal from his role as a BBC commentator after he took to twitter to attack the government’s new asylum policy. In early March, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s conservative government proposed a new law that would make it impossible for people to claim asylum if they entered the country…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On 13 January 2023, we all lost our right to wild camp on Dartmoor. The moor was the only location where wild camping was still legal in England. Hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall – who owns land on Dartmoor – won the case, arguing that the right to pitch tents on the moor didn’t actually exist in the first place.
There’s been much outcry in response to the ruling, with activists and nature lovers organising strategically. One week after the ruling, 3,000 people marched onto Darwall’s Dartmoor land in defiance, sparking one of biggest land rights protests in recent history.
Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) has said that it seeks to appeal the High Court decision. Meanwhile, it has secured a ‘permissive system‘ with some land owners, paying them to allow us to wild camp. The Dartmoor National Park website provides an interactive map showing the locations where we can still legally pitch a tent:
However, for those of us who care about land access in England, concessions from rich land owners aren’t good enough. These permissions are not forever-binding, and can easily be taken away. The amount of land shaded in purple on the above map might look very different today than it will in, say, ten years’ time.
The Stars Are For Everyone, a campaign group which has fought hard for our right to wild camp on Dartmoor, said:
They tried to sell us the idea of success but we called this out as a stitch up: already, we’ve lost around 15% of the previous area where we had a right to wild camp in the park.
It continued:
Now, what remains looks fragile and tenuous. Without a right to camp we rely solely on the goodwill of landowners who renew this permission on an annual basis with Dartmoor National Park Authority – they can withdraw this whenever they choose, and to rub it in, DNPA hand over public money to landowners in exchange for this stitch up deal.
Campaigners such as Beca (aka Muddy Bootlaces) have listed a number of ways you can fight back against the ruling:
Featured image via Sam
By Eliza Egret
This post was originally published on Canary.
Content warning: This article contains mention of rape and sexual assault
The far-right is once again targeting refugees in a hotel in Cornwall. However, this time the police and the media are to blame, for helping to spread misinformation. Meanwhile, anti-fascists are once again taking a stand as the far right plans to descend on Newquay in another racist onslaught.
Racists will target the Beresford Hotel in Newquay for the second time in just over a month. The Home Office is housing refugees there. The far-right action comes after police arrested and charged a man with rape – and media outlets like CornwallLive reported on it. As its website noted:
A man has been charged in connection with the rape of a woman in Newquay on Sunday, March 12.
Ghenadie Babii, 38, of Narrowcliff, Newquay, has been charged with rape and appeared at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court today (Friday, March 17) where he was remanded in custody. The case was sent to the crown court at a later date.
However, this is not the full story.
Cops released a statement, which they’ve since deleted, giving Babii’s address as “Narrowcliff”. This is the same road the Beresford Hotel is on. Local media then published the statement in articles. Far-right groups, as well as other individuals, immediately latched onto the fact the suspect was from Narrowcliff – and assumed he was staying at the Beresford Hotel. They then organised a second protest – scheduled for Sunday 26 March at 10:30am – based on this racist assumption.
Of course, it’s now come to light that Babii was not staying at the Beresford Hotel – nor is he a refugee. CornwallLive reported on Monday 20 March that:
Moldovan national Ghenadie Babii, 38, of Narrowcliff, Newquay, was charged with rape and appeared at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court on Friday (March 17) where he was remanded in custody…
CornwallLive has confirmed that his address is not the hotel but another property in the area. Babii was in this country legally on a short-term visa.
Yet as of 9am on Tuesday 21 March, the far-right demo was still happening. However, the protest brief had changed to remove reference to the fascists’ assumption about Babii. Still, though, the cops are partly to blame for this demo even happening. Grassroots coalition Cornwall Resists told the Canary:
Devon and Cornwall police are responsible for massively stoking community tensions in Newquay. The rapist was not in the hotel or even a refugee. How could the police screw up this badly? They should have known this would inflame community tensions. Publishing the address “Narrowcliff” when they know the hotel has been subject to a concerted far-right racist smear campaign is disgusting and staggeringly incompetent.
So, Cornwall Resists have organised a counter-protest on 26 March, meeting at 9:30am. However, larger questions still need to be asked of the police’s conduct, as the incident encapsulates cops’ institutional racism and misogyny.
Cornwall Resists told the Canary:
Our thoughts are with the survivor of this attack who now, thanks to the police, has to face the devastating trauma of her assault being publicised, lied about and politicised by the far-right.
Our thoughts are with the refugees in the hotel, who are once again facing hate because of the lies of fascists and the racist ignorance of a police force who don’t give a shit about their welfare.
Like other forces across the UK, Devon and Cornwall police is institutionally racist and misogynistic. Black people in Cornwall are 14 times more likely to be stopped by the cops. The force showed its contempt for Black people when a sergeant who shared a vile meme of George Floyd’s death, kept his job. Just weeks ago, another cop from the force was charged with rape and sexual assault. In February, a report found that the police were often failing “to record reports of violent crime including harassment, stalking, controlling and coercive behaviour and domestic abuse”. It further found that it “does not always accurately record” reported incidents of rape, and the recording of crimes against children were also a concern.
Moreover, local news outlets should not have just published the cops’ statement without questioning the address. Cornwall Resists told the Canary:
We would also like to know why the press release was taken word-for word with no questions or editing. Only the police are given the privilege of having their statements covered word-by-word. Our own statements aren’t treated like this, nor would we expect them to be. However, any local journalist or editor should have been aware of the current tensions around Narrowcliff and taken the decision to edit this information out of the press release.”
Furthermore, there’s also the survivor of Babii’s alleged rape in all of this. CornwallLive reported that the cops are appealing for witnesses:
Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Chris Donald. said earlier today: “Our enquiries remain ongoing in relation to this case and we are really keen to identify and speak to a person who may have seen or heard something which may assist our enquiries.
Through CCTV enquiries we believe a person was fishing on the beach in the early hours of Sunday and I would ask them to get in touch with us. I’d also ask that anyone else who was in the area and may have relevant information, to please get in touch.
Anyone with information which may assist this appeal or the wider investigation is asked to contact police on 101 quoting log 158 12/3/23.
As Cornwall Resists summed up:
While our focus is now on opposing the racists who’ll continue using this smear to push their vile agenda, it’s important that we remember that it is the police who’ve enabled this situation and who will to be blame if anything happens in Newquay on Sunday.
So, once again, the far right will be descending on Newquay to hurl racism and intimidation at refugees. However, the wider context here is that the cops should have known this would be the result when they published Babii’s address. Yet they chose to do it anyway. This shows the cops’ complete lack of concern for refugees after the first far-right protest. The police’s actions also show their lack of concern for the survivor of Babii’s alleged rape. However, they also sum up the police’s mentality more broadly: anyone who isn’t white or one of them gets second-class, thoughtless treatment – especially women and Black and brown people.
Featured image via Cornwall Resists
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
Four Unite the Union-backed workers from the Port of Felixstowe are taking on the company which owns it. This comes after bosses sacked the workers, seemingly for their involvement in the strikes which brought the port to a near-standstill in 2022.
While their colleagues won a pay deal, the so-called ‘Felixstowe Four’ were fired. They’ve accused bosses of orchestrating a “witch hunt” to “bully” other workers. However, the Felixstowe Four are fighting back.
As the Canary previously reported, workers at the Port of Felixstowe took industrial action in 2022. It was over pay and conditions at the docks:
Unite the Union says its operator, the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, gave staff a tiny 1.4% pay rise last year [2021]. This year [2022], it’s only offering 5%. That’s around half the rate of inflation. That means bosses are giving workers an effective pay cut. So, workers voted by 92% to strike in August on an 81% turnout.
The trade union and its local reps organised walkouts in August and September 2022. The action worked, as by December the port’s owners, the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, and its parent company CK Hutchison Holdings, had given in. As BBC News reported, bosses agreed to a two-year pay increase:
broken down as a 7% increase for 2022 and an additional one off payment of £500, and then from January 1 2023 an 8.5% pay increase and a one off payment of £1,000.
While this was a good result for the Port of Felixstowe’s 2,500 workers, there was a catch.
In what seems like a clear attempt to intimidate the workforce, bosses took action against four of Unite’s reps – ultimately firing them. As the East Anglian Daily Times (EADT) reported:
the four individuals are taking legal action against the company which could end in an employment tribunal.
Unite – which represents the group – is claiming they were unfairly dismissed and has launched a campaign to get the Felixstowe Four reinstated.
CK Hutchison Holdings declined to comment to the EADT. However, in a video, the workers – Jamie, Keith, Andy and Pete – accuse Port of Felixstowe bosses of a “witch hunt” against them. The men said the company is trying to “make examples” of the four and to “bully and threaten everybody else” who worked there. Andy said bosses’ actions were:
abuse for their gain… to bully the rest of the workforce into doing exactly what they want. They’ve tortured me enough, but more to the point they’ve tortured my family… I’ve worked all my life. I need to work to provide for my family.
Unite’s message to bosses is simple – reinstate the Felixstowe Four:
Unite is campaigning for the reinstatement of Jamie, Keith, Andy & Pete. 4 dockers, Unite reps, who were unfairly sacked.
Unite isn’t going away and will continue to fight until the Port of Felixstowe & its owners the CK Group end this injustice and reinstate the #FelixstoweFour pic.twitter.com/QJjqYc6rd9
— Reinstate the Felixstowe Four (@FelixstoweFour) March 14, 2023
CK Hutchison Holdings’ treatment of these four workers is a deeply worrying undercurrent at the port. Bosses firing workers on a whim, allegedly for organising strikes, is clearly designed to intimidate other employees into not taking action again in the future. Unite and the workers must fight this regressive action – because otherwise, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future.
You can send a message of support to the Felixstowe Four here.
Featured image via Unite the Union – YouTube
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
On Friday 17 March, the House of Commons passed a bill that will prohibit imports of animal hunting trophies.
It’s a debate that has divided conservationists and wildlife experts. But its impact on communities in African nations has been a recent focal point.
Representatives of conservation projects across Africa have written to Andrew Mitchell, the UK minister of state for development and Africa, to challenge the bill. In the letter, they said that limiting trophy imports will have a devastating impact on community game hunting and tourism-derived livelihoods. They argued that it is an extension of colonialism, because it fails to consider people from the African countries the bill will largely impact.
However, the experience of marginalised indigenous communities suggests that these views might be in the minority. And there’s evidence that those who say that the trophy hunting ban is ‘colonial’ are those who actually benefit from employment within these reserves. Moreover, it is Global North conservation organisations who continue to dominate the pro-trophy hunting debate.
In June 2022, the Guardian published the perspective that game bans are neocolonial. ‘Community leader’ Maxi Pia Louis expressed this view. The article described Louis as a “Namibian representative for communities in nine southern African countries”.
However, the article failed to mention that Louis is director of the Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations (NACSO). Multiple international government aid agencies, joint funds, the World Bank, and even a gold mining company are funding partners to NACSO. There’s also one notable, large western conservation non-profit that funds its work.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) financially supports NACSO, while its Namibian branch acts as an associate member. The Canary has previously reported on WWF’s financial and technical support for the trophy hunting model. Notably, the late prince Philip co-founded the organisation, while Charles was president of its UK branch before his ascension to the throne. Of course, the royal family have a history of trophy hunting in Africa.
WWF and Global North funders might, therefore, be shaping this response to the trophy hunting ban.
It isn’t the first time mainstream media outlets have invoked ‘colonialism’ against trophy import prohibition measures either. In January 2022, Forbes penned a piece criticising the since-dropped Animals Abroad Bill. This would also have banned the import of big game trophies.
The Forbes article warned of the “disastrous consequences” for communities and conservation should the bill pass, according to over 100 wildlife experts.
But these claims do not hold up to scrutiny. In an article for People and Nature, Benjamin Ghasemi explored how multiple studies have revealed that the revenue share of trophy hunting profits does not consistently reach communities. His article also stated that according to a report on Tanzania from 2010, less than 3% of the revenue went to community development. Moreover, the remainder went to tourism facilities, airlines, hunting operators, governments and others involved in the trophy hunting industry.
Meanwhile, a 2016 report by the US government’s Natural Resources Committee found that:
African trophy hunting fails to show consistent conservation benefits.
In this context, then, the claim that trophy hunting is a necessary conservation and community livelihood tool is questionable. Further to this, livelihood dependency on trophy tourism might not have occurred in the first place were it not for the violent evictions for ‘fortress conservation’.
WWF champions this ‘fortress conservation’ model. It supports the establishment of Protected Areas (PAs) throughout the Global South.
In 2016, the Rainforest Foundation UK produced a study on PAs in the Congo Basin. Out of 34 PAs it researched, 26 of these – an overwhelming majority of 76.4% – had resulted in the partial or full displacement of indigenous and local land-based communities. Using its research, the Canary identified that the WWF funded over a third of these projects.
In an article for Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Paul Munro from the University of South Wales said that colonial wildlife conservation like this was established in the 1800s by:
aristocratic European hunters who had a desire to preserve African game populations—ostensibly protecting them from settler and African populations—so that elite sports hunting could persevere on the continent.
In other words, trophy hunting conservation is rooted in the colonisers’ desire to retain control of land and commodify nature. Moreover, Munro stated that:
The framing of the problem was filtered through elitist and racist lenses: the “true sportsmanship” of the elite hunt was not the cause of wildlife decline, but rather the “reckless shooting” done by others.
Aby Sène, a professor in conservation area management from Clemson University in the US, echoed this sentiment. She has argued that the same is still true for African communities today. As a result of this lasting colonial rhetoric, governments and PA operators criminalise communities as poachers in their own ancestral lands.
Yet African men are criminalized, incarcerated and murdered at an alarming rate for hunting wildlife to escape the wretchedness of this life, especially with shoot to kill policies in the imperialists orchestrated war on poaching.
