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Category: UK

  • New DWP boss means more abuse and neglect of claimants

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a new boss. PM Liz Truss has moved former minister for disabled people, Chloe Smith, into Thérèse Coffey’s old job. So, what does this mean for social security claimants? It’s going to be years more abuse, wilful neglect and human rights abuses.

    DWP: talking about Smith is a waste of column inches

    I was going to write a takedown of Smith. Her bullshit former job as a “management consultant” makes her completely unqualified for the DWP. She only got a senior government role under David Cameron by accident (he wrongly thought she was an accountant). Years ago, instead of asking disabled people what made public transport difficult for them, she pretended to be blind to give herself “greater insight” – trivialising and disrespecting people’s lived experience.

    But what’s the point in me spending hundreds of words dragging her alone? Smith is just another talentless, terrible twat in a long line of talentless, terrible twats: over-promoted beyond their capabilities, inherently useless and yet with a nasty streak when it comes to poor and marginalised people. The reality is, of course, that with Truss’s government the Tory Party has literally scraped the dregs off the bottom of an already drained barrel.

    Truss’s government: vicious yet vacuous

    Make no mistake, though – these fools being utterly incompetent makes them more dangerous than Cameron, Theresa May and even Boris Johnson’s governments. The three of them were just as unpleasant as this lot. But the former two at least had some skill at governing to their toxic agendas, regardless of how horrible the end result was. Johnson was also incompetent but with delusions of grandeur and an ability to showboat that carried his nincompoopery. Truss’s vicious yet vacuous mob have none of this. As the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire wrote, our “clueless” PM:

    is untrustworthy and incompetent and has no plan for the country, she is shaping up to be… Johnson without the Old Etonian boorish humour

    This will mean more of the same for the rest of us; with Smith, this is particularly true for social security claimants. She has been a DWP minister since 2019. The department on her and Coffey’s watch has continued the wilful negligence, demonisation, human rights abuses and indifference to the deaths of claimants that’s happened for years. For example, Smith herself has defended not involving disabled people in policy making. And Truss has said she is going to “change the incentives” of the DWP to force more people into work. That’s the standard government-speak for ‘cuts’.

    The DWP’s hostile environment continues

    Of course, the bigger point here is that our social security system is broken and unfit for purpose. Governments based it on the toxic idea that chronically ill, disabled and non-working people are undeserving of the quality of life others have. The DWP keeps them barely living, treating them as a burden on hard-working tax payers who society should exclude because of their inability to be useful to capitalism. This mindset has pervaded successive governments.

    With Truss and Smith in charge of the DWP, this won’t change, but their collective incompetence and arrogance will make life even worse for social security claimants.

    Featured image via the Guardian – YouTube, Richard Townshend – Wikimedia (cropped under licence CC BY 3.0) and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • An eco-defender imprisoned for resistance against HS2 is released

    A campaigner against HS2 was released from prison on Monday 5 September, after a successful appeal. Dave Buchan had been sentenced to 100 days in prison last month for breaching a civil injunction.

    Dave’s imprisonment came after months of intense resistance at the Bluebell Woods Protection Camp where an area of woodland near Swynnerton in Staffordshire – nicknamed Bluebell Woods – is under threat of destruction from the HS2 High Speed Rail line.

    Dave’s arrest followed the eviction of campaigners from tunnels below the site. The campaigners had been resisting eviction for 47 days, in what was reportedly the longest tunnel occupation in UK history.

    Summonsed by Facebook

    Dave was not one of the people alleged to have locked down in the tunnels. Instead, he was found guilty of contempt of court after appearing late to a hearing at Birmingham Crown Court on 27 July. He was accused of breaching a HS2 civil injunction, and was sent straight to prison.

    Dave reportedly said that he had appeared late at the hearing because the only attempt to let him know that he had to be in court was through a Facebook message from HS2. Because of this, he had not been able to arrange legal representation.

    The Canary contacted HS2 for a comment on the claims that their summons was served by Facebook Messenger. We had not received a reply at the time of publication.

    The HS2 campaigners say that Dave’s breaches amounted to simply:

    entering onto HS2 land which was unfenced and where no construction work was taking place.

    Civil injunctions used to crush dissent

    Civil injunctions are one way in which companies are trying to stamp out resistance and protests outside their premises. The High Court grants a list of conditions that campaigners need to abide by. Typically, these restrictions make acts which would not normally be considered a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for breaching the injunction.

    Civil injunctions are increasingly being used against ecological campaigners. According to a press release from campaigners:

    Anti-protest injunctions have also been taken out against Insulate Britain, Just Stop Oil and the Stop the Stink campaign against Walley’s Quarry near Stoke on Trent.

    HS2 has recently applied for a wider injunction covering the entire route of its proposed high speed rail line. It is now awaiting the judge’s decision.

    The campaigners argue that the injunctions:

    are HS2’s way of ‘buying their own laws’ to silence opposition by making trespass imprisonable through the civil courts.

    The HS2 campaigners argue that Dave’s imprisonment shows that HS2 will use its planned route wide injunction to try to imprison its opponents:

    Dave’s case shows that a Route Wide Injunction will not be used to simply prevent unlawful protests against them, but to imprison people who have committed absolutely no crime and have simply shown opposition to the project, or stepped foot on HS2 land.

    Despite Dave’s successful appeal, the fact that he was imprisoned at all should stand as a warning for us all.

    A new wave of injunctions to protect corporate power

    In the 2000s, civil injunctions were increasingly used by companies as a way to crush dissent. Injunctions were obtained restricting protest by animal rights, anti-militarist and ecological campaigners. Several people were sent to prison as a result. However, injunctions fell out of fashion after several successful attempts by campaigners to resist them through the courts, and campaigners refusing to comply with their conditions. But in recent years a new wave of injunctions has begun to be used against environmental campaigners.

    Nancy Livingstone, a spokesperson for Bluebell Woods Protection Camp, said:

    More and more injunctions are being arbitrarily granted by the courts to protect the economic interests of corporations and shield their bosses from protestors who are calling for an end to environmental destruction. It is deplorable that protestors are the ones standing trial for breach of an injunction, whilst the bosses eliciting the destruction of life on earth are being protected by the courts.

    Civil injunctions have been used many times over the last two decades to suppress direct action and dissent. We need to keep a close watch on the new wave of civil injunctions being used to repress environmental protesters. It’s important that we support people facing repression, and stand with those who are carrying on resisting in the face of these injunctions.

    Featured image is of a treehouse in another HS2 protection Camp at Jones Hill Wood, via Ross Monaghan with permission

    By Tom Anderson

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The FBU just gave Liz Truss the perfect welcome as PM

    Another trade union has said that it is balloting its members over strike action – this time, it’s the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). It’s over their bosses’ shocking pay offer of just a 2% rise. The move means that new Tory PM Liz Truss will immediately face the power of working-class organising. So, is it time for a general strike?

    Strikes everywhere for Truss

    The so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ has descended further into catastrophe. Inflation is currently at 10.1%, with some forecasts saying it could hit 18% in 2023. People are already spending less. In response, workers are striking all over the UK – including the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) and Unite. Now, the FBU is set to vote on walking out – just as Truss becomes PM.

    The Fire Brigades Union said in a press release that:

    Firefighters and firefighter control staff are preparing for a ballot for strike action, following consultation in… [FBU] branches and a meeting of the union’s executive council on 2 September.

    Any strike will be the first by the FBU in around ten years. As iNews reported:

    Firefighters went on strike over pensions almost a decade ago and there was a lengthy strike over pay almost 20 years ago.

    The union’s ballot comes after bosses offered workers a 2% pay rise in June. The website Planit says that as of February 2022, firefighters were paid:

    £23,833, rising to £24,826 a year after training. This increases to £31,767 a year with experience.

    So, the bosses proposed 2% pay rise will effectively be a pay cut – due to our staggering inflation rate.

    General strike for Truss

    FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said in a press release that:

    Taking strike action is always a last resort. But our employers are increasingly leaving us with no choice. And there is huge anger among firefighters at falling pay.

    Firefighters must be paid fairly: there is absolutely no question when it comes to this. It is the responsibility of fire service employers to provide decent pay offers and that has not happened.

    The ball is now in the fire service employers’ court. It is not too late for them to make a much better pay offer for consideration by our members.

    The FBU will hold the ballot in five weeks’ time. It will come after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ballots its members on strike action. So, this all begs the question: with so many workers striking, should unions declare a general strike? The answer surely is a resounding ‘yes’ – which will really give Truss something to think about.

    Featured image via LBC – YouTube and the FBU – screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Far Right Liz Truss Replaces Boris Johnson as UK Prime Minister

    Labour Party members, progressives, and critical voices worldwide registered concern and condemnation Monday after the Conservative Party in the U.K. voted to make Liz Truss, formerly the Foreign Secretary, the nation’s next Prime Minister to replace the outgoing Boris Johnson.

    In a runoff with former finance minister Rishi Sunak, Truss won out by a historically narrow margin following the resignation of Johnson earlier this summer amid a raging energy crisis, soaring costs, and a flood of internal scandals that sapped his support.

    “Just when we see the back of a law-breaking, Parliament-proroguing, office-abusing PM in Boris Johnson,” said Green MP Caroline Lucas in a tweet, “he’s replaced by a climate-wrecking, handout-refusing, redistribution-opposing, Brexit ideologue PM in Liz Truss. Buckle up, it’s going to be a rough ride.”

    While Johnson “leaves having disgraced his office,” continued Lucas, she warned that Truss “campaigned as a right-wing ideologue and will govern as such — which is a disaster for all of us.”

    As both Foreign Secretary and International Trade Secretary before that, Truss was rebuked for her xenophobic rhetoric and policies throughout her career by human rights groups in the U.K., Europe and beyond.

    The Labour Party made clear their belief that Truss, based on her own remarks, will continue her party’s hostility toward working people in the U.K.:

    For those looking for a break from the aggressiveness of the Johnson era, progressive critics said there is nothing to look forward to with Truss.

    “New prime minister, same old deceit!” declared DiEM25, the pan-European political movement, in a social media post following Truss’ selection.

    Truss, the group warned, “will continue to serve the British oligarchy and the global technocrats of the World Economic Forum at the expense of the everyday citizen battling with the cost of living crisis that the Tory party is directly responsible for inflaming.”

    Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of his party, said that Truss should act immediately to alleviate the struggles of working people.

    “The first act of Liz Truss’ premiership should be taking immediate action to tackle the cost of living crisis that is pushing millions into poverty,” he said. “This must be a wealth tax and bringing energy companies, water, mail and rail into public ownership.”

    Corbyn also called for a commitment to give workers a raise in the country, stop the push to privatize the National Health Service, and end the “appalling treatment of refugees fleeing war.”

    According to Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins, the best and first thing that Truss could do as Prime Minister is to immediately “U-turn on everything she believes in” as a person and politician.

    Andy Worthington, a progressive journalist and activist, suggested there was little hope of that with Truss when it comes to fighting inequality, the climate crisis, or putting the government in service of people’s needs.

    “Just when what we need is a truss, in which a number of objects combine to create a solid structure, we, get, instead, a Liz Truss,” said Worthington, “a far-right libertarian sock-puppet who despises the poor for being poor, adores the rich and wants to make them richer, and loves fossil fuels.”

  • Questions remain regarding UK police and intelligence role in the trafficking of three ‘Isis girls’

    In February 2015, three girls – Shamima Begum (15), Kadiza Sultana (16), and Amira Abase (15) – from South London made their way via Turkey to ISIS-controlled Syria. A story that emerged in March of that year was how the three were smuggled into Syria by a man who claimed he worked for the Canadian Security intelligence Service (CSIS). Moreover, there were claims that UK intelligence were aware of this dimension.

    Now, with the publication of a book that examines some of those claims, there is revived interest.

    There are still many unanswered questions – in particular about the alleged cover-up by UK police regarding the part played by the CSIS in human trafficking.

    The original revelations

    The Canadian intelligence angle received significantly less media coverage than other aspects of the story. There were, however, a few exceptions.

