Tony Benn Dies Aged 88 – An Icon of the English Left

Very sad to hear the news that Tony Benn has died. He had been very ill for a little while and when last I saw him in the flesh, which was a couple of years ago, he looked very frail.

I once saw him make a speech at The Free Trade Hall of all places in Manchester in I think 1980, and he was very powerful, electric even and really inspiring, and I left the event feeling as though the revolution was about to begin in the next week or so.

Times change of course, and the revolution (a peaceful one, of course) looks further away than ever now, but Tony Benn was the only figure on the left from the 70’s and 80’s and before that managed to keep up with the new politics of the left, attending Left Field at the Glastonbury festival for example and he could engage easily with the younger generations.

I thought of trying to get a video clip for this blog of Tony Benn in his prime, but in end thought it more appropriate to feature a recent one, like the one above, because he really did adapt with the times, and could be just as inspirational in his later years.

He will be sadly missed by all those of a radical political persuasion, young and old. He constantly reminded us of our power to change things, and to never give up hope. A great man indeed. 

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year’s conference had some big-name participants, from Ed Stone of Nasa’s Voyager project, explaining a new milestone on the path to interstellar space, to the film-maker James Cameron, discussing his adventures in deep-sea submersibles.

But it was Werner’s own session that was attracting much of the buzz. It was titled “Is Earth F**ked?” (full title: “Is Earth F**ked? Dynamical Futility of Global Environmental Management and Possibilities for Sustainability via Direct Action Activism”).

Standing at the front of the conference room, the geophysicist from the University of California, San Diego walked the crowd through the advanced computer model he was using to answer that question. He talked about system boundaries, perturbations, dissipation, attractors, bifurcations and a whole bunch of other stuff largely incomprehensible to those of us uninitiated in complex systems theory. But the bottom line was clear enough: global capitalism has made the depletion of resources so rapid, convenient and barrier-free that “earth-human systems” are becoming dangerously unstable in response. When pressed by a journalist for a clear answer on the “are we f**ked” question, Werner set the jargon aside and replied, “More or less.”

There was one dynamic in the model, however, that offered some hope. Werner termed it “resistance” – movements of “people or groups of people” who “adopt a certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture”. According to the abstract for his presentation, this includes “environmental direct action, resistance taken from outside the dominant culture, as in protests, blockades and sabotage by indigenous peoples, workers, anarchists and other activist groups”.

Serious scientific gatherings don’t usually feature calls for mass political resistance, much less direct action and sabotage. But then again, Werner wasn’t exactly calling for those things. He was merely observing that mass uprisings of people – along the lines of the abolition movement, the civil rights movement or Occupy Wall Street – represent the likeliest source of “friction” to slow down an economic machine that is careening out of control. We know that past social movements have “had tremendous influence on . . . how the dominant culture evolved”, he pointed out. So it stands to reason that, “if we’re thinking about the future of the earth, and the future of our coupling to the environment, we have to include resistance as part of that dynamics”. And that, Werner argued, is not a matter of opinion, but “really a geophysics problem”.

Plenty of scientists have been moved by their research findings to take action in the streets. Physicists, astronomers, medical doctors and biologists have been at the forefront of movements against nuclear weapons, nuclear power, war, chemical contamination and creationism. And in November 2012, Nature published a commentary by the financier and environmental philanthropist Jeremy Grantham urging scientists to join this tradition and “be arrested if necessary”, because climate change “is not only the crisis of your lives – it is also the crisis of our species’ existence”.

Some scientists need no convincing. The godfather of modern climate science, James Hansen, is a formidable activist, having been arrested some half-dozen times for resisting mountain-top removal coal mining and tar sands pipelines (he even left his job at Nasa this year in part to have more time for campaigning). Two years ago, when I was arrested outside the White House at a mass action against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, one of the 166 people in cuffs that day was a glaciologist named Jason Box, a world-renowned expert on Greenland’s melting ice sheet.

“I couldn’t maintain my self-respect if I didn’t go,” Box said at the time, adding that “just voting doesn’t seem to be enough in this case. I need to be a citizen also.”

This is laudable, but what Werner is doing with his modelling is different. He isn’t saying that his research drove him to take action to stop a particular policy; he is saying that his research shows that our entire economic paradigm is a threat to ecological stability. And indeed that challenging this economic paradigm – through mass-movement counter-pressure – is humanity’s best shot at avoiding catastrophe.

That’s heavy stuff. But he’s not alone. Werner is part of a small but increasingly influential group of scientists whose research into the destabilisation of natural systems – particularly the climate system – is leading them to similarly transformative, even revolutionary, conclusions. And for any closet revolutionary who has ever dreamed of overthrowing the present economic order in favour of one a little less likely to cause Italian pensioners to hang themselves in their homes, this work should be of particular interest. Because it makes the ditching of that cruel system in favour of something new (and perhaps, with lots of work, better) no longer a matter of mere ideological preference but rather one of species-wide existential necessity.