— Aby Sène (@AbySene9) January 31, 2023
NACSO’s website reflects this framing of poachers versus legalised ‘professional’ trophy hunters:
A clear distinction has to be made between legal and illegal hunting. Legal hunting is done according to quotas and regulation, and on conservancy land provides an income to communities. Illegal hunting is theft, whether it be poaching for the pot by locals, or the shooting of high value animals for elephant tusks, rhino horns or animal hides. Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade are theft from the communities that conserve wildlife and benefit from its legal utilisation.
This rhetoric underpins a broader Global North trend towards the militarisation of conservation.
NACSO and Louis, in their capacity supporting the work of conservation projects, advocate on behalf of those employed in the sector. In 2020, with the help of WWF and other partners, the association secured a pandemic recovery fund for conservancies across Namibia. Chief among the fund’s primary aims was to “maintain salaries for game guards”.
The letter against the prohibition of trophy hunting imports also chimes with this concern. The conservation area representatives argued that:
With reduced revenue from trophy hunting, poaching will increase because there will be less funding to pay salaries to the community game guards for their anti-poaching patrols to deter poachers
However, there have been multiple reports of human rights violations by these ‘eco-guards’ in conservation projects.
WWF-funded eco-guards in the Congo Basin have reportedly deterred ‘poaching’ through violent beatings, torture, imprisonment and the murder of members from indigenous Baka, Bayaka and other tribes.
Meanwhile, a report by Humane Society International found that trophy hunting makes a marginal contribution to African economies and employs far fewer people than pro-hunting groups claim. Studying the impacts of trophy hunting across eight countries, the report revealed that the sector employs between 7,500 to 15,500 people in the industry.
Therefore, NACSO and the letter signees may well reflect the views of a limited minority employed by the sector. Instead, the experience and opinions of ordinary people from indigenous communities impacted by these projects are missing from the debate.
The exclusion of indigenous voices in Tanzania is a clear example of the consequences for these communities. In June 2022, the government began displacing Maasai pastoralists for a trophy hunting reserve. This could displace 70,000 Maasai people from their ancestral lands.
Nonetheless, organisations like the WWF and its partners claim trophy hunting by wealthy tourists is a legitimate conservation tool. In other words, while their voices dominate conservation rhetoric, poor and less influential indigenous communities will continue to suffer at their hands.
Feature image via Michelle Maria/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 770 by 403, licensed under CC BY 3.0
This post was originally published on Canary.
Activists, including Extinction Rebellion (XR), have once again awarded a blue plaque to the Conservative government for its commitment to Britain’s waterways. What is that commitment, you may ask? Well, according to the activists themselves, it’s a commitment to turn our pleasant blue waterways into literal “open sewers”.
The action was organised by Dirty Water – a group made up of XR, as well as “local health professionals, a group of cold water synchronised swimmers, samba drummers and our very own mermaid”.
A press release from the group noted:
The Dirty Water campaign returned to Bristol today to unveil a giant satirical ‘blue plaque’ on the cascade steps near Bristol Harbour, accompanied by a flotilla of inflatable poo, dead fish and other pollutants to draw attention to the alarming levels of untreated sewage, agricultural pollution and industrial waste that are routinely poured into our rivers and coastal waters.
[The group] congregated at 10am to hear speeches and watch Bristol Green Party leader Emma Edwards unveil the plaque whilst the Cascade steps were decorated with various representations of pollution (which too frequently goes unnoticed) before heading out to talk to the public about the problem and distribute stickers which include a smaller version of the plaque.
Dirty Water began its campaign in January by affixing blue plaques along the River Avon near Conham River Park, around the Harbour, and along the River Frome. The group recently took action at the headquarters of Thames Water and Southern Water. The Canary reported that the group gave its first blue plaque out to Jacob Rees-Mogg – namely for his ‘commitment to filth‘:
If your local MP complains about their blue plaque remind them of this.
Gov MPs voted to legalise the dumping of sewage into the environment; something that had been illegal since 1991.
Did they not understand that or hadn't the Whips Office explained it to them? https://t.co/dZBxzyadWI
— Feargal Sharkey (@Feargal_Sharkey) January 29, 2023
The latest plaque is linked to what Dirty Water refer to as “a recent disappointing decision taken by government”. It reads:
THE UK GOVERNMENT Extended the deadline for all of our rivers and coastal waters to achieve ‘good’ ecological and chemical status by almost 40 years(from 2027 to 2063)
Dirty Water Bristol spokesperson Daniel Juniper said:
We’ve watched in horror as our rivers and seas have become open sewers since October 2021, when the government voted down a proposal to stop water companies pumping waste directly into our rivers and seas. They justified this by claiming that the proposal was too expensive. These plaques shine a light on the government’s failure to protect our waterways, the natural world, and all of us.
Olympic Gold Medal canoeist and campaigner Etienne Stott said:
It’s disgusting, literally, to think what’s being pumped into our rivers. The government and the water companies aren’t going to clean up unless ordinary people put pressure on them. Extinction Rebellion can’t do this alone. We need everyone who cares about our rivers and seas to stand up with us and speak out.
According to Dirty Water Bristol:
Today is just the first part of a bigger campaign to protect nature and our waterways. More actions will be taking place over the coming months.
You can join in by visiting here or signing up to the Dirty Water action network.
Featured image via Dirty Water Bristol
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
According to new analysis from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Tories have presided over “the worst period for living standards in modern history”. It’s a trend which has seen wages collapse and living standards tank. The problem began with David Cameron, and has persisted with each of his short-lived successors. It’s also a trend which the TUC argues cannot be allowed to continue.
The TUC is reporting that:
- NEW ANALYSIS shows that by the end of this parliament household disposable incomes will have shrunk for six of the 14 years the Tories have been in power
- Between 2010-11 and 2023-4 household disposable income growth will increase by just 0.2% a year – compared to an average of 2.3% before 2010-11
- Union body says the government’s failure to get wages rising has pushed families to the brink
The trade union-representing body adds that:
The current squeeze on family budgets is the longest and deepest since records began in the 1950s. Between 1955-6 and 2009-10, household disposable incomes fell just six times – the equivalent of around once every nine years. But between 2010-11 and 2023-4, household disposable incomes are on course to fall nearly once every two years.
Ahead of the Tories taking office in 2010-11, the average growth in household disposable income was 2.3% a year. But since 2010-11 it has plummeted. By 2023-4, household disposable income growth will have increased by just 0.2% a year since David Cameron took power.
The UK has performed the worst out of all G7 countries, bar the US, for life expectancy.
3rd
16th
20th
22nd
29th
36th
53rd
70 years ago, the UK ranked 7th globally.
— Trades Union Congress (@The_TUC) March 16, 2023
The TUC refers to our recent past as “two decades of lost living standards“. It adds that key to driving down household disposable income has been “the government’s failure to get wages rising”. This has led to UK workers “enduring the longest wage squeeze in more than 200 years, with real wages not set to recover to their 2008 value until 2026. The union adds:
years of wage stagnation have pushed families across Britain to the brink. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, household disposable incomes will contract by nearly 6% between now and 2023-4 – the worst squeeze since modern records began.
For 2023-27, the UK economy is predicted to have the 2nd WORST annual growth since the 1920s.
When was the worst annual growth? 2009-2019.
1921-29: 3.1%
1931-41: 4.5%
1947-57: 3.3%
1975-79: 3.3%
1981-90: 3%
1991-01: 2.7%2009-19: 2%
2023-27 2.1%Not good enough.
— Trades Union Congress (@The_TUC) March 15, 2023
Given the increasingly dire situation, the TUC argues that urgent action is needed. With that in mind, it’s calling on the government to:
- Resolve all of the current pay disputes in the public sector by agreeing fair pay deals for all public servants
- Work with unions and employers and the private sector on sector-wide Fair Pay Agreements to improve pay and working conditions
- Raise the minimum wage to £15 an hour as soon as possible
- Ban zero hours contracts to help end the scourge of insecure work
- Increase Universal Credit to 80 per cent of the real Living Wage.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:
Everyone who works for a living deserves to earn a decent living. But working people are suffering the longest squeeze on wages in more than the 200 years. This has decimated household budgets and pushed many families to breaking point.
By the time of the next election, pay packets will still be worth less than in 2008. That is a shameful record for the government. The Conservatives are presiding over the worst period for living standards in modern history.
Nowak added:
The time for excuses is over. Ministers must get pay rising across the economy.
That means a decent pay deal for all our public servants. It means working with unions on sector-wide Fair Pay Agreements, starting with social care and the ferries sector. And it means raising the minimum wage to £15 an hour as soon as possible.
Under the Tories, conditions have increasingly worsened for an increasingly large number of people. Rishi Sunak may have little interest in bucking that trend, but if the unions and their supporters can apply enough pressure, he’s going to buckle whether he likes it or not.
Featured image via Wikimedia – World Economic Forum, cropped to 770 x 403 under licence CC BY-SA 2.0
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
The House of Commons has today passed a bill which would ban imports of hunting trophies from endangered and at-risk species.
Parliament debated The Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill Friday March 17. It considered a series of amendments to the proposed legislation.
It will prohibit trophy hunters from bringing animal parts into the UK from species listed with the highest level of protection in existing UK wildlife trading regulations. The Bill will now go on to the House of Lords for further debate.
Right-wing and mainstream media outlets have reported that representatives of game conservation projects said that the plan “smacks of colonialism”.
However, a professor in parks and conservation area management, has argued instead that it is the big game conservation model itself which is colonial.
The articles in the right-wing press refer to a letter signed by over 109 representatives from wildlife and game conservation areas across multiple African countries. They addressed the letter to Andrew Mitchell, the UK minister of state for development and Africa. In it they said that:
The British Government should be aware that this bill will negatively impact both the conservation of wildlife and the livelihoods of our communities.
They explained that, in order to operate the conservation areas, they rely on the income from trophy hunting tourism activities. The lack of this revenue, they said, would adversely impact communities and increase human-wildlife conflict. Moreover, they felt that the bill is colonial in nature:
It is sad to mention that we feel this is another way of recolonising Africa, with all the consequences that had befallen our forefathers.
However, Professor Aby Sène from Clemson University in the US argued that the idea that fighting against trophy hunting is ‘colonialism’ is a fallacy. Sène is a passionate pan-Africanist, and has lived in and studied the impacts of conservation across several countries in Africa. She believes that the criticism comes from elite capitalists and an African political class that does not reflect the experience of everyday communities. Instead, she pointed out that reserves for trophy hunting have dispossessed Africans of their lands:
For Africans fighting against trophy hunting is not only a fight to save wildlife. It’s also a fight against the colonization of their lands by the elite and capitalists who are aided by the African political class. Africans across the continent have been dispossessed for TH.
— Aby Sène (@AbySene9) March 14, 2023
What Sène was referring to, indigenous rights campaigners call ‘fortress conservation’. These are conservation projects that have evicted existing indigenous and local inhabitants from their traditional lands, or otherwise restricted their access to crucial resources like food, fuel, and medicinal plants.
A 2017 study estimated that over 250,000 people had been evicted to make way for protected areas between 1990 and 2014. However, there are no precise statistics on the number of people who have been displaced for conservation projects. A separate study estimated that up to a million people could have been evicted for Protected Areas in India alone.
Indigenous rights campaign group Survival International have described how this type of colonial conservation rests on:
the racist misconception that indigenous people cannot be trusted to look after their own land and the animals that live there. Its proponents view the original custodians of the land as a “nuisance” to be “dealt with”, instead of as experts in local biodiversity and key partners in conservation.
Conversely, the letter from the representatives of the conservation groups argued that the loss of financial support through trophy hunting will:
Undermine the incentives for our rural farming communities to look after and sustainably manage wildlife.
They explained that the conservation areas, forests, and fishing reserves they represent are ‘Community Based Organisations’ (CBOs) where they have been given:
rights to manage and utilise our natural resources sustainably for the benefit of our community members and the wildlife.
But the rights and opportunities of some are coming at the expense of the rights of others. Tanzania is currently carrying out a violent eviction in the name of said ‘conservation’.
The Canary previously reported that the government is illegally excluding 70,000 Maasai pastoralists from their ancestral lands in the Ngorongoro district, east of Serengeti National Park. The Otterlo Business Corporation, owned by the Dubai royals, has been lobbying the Tanzanian government. They have called for the government to make the 1,500 square kilometres into a game reserve. Local authorities have been violently seizing the lands from these indigenous Maasai communities for the project.
Sène feels that conservationists that have argued for trophy hunting to continue have not centred the rights of indigenous communities. Rather, trophy hunting exists to ensure that rich, white Global Northerners can continue to exploit African lands for their touristic leisure:
Trophy hunting apologists in Africa who use the “sustainable use” excuse never push for Africans to exercise their legitimate rights to hunt wildlife on their lands. Instead it’s about the right to choose that a white man can hunt on African lands in exchange for meager income.
— Aby Sène (@AbySene9) January 31, 2023
Moreover, a majority of Africans on social media view trophy hunting as “neo-colonialist”. This is according to a study by Mucha Mkono in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Mkono analysed the social media comments of African posters to the Facebook accounts of three major news outlets in Africa.
Mkono sought to address a gap in the research surrounding the debates on trophy hunting in Africa. She felt that conversations on big game hunting have largely sidelined African views. Instead, Western discussions on the ethics of the activity were predominant.
To 70% of the participants in her data, the way trophy hunting gives control over iconic animal species is a continuation of colonial power. Mkono suggests that posters felt this especially in light of the fact that the hunting industry largely “economically excluded” Africans from the activity.