    On 13 March 2015, an article by the Guardian referred to a Syrian man – but not by name – who helped the girls. It noted that he worked for Canadian intelligence.

    Two days later the pro-Turkish government Daily Sabah published more details. This included the name of the man who conducted the trafficking operations as Mohammed al-Rashed.

    According to Canadian media outlet CBC, Rashed was also known as Dr Mehmet Resit. Rashed claimed that he trafficked for ISIS in order that he could pass intelligence to Canada in exchange for Canadian citizenship.

    A Reuters article quoted a Canadian government source in Ottawa, who said Rashed did not hold Canadian citizenship and “was not employed by CSIS”. According to CBC, a Turkish ‘intelligence report’ claimed there was evidence of texts Rashed had sent to officials working for Canadian intelligence.

    Daily Sabah further pointed out that:

    Michel Juneau-Katsuyo, a former agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told Canada’s iPolitics that Rashed may be a “human source” for the agency, noting that they are not considered employees of the CSIS.

    Rashed’s trafficking of the three girls was seemingly not a one-off. Daily Sabah reported that:

    based on information discovered on Rashed’s laptop computer, he helped 140 Britons travel to Syria to join ISIS apart from the three girls.

    The Daily Sabah article included a video, filmed by the Turkish TV channel HBR (A Haber), of Rashed being arrested by Turkish authorities. There was also a video, covertly recorded by Rashed with the three girls at Gaziantep, of him helping them with their luggage and referring to the Syrian passports he would give them:

    UK cover-up of Canada’s role

    Daily Sabah reported that according to Turkish police Rashed’s handler worked out of the embassy in Amman and was referred to as “Matt”. It was also reported that Turkish police suspected “Matt” worked for British intelligence.

    In a tweet on 31 August 2022, investigative researcher David Miller raised the matter of Rashed’s mysterious handler:

    Miller’s tweet was posted in response to a tweet by the Begum family’s lawyer Tasnime Akunjee. He noted the claim that Met police officer Richard Walton, a former head of counter-terrorism, had been briefed by CSIS about their role in the trafficking of Begum.

    A new book titled The Secret History of the Five Eyes by Richard Kerbaj (a security correspondent for the Sunday Times) published on 31 August claims the Met police’s counterterrorism branch was approached by the CSIS on this matter. Also, he claims that Canada asked the British to cover up its role in the trafficking operations.

    As for Walton, The Canary previously reported that he was linked to the Special Demonstration Squad – now the subject of an inquiry into undercover policing.

    Media catch-up

    With the publication of the book by Kerbaj, the story has now attracted broader media coverage.

    For example, on 1 September 2022 the BBC published an article on this via its website and via its regular news bulletins.

    There was also a video, which mentions a podcast by Josh Baker on what happened to the three girls, in particular Begum. Baker added that a senior intelligence officer confirmed Rashed was providing intelligence to the CSIS:

    As with the earlier 2015 reports, the BBC claimed that Rashed, who is in jail in Turkey, was providing intelligence to Canada while at the same time trafficking people to ISIS. The BBC added that Rashed:

    gathered information about IS, mapping the locations of the homes of Western IS fighters in Syria, identifying IP addresses and locations of internet cafes in IS-controlled territory, and taking screenshots of conversations he was having with IS fighters.

    Investigation?

    The role of the CSIS has been known since 2015, and this aspect was raised by Begum’s lawyer four years later when he wrote to then-home secretary Sajid Javid. Akunjee requested that the decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship be reversed.

    But Shamima has remained stateless.

    Meanwhile, it’s reported that Canada will be conducting an investigation into the spy smuggling scandal. Whether that investigation extends beyond the role of the CSIS to examine a potential UK link to what happened is unlikely.

    Questions

    Ever since those 2015 reports, a number of unanswered questions remain.

    In particular about the mysterious “Matt”, his connections with Rashed, and who he worked for. UK police tried – unsuccessfully – to warn the parents of all three girls of the danger of travelling to Syria. The girls were given letters from the police to give to their parents, but hid them. The families of the three girls have since accused the police of a catalogue of failures.

    Begum is currently detained in a camp in north-east Syria. She gave birth to three children who have all since died. As for Sultana and Abase, their fate is unknown, though Sultana is believed to have died following an attack by the Russian air force in 2016.

    Akunjee poignantly commented:

    Intelligence-gathering looks to have been prioritised over the lives of children.

    Shamima and her two friends were vulnerable, trafficked, and subsequently sexually exploited. Had they been white and middle class, their fates would likely have been very different.

    Collective failure

    As can be seen, the three girls were failed by UK politicians, UK police, and border authorities, as well as by the intelligence services of possibly two countries. They were also failed by a media that did not suitably emphasise the role of intelligence services in this debacle. That collective failure has seen the death of at least one of the girls, to say nothing of the damage it’s caused to the lives of their families.

    Akunjee commented:

    Britain has lauded its efforts to stop Isis and the grooming of our children by spending millions of pounds on the Prevent programme and online monitoring. However, at the very same time we have been co-operating with a western ally, trading sensitive intelligence with them whilst they have effectively been nabbing British children and trafficking them across the Syrian border for delivery to Isis all in the name of intelligence-gathering.

    Former World Health Organisation director Anthony Costello summed it up in one tweet:

    In November, a hearing is to take place arguing that Begum’s citizenship should be restored. In addition, Akunjee has called for an inquiry into what UK intelligence services and the police knew.

    Justice is yet to be served.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot

    By Tom Coburg

  • Another group of bin workers just won a pay rise

    Bin workers in Somerset just declared victory in an ongoing dispute with a council. They won a pay rise without needing to strike. It follows on from Coventry bin workers’ victory – and shows that when people are united, gains can be made. But, the situation also displays the anti-worker attitude of some councils.

    Victory for bin workers (again)

    Bath and North East Somerset council employs the bin workers at depots in Ashmead Road and Midland Road in Keynsham. Amid the so-called cost of living crisis, the council was only offering the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) recommended £1,925 flat-rate pay rise. So, Unite stepped in and negotiated with the council. It ended with the local authority offering workers a 10% pay rise on top of the LGA increase. All this was without a strike.

    As Unite regional officer Andy Worth said:

    Due to the strength of union membership within the workforce, waste services workers were able to go through the industrial action process to trigger negotiations. Following successful talks under the auspices of the conciliation service ACAS, Unite was able to secure a regrade of all waste service employees, including a 10 per cent increase for loaders and LGV drivers.

    Council problems

    This is not the first time a union has had to support this council’s workers. In 2016, workers took strike action over pay with Bath and North East Somerset council’s waste contractor, Kier. This action also reached a settlement. Just this year, workers for another contractor in North Somerset also won a pay deal after agreeing to strike.

    Away from Somerset, and recently Coventry bin workers won a pay rise after a long industrial dispute. As Canary Amplify participant Karen Burns wrote:

    The dispute started on the 31 January 2022, and took six months to resolve.

    During the industrial action, Labour-run Coventry council brought in scab workers to cover the striking one’s jobs. But eventually, the council backed-down and workers got the pay rise they were fighting for. Meanwhile, in Somerset council bosses argue over paying staff fairly while one of them has been pocketing over £400,000 a year in income.

    Politicians not to be trusted

    As Burns wrote, central to the Coventry workers’ victory was solidarity. She noted that:

    It is about solidarity between working-class people… bin drivers in Trafford, Manchester had managed to win their dispute and achieved a higher rate of pay. This had ultimately spurred Coventry bin drivers on and made them more determined to fight for what they knew they deserved.

    But moreover, Burns said:

    The drivers’ dispute highlights a real disconnect between party politics and the lived experiences of the voting public. Coventry Labour council’s union-busting stance shows where politics wants to take workers’ rights.

    The situation in Somerset is similar. Except here, Lib Dem-run Bath and North Somerset council backed down before workers had to strike.

    It shows that firstly, the power of working-class people united cannot be underestimated. The victories also remind us that unscrupulous bosses who make a personal killing while mistreating their staff should not be tolerated. Further, it also shows that politicians, especially Labour ones, cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of the rest of us either.

    Featured image via Unite the Union – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

  • BREAKING: XR enters UK parliament, supergluing themselves inside

    Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK have burst into parliament in protest. Members have superglued themselves to the Speaker’s chair. It’s to challenge the lack of action by the government and corporations on the climate catastrophe. XR are saying that parliamentary democracy isn’t fit for purpose, and that people should instead form “citizen assemblies”. Of course, superglue companies must be delighted. And, XR is not the first group to do this kind of stunt.

    XR breach UK parliament

    As XR UK tweeted:

    Members also locked themselves onto parliament’s gates:

    XR members locked to the gates of parliament

    People attached banners to parliament itself:

    An XR banner attached to parliament

    On its Facebook page, XR UK said it and its members were:

    currently protesting inside and outside of Parliament, demanding a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice. Inside Parliament, protesters are taking action. Outside the building, protesters have dropped a banner from the scaffolding and have locked on in front of the railings.

    There is an urgent need to upgrade our political system: a new Prime Minister will be chosen next week by a fraction of the country, and the cost of living crisis will leave millions unable to pay their bills this winter. A citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice would be a new, fairer politics that would represent ordinary people.

    XR UK livestreamed the action on its YouTube:

    Citizens Assemblies

    XR UK’s demands for citizens assemblies are based on the fact that politicians are not doing enough about the climate catastrophe. As the group wrote:

    The Citizens’ Assembly on Climate and Ecological Justice will bring together a “mini public” of ordinary people to investigate, discuss and make recommendations on how to respond to the climate emergency. Similar to jury service, members will be randomly selected from across the country. The process will be designed to ensure that the Assembly reflects the whole country in terms of characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, education level and geography. Assembly members will hear balanced information from experts and those most affected by the emergency. Members will speak openly and honestly in small groups with the aid of professional facilitators. Together they will work through their differences and draft and vote on recommendations.

    The Citizens’ Assembly will be run by non-governmental organisations under independent oversight. This is the fairest and most powerful way to cut through party politics. It will empower citizens to actually work together and take responsibility for our climate and ecological emergency.

    As of 1pm on Friday 2 September, XR UK’s protest was still ongoing.

    Promising action?

    Of course, XR is not the first group to breach parliament in protest over our politicians. For example, in 2015 Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) entered parliament – subsequently being abused by police and security. The group repeated the action in 2016, when security told the BBC to stop filming because of it.

    Moreover, the protest seemed all a bit white – with XR’s historical diversity problem seemingly not fully resolved. And storming parliament when no politicians are there seems a bit timid as the building is entirely open to the public, anyway – although XR UK did note on its Facebook page that:

    This is Extinction Rebellion’s opening act for our September plans. Join us at 10am, Marble Arch, on 10th September to continue to demand a Citizens’ Assembly.

    But overall, it’s good to see XR UK taking some actual direct action – as opposed to other organisation’s usual preference for state-sanctioned A-to-B marches. Let’s hope it builds into something bigger, more radical, and diverse this September.

    Featured image and additional images via Extinction Rebellion UK – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

  • Eddie Dempsey critique is fine, but withdrawing support for workers over him is telling on yourself

    Twitter centrists have finally found a reason to justify why they won’t support something that, in truth, they were never going to support anyway. This time the ‘something’ is organised workers. The reason is the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union’s Eddie Dempsey.

    Footage of Dempsey, who serves as an assistant general secretary in the RMT, was tweeted on Wednesday 31 August. In it, Dempsey laments the takeover of working class institutions (like the Labour party) by liberals:

    I can tell you what, whatever you think about people that turn out for Tommy Robinson demos or any other march like that, the one thing that unites them people, beyond whatever other bigotry that’s going on, is their hatred of the liberal left.

    He continued:

    And they are right to hate them, they are correct. Because they are the people who’ve seen their industries taken away, who’ve captured their Labour Party, and who are now talking to them like they’re the scum of the earth.

    ‘Blatant fascist’?