Leading the pack of these new scientific revolutionaries is one of Britain’s top climate experts, Kevin Anderson, the deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which has quickly established itself as one of the UK’s premier climate research institutions. Addressing everyone from the Department for International Development to Manchester City Council, Anderson has spent more than a decade patiently translating the implications of the latest climate science to politicians, economists and campaigners. In clear and understandable language, he lays out a rigorous road map for emissions reduction, one that provides a decent shot at keeping global temperature rise below 2° Celsius, a target that most governments have determined would stave off catastrophe.

But in recent years Anderson’s papers and slide shows have become more alarming. Under titles such as “Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous . . . Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope”, he points out that the chances of staying within anything like safe temperature levels are diminishing fast.

With his colleague Alice Bows, a climate mitigation expert at the Tyndall Centre, Anderson points out that we have lost so much time to political stalling and weak climate policies – all while global consumption (and emissions) ballooned – that we are now facing cuts so drastic that they challenge the fundamental logic of prioritising GDP growth above all else.

Anderson and Bows inform us that the often-cited long-term mitigation target – an 80 per cent emissions cut below 1990 levels by 2050 – has been selected purely for reasons of political expediency and has “no scientific basis”. That’s because climate impacts come not just from what we emit today and tomorrow, but from the cumulative emissions that build up in the atmosphere over time. And they warn that by focusing on targets three and a half decades into the future – rather than on what we can do to cut carbon sharply and immediately – there is a serious risk that we will allow our emissions to continue to soar for years to come, thereby blowing through far too much of our 2° “carbon budget” and putting ourselves in an impossible position later in the century.

Which is why Anderson and Bows argue that, if the governments of developed countries are serious about hitting the agreed upon international target of keeping warming below 2° Celsius, and if reductions are to respect any kind of equity principle (basically that the countries that have been spewing carbon for the better part of two centuries need to cut before the countries where more than a billion people still don’t have electricity), then the reductions need to be a lot deeper, and they need to come a lot sooner.

To have even a 50/50 chance of hitting the 2° target (which, they and many others warn, already involves facing an array of hugely damaging climate impacts), the industrialised countries need to start cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions by something like 10 per cent a year – and they need to start right now. But Anderson and Bows go further, pointing out that this target cannot be met with the array of modest carbon pricing or green-tech solutions usually advocated by big green groups. These measures will certainly help, to be sure, but they are simply not enough: a 10 per cent drop in emissions, year after year, is virtually unprecedented since we started powering our economies with coal. In fact, cuts above 1 per cent per year “have historically been associated only with economic recession or upheaval”, as the economist Nicholas Stern put it in his 2006 report for the British government.

 Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, reductions of this duration and depth did not happen (the former Soviet countries experienced average annual reductions of roughly 5 per cent over a period of ten years). They did not happen after Wall Street crashed in 2008 (wealthy countries experienced about a 7 per cent drop between 2008 and 2009, but their CO2 emissions rebounded with gusto in 2010 and emissions in China and India had continued to rise). Only in the immediate aftermath of the great market crash of 1929 did the United States, for instance, see emissions drop for several consecutive years by more than 10 per cent annually, according to historical data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre. But that was the worst economic crisis of modern times.

If we are to avoid that kind of carnage while meeting our science-based emissions targets, carbon reduction must be managed carefully through what Anderson and Bows describe as “radical and immediate de-growth strategies in the US, EU and other wealthy nations”. Which is fine, except that we happen to have an economic system that fetishises GDP growth above all else, regardless of the human or ecological consequences, and in which the neoliberal political class has utterly abdicated its responsibility to manage anything (since the market is the invisible genius to which everything must be entrusted).

So what Anderson and Bows are really saying is that there is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which may be the best argument we have ever had for changing those rules.

In a 2012 essay that appeared in the influential scientific journal Nature Climate Change, Anderson and Bows laid down something of a gauntlet, accusing many of their fellow scientists of failing to come clean about the kind of changes that climate change demands of humanity. On this it is worth quoting the pair at length:

 . . . in developing emission scenarios scientists repeatedly and severely underplay the implications of their analyses. When it comes to avoiding a 2°C rise, “impossible” is translated into “difficult but doable”, whereas “urgent and radical” emerge as “challenging” – all to appease the god of economics (or, more precisely, finance). For example, to avoid exceeding the maximum rate of emission reduction dictated by economists, “impossibly” early peaks in emissions are assumed, together with naive notions about “big” engineering and the deployment rates of low-carbon infrastructure. More disturbingly, as emissions budgets dwindle, so geoengineering is increasingly proposed to ensure that the diktat of economists remains unquestioned.