Furthermore, participants expressed frustration at the concern for the lives of non-human animals. They felt this was racist because Westerners were overlooking the lives of the people in Africa. One participant posted in reference to Cecil the Lion. American dentist Walter Palmer shot the iconic animal in Zimbabwe in 2015. In response to public outrage, politicians began to call for plans to prohibit trophy imports. The poster in Mkono’s study said of the Western public’s outcry over the killing of Cecil the Lion:
kids die everyday here in africa because of hunger but all you care about more are these “majestic” animals, i hear so much noise about these animals but hardly ever hear people protesting against poverty, what is wrong with this planet whats is so important about a 13yr old lion we got kids dying or pple starving and having no jobs and excess to proper healthcare but all you think of is a lion…
The Canary‘s Tracy Keeling has previously reported on the “deep rift” between conservationists and wildlife experts over the banning of trophy imports. She argued, however, that public opinion largely coming out against trophy hunting was signalling “the winds of change”. As a result, she said that the ban would cause the practice to eventually “grind to a halt”.
Keeling said that:
Under those circumstances, arguably the responsible thing to do is come up with alternatives, both for our planet’s magnificent megafauna and the communities that have to co-exist with it.
Indeed, the bill could help bring an end to these colonial conservation projects in Africa. Sène argued that the framing of the trophy hunting import ban as colonial is reducing the debate down to obfuscate the crucial alternative: land tenure rights.
This is how Trophy Hunting in Africa apologists pigeon hole the debate reducing it into a single issues of “choice” and income streams. They side step the fundamental question of land tenure/rights under the name of evidence-based science and focus on TH bans… https://t.co/g4F8d6Cm4M
— Aby Sène (@AbySene9) January 30, 2023
This shows that, in order to support meaningful alternatives, the UK will need to listen to the voices of marginalised communities in Africa. Survival International argued that, contrary to colonial perceptions of conservation:
indigenous people understand and manage their environment better than anyone else.
A respondent in Mkono’s study echoed the view that Africans across the continent are the best custodians of their own lands:
In the not too distant past African people had a healthy respect for the natural world and were more careful about hunting. Now most African people have had at least 150 years of being told all of the old ways were backward, sub-intelligent, and proof of our lack of civilisation. Having been forced off the land and out of the old systems of land use and frailties—old understandings of society and the animal world so many are disconnected to those old ways, no longer valuing animals and helping careless people hunt them all to extinction.
Ultimately, the rights to land and nature in Africa should not be conditional on Western ideals of conservation. Crucially, people throughout Africa should be given agency over their own ecological future.
Featured image via PxHere, CC0 Public Domain, resized to 770*403
The UK government have proposed a n £11bn defence spending boost. However, Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) have stated that the hike will not provide security. Meanwhile, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) have said that the figure is outrageous in a cost-of-living crisis.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that the hike would come into play over the next five years. His aim is to take the UK’s percentage of GDP spent on defence higher, in order to align with NATO requirements.
However, critics wasted no time attacking the new plans. Pacifist group PPU said ammunition and submarines did nothing for those in poverty:
Much of the increase is expected to be spent on military equipment, all while millions struggle with the cost of living.
PPU said that the news made Tory commitments on climate change look hollow:
while successive government security reviews have all listed climate change as a security priority, ministers have continued to ignore this and increasingly equate security with preparations for war.
PPU spokesperson Jonathon Maunder called for a “real budget for security”:
The increasingly visible effects of climate change act as a reminder that weapons cannot keep us safe. The Covid-19 vaccine response showed up us what can happen when people around the world work together for common aims and the climate emergency should be no different.
Scientist campaigners from SGR listed reasons why the new budget would not deliver security particularly, in respect to Russia and Ukraine. They pointed out that NATO already had a bigger military budget than Russia. Additionally, only a small part of the budget would be going to help Ukraine’s war against Russian occupation.
They also warned that current defence spending was at odds with the UK’s real needs. They said public services are breaking down, and real global security was about addressing climate change and poverty.
SGR director Dr Stuart Parkinson said:
In summary, the justifications for an increase in the UK’s military budget are weak – given the recent huge rises in funding for British armed forces, the lack of convincing military arguments, and the urgent, life-saving potential of alternative spending options in healthcare, overseas aid, and environmental protection.
Clearly, rather than play to NATO or our allies in the US, the UK needs to take a serious approach to war and insecurity. This requires a clear-headed approach to defence spending whilst addressing people’s actual day-to-day needs. Most importantly, we need an approach that doesn’t just hand money to arms firms.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/MOD, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.
By Joe Glenton
A rogue landlord and a negligent local council are being blamed for the death of a man in a fire in a Tower Hamlets flat. However, the tragic incident also points to the institutional racism that pervades UK society – and particularly the housing sector.
As Rivkah Brown wrote for Novara Media:
In the early hours of 5 March, a fire so severe it took 30 firefighters two hours to control it broke out in the Maddocks House estate in Shadwell, east London. Its source was a flat that had only two bedrooms yet housed 18 people, mostly Bangladeshi students and delivery drivers (it’s suspected the trigger was a faulty e-bike battery). Between them, the men paid around £8,000 a month for the privilege of being packed into bunk beds in mouldy, airless bedrooms. One of them, 41-year-old Mizanur Rahman, died in hospital from his injuries. It’s a miracle the others all survived.
In short, a landlord was exploiting these people. Tower Hamlets council had investigated the property in 2022. As the Guardian reported, resident organisation Maddocks House Support Group is claiming that both the council and the London Fire Brigade (LFB) knew the landlord was dangerously overcrowding the flat.
A residents’ blog, the Tarling West Estate, wrote that:
Other residents of Maddocks House had made complaints about the flat to Tower Hamlets Homes (THH), representatives from the Council and to other agencies, about leaks and other problems resulting from its dangerous overcrowding and poor state of repair for years, since 2019 at least. The Residents Association has for a long time struggled with THH’s poor management of the estate and lack of attention to residents calls for attention to the poor conditions on the estate. The Residents Association is currently preparing a report about the fire summarising this history of complaints, poor repairs and negligence on the part of the Council and its managing agent THH.
Yet both the council and the LFB failed to act. Tower Hamlets council has launched a criminal investigation into the fire. However, as a spokesperson for Maddocks House Support Group told the Guardian:
We are concerned about the criminal investigation being led by the London borough of Tower Hamlets, who are in effect investigating themselves. We are worried about them deflecting blame when senior officials from the borough and Tower Hamlets Homes bear responsibility.
All of this has echoes of Grenfell. The situation is also similar in terms of council negligence to a recent fire in Haringey. There, residents had also been warning of the council’s failures, this time over fire safety. However, in Tower Hamlets the landlord’s horrific attitude, and the council’s negligence, sum up the institutionally racist housing sector in the UK.
Government figures show that over 700,000 households are overcrowded – meaning they have fewer bedrooms than they need. However, Black and brown people are disproportionately affected by this. The latest figures show the percentage of households that were overcrowded, by ethnicity:
Meanwhile, just 2% of white British households are overcrowded. This has a lot to do with the types of properties people live in. Social housing landlords are disproportionately overcrowding Black and brown people, as are private landlords:
The latest census data also shows how the UK housing market is institutionally racist. Black and brown people disproportionately live in social housing, which is plagued by overcrowding:
Landlords squeezing too many people into one property is also an issue of class for Black and brown people. The poorest people were the most overcrowded:
Of course, none of this is new. Poor Black and brown people’s experiences of housing in the UK have barely improved since at least the 1960s. Moreover, as Kevin Gulliver wrote for the London School of Economics, other institutionalised racism then intersects with housing:
Over-concentration of BAME households in the most deprived neighbourhoods in Britain’s cities, linked to poor housing conditions and lower economic status (some of Marmot’s ‘social determinants’) ensure negative impacts on health, culminating in lower life expectancy and higher morbidity rates among ethnic minorities.
He also noted that:
welfare reforms [are] disproportionately impacting ethnic minorities. The roll-out of Universal Credit is having greater effects on the living standards of BAME people since a larger percentage experience poverty
The fire in Shadwell is a microcosm of all this. The landlord’s entire MO was racist: exploiting brown people to the tune of thousands of pounds a month while dehumanising and degrading them. Tower Hamlets council’s response was then institutionally racist. It ignored residents’ and local people’s concerns when the vast majority of them are Bangladeshi. We’ve seen this level of institutional racism before – it recently led to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in Rochdale, from exposure to extreme mould and damp.
As Tarling West Estate blog wrote:
The death of Mizanur Rahman was completely and utterly preventable. It was a result of the criminal activity of the landlord that he died, but just as equally due to the negligence of the licencing authority, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and the housing management organisation, Tower Hamlets Homes, which has just gone back into control of Tower Hamlets Council.
However, all this leads back to the racism against Black and brown people that’s still entrenched in UK society. As the Canary‘s Maryam Jameela previously wrote:
This rotting society is only as good as its most vulnerable people. What does that make the UK? A country that has unending sympathy and generosity of spirit for whiteness in all its guises, and a vicious disdain for brown people.
Mizanur Rahman’s death on the watch of his rogue landlord and Tower Hamlets council only serves to underline this.
Featured image via London Fire Brigade
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
New powers that restrict the right to protest have led to the UK being downgraded from ‘narrowed’ to ‘obstructed’.
Two pieces of legislation we’ve written about and have been advocating against- the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Bill – give extensive new powers to police and the Home Secretary and feature heavily in the UK section of the report.
In addition to the legislation, the report emphasises how climate and anti-racism protesters are being targeted by police, with legal observers experiencing high levels of intimidation, harassment and aggression.
The authors warned that authoritarianism was a real danger:
The types of legislation and rhetoric we are seeing in the UK now can lay the foundation for further restrictions in the future; clampdowns on charities and protesters can quickly become clampdowns on anyone who dares to think differently.
Bond CEO Stephanie Draper said that the UK public order laws were becoming “increasingly authoritarian”:
The downgrade reflects the worrying trends we are seeing in restrictions across civil society that are threatening our democracy.
That freedom is under attack in the UK will come as no surprise to those paying attention. This new downgrading should send shockwaves through politics. However, with an opposition obsessed with playing to Tory voters, it remains to be seen if it will.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Nigel Mykura, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY 2.0.
By Joe Glenton
This post was originally published on Canary.
Residents have taken the fight for safe, secure, and affordable housing to the door of landlords in a new protest. They also demanded that these housing providers stop greenwashing their work. The response from the landlords was to call the cops.
As the Canary previously reported:
Housing Rebellion is a new offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The group exists to highlight the fact that many of the anti-tenant policies that landlords get away with are also having an enormous impact on the environment.
On Tuesday 14 March, Housing Rebellion (HR), residents, and other groups like the Radical Housing Network, protested at various landlords‘ offices:
Abbey Wood residents went to #Peabody today to demand a stop to demolition of their homes and conduct a 'survey' about the impact of Peabody's developments on the housing crisis and the climate #HousingRebellionhttps://t.co/3EyaNks3gP pic.twitter.com/wmp2hXcjmr
— RadicalHousingNet (@radicalhousing) March 14, 2023
The demos were over landlords’ plans to demolish properties, as well as their broader building policies. Housing Rebellion is opposed to knocking down homes. For example, it says that the demolition of social homes is:
displacing communities and leading to the waste of huge amounts of embodied carbon.
The group and its supporters tried to get landlords to answer some questions about their demolition and building plans. These included:
Does this company create housing which is unaffordable to the majority of people? leading to even greater waste of resources by selling to speculators and wealthy elites who use them as second homes, luxury holiday lets, or even leave them empty as a store of wealth.
Predictably, many landlords didn’t respond. In fact, HR said Savills, Peabody and Lendlease called the cops to throw them and the protesting residents out:
Georgina Schueller is from Lambeth. She went to Savills’ offices to protest. In Lambeth, Housing Rebellion claims that Savills is currently surveying all the council properties in the borough. It also says the company has been directly involved in the demolition and regeneration plans for six estates there. Schueller said in a press release:
Savills is a global real estate company that helps to devise government housing policy. Then it gets involved implementing policies at local council level. They’re capitalising on the housing crisis, extracting long term asset values from what they call “dysfunctional” housing estates.
The group says that ultimately, Savills want to get rid of working class communities to push the value of property even higher. Georgina quoted a Savills report that said:
the socio-economic range of households on estates raises property values as it reduces the Index of Mass Deprivation.
In other words, landlords want to get rid of poor people from estates:
Grace, from Radical Housing Network, said:
It’s hardly surprising [landlords] don’t want to talk to us, because they have no justification for what they are doing except greed and profit.
The Heygate estate, which is now Elephant Park, is a warning to everyone about what regeneration leads to. The cheapest one bed flat there now is over £700,000 and all the environmental commitments turned out to be just greenwash lies and were converted to carbon offset payments.
Another resident, Yasmin, also pinned some responsibility on local authorities. She said:
Southwark council needs to answer for their hypocrisy selling to all those millionaire traders and developers. That is criminal they have knocked down flats when there was nothing wrong with them.
The housing crisis in the UK is partly down to government policy. However, it’s also down to greedy landlords who don’t care about their residents – only turning a profit. So, Housing Rebellion aims to take them on – and it will be interesting to see what the group’s next move is.
Featured image and additional images via Housing Rebellion
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
The UK government has announced it will invest billions into digital technologies, startups and R&D. The Spring budget includes commitments of £2.5 billion (AUD$4.55 billion) for quantum technologies alone to accompany a new national quantum strategy. AI, supercomputing and innovation districts all got budget boosts as well, while a wider overhaul of technology regulations has…
The post UK unveils $4.5bn quantum strategy in tech-friendly budget appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
Amazon’s business, and Jeff Bezos’s wealth, expanded at a dizzying pace over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic; meanwhile, Amazon workers continue to burn out from the relentless pace of work and are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. As the cost-of-living crisis deepens around the globe, workers across industries in the UK—from healthcare and railway workers to civil servants and university lecturers—have been resorting to industrial strike action to secure the increased pay they desperately need. Now, hundreds of workers at an Amazon warehouse in Coventry have joined the wave of strikes and have made history as the first group of workers to strike at Amazon in the UK. In the latest installment of our Workers of the World series, Ross Domoney reports from the Amazon picket line in Coventry. This video is part of a special Workers of the World series on the cost of living crisis in Europe.