    A group of centrist accounts used the footage to claim Dempsey was himself some sort of Tommy Robinson figure. One even accused him of being a “blatant fascist”:

    Another Twitter user suggested he was using tropes from the “UKIP playbook”:

    Another used the footage to attack the Enough is Enough campaign, a coalition of unions and a handful of Labour MPs fighting for better conditions for working class people:

    ‘Waitrose Twitter’ melts down

    But not everyone was convinced by the latest centrist meltdown. Many seem to think the footage is just a pretext for well-off pseudo-lefties to withdraw support for working class people, i.e., trade unions. This support, some say, never really existed anyway:

    One Twitter user called centrists out for never having any intention of backing workers, saying they should stop wasting people’s time:

    Another pointed out that pretending to be very, very sad about the ideological purity of figures on the Left was out of place among the people whose political heroes destroyed Iraq:

    The same Twitter user said he could come to his own conclusions about Eddie Dempsey without the help of “white leftists”:

    Bad faith

    Bad faith and centrist politics go hand-in-hand, and the Twitter centrist version of this is the most virulent of all.

    Eddie Dempsey is a public figure and a senior trade unionist at a moment of working class uprising. He can, will, and should be critiqued for what he says and does. However, a fair-minded interrogation is not what seems to be happening in this instance.

    As we’ve since in recent years, the support from ‘Waitrose Twitter’ for working class people is, at best, highly conditional. It’s nearly always purely about optics.

    At the slightest breeze, their support will evaporate. The working class doesn’t need friends like this. By all means question Dempsey’s views, but if you actually care about workers, the answers should have no bearing on your support for the RMT, Enough is Enough, or any similar organisation.

    Unless, that is, you never really had any solidarity – and if that’s the case, good riddance.

    Featured image via RMT Television, cropped to 770 x 403. 

    By Joe Glenton

  • DWP covers-up compensation deal for over 100,000 claimants

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has covered up a compensation deal potentially worth thousands of pounds for claimants. It relates to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). A parliamentary watchdog told the DWP that it had to let over 100,000 claimants know about the potential payout. However, the department has refused to do so.

    The watchdog slammed the DWP for this “injustice”. Now, a social security advice service is helping people get the money the DWP owes them.

    DWP: underpaying claimants

    Benefits and Work is an advice and support service for DWP claimants. It also publishes news about social security. On 30 August, it revealed that the DWP had hidden a compensation deal from claimants.

    As Benefits and Work wrote, from 2011 the DWP began the process of moving claimants from the old Incapacity Benefit (IB) to the then-new ESA. However, during this, it was not checking whether it should’ve given people a higher rate of social security. The DWP was just giving people contribution-based ESA, which is based on a person’s National Insurance contributions. But it was not checking if they could also get the income-based payment. This is ESA based on how much you earn, the amount of savings you have, and so on. As Citizens Advice wrote:

    If you’re already getting contribution-based ESA, you might be able to add income-based ESA to it. This could mean you’ll get more money.

    The DWP gave this to claimants if, after they received contribution-based ESA, they still didn’t have enough money to live on. However, when it was moving people from IB to ESA, the DWP failed to check this for countless claimants. We now know that the DWP owes people money.

    118,000 claimants missing out?

    As Benefits and Work wrote, the DWP did a Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practices (LEAP) exercise:

    to identify claimants who had been victims of their error. This resulted in 118,000 claimants getting backdated awards of ESA, in many cases amounting to thousands of pounds. Others also got awards outside of the LEAP scheme.

    But the DWP didn’t tell claimants they could also be entitled to:

    special payments because they had missed out on other benefits or undergone hardship.

    So, one claimant complained via a welfare rights adviser to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). The PHSO told the DWP that it had to pay the claimant £7,500 in compensation plus interest on backdated ESA payments.

    Real-world consequences

    The PHSO wrote that the claimant, “Ms U”, was:

    a seriously ill woman [who] had her benefits payments severely cut by around £80 a week… leaving her unable to heat her home and buy food.

    It continued:

    As someone recovering from heart bypass surgery and managing multiple health problems including an autoimmune disease, severe mental health problems and hypertension, this had a devastating impact on Ms U’s health, wellbeing and finances. For five years she received only around half the amount the government says is the minimum requirement for a person with severe disability needs.

    Ms U could not afford to heat her property or buy the food she needed to stay healthy. Her mental and physical health declined drastically – her hair fell out, she lost weight and her mental health deteriorated.

    The error also prevented Ms U from getting other benefits she was eligible for, including free medical prescriptions to manage her many health issues, funding to buy a washing machine and urgently needed dental care. She was at risk of hypothermia and her arthritis got worse because she lost out on £700 in Warm Home discounts.

    Ms U’s situation may also be the case for thousands of other claimants.

    The DWP says…

    The Canary asked the DWP for comment. We specifically wanted to know why it failed to follow the PHSO recommendations and kept the information around compensation from claimants. A spokesperson told us:

    Our priority is that all people get the financial support to which they are entitled. We completed a special exercise to correct these past underpayments in ESA, ensuring that all those eligible received the arrears they were entitled to.

    The exercise concluded in June 2021. We made 118,000 benefit arrears payments in full, totalling £613m.

    Meanwhile, the PHSO had previously slammed the DWP for its actions.

    DWP: covering up

    The PHSO told the DWP that it should contact claimants who it gave backdated payments to. It said the department should tell them they could also get compensation. Of course, the DWP refused to do this. As Benefits and Work wrote, it said:

    should a claimant feel that they should receive compensation due to their individual circumstances, they can contact the department and set out their reasons. All requests received will be considered on a case by case basis.

    The PHSO was not happy. It wrote in January that the DWP had subjected claimants to an “injustice”, and:

    It is human to make mistakes but not acting to right wrongs is a matter of policy choice. In this case, that choice has been made by the very organisation that is responsible for supporting those most in need.

    That those affected are unable to claim compensation for this error is poor public policy in practice, and the situation is made worse given that they have already waited years to receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

    Benefits and Work said that:

    The DWP know very well that almost none of the affected claimants will ever discover that they might be entitled to compensation and thus they will never know to ask for it.

    Another example of the DWP’s systemic neglect

    Benefits and Work has created sample letters that claimants can send to the DWP to try and get what it owes them. You can download the letters here.

    The situation is yet another example of the DWP’s systemic neglect and wilful mistreatment of claimants. A similar situation happened with Universal Credit – despite judges ruling against the DWP, it fought to deny severely disabled people the money they were entitled to. It’s currently in an ongoing court battle over its denial of the Universal Credit £20-a-week uplift to ESA claimants, too.

    The DWP’s abuse of claimants like this is nothing new. It’s now facing another investigation by the UN over its treatment of chronically ill and disabled people. But external investigations alone are not good enough. Everyone needs to be fighting back against the DWP’s systemic abuse of social security claimants. It’s more important than ever.

    Featured image via pixabay and Wikimedia

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • What Truss really means

    cartoon

     

    Image description

    Cartoon drawing of a woman standing behind a lectern with the words “Truss 4 unelected leader” on it.

    Next to it is the word “This” pointing to a speech bubble reading “Profit is not a dirty word”

    Under that the words “Really means this” with an arrow pointing to a speech bubble reading “Yes some people will die, but at least shareholders won’t lose out!”

    By Ralph Underhill

  • Emily Maitlis’ “active agent” at the BBC is just one bit of the rotten edifice

    During a speech at an Edinburgh event, former BBC journalist Emily Maitlis accused her old employer of bias. She also referred to a BBC board member as the Conservative Party’s “active agent”. That board member was subsequently named in the media as Robbie Gibb.

    None of this is new, though: The Canary and other media have been publishing similar accusations about Gibb’s role at the BBC – and much more – for some years.

    ‘Arbiter of impartiality’

    Maitlis’ speech, which starts 10 minutes in, is here in full:

    A complete transcript is here.

    In an extract from her speech Maitlis referred to the BBC board:

    where another active agent of the Conservative Party – a former Downing Street spin doctor and former advisor to BBC rival GB News – now sits acting as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.

    Who is the “active agent”?

    So who is this “active agent”?

    Gibb is the brother of Tory MP Nick Gibb, who held the post of schools minister.

    Robbie Gibb worked for the BBC for some 25 years. During that time he headed BBC Westminster; was editor of The Daily Politics and This Week, and was deputy editor of Newsnight.

    In July 2017, after leaving the BBC, Gibb was appointed director of communications to then prime minister Theresa May. In 2019, May gave Gibb a knighthood.

    Gibb’s media career was not confined to the BBC, for in August 2020 he went on to found the rightwing GB News, for whom he was an editorial adviser.

    In April 2021, the BBC announced that Gibb had been appointed to its board. It mentioned, too, another senior appointment:

    Richard Sharp replaced Sir David Clementi as the BBC’s chairman. Sharp, a former banker, investor and philanthropist, is close to Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, who he worked with during the pandemic. Sunak previously worked with Sharp at Goldman Sachs.

    One tweeter has called for a ban on anyone with a political background running the BBC:

    Courting the far right

    Maitlis also referred to BBC bias and The Canary has covered this via numerous articles.

    One example we covered was about how Gibb allegedly failed to run a story about Arron Banks’ Leave.EU and its ‘courting’ of the far-right while at the BBC:

    The story was aired as part of a Channel 4 News investigation. That investigation claimed to have seen leaked emails revealing how Banks “repeatedly lied to cover-up his Brexit campaign’s effort to attract far-right extremists”.

    The Canary reported how extremists were alleged to have included supporters of known far-right groups, including “the National Front, the BNP, Britain First and the EDL”.

    And, according to Channel 4 News:

    Banks emailed another Leave.EU director, saying: “I don’t think they will Run it after all that lot . You will have a busy week next week since Robbie will react by giving us massive exposure.

    The “crouch position”

    The Canary revealed another example of Brexit bias. This was when it was shown that the BBC was guilty of ‘using bias by omission’ by editing a headline to downplay the part Brexit played in the bin lorry drivers shortage.

    In her speech Maitlis was quite candid about how the BBC feared going against the Conservative government’s Brexit stance, saying that:

    sections of both the BBC and government-supporting newspapers appear to go into an automatic crouch position whenever the Brexit issue looms large…

    in case they get labelled pessimistic, anti-populist, or worse still, as above: unpatriotic.

    The Canary also noted that Gibb was in charge of the corporation’s live political shows during the EU referendum. We reported, too, how Tory MP Nick Boles accused Gibb of being one of the key people urging May not to compromise on Brexit.

    Weaponising antisemitism

    Then there was the accusation of antisemitism levelled at Jeremy Corbyn.

    In April 2020, The Canary’s Ed Sykes reported on a consortium of individuals that purchased the anti-Corbyn and right-leaning Jewish Chronicle. The consortium included:

    The infamous Panorama episode, referred to above, alleged antisemitism by Corbyn. However, The Canary revealed that out of the 10 people who came forward to provide ‘evidence’ against Corbyn, eight had leading roles in an anti-Corbyn organisation. It should be noted that the Jewish Chronicle has been successfully sued in recent years, on multiple times, for slandering socialists.

    More details were provided via this tweet by The Canary’s James Wright:

    As for Gibb’s views on Corbyn, it’s no surprise he said that the Labour leader “opened the door to toxic extremism” for Labour.

    More examples of bias

    It’s not just all about Gibb, but the systemic problem of bias at the BBC.

    Prior to the 2019 General Election The Canary‘s Emily Apple reported more examples of BBC bias:

    • Broadcasting the wrong footage of Boris Johnson on Remembrance Sunday.
    • Deciding to make ‘not politicising’ the NHS its top story.
    • Broadcasting Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil before Johnson agreed to do a similar interview. Something Johnson refused to do throughout the campaign.
    • Its political editor Laura Kuenssberg using her Twitter account with millions of followers to promote Johnson on numerous occasions. But perhaps her lowest point was tweeting the lie, fed to her from Tories, that Matt Hancock’s aide had been punched by a protester.
    • Editing out the audience laughing at Johnson during a leadership debate in one of its lunchtime news bulletins.
    • On the eve of the election, it was accused of electoral fraud after Kuenssberg broadcast comments about the number of postal votes looking “grim” for Labour.

    In another case The Canary revealed how the BBC ran with the government’s entirely false assertion that it had met its target of 100,000 Coronavirus (Covid-19) tests a day.