In other words, in order to appear reasonable within neoliberal economic circles, scientists have been dramatically soft-peddling the implications of their research. By August 2013, Anderson was willing to be even more blunt, writing that the boat had sailed on gradual change. “Perhaps at the time of the 1992 Earth Summit, or even at the turn of the millennium, 2°C levels of mitigation could have been achieved through significant evolutionary changes within the political and economic hegemony. But climate change is a cumulative issue! Now, in 2013, we in high-emitting (post-)industrial nations face a very different prospect. Our ongoing and collective carbon profligacy has squandered any opportunity for the ‘evolutionary change’ afforded by our earlier (and larger) 2°C carbon budget. Today, after two decades of bluff and lies, the remaining 2°C budget demands revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony” (his emphasis).

We probably shouldn’t be surprised that some climate scientists are a little spooked by the radical implications of even their own research. Most of them were just quietly doing their work measuring ice cores, running global climate models and studying ocean acidification, only to discover, as the Australian climate expert and author Clive Hamilton puts it, that they “were unwittingly destabilising the political and social order”.

But there are many people who are well aware of the revolutionary nature of climate science. It’s why some of the governments that decided to chuck their climate commitments in favour of digging up more carbon have had to find ever more thuggish ways to silence and intimidate their nations’ scientists. In Britain, this strategy is becoming more overt, with Ian Boyd, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, writing recently that scientists should avoid “suggesting that policies are either right or wrong” and should express their views “by working with embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena”.

If you want to know where this leads, check out what’s happening in Canada, where I live. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has done such an effective job of gagging scientists and shutting down critical research projects that, in July 2012, a couple thousand scientists and supporters held a mock-funeral on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, mourning “the death of evidence”. Their placards said, “No Science, No Evidence, No Truth”.

But the truth is getting out anyway. The fact that the business-as-usual pursuit of profits and growth is destabilising life on earth is no longer something we need to read about in scientific journals. The early signs are unfolding before our eyes. And increasing numbers of us are responding accordingly: blockading fracking activity in Balcombe; interfering with Arctic drilling preparations in Russian waters (at tremendous personal cost); taking tar sands operators to court for violating indigenous sovereignty; and countless other acts of resistance large and small. In Brad Werner’s computer model, this is the “friction” needed to slow down the forces of destabilisation; the great climate campaigner Bill McKibben calls it the “antibodies” rising up to fight the planet’s “spiking fever”.

It’s not a revolution, but it’s a start. And it might just buy us enough time to figure out a way to live on this planet that is distinctly less f**ked.

Naomi Klein, the author of “The Shock Doctrine” and “No Logo”, is working on a book and a film about the revolutionary power of climate change. You call follow her on twitter @naomiaklein

The Great Royal Mail Robbery – But Will They Get Away With It?

I was pleased to see that the Green Party conference unanimously passed the motion to stop the privatisation of Royal Mail and support the campaign by the union the Communication Workers Union (CWU) to fight the sell-off.

I worked for BT for twenty years, joining just a few years after it was privatised in 1984 which was the first of the public utilities to be sold off by the Thatcher Tory government, but was followed by many more, some under the subsequent Labour government, in an ideological process of robbing the poor to the benefit of the wealthy.

In the time that I worked at BT it did change a lot, going from 250,000 employees down to something like 80,000 by the time that I left, and I think even lower now. When I started working there I did think that there was a plausible argument for privatising a business where thousands of people had to wait six months or more for a telephone connection in an industry that was obviously going to expand because of technology.

Of course the government at the time could have made that investment themselves, but that was the whole point, take ownership off everyone and concentrate the profits generated, which amounted to billions of pounds a year, into the hands of those who could afford to buy the shares. Despite share issues to staff and some allocations of shares to ‘small investors’, the ownership largely fell into the hands of the big investors. And the drive to increase share price superseded everything else, including service.

Asset stripping became the policy in BT, with over a hundred buildings and land sold for development in London alone and Royal Mail is well endowed in property, but selling it off is bound to have a more acute effect on customers in the mail trade, with longer distances to collect registered mail etc.

Customer service has actually gone down in the privatisation years. Who hasn’t despaired of the call centre customer service experience? Who can be bothered to examine the bewildering array of choice of providers and their myriad ever changing tariff deals?   

One cultural thing that did linger in BT up until the time I left, was a unionised one, with around 80% membership amongst sub management grades and even a decent proportion in the lower ranks of management. This cultural attachment to the union, is even stronger in Royal Mail than it is (was) in BT, and I fully expect a huge vote in favour of industrial action, and a really solid response from the rank and file.

I was a CWU rep in my time working at BT, so I mixed with activists from the postal side of the union and I know that they are not going down without a fight on this. But all may not be lost.

Big political beasts have tried to privatise Royal Mail like Michael Heseltine and Peter Mandleson, only to be thwarted by a campaign of resistance, not only from the CWU, but from Tory MP’s and now probably Lib Dem MP’s in rural constituencies, where inevitably the service will get worse and more expensive, despite assurances to the contrary. It could well cost some of these MP’s their seats, so I do not discount a U-Turn on this policy by the government.

Support the CWU Campaign Save Our Royal Mail     

Haringey Needs St Ann's Hospital!