Producer, Videographer, and Video Editor: Ross Domoney
This story, with the support of the Bertha Foundation, is part of The Real News Network’s Workers of the World series, telling the stories of workers around the globe building collective power and redefining the future of work on their own terms.
Protester: Strike. You can turn round if you want. This is a picket line.
Ross Domoney (narrator): Amazon workers have just blocked the road leading to their workplace.
Protesters: “The workers united!”
“Will never be defeated!”
“The workers united!”
“The workers united!”
“Will never be defeated!”
“Bring your colleagues on the picket line and show strength!”
Ross Domoney (narrator): Their managers look on, as the strikers try to get more workers on their side.
Mike Ekiesesay (Amazon worker and GMB union representative): Are you a member ma’am as well? Are you a member?
Ross Domoney (narrator): Employees at this warehouse in Coventry are making history as they stage the first ever strike against Amazon in the UK.
Police officer: All I’d like, Okay, is for the traffic to flow so I can unblock the [traffic] island
Protester: You’ve got the right to go and talk to anyone who’s in the queue.
Mike Ekiesesay (Amazon worker and GMB union representative): The cars here in the long queue most of them want to be a member, but they don’t know [how]. They don’t have that right information. So we’re out here on this picket line just making them realize some of the information encouraging them to be part of the picket line. Yeah, do you want better pay? Everyone wants better pay. I work in Amazon, I know right. I worked through the pandemic in Amazon.
I started in 2020. It was a very depressing era with the COVID going on, with the social distancing.We were still coming to work, but we were not allowed to socially connect with each other due to the rules and regulations that was being put in place. Most importantly, it was one of the most busiest periods in Amazon, because Amazon was one of the companies that was still sending orders and deliveries outside because people didn’t have the chance to go out. So Amazon was sending deliveries outside so that means they have earned, they are one of the companies that have earned a lot during the pandemic and considering such a huge gain and then paying their workers who have put in that hard work, just 50p. It’s an insult, and I feel like Amazon can do more.
Ross Domoney (narrator): The GMB union, which has nearly 460,000 members across all industrial sectors, stepped in to support the Amazon workers after they were offered a pay rise of just 50 pence.
Stuart Richards (GMB union Senior organizer): This is an employer that isn’t exactly known for its good employment relations and certainly not its relationship with the trade unions. As we’ve seen in the ten years that we’ve been supporting Amazon workers, Amazon will not seek to engage with us at all. So the engagement we have with our members is primarily offsite on gate jobs. So this is a huge step forward.
Amazon spends a huge amount of time and money trying to keep us out of the warehouse. They think we are the union. Effectively they’ve got it very, very wrong in this instance. The union’s in there, the union’s actually this group of workers taking strike action. This is a huge step forward for us. This is a huge step forward for them. And hopefully the beginning of a move that we can take in supporting Amazon workers, not just in this warehouse, but others, to actually start to unionize, and get better pay and conditions.
Protester: “Stuart, can I have a cup of tea, two sugars?”
Amanda Gearing (GMB union Senior organizer): We’ve got all sorts of issues that are happening inside. But the bulk of the issues are around the way that they play one worker off against another worker with regards to their targets. So it’s a real pressured environment in there.
So you’ve got people that have got all sorts of injuries because they’re just not able to stop, take the right breaks, they are not able to do manual handling or anything like that because it’s a really difficult environment and if they don’t work as hard as they possibly can, they find themselves on a disciplinary.
Garfield Hylton (Amazon worker): The complaint that I would have is that when we then fail in our job, we need time off to recover, we may find ourselves being punished by Amazon’s health policy. When the robots break or don’t work, they have a team of expensive technicians to service them and they’re put back to right. Whereas if we go off because of it, burnout for want of a better word, we then will face a disciplinary procedure which will then kind of have an adverse effect on us. If we go off again we can find ourselves quickly being threatened with the loss of the job.
We all work making a company one of the billion dollar companies in the world, but we still don’t feel appreciated. So with the cost of living and everything going on right now that is really draining on a lot of people. It’s making a lot of people feel depressed because they have to drive from a very long way to get to work and then when they get to work, put in a lot of hours, instead of them getting paid properly, they just get a pay rise of 50p.
Rashvinder Saund (Amazon worker): In terms of inflation things have gone up so much that it’s led for us to actually make a stand. I mean, before I was sitting on the actual fence, I was just observing and thinking, should I, shan’t I, should I, shan’t I? And then I thought, hang on a minute. You know, there’s more and more people joining GMB and actually I think I need to support my colleagues. Hence why I came out and thought, why not? You know, every voice matters. So that’s one of the main reasons really, it’s just purely the fact of not being able to have enough money coming in to pay our bills. You know, it’s just basic needs.
Stuart Richards (GMB union Senior organizer): If we don’t get to a point where those bosses start to listen, engage, and actually resolve the issues that we have here, we’re going to see an escalation of what’s already happening. We’re going to see a continuation of those disputes until we drag those employers kicking and screaming to the point at which they start to resolve those issues.
Amanda Gearing (GMB union Senior organizer): I mean, it’s across the UK, but it’s also global as well, to be honest. I mean, Amazon workers across the globe are coming together. We had Chris Smalls that has been organizing in New York over this week and meeting with some of our workers. So, you know, it’s absolutely fantastic. We’ve got other fulfillment centers that are contacting us now and saying that they want to do the same thing. You know, the pay at the moment is just appalling and people can’t live on that pay. So, you know, they feel like they’ve got nowhere to go.
It should only take two minutes, and all answers are confidential.
The National Education Union (NEU) began two days of strike action on Wednesday 15 March. The teachers’ strike saw countless staff walk out across England. So, what does the Tory government do? It puts out some shameless, baseless propaganda to try and turn parents against the NEU. Fortunately, it so far doesn’t appear to have worked – and the trade union has also hit back.
NEU members are striking over pay, working conditions, and students’ education. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says governments have cut the real-terms pay of experienced and senior teachers by around £6,600 – or 13% – since 2010. On top of this, the NEU also said that:
Nearly one third of the teachers who qualified in the last decade have quit.
13 per cent of teachers who qualified in 2019 have already gone.
All this is having a knock-on effect on kids’ education. The NEU says school budgets are already “overstretched”. The IFS thinks that even with additional government money, by 2024 education spending is only going to go back to where it was in real terms in 2010. So, NEU members have walked out:
I’m on a picket line in South East London with @NEUnion general secretary @MaryBoustedNEU and teachers on strike. The union has said it expects around 300,000 teachers to be striking across the country today #teacherstrikes pic.twitter.com/aexbrYMRNC
— tilda martin (@matilda__martin) March 15, 2023
On 15 March, the NEU is also holding a rally in central London – with thousands of teachers expected to attend:
Crowds of NEU members about to leave Exeter St David’s #PayUp #SaveOurSchools pic.twitter.com/omhT3pQrX6
— NEU South West Region (@NEUSouthWest) March 15, 2023
However, the Tory government is also on the offensive – albeit not very successfully.
Desperate education secretary Gillian Keegan wrote an open letter to parents on Tuesday 14 March. She said that she was “extremely disappointed” that the NEU teachers’ strike was ‘disrupting’ kids and parents. Keegan noted that students were missing “invaluable” learning time. However, she crucially claimed that:
It is made worse by the fact that this strike action is completely unnecessary. As I said to the NEU three weeks ago, I want to get around the table and engage in serious talks on teachers’ pay and other issues to resolve disputes.
My only condition was that strike action is paused so those discussions can take place in good faith and without disruption.
Keegan slammed the NEU, saying it:
instead seems focused on strikes and all the needless disruption that brings.
Of course, this is typical Tory propaganda – because Keegan’s claims are completely one-sided.
NEU joint general secretaries Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney wrote back to Keegan. They claimed that the strike was essentially down to her and her department. Bousted and Courtney said:
The NEU has said repeatedly that we will meet for talks any time, any place, anywhere. It is your precondition that we call off strike action in order to have talks, which lies in the way.
Last week, we, alongside the other education union leaders, asked for talks through ACAS in order to make progress. You refused to engage.
The letter also noted that the Scottish and Welsh governments had been negotiating more successfully with teachers. Plus, Bousted and Courtney went further, accusing Keegan – via her ‘pause the teachers’ strike’ demand – of setting:
a whole new precedent, which is nothing more than a stumbling block with which to play politics.
Unions caving-in to bosses hasn’t ended well recently. The University and College Union (UCU) even ended up having to add a strike date after no progress was made. The flip side of this is the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which stood its ground – and ended up winning its pay dispute, without any walkouts.
So, the teachers’ strike continues – and it seems parents are still supporting it. A poll by ParentKind showed 63% of parents supported the NEU. The Times Educational Supplement (TES), on the other hand, reported that 50% of people supported the NEU, according to the most recent YouGov polling.
So, government attempts to manipulate parents have so far failed. It seems that while the NEU holds the line over the dispute, the public are behind it – and not the Tories.
Featured image via NEU
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
Boris Johnson‘s government directly interfered in BBC coverage of government policy. This is according to the Guardian. It was over the Tories’ response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. However, the revelations don’t come as a surprise – because the BBC‘s news coverage has always been little more than state-sanctioned propaganda.
As the Guardian reported, the government was influencing the BBC at the start of the pandemic. Downing Street reportedly told the broadcaster’s bosses that it did not want journalists referring to the lockdown, which started on 23 March 2020, as a “lockdown”. BBC editors then rolled this out to journalists – who kicked-back, to no avail. The Guardian claims it saw an email from editors to staff which said:
Hi all – D st [Downing Street] are asking if we can avoid the word ‘lockdown’. I’m told the message will be that they want to keep pushing people to stay at home but they are not talking about enforcement at the moment
The BBC complied with the government request. The Guardian wrote that:
Reporters argued unsuccessfully against the advice and thus the website and broadcasts on that day spoke about “curbs” and “restrictions” on daily life, while other outlets, such as rival broadcaster Sky, were referring to “lockdown”.
The Daily Mail splashed “Lockdown Britain” across its front page the next morning, while the Metro headline was “Britain on Lockdown”.
It also reported that the government (i.e., the Tories) asked BBC editors to be more critical of Labour. Again, this was in the context of the pandemic. The Guardian claimed one email from October 2021 stated:
D St complaining that we’re not reflecting Labour’s mess of plan b online. ie Ashworth said it earlier this week, then reversed. Can we turn up the scepticism a bit on this?
Of course, none of us should be surprised by this news.
As the Canary reported in May 2020, the signs were already there that BBC news and current affairs was toeing the government line over the pandemic. For example, regarding the broadcaster’s coverage of government coronavirus policy, a “senior” BBC journalist told the Economist at the time:
The BBC does have a responsibility to provide what the nation needs… It needs to know what’s being done about testing [for coronavirus]. It doesn’t need a great bust-up about what’s gone wrong in the recent past… the bosses are keen that we come out of this with the sense that we looked after the interest of the nation, not just our journalistic values.
That is, the BBC was not questioning what the Tories were doing – it was merely parroting whatever they told it. However, the pandemic is not an isolated example of BBC government bias, either. In recent years, the broadcaster:
Moreover, it’s in the very fabric of the BBC‘s DNA to act like a state broadcaster. During WWII, bosses sacked workers who were conscientious objectors. This was because these workers’ views were “inconsistent with the national effort”. Then, in 1953, it effectively performed espionage against Iran on behalf of the UK government. The BBC‘s Persian Service broadcast the code word that would begin the coup against the democratically elected Iranian government. As Stephen Kinzer wrote in the book All The Shah’s Men, the then-British prime minister:
[Winston] Churchill had arranged that the BBC would end its broadcast day by saying not “It is now midnight,” as usual, but “It is now exactly midnight.”
Coming full circle, the recent scandal over Lineker encapsulates the problem. As one BBC “insider” summed up to the Guardian:
Particularly on the website, our headlines have been determined by calls from Downing Street on a very regular basis
So, the revelations that the Tories pulled strings at BBC news and current affairs during the pandemic are par for the course. It confirms that impartiality doesn’t exist, and that the broadcaster is often little more than a government mouthpiece. Ironically, thanks to the government, the future of the BBC is still uncertain – particularly that of the licence fee. Previous government plans were to axe it. Meanwhile, the BBC is also caught up in controversy over its cutting of local radio services. Workers are currently on strike over it. All this is despite the controversies over the Tories effectively putting their mates in charge of it.
Based on the evidence, it’s clear that the BBC‘s news output has always been an arm of government. Now, despite the broadcaster dutifully fulfilling this toxic role, it might not be enough to save the BBC in its current form anyway.
Featured image via LBC – YouTube and Wikimedia/BBC
By Steve Topple
This post was originally published on Canary.
Content warnings: suicide, self-harm, violence in prison
On Friday 10 March, people protested outside the gates of HMP Bristol in memory of prisoner Keith Gadd. Keith had taken his own life there the previous day. Keith was an IPP prisoner – he was serving an Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP). His fellow prisoners said that he had recently been turned down for release by the Parole Board.
Demonstrators chanted “HMP, blood on your hands” and “Until all are free, Smash IPP!”. Amongst them were several family members and loved ones of other IPP prisoners.
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) told the Canary that Keith’s death will be investigated, “as with all deaths in custody”. However, it is unlikely that the investigation will make any difference to the brutality of IPP sentences. The MOJ and the government know how harmful it is, but they are carrying on the sentence anyway.
Last July, another IPP prisoner called Taylor took his own life at Bristol’s HMP Eastwood Park. He had served over 14 years of an IPP sentence, and been repeatedly turned down for release.