    Pot calling kettle black

    Maitlis should be applauded for her speech, though she herself is not without guilt.

    One tweeter points out that Maitlis’ denouncement of BBC bias is from her new position in a “lucrative” new job:

    And another tweeter reminds us of the time she warned of putting Corbyn into power:

    Shining a light

    While the BBC produces excellent drama and the occasional documentary, the idea that it’s impartial in its news coverage is a myth. Moreover, Gibb’s role in this bias has been known for years – Maitlis merely confirmed that the accusations are true.

    We are in an age when the dissemination of disinformation (deliberately incorrect information), or misinformation (inadvertently incorrect information) is often difficult to spot. Fortunately, independent media continues to shine a light on such bias or fake news. Sadly, it’s a job that has no end.

    Featured image via screenshot Edinburgh Television Festival/YouTube

    By Tom Coburg

  • Strikes across the UK as regulator lifts energy price cap by 80%

    A new wave of strikes are underway across the UK. From postal workers to barristers, organised labour is turning out on picket lines against the backdrop of looming energy cost hikes. Workers across the UK are fighting back by withdrawing labour, sharing their experiences and, on one occasion, surfing around ports at high speed!

    The strikes come as Don’t Pay, which is campaigning to encourage people to refuse to pay extortionate energy bills, reported an 80% hike had been nodded through by regulator Ofgem:

    Don’t Pay’s East London branch also announced a protest at Canary Wharf for Saturday 27 August:

    The hikes emphasise how important bottom-up resistance is right now. And, a number of unions are taking action as we speak.

    Posties for the win

    Postal workers are striking as part of the Communication Workers Union over pay. Royal Mail bosses have been paying themselves massive bonuses, even as the cost of living crisis has ramped up:

    CWU general secretary Dave Ward challenged bosses to debate him on the issues live on TV:

    Barrister strike

    Unusually, barristers have also gone out on strike. Traditionally seen as comfortable professionals, barristers have increasingly been forced to work unsustainable hours. Because their work is, in essence, freelance, the hours mean their pay is extremely poor in some cases:

    One barrister took the time to write this useful thread on working conditions in her profession:

    Labour’s latest clanger

    The Labour Party’s policy proposals for dealing with the economy have been found to be basically useless. Full Fact reported that the party’s energy bill proposals did not account for, of all things, winter:

    Another moment of excellence from Keir Starmer and his cronies.

    While Labour flaps, the port of Felixstowe was also closed down by a strike this week:

    And one genius worker decided to do a lap of the port on a powered surfboard while flying the flag of his union Unite:

    Workers’ power

    Workers are on the move and taking on their bosses directly. As Labour struggles to understand how seasons work, extra-parliamentary campaigns like Don’t Pay and Enough is Enough seem to be gaining traction. This can only be positive moves towards an invigorated workers’ movement.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Roger Blackwell, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY-SA 20.

    By Joe Glenton

  • In a stunning move, Emily Maitlis says what we’ve all been saying for years

    Former BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis has warned of media bias and sinister Tory plots, mere years after the rest of us, and in spite of being head of the BBC’s flagship show during the worst of it. Pats on the back for Emily.

    The former senior BBC figure made her comments during the MacTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh at a major TV festival. Among other things, she said “an active agent” of the Conservative Party sits on the board of the BBC and influences impartiality.

    She warned that British institutions were under attack:

    Social media users, however, recall Maitlis’ conduct during her tenure with some anger, suggesting that she has hardly shown herself to be unbiased.

    Hardly a revelation…

    One twitter user pointed out that BBC bias was hardly news:

    Others fondly recalled the time her show carried a section portraying Jeremy Corbyn as Lord Voldemort:

    Meanwhile, someone else remembered the time Corbyn was presented as some sort of Soviet despot:

    Somebody else noted a 2017 tweet from Maitlis which seemed to float the idea of a coup by Labour against Corbyn:

    Active agent

    It was also pointed out that if there was an active Tory agent in the BBC, they may not have been alone:

    Elsewhere, her credentials as a whistleblower were being questioned intensely, not least given the years which have elapsed since some of the events she was involved in:

    It seems that it is going to take a bit more than a pretty selective speech (just as Maitlis starts a whizzy new job at LBC) to make people forget her own behaviour in recent years. Yes, there’s something wrong with the BBC. It’s also perfectly possible to argue that Maitlis embodied this as well as anyone has in recent years.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Common/Gothick, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    By Joe Glenton

  • The TUC minimum wage plan has gone down like a cup of cold sick

    The Trades Union Congress (TUC) made an all-singing, all-dancing announcement on Tuesday 23 August. It released its plan for a £15-an-hour minimum wage. Sadly, people are underwhelmed by it, and are calling for a general strike instead. No wonder, really, when the TUC is years behind trade unions.

    TUC: £15 in eight years. Thanks!

    As the Guardian reported, the TUC is calling for a £15 minimum wage. It wants this by 2030 at the latest. You can read the full TUC report here. The Guardian noted that:

    In a move that opens a fresh policy gap between unions and Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the TUC has thrown its weight behind calls for a more ambitious legal floor on pay rates. The union body said the government needed to draw up plans to get wages rising as workers suffer the biggest hit to living standards on record.

    It said too many workers were living “wage packet to wage packet”, and a £15 minimum should be in place by at least 2030 but could be achieved sooner with a government that was serious about getting wages rising after years of sluggish pay growth.

    But, the TUC isn’t just calling for £15 an hour. It’s saying that the government should calculate the minimum wage as 75% of the national median pay. Currently, the minimum wage is 66% of the median. So, that would mean a higher average pay for the country. However, it’s really not good enough that its forecasts give the date that it will hit £15 as 2030.

    General strike now

    Twitter summed the situation up nicely. People have been saying the TUC plan is weak. Much of the talk is that the TUC should have called for a general strike:

    Jorge Martin said:

    You’ve oversold this. A 15 quid minimum wage by 2030 without any real campaign to mobilise for it means very little in the context of the worst cost of living crisis in two generations. What is needed is a united campaign of industrial action. #GeneralStrike

    Meanwhile, Scott Miller echoed similar:

    I’m underwhelmed. A £15 min wage is laudable but the UK is spiralling round the plughole. I was hoping for a much bigger announcement. We need to force a #GeneralElectionNow. Will there be a #GeneralStrike?

    But the TUC arguing for something that many don’t see as radical is hardly surprising.

    TUC: a history of ‘meh’

    As The Canary‘s Tom Coburg tweeted:

    The TUC has a long history of functioning as a break to any attempt to organise a general strike. The only way we will get a #GeneralStrike is if most if not all unions unilaterally go on strike simultaneously, combined with widespread community direct action.

    As LibCom wrote about the TUC, it has been:

    agents of [its] own decline through the very act of self-preservation. Taking on the role of mediator between the bosses and the workers saw [it] work to dampen down the very threat of workplace militancy which made [it] useful as mediators in the first place. Likewise, an unwillingness to organise where it isn’t cost effective to do so has seen [it] retreat into a cycle of declining membership and declining income.

    Moreover, the £15-an-hour idea isn’t new. The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) have been calling for it for at least three years. And with inflation set to hit a staggering 18%, the TUC giving people pie-in-the-sky for 2030 is not reading the room. As a minimum, we need a general strike – and perhaps a revolution should be on the cards too.

    Featured image via the TUC – screengrab and Robert Prax – pixabay

    By Steve Topple

  • Owami Davies is safe – but don’t let the institutions that failed her off the hook

    Owami Davies, a previously missing student nurse, has now been found “alive and well.” Owami has been missing for eight weeks. While Owami’s been missing there’s been a lack of urgency from the police and Owami’s employers. They may not care about her safety and wellbeing, but we do. We have to make sure that we don’t let the institutions who failed her off the hook.

    Amongst several others, Sisters Uncut noted that the search for Owami has to be understood in the context of “racist disengagement”:

    The Metropolitan Police have been heavily criticised for basic failures in their approach. They used the wrong photo to publicise Owami’s disappearance – it was of a different woman. MP Diane Abbott told LBC:

    I think it’s fairly clear that this disappearance wasn’t treated entirely seriously.

    Otherwise they couldn’t have put up the wrong photograph. You will know, and many of your audience will know, that the Metropolitan Police are in special measures. This is exactly the kind of thing why they are in special measures, this kind of sloppiness.

    Officers actually saw Owami on the day she went missing. The Mirror reported that the police didn’t know she was missing when they spoke to her, and that their body cameras showed Owami looking “dishevelled”. Incredibly, the reason they didn’t realise she was a missing person was because Essex police hadn’t updated their database. While the officers in question aren’t currently being investigated, the Independent Office for Police Conduct have requested that the case be referred to them.

    Police failure

    People on social media shared their opinions on how Owami’s case was treated.

    Journalist Lorraine King made it clear that the police didn’t find Owami:

    Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu echoed this:

    Advocacy group Speak Out Sister also mentioned police failures:

    Race correspondent Nadine White reported on the failures of Owami’s workplace to publicise details of her case:

    White mentioned a white nurse who had gone missing, and highlighted the difference in treatment:

    Questions need to be asked

    It’s undoubtedly great news that Owami has been found safe. What’s clear, however, is that Black women don’t receive the same concern, urgency, and care that other missing people do. The police made a characteristic series of catastrophic mistakes.

    Owami Davies and her family deserve an inquiry into the behaviour of the police. In the meantime, this has all shown, once again, how vital it is to question mainstream media narratives and statements from the police. Being anti-racist means questioning and dismantling systems of power, no matter how difficult the situation. Owami Davies and her family have been failed by the institutions that should serve them. They must not be failed by communities.

    Featured image via Twitter/@helpusfindowami

    By Maryam Jameela

  • Legal challenge against Surrey oil project is heading to the Supreme Court

    A years-long legal battle against an onshore oil project in Surrey is heading to the Supreme Court.

    In February, the Court of Appeal ruled that Surrey County Council had acted lawfully in approving the fossil fuel project. However, campaigner Sarah Finch has now secured permission to appeal the case at the UK’s highest court.

    The case revolves around whether the council should have considered downstream emissions, known as Scope 3 emissions, in its approval of the Horse Hill development. These are the emissions produced from the burning of fossil fuels, rather than those that occur during the production of them.

    In other words, the Supreme Court will decide whether the council was wrong to overlook the emissions that will inevitably result from the use of the fossil fuels when approving the development.

    Indirect effects of Surrey oil project

    Surrey County Council approved the oil project in 2019. It’s an extension of an existing site referred to as the Gatwick Gusher. Horse Hill Developments Ltd could potentially extract three million tonnes of oil from the site over 20 years. The company is a subsidiary of UK Oil & Gas (UKOG).

    Sarah Finch – as part of the Weald Action Group, which opposes fossil fuel development in southern England – has legally challenged the project since its initial approval. She insists that Surrey County Council should have taken the downstream emissions into account in environmental impact assessments (EIA) because they are an indirect effect of the oil project. EIAs must take likely significant indirect effects into account.

    Moreover, after securing permission for appeal at the Supreme Court, she said:

    If councils don’t assess all the climate impacts of a proposed development before giving it permission, then we have no chance whatever of staying within safe climate limits

    UKOG responded to the development in the case, saying that it remained “convinced that planning consent was granted entirely lawfully” and will “strongly contest any further action against its interests”.

    No legal consensus

    The High Court heard Finch’s case in November 2020. But as DrillOrDrop reported, justice Holgate dismissed the claim. He ruled that although the EIA regime requires authorities to consider both direct and indirect effects of projects in planning decisions, the ultimate use of the fossil fuels from Horse Hill falls beyond “the scope of that obligation”.

    The Court of Appeal reviewed his decision. In a 2:1 ruling, the judges decided that the High Court’s dismissal was right. However, one of the two judges in agreement – lord justice Lewison – said it was “not without hesitation”. And the dissenting judge, lord justice Moylan, found that the exclusion of Scope 3 emissions from the EIA meant that it failed to “assess the relevant and required effects of the proposed development”.