Haringey’s last hospital is under threat. Plans to redevelop the St Ann’s Hospital site have been rumbling on since 2006. Now, as the managers of the site, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust (BEHMHT) are preparing their application to get Foundation Trust Status in 2014 the redevelopment plans have been developing rapidly. To get Foundation Trust status – which is another step towards the marketisation and privatisation of the NHS – BEHMHT needs to ‘balance its books’. They claim the site is underutilised, has poor facilities and is costing them £7.5m a year to maintain. They say the only way they can afford to provide the healthcare facilities we need is to sell off two thirds of the site to property developers. We say we already pay for universal healthcare out of our taxes, we demand healthcare facilities that meet the needs of local people now and for the foreseeable future. We don’t see the site as a liability – it is an asset that needs protecting.

From an early stage it was evident that BEHMHT’s finances were driving the agenda, not the needs of local people. They proposed moving the mental health inpatient wards from St Ann’s to Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield. Mental Health Campaigners pointed out that this would lead to the isolation of people with mental health problems as friends and carers would have to travel miles to visit their loved ones. The plans were challenged in two internal NHS reviews. Both concluded that the campaigners were right and BEHMHT were wrong. They had to change their plans and include new wards in the redevelopment plans. If BEHMHT got this wrong how can we trust the rest of their plans?

In 2011 BEHMHT set up a Community Reference Group (CRG) to ‘involve’ local people and patients in the redevelopment plans. We were encouraged to do some ‘blue sky thinking’. We said we wanted a fully functioning District General Hospital with an A&E department. They said this was unaffordable but never produced any evidence to justify the claim. The group has been meeting for nearly two years now and we have never been allowed to discuss health care needs. We’re beginning to think that the group is just a convenient way for BEHMHT to tick their ‘community involvement’ box while they continue with their plans to sell off the site and leave us with inadequate facilities. We demand an independent healthcare needs assessment. We want to know what the community needs now and in the future, we can talk about how its going to paid for later. We don’t agree that the site is a liability, we think it’s a community asset that needs to be protected. How can BEHMHT claim that the site is ‘surplus to requirements’ without the evidence of a healthcare needs assessment and a thorough exploration of alternative options that could improve the health of local people?

The local community are already articulating their needs. Mental Heath Campaigners have argued that the current facilities are stigmatising and inadequate. In addition to the inpatient wards we need comprehensive primary care, outpatient facilities and ‘recovery houses’ on site – places where the focus is on the prevention of acute episodes and the transition between services is a smooth one, not the traumatic experience it can be now. The government has said that mental health should have the same priority as physical health, we demand that this pledge is put into action on the St Ann’s site.

If BEHMHT and the new GP commissioners of NHS services, Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG) really cared about our health in the future they would pay more attention to the welfare of our children. Haringey has one of the worst records for child development by the age of 5 in the country. This is unacceptable. We must ensure that everything possible is done to avoid tragedies like Victoria Climbie and Baby P ever happening again. Child Development Services on the St Ann’s site are currently provided by Whittington Health. They propose a new Child Development Centre on the site, one that brings together Health, Local Authority and Mental Health services, integrated to focus on the needs of the child irrespective of organisational boundaries. Local Councillors have expressed support for integrated services, but what has happened? Nothing! We demand the best possible children’s services, nothing less is acceptable.

Hospitals can be significant drivers in local regeneration. In addition to the health services they can be a place that provides jobs and training for local people and attract other services and community facilities. We want a hospital that is the pride of our community, not just a collection of disparate services shoved into the corner of the site so that BEHMHT can offload its ‘liability’.

These are just some of the proposals that we know of. What do you need? What do you think should be provided on the site? What can improve the health of local people and reduce health inequalities in the borough?

Public Meeting

Thursday 22nd August, 7pm @ Chestnut Community Centre, 280 St Ann's Road, N15

All welcome - please come and help campaign for local health services we deserve and need!
https://www.facebook.com/HaringeyNeedsStAnnsHospital?ref=stream

St Ann's Hospital is our local health service provider. We should be developing and improving it for all local people. Despite repeated calls for the health services on the site to be based on an assessment of local health needs we are hearing proposals that the same services could operate on a much smaller site with private companies taking over other areas for their own needs and profits. This is unacceptable! We demand health services that will improve our health now and for our children's future needs.

Please come to the meeting and help campaign for the excellent health services we deserve and need in Haringey!

Migrant Political Activists Support Reverend Paul Nicolson's Anti-Benefit Cuts Stance in Haringey

 

On Thursday 1 August I operated as Secretary of the non-party-political Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group that benefits Brent & Camden & Beyond, as we say in the KUWG. On Friday I was in Haringey Green Party branding, supporting council tax protester Revd Paul Nicolson of Tottenham outside Tottenham Magistrates Court. Clarence was the face of the KUWG for the photo-shoot attended by a photographer from the Haringey Independent and others — including Tottenham's post thundery shower midges that left me with souvenirs of the occasion today!