At least 81 IPP prisoners have taken their own lives since Tony Blair’s government created the sentence in 2003. IPP prisoners are given a ‘tariff’ for the crime they’re being sentenced for, but they are not automatically released once that tariff is served. Their freedom is in the hands of the parole board. This makes IPP sentences equivalent to a life sentence, but they have largely been handed out for minor crimes.
The sentence has been described as psychological torture, with IPP prisoners commonly serving in excess of a decade or more in prison. The IPP sentence was discontinued in 2012, with the MOJ admitting that the sentence had been used more widely than initially intended. The government had only intended for 900 IPPs to be given out, but the courts doled out over 8,000.
IPP was not abolished retrospectively in 2012, and thousands of people remain imprisoned with no release date in sight.
The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) wrote last year:
as of 30 June 2022, nearly ten years after ‘abolition’, there remain 2,926 IPP prisoners in England and Wales. Of these, 1,492 have never been released. A further 1,434 have been released but later recalled to custody. Of the never-released population of 1,492, nearly half – 608 prisoners – are at least 10 years over their original tariff.
One of the prisoners interviewed for the CCJS report said:
So long as I’m under IPP I have no life, no freedom, no future. I fear IPP will force me to commit suicide. I have lost all trust and hope in this justice system.
IPP prisoners have had their hopes dashed once again by a recent government decision not to review the sentence. Just weeks before Keith’s suicide, justice secretary Dominic Raab announced that the MOJ would not resentence existing IPP prisoners. He said:
Retrospective resentencing of IPP offenders could lead to the immediate release of many offenders who have been assessed as unsafe for release by the Parole Board
But the Parole Board is putting impossible conditions on IPP prisoners. Bristol Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) wrote last year:
At each [parole] board hearing, new ‘hoops’ can be created that the prisoner will need to then jump through. For example, a prisoner might do everything the Parole Board directs and then two years later at the next hearing, the Parole Board might say “you still need to address X behaviour and therefore do X course.” This leads to a continual process of imprisonment where goal posts are repeatedly moved. The uncertainty, frustration and lack of power leads to prisoner behaviour deteriorating, whether that is increased drug use, self-harm or kicking off in protest.
This behaviour then becomes the justification for their continuing imprisonment, because that person is not ‘safe’ for the community or has not ‘addressed their offending behaviour’. The cycle continues.
Taylor – for example – was told that he had to stop self-harming before he was released, even though being locked up is often a factor in self-harm. In fact, official documents have reported a raised risk of self-harming behaviour for those serving IPP sentences.
Campaign group United Group for Reform of IPP (UNGRIPP) has vowed to keep up the pressure, and the IPP Committee in Action is holding a lobby of Parliament on 15 March.
Bristol ABC published a statement about Keith’s death. They wrote:
Bristol ABC pointed out that Keith’s death is just the latest in a long line of deaths in custody in Bristol’s prisons. The group wrote:
Keith’s death is just the latest death in Bristol’s prisons
Some of us knew Taylor, who took his own life at Bristol’s HMP Eastwood Park on 9th July 2022 – after serving over 14 years of an IPP sentence. Shortly before he killed himself, Taylor was beaten savagely by prison officers.
Clare Dupree died after a fire in her cell at Eastwood Park after a fire on December 26th, other prisoners heard her scream for the screws to help her, but they say the door was not opened.
Another prisoner called Kayleigh took her own life last year, after she too was brutally beaten by officers at Eastwood Park
Bristol ABC called on people to take action to “avenge” those who have died in custody. The group says that – in their view – Keith, Taylor, Clare and Kayleigh were “murdered by the state”. The group wrote:
We will not accept the continued deaths in custody in our community. Keith – like Taylor, Clare and Kayleigh – was murdered by the state. We call on our comrades to take action wherever they are, and in whatever way they see fit, to remember those who have died in prison, and to avenge their deaths. It is up to us to show our rage against this murderous system.
We know that what’s happening in Bristol, is a microcosm of the suffering caused by the carceral system globally. We would like to send a message of solidarity to all those struggling for the abolition of this system.
The IPP sentence has caused untold pain and suffering to so many people. The government is ignoring public pressure to draw a line under this cruel punishment. Now more than ever, IPP prisoners – and their families and loved ones – need our support. And as with many of the struggles against the prison system, this is a life or death struggle.
To learn how to join the campaign in support of IPP prisoners, check out the United Group for Reform of IPP and the IPP Committee in Action.
Featured image via Unsplash (cropped to 770×403)
By Tom Anderson
This post was originally published on Canary.
The BBC’s racism wasn’t only on display in its decision to suspend Gary Lineker from Match Of The Day last week. The broadcaster’s pledge to impartiality came into question again when the Guardian revealed that they had chosen not to air an episode of the new Attenborough series that began on 12 March.
The Canary has regularly pointed out that the BBC has a track record of pandering to the right. Of course, that’s hardly surprising when a Conservative party donor is its chair. There’s clear hypocrisy censoring both Lineker and Attenborough while platforming the likes of Andrew Marr.
The BBC said that it had never intended to air the sixth episode of Attenborough’s Wild Isles. It claimed it was a standalone project by charity partners World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). However, the Guardian highlighted that this episode’s content addressed the woeful state of nature in the UK.
In fact, the choice not to air this episode – despite giving the green light to some of Attenborough’s previous documentaries – brings BBC bias into even sharper relief. It also shows that the broadcaster is happy to engage in climate and biodiversity ‘whataboutism’ to shield the rich and powerful. It will readily platform Attenborough when he points the finger of blame at overpopulation in Global South communities for global biodiversity loss. Meanwhile, the BBC doesn’t dare hint at the Tories’ complicity in the ecological emergency at home.
Attenborough documentaries haven’t exactly been known for holding powerful corporate and political actors to account. In 2018, Guardian journalist George Monbiot criticised both the Blue Planet 2 and Dynasties documentary series for failing to highlight the causes of wildlife destruction and those responsible: corporations.
The Conversation remarked in 2019 that, following this criticism, Attenborough ramped up efforts to platform these issues. He spoke damningly of the potential collapse of civilisation to world leaders at the UN climate summit and at the World Economic Forum in Davos. At the summit, he called on world leaders to act, saying:
Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.
But the problem is that Attenborough’s documentaries often fall short of calling out the true culprits of ecological collapse. In the UK’s case, the Tories have time and again given corporate profiteers the license to continue wreaking destruction.
It’s just a few months into 2023, and already the Tories are failing the nature of these ‘wild isles’. In January, the government’s own environment watchdog highlighted that it had made no progress on preventing the decline of UK wildlife, as set out by its 25-year plan in 2018.
Meanwhile, at the end of February, environment groups were disappointed when the government announced just three new Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) for UK seas. HPMAs are a type of Marine Protected Area (MPA) in which the law prohibits all forms of destructive and extractive activities. For example, the designation prevents fishing and oil and gas projects in these areas.
Given that the Tories currently permit extremely destructive activities like bottom-trawling in the vast majority of MPAs in UK waters, the UK badly needs HPMA designations here. In 2020, a Greenpeace investigation found that supertrawlers had been fishing for nearly 3,000 hours in UK MPAs throughout 2019. Supertrawlers are vessels over 100m long, capable of catching vast quantities of fish. They cause significant damage to populations of critical marine life.
Worse still is the government’s plans to rip up crucial EU environment laws through its Retained EU Laws Bill. This could drop key laws that protect both people’s health and the natural world. For example, it could drop the EU Water Framework and the Bathing Waters directives. This would put the state of UK waterways at even greater risk. That is no mean feat, given that UK rivers and seas are already in dire ecological condition due to rampant pollution. There are also no rivers or lakes that are considered ‘safe’ for bathing.
In this context, it’s not surprising to see a Tory-captured BBC reticent to air this episode on primetime TV. The programme reportedly exposes the dismal state of UK nature. The decision to drop it suggests that the BBC may have considered it a failure of its supposed impartiality. Yet they have previously aired Attenborough series that promote right-wing racist overpopulation tropes.
In his 2020 documentary A Life on Our Planet, Attenborough highlighted the changes he’s seen in his lifetime. Prominent in his message was the idea that humans had ‘overrun’ the Earth. Attenborough contended that curbing population growth is key to solving the climate and biodiversity crisis. The BBC will platform this type of racism without issue.
Attenborough is also a long-time patron of Population Matters, an NGO that campaigns to control population growth. The charity’s work over the years looks right at home with this expressly racist, classist Tory government. In 2013 and 2014, it published articles on its website stating that the UK should not accept any refugees from Syria. It also promoted policy proposals before the 2015 general election calling for the new government to scrap child benefits.
Only, population growth here and abroad isn’t the problem – billionaires are. A report by Oxfam in 2022 found that just one among the 125 richest billionaires has a million times the average carbon footprint of a person in the world’s bottom 90%. They, of course, make this obscene wealth through the industries at the forefront of ecological destruction.
Sewage pollution could be at the crux of why the Tories wouldn’t want the episode to air. In 2020, they voted down an important amendment to the Environment Bill. The amendment would have placed a duty on water companies to reduce the amount of sewage they were dumping into rivers. This runaway sewage dumping has had terrible effects on UK wildlife.
The move sparked outrage on social media at the time. Opposition parties now view the ‘sewage scandal’ as a potential wedge issue at the next election in certain constituencies. The public reaction to this scandal might have reminded them that protecting the local environment is an important issue, even for their voter base.
The nation’s public broadcaster calling the Tories out on their shit is not a good look. Ironically enough, in August 2022, the BBC home and foreign news editor accused Gary Lineker of breaching ‘impartiality’ after he tweeted his MP about the sewage scandal.
When it comes to the climate and ecological emergency on our doorstep, the Tories know that racist scapegoating won’t fly. After over a decade of Tories in office, the state of nature in the UK continues its decline. Cutting the Attenborough episode can’t hide this. But it does reveal that the BBC has more than just an impartiality problem.
Attenborough calling for population control to solve the climate and ecological crisis is deemed impartial. But exposing the shameful state of UK biodiversity and wild places? A step too far to the left. The BBC couldn’t possibly be seen to be holding the rich and powerful to account now, could it?
Featured image via Nick.Thirteen/Wikimedia and Hannah Sharland, cropped and superimposed, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
This post was originally published on Canary.
Wednesday 15 March is Budget Day in the UK – the day when the chancellor of the exchequer announces how much worse-off non-millionaires will be for the upcoming six months. With the cost of living crisis continuing to bite, this Budget Day will see many workers – including the National Education Union (NEU) – taking to the streets to demand better pay, better conditions, and better prospects.
Things can only decline for so long before the people demand more, and – according to Socialist Worker – over 500,000 workers will be making their demands clear this week.
The NEU will stage one of the most significant strikes of the day. According to the union:
On 15 March members of the National Education Union (NEU) will begin two days of strike action in our campaign to win a fully funded, above-inflation pay rise.
Our last national strike day on 1 February was a huge success and, following regional events at the end of February, we will be asking members to attend a national demonstration in London on 15 March.
The march will assemble in Hyde Park at 12 noon and march to Trafalgar Square, for speeches and carnival games.
We do not want to go on strike – we want to be in the classroom, teaching and supporting children and young people.
But there is a crisis of recruitment and retention within the school system fuelled by a decade of falling pay and this needs to be addressed by the Government.
We are asking members of the public, parents and supporters to join us on the demonstration, which will be family friendly and fun.
The NEU site features comments from its members on why they’re striking. Primary school teacher Emma said:
I always wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to make a difference. But, if I’m honest, I’m struggling a little. A large part of my pay goes towards nursery fees and, with the rising cost of living, I have found myself having to think about whether I can afford treats for my children, holidays or even whether I would be able to offer them help in the future if they go to uni.
I didn’t come into teaching to become rich, but I did expect that I wouldn’t have to worry about the bills. I genuinely believe teachers deserve better than this. I’m glad we are making a stand.
Socialist Worker is predicting that over 250,000 teachers will be involved in the strikes.
Other strikes set to coincide with the budget week include:
There will also be involvement from the University and College Union (UCU).
Meanwhile, on Sunday 12 March the British Medical Association (BMA) spoke out against what it described as “misleading claims” in a BBC article:
“Firstly, no junior doctor has seen pay cut by 26%”
This deliberately conflates pay progression – increases to reflect increased skill and experience level—and cost of living increases—which is what pay awards are meant for.
— The BMA (@TheBMA) March 12, 2023
“The BMA defends its use of RPI”—and rightly so.
It’s not just us who use RPI; Govt does also, to increase things like rail tickets doctors need or to work out their student loan rates. It's the best measure to reflect the living costs of doctors & all working people in the UK pic.twitter.com/MB5GsqR4nJ— The BMA (@TheBMA) March 12, 2023
The BMA was forced to point out that horrendous working patterns are involved:
It’s also unfair to conflate basic pay with so-called “extras” whilst neglecting to acknowledge such extras cover intensive hours worked at weekends and evenings. pic.twitter.com/Rqq763yYGn
— The BMA (@TheBMA) March 12, 2023
And that junior doctors receive shockingly low pay:
A junior doctor starting their job today would be paid just £14.09 per hour – less than someone working in a coffee shop. We’re asking this be increased to £19 per hour – where it should be had the Government not cut junior doctor pay in real-terms year-on-year.
— The BMA (@TheBMA) March 12, 2023
We hope @NickTriggle will do the right thing and update this misleading article.