    Writing in the Planner, Friends of the Earth (FoE) solicitor Katie de Kauwe also asserted that the Court of Appeal ruling was “an improvement in climate terms” from the High Court’s decision. Whereas Holgate ruled that Scope 3 emissions couldn’t be indirect effects as per the EIA regulations, de Kauwe wrote, the Court of Appeal:

    has ruled that what is, and is not, an indirect effect of a development for the purpose of EIA is a matter for the local planning authority to decide.

    FoE supported Finch in the case.

    The council welcomed the majority decision. But Finch’s solicitor Rowan Smith, from the firm Leigh Day, pointed out that Moylan’s decision meant:

    there is now Court of Appeal authority that, when decision-makers come to consider granting planning permission for fossil fuel projects, they may be required by the law to assess the greenhouse gas emissions from the use of the extracted oil, coal or gas.

    Numerous projects in the pipeline

    In light of the varied conclusions of the judges, and the successful application to take the case to the Supreme Court, Finch told DrillOrDrop that:

    I think the fact that it has agreed to hear the case shows that it knows the issue needs to be resolved one way or another

    She also said that if the Supreme Court rules in her favour, the case would have ramifications for other onshore fossil fuel developments.

    A 2021 report by FoE revealed there were seven potential onshore projects in the pipeline in the UK, including Horse Hill. The New Economics Foundation wrote the report alongside FoE, with Uplift additionally contributing to its research. Overall, the report highlighted 40 projects that fossil fuel companies planned to launch in the coming years, including 30 offshore developments and three coal mines.

    In 2021, Greenpeace took the UK government to court over an offshore project. Similarly to Finch’s case, the environmental NGO challenged the government’s lack of consideration of the climate impacts of the Vorlich Field in the North Sea when granting a permit for it to BP.

    Scotland’s Court of Session ruled in the government’s favour in the case last October. Greenpeace has appealed this at the Supreme Court. The organisation also plans to legally challenge authorities’ approval of a further offshore field called Jackdaw.

    No new fossil fuels

    The International Energy Agency produced a report in May 2021 that called for an end to all new fossil fuel developments. In order to meet net zero by 2050, the report said that there can be no “new oil and gas fields approved for development” and “no new coal mines or mine extensions” from 2021 onwards.

    More recently, the UN secretary-general António Guterres told an energy and climate conference that:

    Nothing could be more clear or present than the danger of fossil fuel expansion. Even in the short-term, fossil fuels don’t make political or economic sense.

    Nonetheless, the FoE report shows that the UK is planning significant fossil fuel expansion. Finch argued that:

    Granting planning permission for more oil extraction in the middle of a climate crisis without considering its full impact on our planet makes no sense and is, I believe, unlawful.

    The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in 2023.

    Featured image via UKOG / CNN / YouTube

    By Tracy Keeling

  • New York, Florida and Oklahoma holding primary polls today

    New York: Florida and New York – the two of the country’s largest states besides Oklahoma are holding their primary elections on Tuesday to choose their nominees for November’s elections.

    Polling began in New York at 6 am. Polls close at 7 p.m. in Florida, 8 p.m. in Oklahoma, and 9 p.m. in New York (all times Eastern).

    According to CNN, in Florida’s heated race for governor, two Democrats with different profiles — Rep. Charlie Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried — are facing off for the chance to challenge incumbent Republican Ron DeSantis in November.

    After redistricting pushed the congressional primaries back, New York voters are casting ballots in several state Senate and US House races, as well as two special elections to fill vacant House seats.

    Longtime New York City Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney are facing each other after the new congressional map placed the two in the same district.

    Oklahoma is holding several primary runoffs, including the GOP contest for the special Senate election to replace Sen. Jim Inhofe when he resigns next year.

    According to Washington Post, in New York, a major fight over redistricting led to delayed congressional primaries, with some marquee races featuring established Democrats facing off against one another. In Florida, Democrats will pick their nominees to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) in the fall. And Oklahoma is holding runoff primaries, including one that will set the field for November in a special election to complete the term of retiring Sen. James M. Inhofe (R).

    After a redistricting scramble, New York is holding the primary elections today for U.S. House seats, including a battle of longtime Democrats in the 12th District, in New York City.

    Just four states remain on the primary calendar — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware — with contests in September. Louisiana holds its hybrid primaries on Election Day, Nov. 8.

    Washington Post has also highlighted some basic things a voter must to know about the today’s elections.

    In New York’s 12th District, two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn B. Maloney, are facing off against one another.

    In New York’s 10th District, a dozen candidates in the Democratic primary are vying for an open seat. They include former House impeachment manager Daniel Goldman and Rep. Mondaire Jones, who moved from another district as part of the redistricting scramble.

    In New York’s 23rd District, there is a competitive Republican primary pitting Carl Paladino, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate known for controversial comments, against Nick Langworthy, the state Republican Party chairman.

    In Florida, the Democratic gubernatorial primary pits former GOP governor Charlie Crist against a more liberal candidate, Nikki Fried.

    In Florida, Rep. Val Demings (D), a former Orlando police chief, is the front-runner in the Democratic field to take on Rubio in November.

  • Dave Ward: BT bosses have ‘Swiss banks’ while workers use foodbanks

    As the Communication Workers Union (CWU) prepares for another two-day strike, its general secretary Dave Ward has slammed BT bosses for “using Swiss banks while workers are using food banks”. He says that his members ‘won’t stop until they’re listened to’ and are ‘determined to win’.

    BT: everybody out

    Over 40,000 Openreach and BT call centre workers are striking again on Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 August. They’re walking out over pay. This is because BT has offered a flat £1,500 pay rise this year. The CWU says this is a “dramatic real-terms pay cut”. It noted in a press release that:

    It is also in the context of BT making £1.3 billion in annual profit, with CEO Philip Jansen gaining a £3.5 million pay package – a 32% wage increase – while the Big Issue and the BBC have reported instances of BT Group offices establishing food banks to assist employees.

    This is the first time BT workers have gone on strike since 1987. The action is also groundbreaking. Because it is the first ever national call centre strike in the UK. CWU members previously walked out on 29 July and 1 August. Now, they’re doing it across consecutive days. As the CWU said:

    The workers on strike look after the vast majority of Britain’s telecoms infrastructure, from mobile phone connection, broadband internet and back-up generators to national health systems, cyber security and data centres.

    The strike action is also likely to have a serious effect on the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband, and may cause significant issues for those working from home.

    Low-key BT

    BT’s response to the strikes has been low-key. It stated:

    We know that our colleagues are dealing with the impacts of high inflation and, although we’re disappointed, we respect their decision to strike. We have made the best pay award we could and we are in constant discussions with the CWU to find a way forward from here. In the meantime, we will continue to work to minimize any disruption and keep our customers and the country connected.

    But Ward’s response to BT is far from meek.

    ‘Swiss banks versus foodbanks’

    The CWU general secretary said in a press release:

    The disruption caused by this strike is entirely down to Philip Jansen and his ridiculous refusal to speak to his workers about a fair pay deal.

    These are the same workers who kept the country connected during the pandemic. Without CWU members, there would have been no home-working revolution, and vital technical infrastructure may have malfunctioned or been broken when our country most needed it.

    These people have performed phenomenally under great strain and have been given a real-terms pay cut for a reward, while Jansen has rewarded himself a 32% pay increase off the backs of their work.

    The reason for the strike is simple: workers will not accept a massive deterioration in their living standards.

    We won’t have bosses using Swiss banks while workers are using food banks.

    BT Group workers are saying: enough is enough. They have serious determination to win, and are not going to stop until they are listened to.

    Massive mobilisation

    The UK is currently gripped by the biggest worker mobilisation in decades. From rail, to post, via BT, barristers, dock workers and potentially civil servants and nurses – people have had enough of corporations and the government. With campaigns like Enough is Enough trying to join the dots between these individual actions, the mobilisation is further increasing. The challenge now is whether we can create enough sustained pressure to create lasting change in this country.

    Featured image via Vauxford – Wikimedia, resized to 770×403 pixels under licence CC BY-SA 4.0, and Good Morning Britain – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

  • The posties union is making it clear that bosses can’t ‘treat their workers like dirt’

    The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has urged the bosses at Royal Mail to “consider their positions”. It came as a ballot for strike action rejected Royal Mail’s attempts to force what the CWU describe as an “erosion of workplace rights”.

    Growing discontent

    On 17 August, the CWU voted in a second ballot to enter into formal dispute over pay and conditions. Members voted by 98.7% on a 72.2% turnout. This complemented a 97.6% ‘yes’ vote on a 77% turnout for strike action over pay in July.

    Postal workers will also be striking over pay on:

    • Friday 26 August.
    • Wednesday 31 August.
    • Thursday 8 September.
    • Friday 9 September.

    The CWU has called out those looking to replace postal workers with scabs during the strikes:

    According to CWU general secretary Dave Ward, they’re having some success in naming and shaming job agencies:

    A country ‘growing sick of business elite’

    Ward said on 17 August:

    Today’s result is another rejection of those at the top of Royal Mail, who should consider their positions. Postal workers in this country are being pushed to the edge, but there can be no doubt that they will fight the planned erosion of their workplace rights with determination.

    Right now, this country is growing sick of a business elite who are completely out of touch with ordinary people and their lives. Things are getting harder and harder for normal working people so that incompetent bosses can have an easy life. But this union will fight this disgraceful state of affairs every step of the way.

    The CWU’s message to Royal Mail’s management is simple: do right by your workers.

    ‘Treating our members like they are dirt’

    Moreover, CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger said:

    Our members, who worked miracles during the pandemic, are being treated with complete contempt. The ongoing attempts of Royal Mail Group to whittle away people’s hard-won working conditions will be met with fierce opposition.

    For far too long now, Royal Mail Group have been trying to pick a fight, treating our members like they are the dirt they walk on. But Royal Mail Group have completely failed to recognise the strength of feeling that exists against them.

    In these times, working people need more security on the job, not less, and we won’t be backing down until we secure an acceptable solution for our members.

    Meanwhile, the CWU has been calling out the ruling party for their interventions on the matter:

    Featured image via YouTube

    By John Shafthauer

  • Unions and campaign groups are mobilising as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss wage class war

    Tory leadership contenders Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are frantically promoting themselves as the heirs to ultra-conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher. She, of course, was the Tory flag-bearer for the war against Britain’s working class and trade unions.

    Meanwhile, Unite the Union has announced it will be organising not just in industries but in communities too. This approach would dovetail with other community-based initiatives, as well as with strike action organised by other unions, such as the RMT.

    Community organising

    Unite has issued a press release announcing that it will be organising across and within communities. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says:

    We need to build power in our workplaces and simultaneously organise in our communities. Unite will establish permanent bases on the ground to work with workers within their communities.

    Unite’s statement adds:

    It’s time to challenge the status quo. Workers and communities from across the political spectrum can join together to demand higher wages, freedom from fuel and food poverty, and pensions that allow us to retire comfortably. That and so much more.

    RMT’s Mick Lynch is also signaling broader action:

    What you are going to get is a wave of solidarity action, generalised strike action, synchronised action….

    And you’ll see it in every sector of the economy, in education, in health, wider parts of the transport system, in all sectors, the private sector as well.”

    That sounds a lot like a general strike.

    Syndicalism in action

    The sentiments expressed by Lynch and Graham are not dissimilar to some of the methods used by syndicalist organisations. Briefly, the syndicalist approach can be described as:

    a theory and movement of trade unionism… in which all means of production and distribution would be brought under the control of federations of labor unions by the use of direct action, such as general strike.

    The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is one example of a union that’s adopted a syndicalist approach. This means it’s open to workers in all industries, not by trade. It has been most active in the USA, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, and was at the forefront of numerous strike actions.

    On a much smaller scale, the Solidarity Federation (SF) is a UK-based anarcho-syndicalist organisation that promotes revolutionary unionism. SF is the UK branch of the International Workers Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA-AIT). This is “an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions and initiatives” that has operated globally over many decades.

    Another example of anarcho-syndicalism is the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT-E or National Confederation of Workers, Spain). Its website says:

    this is what we are: wage earners, retirees, homemakers, unemployed, students, immigrants …. Men and women – above ideological, racial, gender, age, professional category differences … – who join forces to face our adversaries.