The police objected to the idea of people being photographed against the backdrop of the Magistrates Court, and so we had to be photographed with our backs to the main road.

Among those who attended, there was a family from Derbyshire who read of Paul Nicolson's stand in Wednesday's Daily Mirror: “Reverend Paul Nicolson: Retired Anglican vicar ready to go to jail in his battle for poor”. Paul was also supported by Haringey Housing Action/Haringey Solidarity Group people, Claire Glasman and Petra Dando of Camden United for Benefit Justice. Clarence of KUWG was also one of those who went into the court with Paul and Paul's son and daughter. Paul's son joked with me that he had come along to disown his father when Paul gets sent down. (I had told Paul's son that it was great that he was there in support of his father, in contrast with the way that one of Mahatma Gandhi's sons was so disgusted with his own upbringing that he became a Muslim.)

Before going into the court, Paul gave a great speech that follows in the pattern of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech 50 years ago this 28 August, updating and relocating it to mention wiping out the meanness of sanctions, £71.60 a week JSA and low birth weight futures. (There is currently a low birth weight rate in parts of Tottenham that is higher than Turkey's.) Paul concluded by saying that he is prepared to go to prison or to only pay his Council Tax when Haringey Council start using it to genuinely help Haringey residents stay in Haringey. I summarised, "So you are keen to pay for Council services but not Council disservices.

"Absolutely!" he affirmed.

Epilogue: For information regarding what went on in the court, see Jaber Mohamed's report, “Reverend Paul Nicolson uses appearance at Enfield and Haringey Magistrates Court to appeal for leniency for victims of benefit cuts.” And more information regarding , what the Chairperson of Taxpayers Against Poverty's very public stance is about than Chairman of the bench Freddy Lawson could tolerate, go to the Taxpayers Against Poverty website.

 

By Alan Wheatley of Haringey Green Party and Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

Big Bad Corn

This graphic was sent to us by a kindred spirit organisation in the US (http://www.learnstuff.com/). I think it demonstrates very well the problems caused by bio fuels. Ironically, big business pushes bio fuels as a 'green' alternative to oil based fuels, and a cure for climate change.

Here is the presentation.................

If you’ve ever creeped your way through a corn maze at Halloween, you know how it can grab ahold of your imagination, turning benign stalks into monsters and discarded cobs into severed limbs. It’s just a trick of the light–but take a look at the ways that the U.S. uses corn, and you’ll see that a holiday thrill isn’t the scariest thing about this product. It was first subsidized in the late ‘70s as a fossil fuel alternative, but it’s turned out to be inefficient source of fuel. Not only that, ethanol from corn actually increases the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a higher rate than gasoline. Yet, the U.S. pays $10 to $30 billion dollars each years in farm subsidies to raise even more of it, with no clear benefit to consumers. So every time you eat a pound of corn products–which statistics say you will do 37 times over this year alone–remember this graphic, which was created so you can learn stuff about the effects of corn, America’s biggest agricultural product.

The Ethical Case for People Power

Politics is far too important to be left to politicians. They are often the last people to get the message on social justice and human rights. Much of the time, pressure for social reform is first initiated outside of parliament by campaign groups like Greenpeace and Animal Aid, using challenging, even provocative, methods of protest. These extra-parliamentary activists are frequently the true sparks and catalysts of political change.

What do Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst and Martin Luther King have in common? They all used direct action protest as a way of winning human rights and social justice.

Pleading with politicians was not their style. They tried conventional lobbying but found that writing letters to MPs and having tea with government ministers did not work.

Faced with an unresponsive political establishment, they staged street demonstrations, organised hunger strikes and sit-ins, refused to pay taxes and ambushed political leaders. By these means, India won its independence, women got the vote and racial segregation was ended in the USA.

Two decades ago, direct action secured one the biggest ever political climb-downs in modern British history. Margaret Thatcher’s much-hated Poll Tax was defeated when millions refused to pay and hundreds of thousands protested in the streets. Opposition MPs had proven powerless to stop the Poll Tax. But when people took power into their own hands, Thatcher’s flagship policy collapsed.

The defeat of the Poll Tax illustrates a very important principle: ordinary people have great power, if they choose to use it. Moreover, democracy is about more than voting once every five years. Having your say in a general election is fine, but not enough.

Something as important as running the country should never be left to politicians. Look at the mess they have created: their loosening of financial regulation paved the way for cowboy capitalism and the current economic meltdown. They have allowed criminal bankers to escape prosecution for the mass frauds they committed. The consequences? Mass unemployment and the decimation of people’s savings and pensions; plus savage cuts in public services, to the point where, to save money, some patients are being refused treatment by the NHS. It’s a scandal of monumental proportions. No wonder so many people are disillusioned with traditional politics. Hundreds of thousands are deserting the ballot box and turning to direct action protest instead. The student protests and “occupy” movements are giving voice to the anger of millions. 