— The BMA (@TheBMA) March 12, 2023
Between the government and the mainstream media, the trade unions have clearly got a hell of a fight on their hands. However, they do have one thing going for them. There are a lot more honest people than there are crooked politicians and dodgy journalists. This Budget Day, those numbers will be made as clear as they ever have been.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
On Tuesday 14 March, protesters from Housing Rebellion will meet in London to conduct “unannounced site visits” of property companies and landlords. The move is set to shine a light on practices which aren’t just bad for tenants but also deadly for the planet:
JOIN THE HOUSING REBELLION, TUESDAY 14 MARCH!https://t.co/CvphpeKafc pic.twitter.com/VPga9Elk5g
— @Homes4AllUK (@homes4alluk) March 5, 2023
Housing Rebellion is a new offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The group exists to highlight the fact that many of the anti-tenant policies that landlords get away with are also having an enormous impact on the environment. The protest will coincide with the opening day of MIPIM (Le Marché International des Professionnels de L’immobilier). This is the “world’s largest property fair”, according to the group. They add that MIPIM has:
controversially attracted politicians from across local and national governments to strike lucrative deals with private companies on public land and housing.
The organisers also said:
The agenda has lots of guff about climate change and affordable housing, but according to ‘London at MIPIM’ their aim is to promote the “investment potential the city is able to offer global capital”.
We suspect Global Capital measures their investment returns in cold hard cash (not in units of carbon saved or in the number of people securely housed), so Housing Rebellion has decided to take a closer look at some of these companies being courted by our elected representatives.
The protesters outlined some of the survey questions they intend to pose to the companies:
- Is this company involved in the demolition of social housing? displacing communities and leading to the waste of huge amounts of embodied carbon.
- Does this company create new buildings which use polluting resources and building methods? instead of prioritising refurbishment, recycling and sustainable materials.
- Does this company engage in shameless greenwashing? Eg. talking about zero-carbon buildings without accounting for any of the emissions created by the materials or building methods in construction, resulting from demolition, or paid for by ‘carbon offsets’; talking about biodiversity while felling mature trees.
- Does this company create housing which is unaffordable to the majority of people? leading to even greater waste of resources by selling to speculators and wealthy elites who use them as second homes, luxury holiday lets, or even leave them empty as a store of wealth.
- Does this company recruit staff who have previously worked in local government or pay huge donations to sitting politicians? undermining democracy and corrupting the planning process to prioritise profit over the interests of people and our planet.
The organisers also outlined their demands – termed “Enforcement Actions” – for when companies were found to be at fault:
- SHUT THEM DOWN
2. Refurbish Don’t Demolish
3. Create low-energy, low-cost, warm, dry homes for all
4. Housing for people and planet not profit
A press release from Housing Rebellion featured quotes from those who’ve chosen to speak out against landlords.
Among them was Andrea, who works with homeless people in London:
I am protesting against the developers because the housing they’re building is unaffordable, unsafe and leading people to be placed outside of their community networks because they can’t afford to live in these homes
Meanwhile, Johnnel was angry that his home is due to be demolished by a housing association:
Despite the ongoing whopping cost of living crisis battering the wallets and purses of everyone, Peabody still has greedy eyes on our properties – not to improve them for us, but to drive us off and use the land to build more expensive housing beyond the pockets of the residents. This is an unfit dreadful project in this economic turmoil and only callous people can advocate this madness.
Likewise, Alex’s landlords recently evicted them in a no-fault eviction:
I’m protesting against developers because since being evicted with eleven others from my home of two years in Wimbledon, I have looked at new developments in south London in vain for a new home, discovering they are a pyramid-selling scheme; shared ownership is for people with a minimum income of £30,000 nearly twice my income, and rented flats have required an income of £8,000 more than my teaching assistant salary.
Finally, Sabine is campaigning for her estate in Lambeth to be refurbished not demolished:
Savills is a yellow thread that runs through the destruction of social housing in Lambeth and other local authorities in the UK. The company submitted to the Government a paper on unlocking huge revenue by redeveloping council estates that has also fed into local government policy. It carries out housing stock assessments for councils and advises them on their future housing plans. At the same time, Savills has a massive portfolio of investors ready to benefit from the thousands of luxury homes built in these developments.
The action will take place at 12 noon on Tuesday 14 March in the Millennium Gardens beside Waterloo Station (opposite the Old Vic).
Featured Image via Ben Allan – Unsplash
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
.The United Nations’ children’s agency on Friday joined critics of a proposed British law aimed at stopping migrants arriving by small boats, saying it was “deeply concerned” about its impact on minors.
Jon Sparkes, head of United Nations Children’s Fund in the UK, said the bill could deny children and families the chance to seek safety:
For almost all children fleeing conflict and persecution there is no safe and legal route into the UK.
The bill was presented on Tuesday by PM Rishi Sunak’s Tory government. It would ban people who have arrived in the country illegally from seeking asylum. Sparkes said:
It is not clear how this bill will be compatible with existing UK government duties to act in the best interests of the child, and it is questionable whether the removal of a child to a third country, following a perilous journey to the UK, could ever be in their best interest.
Sparkes called on the British government:
to urgently clarify how it intends to ensure the safety and well-being of children with this bill, and how it will respect its obligations regarding the defence of children’s rights.
45,000 migrants arrived in the UK last year by crossing the English Channel on small boats.
According to official figures, 17% of people who took the Channel route to the UK since 2018 are children and minors. Sparks said:
UNICEF UK maintains that the creation of safe and legal routes must be part of any compassionate and effective response to reducing the use of unsafe routes
Britain has obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It must avoid putting people at risk of torture or other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment. The UK’s own 1998 Human Rights Act also offers asylum-seekers various protections.
In a note to MPs at the beginning of the 66-page bill, home secretary Suella Braverman herself acknowledged that she was “unable” to assess that its provisions are compatible with the ECHR.
Now, yet again, the Tories face censure for their inhumane policies towards desperate people – this time, children.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Alisdare Hickson, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY 2.0.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
By Joe Glenton
Football presenter Gary Lineker is in hot water for comparing UK government refugee policy to that of German fascism. He was commenting on a Twitter video of home secretary Suella Braverman’s plans to reduce the number of refugees in Britain:
There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?
— Gary Lineker
(@GaryLineker) March 7, 2023
To Lineker’s credit, he has refused to delete his tweet so far. There’s some truth in what he says. Tory refugee policy is vile, racist, and costs lives. But there needs to be caution here, because saying that which is nasty is fascist is a mistake.
In the same way that Gary Lineker is just a well-meaning liberal, rather than a raging leftist, the likes of Boris Johnson and Suella Braverman are simply Tories doing what exactly what Tories do.
Britain isn’t a fascist regime. These policies have been produced in a liberal democracy. And democracies are perfectly capable of doing terrible things. Violence, racism, colonialism, and exploitation are the bedrock upon which they are built.
Like most centrists, Lineker doesn’t really understand what fascism is, where it comes from, or why it is distinct. And wielding Nazi and fascist comparisons lightly is a mug’s game, because those words mean something other than just things we don’t like or which are bad.
Obscuring fascism and its threat by calling policies or people fascist says absolutely nothing about fascism, but a lot about the person making the accusation. To confront fascism, which is certainly alive around the world, we need to be able to distinguish it from plain old racist authoritarian capitalism. And we also need to understand the relationship between them.
One of the worst trends going on social media and in political discourse is the half-cocked Nazi comparison. As Historian Edna Friedberg has it:
Nazis seem to be everywhere these days. I don’t mean self-proclaimed neo-Nazis. I’m talking about folks being labeled as Nazis, Hitler, Gestapo, Goering — take your pick — by their political opponents.
The practice even has its own name:
American politicians from across the ideological spectrum, influential media figures, and ordinary people on social media casually use Holocaust terminology to bash anyone or any policy with which they disagree. The takedown is so common that it’s even earned its own term, reductio ad Hitlerum.
Even worse is when people default to saying things which are absolutely not the Holocaust, are somehow like the Holocaust:
The Holocaust has become shorthand for good vs. evil; it is the epithet to end all epithets.
As Friedberg points out:
This oversimplified approach to complex history is dangerous. When conducted with integrity and rigor, the study of history raises more questions than answers.
The use of Nazi or Holocaust slurs simply to attack opponents or stir up supporters is cheap and dangerous. It’s a juvenile and lazy practice which reduces an immense crime to a political football.
That is not say the Tory Party hasn’t had fascists in it. In the same way, the Labour Party has socialists in it from time to time. For example, in 2022, Tory councillor Andy Weatherhead was forced out of the Conservative Party after it emerged he admired Italian fascist leader Mussolini.
Weatherhead also had a soft spot for British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. And it’s worth remembering that Mosley served as an MP for both the Labour and Tory parties.
But fascism today is distinct from what we can call the ‘classical’ fascism of the 1930s. Philosophy professor Santiago Zabala said:
The main difference between the classical and contemporary incarnations of fascism is that the version we observe today is operating within democratic systems rather than outside them.
He added:
Proponents of 20th-century fascism wanted to change everything from above; Mussolini defined it as “revolution against revolution”. But fascism today aims to transform democratic systems from within.
That is not to say that modern fascism doesn’t still involve boot-boy street violence or a pursuit of an imagined “other”. We saw this recently in Liverpool where fascists organised local people in anti-refugee protests. Certainly, the Tories whip up and weaponise anger against minorities, and use some of the same rhetoric. But this, again, is opportunistic. Fascism is radical and revolutionary. It doesn’t want the status quo, which is what the Tories are trying to shore up with their own attacks on refugees, trade unionists, and minority groups.
One of the reasons the term fascism has become so over- and mis-used in recent years is Donald Trump. Again, there are certainly fascists in his base. But the question of whether Trump himself is a fascist is an important one, because we need to be able to see fascism clearly.
As a 2018 Vox interview with Yale philosopher Jason Stanley argued, different ends of the spectrum throw the word around and attach different meanings to it:
Liberals see fascism as the culmination of conservative thinking: an authoritarian, nationalist, and racist system of government organized around corporate power. For conservatives, fascism is totalitarianism masquerading as the nanny state.
But Stanley still calls for a certain amount of nuance around Trump:
I wouldn’t claim — not yet, at least — that Trump is presiding over a fascist government, but he is very clearly using fascist techniques to excite his base and erode liberal democratic institutions, and that’s very troubling.
In light of 2020’s Capitol riots, however, where far-right Trump supporters stormed government buildings in Washington DC, it might be worth reviewing Stanley’s assessment. The main takeaway is that fascism remains a fluid, adaptable creed which defies easy definition. It can accompany conservative or nationalist movements, while still being distinct from them.
The key point in all this is this that fascism is a complex set of ideas – and those need to be engaged with carefully. Analogies and comparisons can be useful, but they should never be made flippantly. This is because they can obscure fascism where it actually exists.
In the UK there are fascists, for example, but they are not organised into a powerful movement. Rather, they spend their time trading off fear whipped up about refugees and protesting drag queens in an attempt to influence popular discourse. The fact Tories and even centrists also do this at times does not make them fascists too.
What we are dealing with is an aggressive racialised capitalism, in a country with a violent imperial past and present, and we need to see that for what it is. Not least, that is, so that we can recognise fascists when they do appear in numbers.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Paul Sableman, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY 2.0.
By Joe Glenton
BBC Question Time (BBCQT) host Fiona Bruce caused uproar on Thursday 9 March. It was relating to her comments over Stanley Johnson assaulting his first wife, the late Charlotte Wahl. Bruce’s defence of Johnson’s domestic violence and abuse (DVA) appeared to be in the BBC‘s interests of ridiculous impartiality. However, one comment simply could not be justified.
Stanley Johnson has been hitting the headlines recently. His son Boris is supposed to be putting him down for a knighthood in his resignation honours list. The problems with this are fairly obvious – not least the institutionalised nepotism that the former PM repeatedly engages in.
As one Twitter user pointed out, the Johnson and Johnson furore also encompasses the Tories’ neo-feudal and colonialist approach to running the country: a place where the Johnsons and their mates wield the power and the rest of us are either serfs or invaders:
I'm not sure why people are so upset at this- isn't this just the kind of thing for which the Honours system was invented?
To reinforce Hereditary Privilege… Empire…Cronyism…Nepotism.
Embrace it all. Celebrate it all.
It comes as a package. https://t.co/PueiTaYpDt— Mike Nolan (@coachingboard) March 7, 2023
Of course, Johnson is also an infamous eugenicist, too:
In this shocking clip, Stanley Johnson calls for UK birth numbers to be cut so companies profit more from people. He also talks of "the browns, the blacks and the yellow races", before claiming "there is a really serious differential in the fertility of the immigrant population". pic.twitter.com/O1Q8n2ZbVJ
— Red Collective (@RedCollectiveUK) March 10, 2023
However, the other problem with Johnson’s potential knighthood is that he is clearly a misogynist, sexual predator and perpetrator of DVA. As the Guardian wrote:
In 2021, the Tory MP Caroline Nokes publicly accused the former MEP of touching her at a Conservative party conference in 2003. Nokes, the chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, accused him of forcefully smacking her on the bottom and making a vulgar comment.
Similar allegations were made by the political journalist Ailbhe Rea, while another journalist, Isabel Oakeshott, described him as “handsy”. He denied all the claims.
The most serious publicly known incident of Johnson’s DVA was him breaking his late wife Charlotte Wahl’s nose.
Clearly, even by the UK political system’s low bar, the former PM’s father is not fit to sit in the House of Lords. So, the issue came up on BBCQT. Enter Bruce to whitewash Johnson’s DVA.
During a discussion around Johnson’s potential knighthood, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown brought up him breaking Wahl’s nose. Bruce leapt in to provide some ‘caveats’, including:
Friends of his have said it did happen, it was a one-off.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Stanley Johnson was a wife beater
Fiona Bruce: "She said that Stanley Johnson had broken her nose and she'd ended up in hospital… Friends of his have said it did happen, it was a one off"
Mitigating domestic violence. Shocking. pic.twitter.com/tnITNZRPHc
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 10, 2023
The problems with Bruce’s comment were obvious, as Twitter users highlighted:
Wow, 2 days after 'International Women's Day' (!!!) and the very day after the day @jessphillips reads out names of UK women killed in the parliament, #FionaBruce tries to play down accusations of domestic violence against Stanley Johnson.