    We are the organized Working Class. Our most precious assets are Freedom and Dignity. We are not afraid of anything. Let’s change the world.

    The CNT-E, with a membership at its height of “well over one million”, has helped organise several general strikes in Spain. Together with anarchist militias (Iberian Anarchist Federation or FAI), the CNT-E was also at the forefront of the fight against Franco’s fascists during the Spanish civil war. It played a key role in the collectivisation of land and industry. And it helped set up defensive measures in the towns and cities, such as in Barcelona.

    Tories’ class war

    On the other side of the barricades, the Tory Party is busy waging class war against UK workers.

    One of numerous examples of how Tories are making working class people pay for the cost of living crisis can be seen in the way energy prices are manipulated.

    In a tweet, Labour MP Jon Trickett pointed out the massive difference between UK energy prices and energy prices across Europe:

    Meanwhile, Unite’s Howard Beckett contrasted water companies’ shareholder dividends with what consumers are asked to pay:

    Journalist Sophie Pedder pointed out how France is dealing with the energy crisis. It’s still capitalism, but quite different to the way the Tories are dealing with the crisis:

    Pedder shared this graph which shows how, in relation to the cost of living crisis, the UK has one of the widest gaps between rich and poor:

    Bloomberg graph showing different between richest and poorest households

    Public health emergency

    Medical professionals have also raised concerns about the impact of the cost of living crisis on public health. On 18 August, heads of the NHS confederation sent a letter to chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. The letter is on behalf of service leaders across the NHS in England, Wales, and the north of Ireland.

    It bluntly states:

    If people cannot afford to heat their homes sufficiently and if they cannot afford nutritious food, then their health will quickly deteriorate. This will increase the already high number of annual deaths associated with cold homes – estimated at around 10,000 a year. As health leaders, we are clear that unless urgent action is taken by government this will leave an indelible scar on local communities and cause a public health emergency.

    The letter concludes that if the government fails to act, that risks a health emergency.

    Thatcherites: Liz Truss

    Meanwhile, in a leaked recording of comments made by Liz Truss when she worked at the Treasury, the PM candidate can be heard criticising “British working culture”. She adds that we need “more graft” from the working population.

    This reveals her Thatcherite disdain for people who work long hours on shit pay. Truss also seemingly loves to pose as another Thatcher:

    According to RMT’s Mick Lynch, Truss is:

    proposing to make effective trade unionism illegal in Britain and to rob working people of a key democratic right. If these proposals become law, there will be the biggest resistance mounted by the entire trade union movement, rivalling the General Strike of 1926, the Suffragettes and Chartism.

    Regarding industrial action, The Canary previously reported on news that Truss plans to bring in minimum service levels on critical infrastructure during strikes. In other words, the government will facilitate scab action, just as Thatcher did with the Nottinghamshire miners.

    Thatcherites: Rishi Sunak

    Meanwhile, not to be out done by his rival, Rishi Sunak says that Thatcher was the best Tory leader the UK has ever had.

    Sunak has claimed he wants to get tough on the welfare system, arguing there are more people claiming unemployment benefit than there are job vacancies. However, The Canary’s Steve Topple debunked these claims. He pointed out that the official unemployment rate is 1.29 million, and the number of job vacancies closely matches this.

    Peter Stefanovic also pointed out that the majority of claimants are either in work or seeking work:

    Further, Sunak was responsible for the increase in National Insurance contributions and cut the £20-a-week increase to Universal Credit. He’s also filthy rich.

    Turning anger into action

    To counter the crisis, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is advocating an immediate wealth tax and nationalisation of energy, water, rail, and mail:

    Meanwhile, Don’t Pay is a campaign that demands:

    a reduction in energy bills, and get people who have joined the campaign to cancel their direct debits from 1 October if the first demand isn’t met – but only if a million people pledge to join them.

    And the Enough is Enough campaign is demanding significant pay rises, the slashing of energy bills, an end to food poverty, decent homes for all, and taxation of the rich.

    It’s time, they say, to channel anger into action:

    This struggle is not only about improved wages and better job conditions. It’s about the survival of hundreds of thousands of people who each day face starvation, deteriorating health, and even death.

    And by combining nationwide industrial action with community direct action, we could begin to turn things around.

    Featured image via Flickr / William Murphy cropped 770×403 pixels

    By Tom Coburg

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • As workers strike, Grant Shapps clusterf*cks live on TV

    Railway workers are in the middle of three days of strike action over appalling pay and conditions. And the transport secretary just did them a massive favour. Because Grant Shapps exposed live on TV that he knows nothing about the industry for which he’s responsible.

    Everybody out

    Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union are holding three days of strikes. Two of these, on Thursday 18 and Saturday 20 August, are across the rail network. Then on Friday 19 August, London Underground and Overground workers are also walking out. As everyone’s favourite leftie, RMT boss Mick Lynch, said:

    Network Rail have not made any improvement on their previous pay offer and the train operating companies have not offered us anything new.

    Tube bosses are having secret negotiations with the government about cutting costs by slashing jobs and undermining working conditions and pensions…

    RMT will continue to negotiate in good faith but we cannot tolerate being bullied or hoodwinked into accepting a raw deal for our members.

    The government need to stop their interference in these disputes so the employers can come to a negotiated settlement with us.

    So, what does the transport secretary do (apart from try to make laws to break strikes)? He goes on national TV and makes a fool of himself.

    Shapps: no clue

    Shapps was on BBC Breakfast. The show had apparently said there was only one train an hour running from London to Manchester. Shapps disagreed, saying:

    You incorrectly told your viewers there’s only one train running from Manchester to London… That’s not the case even under the reduced timetable. There’s four trains an hour.

    Host Charlie Stayt challenged this, saying:

    A direct train… There’s only one an hour at the moment.

    The BBC Breakfast host was right. As the show tweeted, it’s what the rail company Avanti West Coast has said:

    Not one to admit when he’s wrong, Shapps continued to challenge Stayt, saying:

    Well, all I can tell is there are still trains running down the West Coast mainline.

    He even questioned Stayt’s defintion of a “direct train”. Twitter exploded, with people shocked that the transport secretary knew nothing about our rail system.

    Serial nincompoopery from Shapps

    Of course, Shapps is a serial nincompoop. From chaos about travelling during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic to lying for Boris Johnson over Partygate, the transport secretary is one of the more ridiculous figures to have emerged from the Tory Party in recent years – and that’s saying something.

    But to expose in the middle of major industrial action that you know nothing about the industry affected? Now that’s peak clusterfucking.

    Featured image via Sky News – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

  • As Enough is Enough launches, the working class are fighting back

    Organised workers are on the move. After years of stagnancy, UK trade unions are starting to ramp up activity again. Needless to say, there’s been little help from the Labour Party. But the waves of strikes are unmistakeable signs of rising working class militancy.

    The increased popularity of trade union leaders, such as the RMT’s general secretary Mick Lynch and Unite’s Sharon Graham, suggests the post-Corbyn hangover is easing.

    At the launch of the Enough is Enough campaign on Wednesday 17 August, Lynch told the audience: “The working class is back”:

    Enough is Enough

    Enough is Enough (EIE) is a new force in the class war. Its supporters include a number of socialist MPs, such as Zarah Sultana and Liverpool’s Iain Byrne. The Tribune, Acorn and the Communication Worker’s Union (CWU) are also backers. EIE has five demands:

    1. A real pay rise
    2. Slash energy bills
    3. End food poverty
    4. Decent homes for all
    5. Tax the rich

    Its orientation appears to be social democratic, evidenced by many familiar faces from the Corbyn era being on board. Interestingly however, as The Canary recently pointed out, EIE does not appear to be calling specifically for the nationalisation of privatised utilities.

    EIE has also been notably endorsed by former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who tweeted his support on Wednesday 17 August:

    So there are positive signs. But as The Canary‘s Steve Topple has pointed out, there needs to be an increased emphasis on particular marginalised groups – not just workers:

    Don’t Pay

    The Don’t Pay campaign came onto the scene earlier than EIE. It has a narrower aim and different politics. Since an energy crisis for working class people is looming large, Don’t Pay is encouraging people to refuse to pay their energy bills as a form of direct resistance. As The Canary reported recently:

    Analysts now say that the price cap could hit over £3,600 by January 2023. This is a 158% increase since October 2021, when the cap was £1,400. This could leave around 30% of all households in the UK in fuel poverty.

    Don’t Pay’s website lays out a plan to address this. They will demand a reduction in energy bills, and get people who have joined the campaign to cancel their direct debits from 1 October if the first demand isn’t met – but only if a million people pledge to join them.

    It’s worth pointing out that, with 1 October rapidly approaching, at the time of publication Don’t Pay has only collected 108,752 pledges according to their website. This might be a matter of a lack of working class confidence to resist directly by non-payment. Or maybe it’s a case of the message not cutting through on the intended scale.

    The level of interaction between EIE and Don’t Pay is hard to gauge. However, it’s difficult to imagine serving MPs publicly backing an action which could be deemed ‘illegal’.

    Don’t Pay’s politics are quite different from those of the more reformist EIE. Direct action of this kind seems to suggest a more libertarian or anarchist, bottom-up ethos. Understandably for a group of its kind, the founders do not have a public list of organisers or backers.

    The class war

    While these two groups share a lot of ground, they appear to come from very different traditions. This is not to say that they are now, or inevitably will be, in conflict. Just as other parallel social struggles have complemented each other, Don’t Pay and EIE could drive each other on. This would be similar to the way striking miners and gay rights activists, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, or the Hillsborough and Bloody Sunday families have complemented each other.

    The movements to seriously improve working class confidence and power need to be big, diverse, and fierce in the pursuit of their aims – and led by the working class. With the Labour Party effectively deceased, it must be hoped that Don’t Pay and EIE are the first signs of a new and energetic movement of workers.

    Feature image via YouTube/ Novara Media

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Student nurse Owami Davies is still missing as family plead for help

    Owami Davies, last seen in Croydon, may still be alive five weeks after her disappearance. Police say she was last seen in Croydon, and her family and friends are pleading for her safe return. Owami’s mum, Nicol Davies, said:

    It is obvious that someone out there has seen something, someone out there knows something, someone out there heard something.

    I am begging, I am asking for the public’s help, from the people, to say if you know, if you have heard or seen her, or she passed you, please speak up. All we really want is to find her, all we really need is for her to come home or to know her whereabouts.

    Five people have been arrested and released on bail awaiting further investigation. Two were arrested on suspicion of murder, and three on suspicion of kidnap.

    Social media users have noted that the search for Owami hasn’t had much coverage in mainstream media.

    Anti-Blackness

    Heartbreakingly, Black women repeatedly don’t get the same treatment that missing white women do. Feminist group Sisters Uncut pointed out as much:

    Comedian Judi Love said:

    One person pointed out that London is the most surveilled city in Europe so it seems unlikely there’s been no other sightings of Owami:

    Back in 2021, The Canary’s Sophia Purdy-Moore argued that institutions are failing missing Black people. She said:

    The police and government need to take urgent action to address the serious disparities in disappearance rates for Black people in Britain.

    The organisation Missing Black People states that 14% of all missing people in England and Wales between 2019 and 2020 were Black people. The last available census data from 2011 shows that in England and Wales only 3.4% of the population were Black. Black people disproportionately go missing, and we have to ask serious questions about this.

    As Purdy-Moore explained:

    This is not a case of pitting victims against one another. This is not a case of saying that white victims don’t deserve the outrage and resources they receive. It is a case of highlighting institutional and systemic failures to treat each and every missing person with the respect and dignity that they’re entitled to.

    Missing white people are given much more comprehensive media coverage and a greater sense of collective urgency. We’ve seen time and time again that the same does not happen for missing Black people.

    Safe return

    Journalist Lorraine King shared her hopes for Owami’s safe return to her family:

    An account set up to find Owami shared a heartfelt plea:

    Owami deserves the respect and dignity afforded to missing white people. Anti-Blackness is a fundamental pillar of British life, and we must all work to dismantle it.