Sometimes, it is pointless looking to politicians for help. They are often the cause of the problem. The vast majority of people are against genetically modified food, but the government insists that unsafe crop trials must continue. Three quarters of the public want an elected House of Lords but rebel MPs have succeeded in scuppering every attempt at democratisation. There was mass opposition to the war in Iraq but Tony Blair and a majority of MPs rode roughshod over the people’s will.

When politicians ignore the wishes of the people and break their promises, direct action is the only option left. Who can blame Greenpeace for wrecking GM crops and hunt saboteurs for saving foxes from being torn to shreds by dogs? Their methods got results when lobbying the government had failed.

The arguments for and against direct action revolve around two fundamentally different styles of politics. Representative democracy is the system where MPs are elected to represent their constituents and act on their behalf. This tends to encourage elitism and paternalism in politicians, and disempowerment and passivity among the electorate.

Participatory democracy is, in contrast, about people being involved in the political process in an on-going way, rather than only at election time. They take power for themselves, instead of handing over responsibility to professional politicians. This ensures better checks and balances against the abuse of power and against the way MPs so often neglect public opinion.

Direct action is the highest form of participatory democracy. People take power and represent themselves. They get involved in political decision-making, and through their own efforts bring about social change.

Having taken part in more than 3,000 direct action protests over the last 45 years, the beneficial effects are self-evident to me.

Take, for example, the issue of police victimisation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. By 1989, the number LGBT people arrested for consenting, victimless behaviour was greater than in 1966, the year before the so-called decriminalisation of homosexuality. Respectable gay organisations like Stonewall lobbied the police, but were ignored. Then, in 1990, the queer rights group OutRage! began a high-profile direct action campaign to challenge harassment.

We invaded police stations, busted entrapment operations, photographed undercover officers and hounded the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

These were controversial tactics, but within three months the police were pleading with us to join them at the negotiating table. Soon afterwards they began their first serious dialogue with the LGBT community. Before a year had passed, they had agreed to most of our demands for a non-homophobic policing policy. Within three years, the number of men convicted of ‘gross indecency’ (consensual same-sex behaviour) fell by two-thirds - the biggest, fastest fall ever recorded. Our campaign helped save thousands of LGBTs from arrest, prosecution and criminal records.

My conclusion? Direct action can be a highly effective way to change things for the better – and sometimes the only way. When well planned, it works.

An imaginative protest can be a very dramatic, headline-grabbing way to draw public attention to injustices that might otherwise be ignored or overlooked. If you can get a protest in the news, it helps raise awareness of the issue and puts people in power under pressure to address your concerns.

Many of my direct action protests have involved civil disobedience - deliberate law-breaking modelled on the sit-ins of the US black civil rights campaigners in the 1960s. Indeed, in the early 1970s, I was involved in sit-ins at pubs in London that, in those days, refused to serve “queers”.

Breaking the law can be ethically justified in three circumstances: when politicians ignore the wishes of the majority, break their election promises or violate human rights.

Sometimes, of course, the majority will may conflict with the protection of human rights. This happened in Nazi Germany, where most people, either explicitly or tacitly, colluded with the persecution of Jews. In such cases, the protection of human rights should always trump majority opinion. No majority has the right to victimise minorities.

Direct action can be a vital mechanism for the defence of democracy and liberty, against the abuse of state power or mob tyranny, as exemplified by the suffragettes and the Anti-Nazi League.

Far from threatening the democratic process, protest from outside the parliamentary system protects and enhances democracy - acting as a much-needed counter-balance to the frequent arrogance, self-interest and elitism of political parties and politicians. Power to the people!

Written by Peter Tatchell

For more information about Peter Tatchell’s human rights and social justice campaigns: http://www.petertatchell.net/

Mark Duggan: the lessons the police haven't learned

Last week I attended the funeral of Bruno Hall. It is a year since his son, Mark Duggan (pictured), was shot and killed by police officers on the streets of Tottenham. Bruno was given his send-off in the same church as Mark, and buried in the same plot. For the hundreds of mourners, it felt like we were reliving the trauma and emotion of Mark's death all over again.

Bruno passed away not knowing why his son had been killed. One of the last things he said to me was that he had more unanswered questions than he had on the day of Mark's death. Much has been written about Mark's killing and the subsequent disorder that spread across the country. However, it would appear that very little has been learnt about its root causes, especially by those in positions of power.

The riots that took place in Tottenham did not happen because of the shooting of Mark Duggan: if this was the case the rioting would have started on 4 August, the day he was slain. The rioting was sparked by the inadequate response to demonstrators who had gathered outside Tottenham police station two days later to voice their unhappiness over the treatment of Mark's parents. This is important and must be acknowledged if we are to avoid future outbreaks of social unrest.