Sickening and symptomatic. https://t.co/UOjCRPJEjx— Patrick Hölscher (@allnewtomorrow) March 10, 2023
One user noted that Bruce’s comments were straight out of the state’s misogynistic playbook of dismissing DVA survivors:
These are literally talking points used against victims of DVA: Only the one time, we believe her (& medical evidence) only when his friends corroborate. These narratives prevent DVA from being taken seriously & justice being done. They have no place in policing or on BBC #QT https://t.co/i9W3rANowv
— Laura (@LauraCrimRiley) March 10, 2023
To make matters worse, Bruce is an ambassador for DVA charity Refuge. Its website quotes her as saying:
I was honoured to be asked by Refuge to become an ambassador and I immediately accepted. Without Refuge, hundreds of women and children would have nowhere to go. No one to help them escape daily horrors in their own homes.
However, it’s unsurprising that the BBCQT host would downplay Johnson’s violence against his wife. Bruce previously “legitimised racism” against Labour MP Diane Abbott when she appeared on the show in 2019. She also allowed audience members and panelist Ella Whelan to be deeply transphobic to India Willoughby during an episode this year.
The point being, Bruce is a consistent enabler of offensive, right-wing agendas: ones that are not ‘opinions’ or up for debate, but are fundamentally against marginalised people’s human rights. This goes well beyond her role as a panel chair and host. Her downplaying of DVA on behalf of Johnson was deeply worrying and dangerous. However, it comes in a long line of appalling behaviour from the BBCQT host.
Featured image via BBC iPlayer – screengrab
By Steve Topple
Britain’s plan to refuse to allow asylum seekers arriving in small boats the right to claim asylum may breach its international obligations. This was according to the EU’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, on 9 March. Johansson said she had spoken to home secretary Suella Braverman to discuss the planned legislation, which may breach European and UN conventions.
On 8 March, Braverman told ITV News that she had invited Johansson to study the UK proposal in more detail. However, she stressed:
We are no longer members of the European Union and so we are free to determine our own borders and migration policy.
PM Rishi Sunak also threatened to “take back control of our borders once and for all” by detaining and deporting any migrants caught crossing the Channel from France or Belgium in small boats.
Due to the UK’s already-unfit asylum system, the backlog of asylum claims now exceeds 160,000. The crossings, many organised by smuggling gangs, are incredibly dangerous. In November 2021, at least 27 people drowned in a single incident.
Opponents, rights groups, and the United Nations say the new draft law would turn Britain into an international pariah under European and UN conventions on asylum.
Unperturbed, Sunak hopes to strike a deal with France to halt the asylum seekers on its coast. The PM will meet President Emmanuel Macron at a summit in Paris on Friday. An aide to the French leader told reporters the pair were working on a deal to increase the border-policing resources.
However, arriving at the Brussels meeting, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin warned the proposed UK law could harm relations. He also stressed that Britain should work with the EU to better co-ordinate migrant policy.
Darmanin said Macron and Sunak would discuss the legislation on Friday. He stressed that the goal should be a treaty between the UK and the EU to provide legal access routes for migrants. Further, Britain also needs a system to return those refused asylum.
The EU ministers, meanwhile, were to discuss their own differences about how to better divide the task of sharing migrant arrivals and managing asylum claims
On Tuesday the UN refugee agency UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) said the plan removes:
the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be.
By denying protection to asylum seekers and even the opportunity to put forward their case, the plan “would be a clear breach” of the international Refugee Convention, it said.
Campaign group Refugee Action also pointed out that the plans are unlikely even to reduce the number of refugees. It stressed that:
These deterrence policies will never work because a tiny minority of people fleeing war and persecution around the world will always want to come to the UK to seek safety.
Most have powerful reasons to want to come here that we can all understand – they have family here, or friends here, or community here. The Home Office’s own research has backed this up.
Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse
Featured image via Youtube screengrab
This post was originally published on Canary.
MI5 (Military Intelligence, Section 5) has drawn fierce criticism for its actions which led to the Manchester Arena bombing. The attack resulted in the deaths of 22 people, with many more injured. MI5 now stands accused of neglecting to follow up on intelligence regarding Salman Abedi, the bomber, when he returned from Libya to the UK.
However, that’s not the whole story.
The Manchester Arena bombing inquiry’s final report argued that MI5 failed to prevent the tragedy. However, it’s probably more accurate to say that the Security Service facilitated the jihadists.
For example, in 2011, British citizen Belal Younis was stopped and questioned on his return to the UK from Libya. He claimed an MI5 officer told him:
the British government have no problem with people fighting against [then Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi.
On another trip to Libya he was again questioned by two counter-terrorism police officers. However, they allowed him to proceed after he gave them the name of the MI5 officer who’d previously questioned him. He claimed that while waiting to board the plane he received a phone call from that officer saying he’d “sorted it out”.
One Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) fighter told Middle East Eye that MI5 returned their passports, and also that Heathrow Airport counter-terrorism police were told to let them board their flights.
There were also claims that MI5 allowed Abedi and others linked to the LIFG to travel unhindered between Libya and the UK. This was described by Middle East Eye as an ‘open door’ policy.
Indeed, on 18 May 2017, Salman Abedi re-entered the UK via Manchester airport. In the final report, Inquiry chair John Saunders argued that MI5 chose not to follow Abedi. Had they done so, they would have come upon the parked car that contained the explosive. Saunders commented that “the attack might have been prevented” if the check had taken place.
The backstory to this tragedy is not just about the role of MI5. It’s also about the active assistance that the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) military alliance provided the Libyan jihadists.
For example, Declassified UK reported that the jihadists were trained and covertly supported by NATO. They formed part of the offensive against Libyan leader colonel Muammar Gaddafi. SAS (Special Air Service) operatives based in Egypt provided further training.
The UK also organised the supply of arms to the jihadists. Indeed, a report by the private geopolitical intelligence agency Stratfor – published by WikiLeaks – stated that NATO “served as the de facto rebel air force” during the push into the Libyan capital.
In another Declassified UK article, it was reported that Ramadan Abedi and his three sons – Salman, Ismail, and Hashem – fought alongside NATO. Clearly the alliance had no problem exploiting jihadists when considered convenient. It is also noteworthy that Salman and Hashem were among those evacuated by the Royal Navy when the anti-Gaddafi forces got into difficulty.
Then there’s the destabilising role played by Britain’s spy agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
According to former MI5 staffer Annie Machon, MI6 representative David Watson provided $40,000 to an LIFG contact codenamed ‘Tunworth’. A leaked CX (MI6) document dated 4 December 1995 provided details of a plot to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Explanatory notes to that document suggested that the permanent under-secretary’s department, GCHQ (General Communications Headquartes), MI5, the Ministry of Defence, and MI6 stations in Tunis, Cairo, and Washington knew about the plot.
Under Tony Blair, UK foreign policy regarding Gaddafi was generally supportive. For example, in March 2004 the UK played a role in the rendition of LIFG leader Abdel Hakim Belhadj. Libyan intelligence subsequently tortured him. Several documents discovered by Human Rights Watch showed the extent to which MI6 intervened in Libyan affairs.
David Cameron went on to reverse Blair’s policy, instead providing support to rebel forces – such as the LIFG. In 2018, secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs Alistair Burt admitted to parliament that the UK had been “in communication” with rebel groups in Libya. That included the LIFG:
Caroline Curry, who lost her 19-year-old son Liam in the Arena bombing, said after the inquiry published its final report:
Forgiveness will never be an option for such evil intentions and those that played any part in the murder of our children will never ever get forgiveness from top to bottom, MI5 to the associates of the attackers. We will always believe that you all played a part in the murder of our children.
However, it’s not just MI5 that had a role in the tragedy, but also the reckless interventions in Libya by NATO and MI6. Indeed, journalists Mark Curtis and Nafeez Ahmed argued that the Manchester bombing was “blowback” for the UK’s foreign policy, saying:
While a number of factors operate to contribute to an individual’s radicalisation, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that one of these contributory factors is British direct and covert action in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Without these actions – by Britain and its close allies – it is conceivable that [Salman] Abedi might well not have had the opportunity to become radicalised in the way he did.
Meanwhile, the families of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing demand to know far more than what has been provided by the inquiry.
Featured image via Wikimedia / Paul Buckingham 770×403 pixels cropped
By Tom Coburg
This post was originally published on Canary.
Fascist group Patriotic Alternative (PA) has been mobilising around the UK, and anti-fascists are increasingly organising counter demonstrations.
Campaigners are organising against PA in their local areas, and it’s clear that anti-fascism is strongest when it’s rooted in local communities. It’s also clear that PA are mobilising racists from around the UK to travel to wherever demos are happening. So anti-racists need to be ready to travel too, to back people up.
Ten days ago, PA held a demonstration in Falmouth, targeted at a local hotel, where refugees were being housed. But local group Cornwall Resists got there first, and occupied the space around the hotel for the duration of the day.
Cornwall anti-fascists organised themselves on the day as a ‘black bloc’.
Cornwall Resists were serious about the identities of people on the demonstration. The day before the protest, the group tweeted a list of what to bring, and what not to bring – including a mask, and dark unidentifiable clothing:
Getting ready for the demo tomorrow? Here's what to bring, what NOT to bring, and what to wear
Stay safe, look after yourself, and most important take care of each other. Solidarity is our strength against their hatred and division. See you on the streets!
pic.twitter.com/8J6gOyZy1A
— Cornwall Resists (@resistg7) February 24, 2023
A statement from one person who joined the black bloc explained why they felt they needed to protect their identity. The statement came after fellow anti-racists levelled criticism at them for covering their faces. They said:
The anti-fascist continued, explaining that wearing a mask is a way to protect yourself from organised racists, who often harass and attack their opponents. They gave the example of the threats made against Cornwall politician Nicole Broadhurst:
The statement explained how wearing a mask is a good way to protect yourself against police surveillance, too. Both as a protection against overt filming by police, and more covert intelligence gathering tactics:
Cornwall Resists also took a stance of not negotiating with the police prior to their counter demonstration. The antifascist said that if the group had liaised with the cops, then their organisers could have been targeted. The Public Order Act allows the police to charge ‘official’ protest organisers who don’t comply with police restrictions. However, if no-one comes forward as organisers, the police can’t do this.
The campaigner insisted:
Another anti-fascist – who attended the demo in Falmouth – told the Canary how empowering it was to be part of the black bloc:
They spoke about the feeling of solidarity that they felt with the people who joined them to protest:
Finally, they emphasised the importance of getting out on the streets and confronting the fascists in person.
This new wave of demonstrations by PA, which is hot on the heels of the group’s bigoted response to the Drag Queen Story Hour tour last year, is a challenge for our anti-racist movements.
We know from the past that if we don’t protect our identities, then we are vulnerable to being targeted by fascists. In fact, PA even targeted the Canary‘s Steve Topple online for reporting on the counter demonstration in Falmouth.
Wearing a mask on demonstrations, and refusing police attempts to control us, are just some of the steps we can take, so that we are more prepared to defend ourselves and each other.
Its important to recognise that not everyone can hide their identities so easily on demonstrations. Its much harder for people of colour to stay anonymous (assuming the crowd is majority white), and it can be very difficult for people who have an easily distinguishable body shape, or physical disabilities too.
Crucially, people of colour are vulnerable to racism all the time. Not just during fascist demonstrations. And the answer to tackling fascism isn’t just to confront Patriotic Alternative when they mobilise. Its to build a strong permanent left wing and anti-racist presence in all of our communities. One that is rooted at the local level, but with connections across regions. We need to develop networks of solidarity – based on real personal connections – that can defend themselves should they need to.
Featured image via Cornwall Resists (with permission)
By Tom Anderson
This post was originally published on Canary.
Content warning: discussion of sexual violence
8 March is International Women’s Day. Women and allies around the world are joining together in celebration of our strength, and we’ll be commemorating all of us who have died at the hands of men.
We are, of course, gathering in solidarity against against sexism and misogyny. Over the past few months, I have spoken to a number of people who feel that misogyny isn’t as bad as it used to be; that somehow our UK society is learning to be better. They cite the fact that sexual consent and boundaries are now practiced in many relationships. But let’s face it, a man checking whether his sexual partner consents is the bare minimum of what he should be doing anyway. It’s disturbing that it’s taken us until 2023 to get this far. The bar is very, very low when it comes to how we expect cis men to act.
If you think this shows that men are somehow better these days, you’d be wrong. The number of women who are being spiked on a night out is alarming, and in 2023, it’s now normal for notices in club toilets to suggest politely that men “stop spiking”.
On top of this, violence against women during consensual sex is now completely normalised. We are often labelled and shamed as being ‘vanilla’ if we don’t want to be strangled, or if we don’t want to consent to a man’s kink. Strangling during sex is highly gendered, and is now the norm, rather than the exception. Men often strangle us without our permission. In 2019, the BBC wrote:
more than a third of UK women under the age of 40 have experienced unwanted slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual sex…”
Four years later, I would argue that not much has changed.
The ‘rough sex’ defence has been consistently used by violent men who have murdered women. In 2021, the Domestic Abuse Act did, in theory, rule out this defence. The new law states that:
Consent to serious harm for sexual gratification [is] not a defence.
But campaign group We Can’t Consent To This has pointed out that the new laws aren’t working. The group said:
in November 2021, the Court of Appeal decided Sam Pybus’s sentence of 4 years 8 months should not be increased, after he strangled Sophie Moss until she was dead, and claimed that she had encouraged him to do it. We think there could be no clearer sign the law is not yet working.
The lead appeal judge argued that Sophie had consented to being strangled; quite how the misogynist judge could know this is a mystery. And how exactly could she consent to being strangled until she was murdered? Pybus had a history of violence against women, and had strangled his previous partner, too. But, of course, Sophie was held accountable, even in her death, because Pybus’s actions were apparently consensual.