    Featured image via screenshot YouTube/The Independent

    By Maryam Jameela

  • Charity slams the Tories over inflation

    The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has slammed the Tories over the so-called ‘cost of living crisis’. It accused Boris Johnson’s government of not “grasping the urgency” of the crisis. The JRF argued that current government support should be doubled for the poorest families.

    Inflation: out of control?

    As Sky News reported, inflation (the rate at which the price of everything rises) has hit a 40-year high. It said:

    The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose to 10.1% in the 12 months to July, up from 9.4% in June and remaining at the highest level since February 1982, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

    Increased food costs were the biggest driver of the latest hike, according to the ONS, with annual inflation for these items now running at 12.7%, up from 9.8% in June, fuelled largely by price rises for basics such as bread, milk, cheese and eggs.

    Then, wages fell in June at their fastest rate for 20 years. Plus, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is making a real-terms cut to social security of around £10bn this year. And energy bills are likely to hit over £4,200 a year in January 2023. So, the situation is dire for millions of families.

    ‘Not grasped the urgency’

    Reacting to the news, JRF chief economist Rebecca McDonald said in a press release:

    Inflation, which has risen to 10.1­­% today, is eating away at people’s pay and leaving millions adrift in a cost of living crisis. No one can disagree this is a national emergency. Today’s sobering reading means the next few months will be profoundly more difficult for low income families almost certainly experiencing a higher degree of inflation themselves.

    People are looking for a sign that help is on the way. Yet the government doesn’t seem to have grasped the full scale and urgency of this situation.

    So, what have the Tories done?

    Inflation and the Tories: a catastrophe

    So far, the government has stuck to its £1,200 main ‘support package‘, plus other bits on top. But as The Canary previously reported, back in May – before inflation hit over 10% – this would still leave the poorest families around £300 a year worse off. So, the JRF has hit back.

    McDonald said:

    Energy bills for low-income households are expected to be £1,800 higher this year than last, and other costs such as food are expected to rise by £1,000 at the same period. That’s why JRF and 70 other charities called on the UK’s next prime minister to pledge the £1,200 in core support to households on means-tested benefits should be at least doubled.

    It’s not just rising energy bills that are squeezing low-income families. Food prices have risen by 12.6% over the last year. So while today’s double digit analysis may come as a shock, it’s no surprise to people who can’t afford the same essentials they could a year ago.

    Planning for a substantial support package, at least double what’s been offered, needs to start immediately. Without one, vulnerable people will face a catastrophe on a vast scale when winter sets in.

    But will the UK’s next prime minister, either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, listen? Both candidates, along with Labour, have so-far just tinkered around the edges. So, it begs the question – just how bad do things have to get before anyone in power will act?

    Featured image via 10 Downing Street – Wikimedia

    By Steve Topple

  • Can Eco Labels Help Consumers Shop Smarter? The U.K. Could Find Out Soon.

    supermarket
    3 Mins Read

    New research could help create an eco labeling system that would bring more clarity to shoppers about the sustainability of their purchases.

    The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help the food industry learn how best to reduce its environmental footprint, says professor Peter Scarborough of Oxford University.

    The findings

    According to Scarborough, the findings support the food industry’s need for tools to help make their products more sustainable.

    “It fills a huge gap,” he told the BBC. “Manufacturers, caterers and retailers have targets for reaching net zero [emissions] and they don’t have the tools they need to get there.”

    The researchers looked at more than 57,000 food and drinks sold in U.K. supermarkets. These items were assessed based on their impacts across their value chains, from growing methods to processing, transport, and emissions. Those assessments were analyzed through a custom algorithm. Higher scores mean bigger impacts.

    supermarket shopping
    Courtesy Pexels

    The foods with the highest scores all contained meat and dairy compared to plant-based options, the researchers noted. According to the findings, many vegan meat products like sausages and burgers scored between 10 to 20 percent lower than their conventional counterparts.

    “If you look at the government strategy on achieving net zero [emissions by 2050] around food systems, they are not measuring the actual greenhouse gas emissions, instead the recommendation is to reduce meat consumption,” Scarborough says.

    “That’s OK, because meat has the biggest greenhouse gas emissions, but you miss a massive amount in multi-ingredient foods which had previously had no reduction targets based on them whatsoever.”

    Beef and lamb had the highest environmental impact followed by deli meat and cheese, nuts and dried fruit, fish and seafood, tea, ready meals, sausage rolls, Yorkshire pudding, salads and dips, and soft drinks.

    Will eco labels happen soon?

    But the research team says its findings are limited, with country of origin not available or information on agricultural production methods use. Despite the missing information, the team still stands behind the methodology, citing the findings as a significant step toward “providing information that could enable informed decision-making.”

    Photo by Chuttersnap at Unsplash.

    Mandatory eco labels are still a long way off, though, they say. What’s more likely is voluntary adoption that would have ripple effects across the industry.

    “We want to give everyone the information to make healthier, greener or more sustainable choices with the food they buy, if they want to,” said a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. “Voluntary industry schemes are really positive and through our Food Strategy we’re also looking at how we can better support them in future.”

    Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash

    The post Can Eco Labels Help Consumers Shop Smarter? The U.K. Could Find Out Soon. appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • DWP now sanctions more people than ever before

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed it is sanctioning more claimants than ever before. It comes as the so-called ‘cost of living crisis’ continues to worsen. And unless the DWP takes action now, the situation for countless people will become even graver – because being sanctioned means people have money deducted from their benefits.

    DWP: sanctions on the up

    On Tuesday 16 August, the DWP released new sanction figures. It said that it sanctioned 59,000 people in March 2022. The DWP noted that:

    This is the highest number of adverse sanction decisions on UC [Universal Credit] full service across the whole timeseries, and 160% larger than it was at its previous pre-pandemic peak in July 2019 (23,000).

    In the year May 2021 to April 2022, this meant the DWP sanctioned over 350,000 claimants. It also said that over 10% of these people were sanctioned more than once.

    However, there are now far more Universal Credit claimants than there were before the pandemic. So, an increase in the number of people the DWP sanctions is to be expected. However, there’s another figure which shows that the department is now truly sanctioning more people than ever before.

    Record-high sanctions

    As the DWP revealed, the percentage of total Universal Credit “full service” claimants with a sanction has also hit a record high. It now stands at just under 6%:

    DWP Universal Credit sanctions

    It noted that:

    this is up by 2.04 percentage points from February 2022 and is up by 5.78 percentage points in the latest 12 months.

    What the DWP didn’t say was that this is an increase of 136% since February 2022. Moreover, the Universal Credit sanction rate of just under 6% is huge compared to other benefits. This is also true at any point since the DWP started recording sanctions. It’s far higher than Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) sanctions:

    DWP JSA Sanctions

    And it’s far higher than Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) levels:

    DWP ESA Sanctions

    The DWP says…

    The DWP has tried to explain the huge jump in sanctions away. It said:

    At the beginning of the pandemic, conditionality was paused for Universal Credit claimants and face to face appointments were suspended… In July 2020, DWP reintroduced conditionality.

    DWP gradually reintroduced face to face appointments for all claimants from April 2021. The volume of claimants subject to conditionality, and therefore subject to sanctions, increased. As the return to face to face appointments was a gradual process, and claimants were only subject to sanction when they failed to meet a mandatory requirement…

    But it was also forced to admit that:

    In May 2022, 33.3% of the UC [Universal Credit] caseload were in the conditionality regimes that could be subject to sanction, compared to 45.3% in February 2020, just prior to changes made to work requirements as a result of COVID-19. May 2022 has the lowest percentage of claimants in conditionality regimes subject to sanction when compared to the timeseries from the 11 months preceding the COVID-19 pandemic.

    That is, fewer people are now subject to sanctions, but the DWP is still dishing them out at record levels.

    DWP: time for claimants to take action

    DWP social security rates are already appalling. As The Canary previously reported, the department is cutting – in real terms – at least £10bn off people’s money this year. This includes potentially stripping 400,000 people of their claims. Then, you have the department targeting over-50s who are not in work – with more potential sanctions on top of the current levels.

    The DWP denied over two million people the cost of living payments. As the Mirror reported, this also included some people whom the department sanctioned. Plus, from 26 September, a new rule around earnings for working people means the DWP could sanction yet more claimants.

    The cost of living crisis is hitting DWP claimants harder than many other people. However, it seems that the DWP is becoming more aggressive and punitive in its treatment of people on its watch. This appalling response to a crisis entirely created by the political and corporate class is nothing short of a disgrace. And while people kick-back against the energy price rises and workers strike and protest, maybe it’s time DWP claimants took action, too.

    In the last decade chronically ill and disabled people led the way on protesting government austerity. Now, with so many non-disabled people caught-up in the social security system, an alliance of claimants could stand as a powerful force against the DWP – and corporate capitalism more broadly. Now is the time for this to happen.

    Featured image via The Canary and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

  • Government under fire for trying to justify badger cull at international conference

    The UK government is again facing criticism over its ongoing slaughter of the country’s largest land predator. It comes after the government’s latest attempt to justify the badger cull policy.

    An executive agency of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) delivered a presentation at a conference in Canada. The agency presented findings on the badger cull’s effectiveness on bovine tuberculosis (bTB) rates in cows. But the findings appeared to contradict previous assertions by the department.

    Moreover, an in-depth study on the badger cull had found that the killing was doing little to lower bTB rates. Authors of this study have characterised Defra’s latest science as a confusing and desperate attempt to justify the ongoing cull. The government is expected to announce a further round of killing in September.

    Badger cull advocacy in Canada

    Colin Birch, a statistician from Defra’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), shared the findings at the 16th International Symposium of Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics (ISVEE 16). The conference took place in Nova Scotia, Canada on 12 August. Birch’s presentation centred on an APHA study titled An analysis of the impact of badger control on bovine tuberculosis in England.

    Although the study isn’t yet published, the event’s website carried an abstract and graph from it. As Vet Times reported, these showed that the research contends a reduction in bTB in cows is:

    significantly associated with time after the start of badger culling

    The most in-depth peer-reviewed study of the cull to date was published in the Veterinary Record journal in March. It also found a reduction in bTB in cows in areas where badger killing happened. However, it found reductions in unculled areas too.

    This is because the study compared bTB in cow herds in areas that had badger killing and those that didn’t. Moreover, the pattern of bTB reductions held regardless of when areas introduced badger killing. Due to both these factors, the study concluded that the introduction of cow-focused measures, such as increased testing and movement controls, are likely driving the reduction in bTB.

    This study was authored by conservation ecologist Tom Langton, veterinarian and Prion Group director Iain McGill, and Born Free’s head of policy and veterinarian Mark Jones. All three authors have consistently opposed the cull on ethical, scientific, and ecological grounds.

    Insufficient data?

    According to the Badger Crowd website, an audience member challenged Birch at the Canadian conference. This was over the absence of a comparison with unculled areas and the influence of cow-focused measures on bTB rates. The Badger Crowd is a “grassroots support and fundraising coalition” focused on the cull.

    In their abstract, APHA researchers effectively argued that there was so much culling happening by 2019 that it left an “insufficient unaffected area” for comparison between culled and unculled sites by that point. So using modelling, they estimated effects in 42 areas subject to badger culling by 2019. This was based on:

    bTB incidence rates within each area before and after culling started, and between areas that started culling in different years

    Langton told The Canary that, in simple terms, this means that the APHA researchers “don’t use any data from unculled areas”.

    Contradicting Defra

    In a rebuttal of the Langton, McGill, and Jones study, Defra itself compared data from culled and unculled areas up to 2020. The department subsequently had to issue a correction, as it had generally overinflated the levels of bTB in unculled areas in its calculations.

    Nevertheless, APHA’s conclusions about there being insufficient unculled areas for comparison from 2019 appears to contradict Defra.

    Moreover, the APHA graph indicated a consistent year on year reduction in bTB levels from the year culling started. But this also jars with previous assertions from Defra. In a blog in June, the department’s chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss wrote:

    the impact of culling on cattle outbreaks takes some time to appear, typically two years

    Middlemiss made this point in criticism of the Langton, McGill, and Jones paper, as it also found a drop in bTB rates in these earlier years. Critically, the paper identified such decreases in both culled and unculled areas. And it pointed to reasons other than culling for the declines in bTB rates, namely cow-based measures.