The Metropolitan Police Service has clearly not learned this. It was forced to apologise publicly to Mark's parents, after failing in its legal requirement to inform them of their son's death. But it still doesn't understand that had it performed its basic duties, demonstrators need never have gone to the police station. And if we hadn't attended there would have been no rioting that evening. It is that simple. Yet, even after having apologised, the Met still compiled a report, Four Days in August, that sought to lay the blame for the riots on those who led the peaceful protest. Clearly they should be focusing on improving the way they respond to such incidents – or, better still, trying to ensure such incidents do not arise in the first place.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigation into the operation that led to Mark's death is another great concern to the family. The IPCC meets regularly with family members in what they call "update meetings", but actually tell them very little.

The whole issue of disclosure of information, or the lack of it, has become a significant feature of this investigation, with the inquest coroner having to demand that the IPCC hands over all its evidence for him to examine. But it's hard to know what this evidence amounts to, as the officers involved in the shooting still refuse to give statements or to be questioned directly by the IPCC. There is also the suggestion that the laws that keep secret any telephone-tapping activity by the security services may be enacted in this case – meaning that an open inquest, where all the evidence is presented to a coroner and a jury, might never take place. It's as though a veil of secrecy has been thrown over the entire investigation. This clearly undermines the confidence that the family, and many within the community, have in the IPPC's ability to conduct a thorough, transparent and robust investigation.

It is ironic then that, in the time the IPCC has taken to tell us so little, there have been three separate "independent" reviews, published with much fanfare, that are already gathering dust. The Tottenham Community Panel's review, Taking Tottenham Forward, was led by Haringey councillors and their friends. While well-meaning in its focus on the regeneration of the high road, its buzz words and jargon mean little as the report has few measurable targets or milestones. How will the local authority, Haringey, develop training, jobs or opportunities for those who live in its depressed estates that are the breeding grounds for the potential demonstrators and rioters of the future? Added to this is the recent unwarranted involvement of the police, whose interference and intrusive style of policing led to the last-minute cancelling of an event to commemorate Bruno's life and passing. Incidents like this mean there will always be the potential for conflict between those with power and the powerless.

Despite all of the investigations and reviews of the last 12 months, there is a real sense within some sections of the community of not having been involved or listened to by anyone in authority. Things such as this only serve to exacerbate the local people's long-felt and deep sense of marginalisation and injustice. We should have learnt that these are the ingredients for a "perfect storm", which can break out any time.

Written by Stafford Scott and first published in The Guardian

One year on from the riots: could money solve Tottenham’s problems?

Voltaire once said, “When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.” I’m not so sure about that.

Shortly after the riots ended last year, Tottenham has received a wave of investment into its local economy. However, money alone cannot solve the area’s problems and unless they are dealt with head on we run the risk of more civil unrest.

Sir William Castell’s business coalition set up a £1m High Street Fund to support Tottenham’s local business community. The department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) has awarded grants to 150 businesses totalling £365,000 and more than £1m of rate relief has been awarded to date.

Tottenham Hotspur FC has made a decision to remain in the area. The GLA has promised to turn a building damaged in an arson attack last year into a £3m enterprise hub. Tottenham’s local business community have received support by various government bodies.

All of this is needed and welcome. In fact, we need more! And Haringey Council have put together a budget for youth provision this summer. This is a temporary measure, but I hope it will be expanded. The council have committed to fund a new employment and skills programme worth £4.5m which is good. On top of that, their £1.5m One Borough One Fund is great.

But the 80% cut to youth services is still on the minds of young people. Hundreds of businesses’ riots damages claims are yet to be settled. Unemployment levels are still too high. It’s a tough battle.

The riots have spurred new investment into the local community. But we have got to make sure that this isn’t a short-term fix to a long problem. Tottenham has now got two riots bookending a generation and the socio-economic harm caused by these events will not be healed quickly.

The fact that another riot has happened again 20 years after the Broadwater Farm Riots must serve as a pertinent reminder of the problems with short-term thinking.

Money can’t fix everything: it can’t pay people to forget the fact that Mark Duggan’s death has not been properly investigated. It cannot buy a change in law to allow the coroner to interview police officers about what happened minutes before the shooting.

It can’t buy the justice that so many people seek. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, David Lammy MP warned us of the similarities with the Broadwater Farm Riot. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had to prove its worth. So far, it hasn’t proved to be totally effective.

What money can do, though, is provide opportunities. We could, for example, have big businesses in Tottenham guarantee jobs for local people. Those who have got Olympic jobs could be helped in the post-Olympic transition to long-term jobs. We could maintain the number of police officers in the area, instead of having to cut them. We do need investment: in the right places and for the right reasons.

While the investment is a step in the right direction we must not forget what matters most. The Broadwater Farm Riots taught us that no amount of investment could buy people. In the aftermath, the council invested in the estate that improved the area.

But you can’t pay away anger and resentment. One year on from the riots, let’s not make the mistake of forgetting. We’ve got no excuses. Beneath all the pound signs lies a sometimes silent frustration that only needs another spark.