In England and Wales, it has now also become an offence for someone to inflict harm through non-fatal strangulation. But We Can’t Consent To This said:
With the introduction of a 5 year sentence for Non Fatal Strangulation, shockingly, it’s possible to kill a sexual partner and get a shorter sentence than you would have for not killing her. These short sentences for manslaughter are common – in each case the violence used is shockingly severe.
Of course, misogyny doesn’t just rear its ugly head during sex. It’s so normalised in our society that we don’t even see it for what it is. An obvious example of this is the treatment of famous women when they dare to challenge famous misogynist men. In 2022, the world witnessed Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in court. I felt sick when I heard how Depp had treated Heard. But I felt even more sick when I realised that the world was defending him; that it didn’t matter how disgusting he was towards women – nothing could pull him off his pedestal.
The misogynist backlash Heard received – surprisingly from all genders – was absolutely sickening. As Canary guest writer Annie Stevens wrote at the time:
Any man that uses terms like “idiot cow”, “withering cunt”, “worthless hooker”, “slippery whore” or “waste of a cum guzzler” (Depp’s words) to describe women is clearly a misogynist.
And yet, despairingly, the world still stood by Depp, hero-worshipping him as a cis man who could do no wrong, even when his vile misogyny was shown to the world, plain as day. This case is a prime example of how society excuses and emboldens men to act however they want. Stevens wrote:
there is no question that it will impact survivors here who have seen friends, family and colleagues back Johnny and claim that Amber is a liar.
Women have already been pulling out of cases due to the fear of going through what Amber did. Not only that, this case has also emboldened abusive men.
Since then, the case of another cis man, footballer Benjamin Mendy, has been in the public spotlight. He, along with his friend Louis Saha Matturie, was accused of multiple sexual offences, including rape, by 13 different women. It will, no doubt, have taken the women all of the courage they could muster to be involved in this prosecution, particularly after they witnessed how Heard was treated by the world.
Unsurprisingly, the majority-male jury found Mendy not guilty of six counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. A retrial is due to take place after the jury couldn’t reach a verdict about one count of rape and one of attempted rape.
Instead of focusing on whether a majority-male jury should even be allowed in such cases, the mainstream media commented on how Mendy’s life had been shaken up by the accusations. Rather than talking about how the women will have been traumatised by such a man, the BBC wrote that:
The allegations and trial had been “absolute hell” for Mr Mendy.
Of course, you might be a man reading this, thinking to yourself that “not all men” are misogynists, “not all men” are predators, and that “not all men” are sexist. But this is a tiresome argument, used by many of you around the world to excuse yourselves from doing any work on your own patriarchal behaviour. By saying “not all men”, you’re refusing to self-reflect. And this refusal is insulting to the very women who you claim to care about, and who you say you would never harm.
The “not all men” argument is useless to us. It doesn’t make me or my friends any safer in our homes. It doesn’t prevent us from being harassed, or spiked in a club, or murdered by people who claim to love us. 1,425 women have been killed by men in the UK over a decade, between 2009 and 2018. 62% of women are killed by their current or former partner. Others are murdered by relatives. In 92% of the cases, the women knew their killer.
I have previously written about how UK society likes to victim-blame women for the misogyny we encounter. I said:
As women, we are sick and tired of being told to moderate our behaviour. “Follow the rules”, they say. “Don’t walk alone in the dark”. “Don’t be drunk”. “Don’t dress a certain way”. How, exactly, does moderating our behaviour in any way address the root issue: the misogyny entrenched in our society?
It is not, in any way, a woman’s responsibility to change how we act. The time has come for men to step up. Look at yourselves, your own behaviour, and the behaviour of your male friends. Look at how patriarchy is entrenched in all of you, and how you all need to do the work to unpick it. Call out your friends who have misogynist or sexist opinions, and challenge them. Don’t shy away from difficult conversations.
And if women call you out for being sexist, don’t get defensive, and don’t let your male fragility rear its ugly head. Instead, take the time to reflect. When you want to open your mouth and protest, “but not all men”, think twice. After all, you can never, ever know what it’s like to live in a misogynist world.
We need your understanding. But more than that, we need you to be actively willing to fight sexism and misogyny within yourselves and in society, wherever it manifests.
Featured image via Eliza Egret
By Eliza Egret
This post was originally published on Canary.
The BBC warned Gary Lineker on 7 March to respect its social media guidelines after the presenter criticised home secretary Suella Braverman‘s use of language. The ex-footballer’s tweet came after Braverman unveiled a new anti-refugee bill. However, Lineker is not the only person slamming the bill.
Sharing a video of Braverman announcing the new Illegal Migration Bill, Lineker tweeted:
Good heavens, this is beyond awful.
Then, in response to a now-deleted reply, Lineker noted:
There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?
There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?
— Gary Lineker
This led to backlash across the right-wing (social) media ecosystem. There were calls for the BBC to sack Lineker for comparing the bill to “Nazi Germany”. Braverman herself responded, telling BBC radio that she is “disappointed” with Lineker’s comparison and that it’s not an “appropriate way” of framing the “debate”.
However, as many on social media highlighted, Lineker compared Braverman’s language – and not the bill – to rhetoric used in 1930s Germany:
Interesting that BBC chose to use 'Nazi' here when Lineker's tweet referred to the 'language of 1930s Germany'. BBC should be challenging the Govt's language not someone who was brave enough to call it out. BBC 'Speaking truth to power'? Sadly and frighteningly, not any more
— Liz Lawley (@LizLawley2) March 8, 2023
Gary Lineker called the policy ‘immeasurably cruel’ & likened the language used to 1930s Germany – so he didn’t call anyone a Nazi & he’s also right pic.twitter.com/58jD2vYUeH
— Toby Earle
(@TobyonTV) March 8, 2023
Bridgen got sacked for comparing a vaccine to the Holocaust. All Lineker has done is call out language which is identical to that used by the Nazi's.
Stop using racist and fascist language and people will stop calling it out.
— Chris Wray (@TheChrisWray) March 8, 2023
Though, as one Guardian writer pointed out, regardless of how much one may agree with Lineker’s sentiment, it’s probably time for different comparisons:
Not strictly true. Lineker compared the language used not the policy to Nazi Germany. Two things can be true. UK gov policy is a shambles, the framing wretched. But it would also be good if people stopped reaching for Nazi Germany as a useful bad-thing emoji https://t.co/icDdCmwLyS
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) March 8, 2023
When she presented the draft legislation to parliament, Braverman attached a letter to lawmakers. It conceded that she could not confirm yet whether the plan respected European human rights law. Yet in a round of broadcast interviews, she said the government was within its rights to stop refugees crossing the Channel. Braverman also insisted on highlighting that up to 80,000 people may make the journey in 2023.
This focus on numbers of refugees is also present in the video that Lineker responded to. Braverman did also double-down on demonising language in the video. The statement said refugees are “overwhelming” and “gaming” the UK’s asylum system.
This type of language led some of the UK’s biggest unions to criticise the government. The Guardian reported on 5 March that a joint statement from a number of unions said that the government is “complicit” in attacks on hotels housing refugees. Unison, the National Education Union, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), and others said the government’s “rhetoric and demonisation” of refugees is “playing the mood music” for far-right mobs.
The Illegal Migration Bill intends to outlaw asylum claims by all people arriving ‘illegally’. The plans would then transfer those people elsewhere, such as Rwanda. It aims to stop thousands of refugees from crossing the Channel on ‘small boats’. Lineker is far from the only person to have criticised the anti-refugee legislation, of course.
Rights groups, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), called out the plan. It said the plan would make Britain itself an international outlaw under European and UN conventions on asylum. The UNHCR said it was “profoundly concerned”, adding:
The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be, and with no consideration of their individual circumstances.
Most people fleeing war and persecution are simply unable to access the required passports and visas. There are no safe and ‘legal’ routes available to them.
Denying them access to asylum on this basis undermines the very purpose for which the Refugee Convention was established.
UNHCR also said that, based on the Home Department’s most recent data, the vast majority of those arriving in Britain in small boats over the Channel would be accepted as refugees if their claims were assessed. The Geneva-based agency urged the UK government “to reconsider the bill and instead pursue more humane and practical policy solutions”.
While Lineker could have chosen a less tired metaphor, his underlying message is spot on. The language used by Braverman and the Tories is intended to drum up support amongst their hangers-on for the legislation. It’s also not the first time, but a persistent feature of Tory rule that has grown increasingly toxic.
By pointing towards how Lineker tweeted, rather than what he tweeted, the government and its supporters are creating a smokescreen to avoid criticism of the bill itself. A bill that the UN itself said might break international law. But, with little opposition to the Tories’ disgusting position on refugees in parliament, it seems ‘personalities’ like Lineker are left to flag up the ills of this nationalist, racist, and cruel bill.
Featured image via BT Sport/YouTube and Guardian News/YouTube
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
By Glen Black
This post was originally published on Canary.
Offshore oil and gas workers revealed their plan for a just transition to renewable energy in the North Sea on 6 March. As part of a coalition involving climate groups and trade unions, they released a report titled Our Power. It laid out the “workers’ visions for the future” in full.
Profits, prices and temperatures are soaring, just as wages and working conditions are plummeting.
Today we’re launching #OurPower, 10 demands devised by offshore workers to transform our energy system.
Help us spread them far and wide!
— Platform (@PlatformLondon) March 6, 2023
In an industry first, campaigners say the Our Power plan puts workers at the centre – and helm – of a transition away from offshore fossil fuel production.
The nonprofit Platform is one of the organisations involved in the initiative. Its just transition campaigner, Gabrielle Jeliazkov, said:
The future of the UK’s energy system should be in the hands of workers and communities. Industry profiteering and government inaction has left us with soaring bills, declining working conditions and no plan for an energy transition. In the midst of the climate and cost of living crises, offshore oil and gas workers have developed a way forward. Politicians must deliver on these demands.
The plan includes 10 key demands. Broadly speaking, these demands cover support for workers to transition to employment in the renewables sector, strong protections for workers within the offshore renewables industry, and systemic changes to ensure that citizens – not corporations – benefit from the energy transformation.
As the Ecologist reported, workers’ accounts indicate why strong protections are necessary. They say that in the existing offshore wind sector, companies can pay less than £5 per hour to some employees. This is due to the Conservative government waving immigration salary threshold rules for the sector over the last five years.
Platform and Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland coordinated two years of workshops and research with workers in the offshore oil and gas industry to devise the plan. Among other things, the strategy calls for:
publicly owned national and regional energy companies to build renewable energy generation projects at the pace and scale required to meet climate change targets.
The report argued that the fossil fuel industry is failing to invest in renewables at a meaningful scale in the UK, despite enjoying record-breaking profits. It highlighted that:
73% of oil and gas companies invest nothing in renewable energy production in the UK
The workers’ just transition plan calls for a rewrite of the relevant tax rules. This will increase the amount of tax revenue from existing offshore fossil fuel operations. It also demands that polluting companies bear the costs for oil rig decommissioning. Moreover, the plan presses for a permanent ‘Energy Excess Profits Tax’, in order to:
prevent excessive profiteering at the expense of the public by oil and gas and other energy corporations during crisis situations.
The demands have the backing of over 1000 surveyed offshore oil and gas workers. Additionally, major unions and energy and climate organisations – such as the RMT (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), Unite Scotland, and Uplift – support the plan. Campaigners say that the demands are:
comprehensive in their scope, transformative in their scale, and deliverable now.
For the workers, the plan offers an opportunity to turn the energy system on its head and make it work for the public. As a rigging supervisor named Mark said in the report:
The government should be working for the British public, but they’re not. They’re working for the companies. All day, every day, everyone I know is asking how can this be the situation? How can the government let this happen?
Moreover, transitioning away from fossil fuels is urgent amid the worsening climate crisis. Head of campaigns at FoE Scotland Mary Church emphasised this, saying:
Climate science is crystal clear that we have to rapidly phase out fossil fuels if we want a liveable future. Failure from politicians to properly plan and support the transition to renewables is leaving workers totally adrift on the whims of oil and gas companies, and the planet to burn.
Featured image via John / Wikimedia, cropped to 770×403, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
This post was originally published on Canary.
On Friday 3 March, workers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) trade union delivered a grievance letter to Power Plant Vegan Cafe in Plymouth.
It said:
The dismissed cafe worker – who joined the IWW in delivering the grievance – read out a statement saying that they were misgendered and deadnamed while working at the cafe. They also said that they had received targeted comments about their appearance.
They spoke about the effect that their treatment at work had on their mental health:
The dismissed worker went on to add that they had asked for the problems to be addressed. However, they were “
They explained that they wanted to take the grievance in the:
The IWW and the dismissed employee expressed disappointment with Power Plant, as the cafe had been a meeting place for Plymouth’s queer community in the past, and has hosted local queer events.
IWW stressed the seriousness of the grievances:
However, Power Plant has refused to accept responsibility. Instead, they have blamed the dismissed worker, and said that they had been “hostile”. A statement from the cafe said:
The former employee who has recently raised a grievance about their dismissal was given their notice due to repeated inappropriate & hostile behaviour towards one of their employers as well as multiple complaints we received from other members of staff for bullying and causing mental stress by creating a hostile work environment. We absolutely reject their claims of unfair dismissal and harassment.
Their response does not acknowledge the harm done to their former employee, or begin to try to address it. The cafe’s owners did confirm – however – that they will meet with the union.
The IWW’s solidarity for their member in Plymouth shows, once again, that workplace organising is the answer to not getting pushed around by bosses. IWW is a radical grassroots trade union that represents all types of workers across all workplaces. You can find out more about IWW here.
Featured image via IWW (with permission)
By Tom Anderson
This post was originally published on Canary.
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