    Defending the indefensible

    Since 2013, the government has licensed the killing of over 175,000 badgers in England, claiming that their deaths are necessary to tackle bTB in cows. The in-depth study challenges that assertion, as do surveys of bTB levels in badgers. These surveys suggest very few badgers carry the disease, let alone a version of it that they could feasibly transmit to cows.

    In fact, the policy has faced consistent criticism and challenges. A recent intervention came from a number of veterinary and wildlife professionals – including the study’s authors – calling for a moratorium in an open letter.

    But Defra’s current plan is to continue widespread badger killing until 2026. At that point, the government will introduce a targeted cull policy with no end date.

    In response to the open letter, a Defra spokesperson insisted that its bTB strategy is working. And they said that improved cow testing and a possible vaccine are among the next steps in Defra’s long-term plan. The spokesperson added:

    We have always been clear we don’t want to continue the current badger cull longer than absolutely necessary.

    For Langton and Jones, however, APHA’s study indicates that Defra doesn’t plan to stop the killing anytime soon. Jones commented:

    We have a Ministry desperate to justify the vast expense incurred on a policy that is full of holes and contradictions and allows trading of infected cattle to continue through markets up and down the length of England.

    Langton, meanwhile, accused the department of being “stuck in their ridiculous and ill-considered scientific corner”. He called on Defra to stop the “charade” and answer calls for a moratorium on culling “until all the data can be examined independently”.

    The government is expected to issue more badger cull licences in September. The Badger Crowd warns that this could result in tens of thousands more badgers dying.

    APHA’s study, and the promotion of it at the Canadian conference, doesn’t inspire confidence that the government will heed calls for a moratorium and stall the coming licences.

    Featured image via big-ashb / Flickr, cropped to 770×403, licensed under CC BY 2.0

    By Tracy Keeling

  • The ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign wants everyone to get involved

    Campaign group Enough is Enough is set to hold a ‘major launch event’ on Wednesday 17 August. The group was set up in response to the prolonged and continuing decline of living standards in modern Britain.

    Meanwhile, many others are pointing out the inequality in Britain – among them writer Taj Ali:

    Enough is Enough

    The group’s plan is to use the event to “kick off a series of 50 rallies across Britain”. Their Clapham-based launch event will be headlined by the following figures, with more set to be announced:

    • Mick Lynch (RMT general secretary).
    • Zarah Sultana (Labour MP).
    • Dave Ward (CWU general secretary).
    • Eddie Dempsey (RMT senior assistant general secretary).

    At least one Twitter user has suggested that they also stream the launch event online for those who are unable to attend in person:

    According to Enough is Enough:

    Trade unions, community groups, tenants’ organisations and politicians came together this week to launch the campaign, which has received 300,000 sign-ups and over 6 million launch video views in just three days.

    Demanding a fairer Britain

    The group has five key demands which it intends to build mass support behind:

    • A significant pay rise.
    • Slashing energy bills.
    • Ending food poverty.
    • Decent homes for all.
    • Taxing the rich.

    However, currently the campaign doesn’t appear to be calling specifically for the nationalisation of utilities.

    Besides the rallies, Enough is Enough plans to form community groups, as well as organising solidarity with striking workers. The group has also stated it will take “action against those profiting from the misery of millions”.

    “Things can’t go on like this”

    CWU’s Dave Ward said:

    There’s always another crisis and it’s always workers who pay the price.

    Working people are seeing how a tiny elite want to make their lives all about working harder and longer for less. Now that same elite is profiteering from a cost-of-living crisis that will drive millions into poverty with sky-high bills.

    Things can’t go on like this: it’s time to say enough is enough.

    Meanwhile Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana said:

    We are seeing record profits for big business, a record number of billionaires, and record wealth for the top 10%, while life is getting harder for everyone else.

    For too long, Britain’s political class has chosen the greed of a wealthy elite over the needs of the vast majority.

    It’s time to turn anger into action. These 50 rallies are just the start: we need to build a country that works for everyone.

    The Enough is Enough launch rally will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 17 August at The Clapham Grand, St John’s Hill, London SW11 1TT. People can also join the campaign via the Enough is Enough website.

    As the Tories’ class war intensifies in the form of the cost of living crisis, grassroots solidarity and mobilisation may be our only hope. And campaigns like Enough is Enough and Don’t Pay UK could work if they succeed in bringing this mobilisation into effect.

    Featured image via YouTube

    By John Shafthauer

  • Beware the anarchists! According to the state, we’re a substantial risk to all of you

    You’ve probably heard of the term ‘domestic extremist‘. You might think that it’s a label saved for those who are plotting radical actions, such as bombing trains or financial districts. But if you’re an activist, it’s likely that your name is one of thousands that have been logged onto the police’s domestic extremist database. There’s a number of reasons why you might find yourself on the database, including having organised protests, having blocked roads, and being in a campaign group that is new or emerging. Even comedian and journalist Mark Thomas has been listed as an extremist (which he then used as material for his stand-up shows).

    Canary editor Emily Apple is another who has made it onto the database. In 2019, she wrote:

    I’m not some hardened criminal. I’m in good company on the database with some of the bravest people I’ve ever met. And none of us engage in serious criminality. Our inclusion on this database is because we believe in a better world, so we’re unable to just sit back and not do anything to create that better world.

    Apple has made no secret that being labelled a domestic extremist has affected her mental health; the intense police harassment and violence towards her has caused her to have two breakdowns.

    ‘Aggravated activists’

    However, the state has now ditched the term ‘domestic extremist’, at least when it refers to activists. Instead, the likes of Apple and Thomas are referred to as ‘aggravated activists’. In a new report highlighted by the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), the government has revealed its Counter-Terrorism Policing ‘Terminology and Thresholds Matrix’, which was launched in September 2020. The matrix determines how the state categorises an individual as an aggravated activist, and at what level: low, moderate or substantial.

    Low-level aggravated activists include those who take part in activity “beyond peaceful protest”, which is subjective to say the least. It’s likely that if you take part in ecological blockades, such as Extinction Rebellion’s road-blocking, you’ll be lumped into the category of being a low-level aggravated activist.

    But the very moment your actions affect UK business interests, you’re then lumped into the category of high-level aggravated activism. So if you’re putting your body in the way to stop the expansion of an open-cast coal mine, or if you’re preventing bulldozers from digging up trees for the HS2 railway, you could fall into this high-level category.

    Beware the anarchists

    Anarchists, meanwhile, are deemed high-level aggravated activists, no matter what they do, even if they’re standing in the road with a banner on a “peaceful protest”. The very fact that the state deems someone an anarchist means that they are automatically seen as a high-risk threat.

    The matrix describes anarchism as an ideology with intended outcomes that are of “substantial risk”. It describes ideologies of substantial risk as those where:

    The ideological outcome would be the death or subjugation of specific group or a significant proportion of the population (e.g. a race or a religion) or in the dismantling of the state or rule of law (e.g. anarchism) or the relocation of a significant proportion of the population (e.g. a race or a religion) from a country of geographic area.

    Yes, that’s right: anarchists are now lumped in with dictatorial ideologies that ethnically cleanse a whole geographical area, either by murdering them or by forcing them to relocate.

    I make no secret of the fact that I am an anarchist. In fact, it even says so in my Canary bio. So, according to the matrix, the state deems any political action I take part in – or, I assume, any article I write – to be a substantial threat.

    Even more worryingly, the report doesn’t actually outline the criteria that the state uses to categorise someone as an anarchist. In my case, it is easy: I write publicly that I’m an anarchist, and the state will therefore label me as such. But what about all of those who are anti-capitalist, but don’t necessarily define themselves under the anarchist label? Does the state decide for itself which of us it categorises as anarchist?

    Netpol argues that:

    Senior officers using their political beliefs to try and label ours is a way to enable and justify the continuing funding and resources of the surveillance state.

    Anarchism is beautiful

    It is, perhaps, unsurprising that the state deems anarchists as people of substantial risk. We pose a threat to capitalism and to the state, at least in theory.

    Over the course of generations, Britain’s ruling elites have done their best to paint a false picture of what anarchism actually is – likely for fear that if the public truly knew what anarchism was, they’d become anarchists themselves! The UK’s most powerful label anarchists as selfish individuals actively seeking out violence. Politicians and the mainstream media regularly talk about how a situation could “descend into anarchy”, as if the very definition of anarchism is chaos.

    But anarchism doesn’t amount to chaos. In fact, the opposite is true. As anarchists, yes, we do believe in the dismantling of states and governments, but that’s because our alternatives are so much better. In our utopia, we don’t see land as a commodity to be exploited for profit. And we don’t believe that an Eton-educated, entitled rich man – who has zero grasp on what it means to be working class – has any right to make decisions for us. Instead, we believe in everyone having the agency to make decisions for themselves, their communities, and their workplaces. We have varying ideas of how to go about this, some of which could be setting up local communes within our neighbourhoods, making decisions together, and dividing up responsibilities equally.

    As anarchists, we want to see nation-state borders dismantled: we believe that freedom of movement is a right for absolutely everyone, not just for white people who have the privilege of holding the correct passport, and we want land decolonised. The anarchist collective Crimethinc says:

    Nation-states have always led to cultural and linguistic homogenization and genocide, and borders have revealed themselves to be increasingly murderous mechanisms.

    It continues:

    Colonization is crucial to the global spread of capitalism and the devastation it has entailed. This devastation has ongoing repercussions at every level. Colonization is the basis of the United States; it has also been foundational to the major European states that functioned as the architects of the current global system of statism and capitalism.

    Anarchist ideals are beautiful precisely because they benefit everyone, and not just a tiny 1% of the population. However, that is also why they’re deemed dangerous, and why the police, intelligence agencies and the government label us as high-level aggravated activists.

    Featured image via Eliza Egret

    By Eliza Egret

  • We need a media revolution

    Over the past year the Daly Report has provided critical analysis of the most important issues and underscored the need for a strong independent working class media. Now we’re planning the next phase of The Canary. A revolution is coming. Watch this space.

    Video transcript

    Over the past year we’ve seen seismic shifts in politics, and it seems like we are in a crisis loop.

    During this time, The Daly Report has called out bigotry and racism, addressed rising inequality, and confronted the global failure to tackle the climate emergency, the blinkered rhetoric around the war in Ukraine, attacks on the NHS, refugees and our basic rights, increasingly authoritarian police powers, and much more. All while the corporate media have been losing their minds over culture wars.

    And just when it seems like there has been one crisis too many, another emerges, and things just seem to be getting worse

    How can that be?

    Well, it’s simple. This country harbors an ecosystem of corporations,  purchasable politicians and complicit mainstream media.

    Our system is set up to allow capital to be funneled into our undemocratic institutions, propped up by the media, with the powerful getting away with whatever they want because the rules are rigged to benefit them.

    Media pundits sit in their nice comfy chairs, in their fancy studios, lowering the political discourse to utter babble.

    They purposely distract us by attacking wokeness and cancel culture, all while throwing minority communities under the bus.

    They won’t talk about their mates’ tax-dodging, undisclosed political donors, or the rigged financial system.

    Without a functioning media, our politicians, including opposition parties, don’t feel the need to address the problems.

    This isn’t the time for half measures – the working class have had enough.

    Because other news outlets operate with millions of pounds from political and financial elites, it’s the likes of Rupert Murdoch who essentially decide who’s in power.

    In contrast, The Canary is funded by you, our viewers and readers – the very people who are most affected by the corrupt systems we live under.

    And while growing distrust of the establishment has allowed more left wing independent voices to grow, it has also led to an increase in right wing outlets, so we are not only fighting against legacy media; we also stand unequivocally against those rightwing forces, and stand up for marginalised communities. 

    We fight for the working class because we are working class, and we won’t be cowed in the face of authoritarians seeking to divide us.

    But in order to continue to do this work, things need to change.

    A revolution is coming. The Canary is transforming. 

    By Curtis Daly