Written by Alvin Carpio who was the Organiser of the Citizens’ Inquiry into the Tottenham Riots

This piece was first published at Liberal Conspiracy

Disabled workers strike over closure of Haringey Remploy factory

Disabled workers in Haringey joined a 24-hour nationwide strike last week to protest against government plans to close a string of factories and throw thousands out of work.

Workers from the Remploy factory in Hermitage Road, South Tottenham brandished protest banners outside the premises during industrial action last Thursday.

Strikes took place at all 54 Remploy factories in the UK after employees voted for industrial action in ballots carried out by the GMB and Unite unions.

Strike action was called following the government’s decision earlier this month to close 27 Remploy factories, including the Haringey site, by the end of the year, leading to the loss of 1,700 jobs in total.

Phil Davies, GMB national secretary, said: “Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith is systematically destroying lives by his hard-hearted actions. We will continue our campaign by all means at our disposal.”

Under the plans, a further nine factories face an uncertain future and the remaining 18 sites across the country are due to close or be sold off next year.

Another 24-hour strike by Remploy workers in protest at the closures is due today.

Remploy was set up in 1945 to employ wounded soldiers. The business still provides jobs for disabled workers today.

A version of this article was first published at The Hornsey Journal.

Tottenham Community Rallies to Save Historic Market

On Thursday 26th July the Wards Corner Community Coalition (WCC) launches their exciting community-led plan to regenerate Seven Sisters indoor market in a further show of defiance against Haringey Council and developer Grainger PLC's plans to demolish this much loved community asset.

The Wards Corner market building has been an icon of Seven Sisters since it first opened for business in the early 1900s. The elegant, steel-frame, red-brick structure housed Wards Furnishing Stores, a classic London department store, until it closed in 1972.

Today Wards Corner is the home of a diverse and bustling local market, including London's most vibrant cluster of Latin-American traders.

Dark Clouds over Wards Corner

On 25th June 2012, after years of controversy and community outcry, Haringey Council backed with a 5-4 vote a plan led by one of the UK's biggest landlords, Grainger PLC, to demolish the building and replace it with a residential and commercial development which would be prohibitively expensive for the existing occupants to return to. Haringey Council is a development partner of Grainger on the project, and has been unresponsive to the concerns of local residents.

Mrs Malti Patel has been running a successful shop on West Green Road, part of the coveted development site at Seven Sisters tube for 30 years, but now feels fearful and betrayed. “The council should be protecting hard-working, honest people like me, but I am being ignored. I will lose my business, my job, my friends, my security and my home,” she said.

The Wards Corner Community Coalition (WCC), a campaigning group formed by local residents and traders, has been fighting this one-size-fits-all planning approach since 2007. In an early WCC victory for the community, a judicial review and court of appeals ruling quashed an earlier plan by Grainger in 2010.Then, with huge public support including over 2000 signatures from local traders and residents, and in collaboration with  Planning Aid for London, English Heritage, Friends of the Earth and the Federation of Small Businesses, they managed to see off another version of the same project by the developer in July 2011.

The Community Plan

In defiance of Grainger’s planning approval for demolition, the community proposes an alternative plan based on restoration and developing the area’s existing character and strengths. WCC propose to restore the heritage character of the building and retain the existing market and small businesses whilst providing for new retail and restaurant space, an art gallery, performance space and a community room for events and meetings. WCC also foresees a wider regeneration of the area creating new affordable housing on the site around the market and bringing empty buildings back into use, addressing the goals set out in the original development brief.

Abigail Stevenson, an architectural designer who has worked with the WCC to develop the new Community Plan, stresses the need for planning to engage with and reflect the wishes of the local community. “A community-led alternative would be much better and more appropriate,” says Stevenson. “Architecture is not just about building buildings. You have to engage with people, because if people aren't on board with your ideas, they're not going to work.”

Local resident Candy Amsden, who is a long-time member of the Wards Corner Community Coalition, remembers well her first impressions on entering the Edwardian building:

“I saw this amazing space, and an amazing possibility. There's a set of sky-lights with beautiful cornicing and light just pours in around the pillars inside,” she said.

Amsden sees the Community Plan as a way to foster local enterprise in post-riots Tottenham.

"Small businesses will use other small businesses, they'll use the local accountant, local suppliers. Tesco's and Sainsbury's won't do that," she said.

WCC continues to make their case for community-led development with the plan’s public unveiling this week in Tottenham, which will focus on gathering further feedback and questions from local residents and traders through open small-group discussion.

The Community Plan application has been submitted to the Haringey Council planning authorities, and will be launched publicly at Tottenham Chances at 7pm on Thursday 26th July.

Press:

Email wardscornercommunity@riseup.net

+44 (0)7908 705 377

For info on the community plan including images:

WardsCornerCommunityPlan.wordpress.com

Greece Can’t Repay Its Debts With Austerity Medicine

As the so called ‘troika’ (European Union [EU], International Monetary Fund [IMF], and European Central Bank [ECB]) deliberates over whether to release funds to Greece in their latest ‘bail out’ attempt to keep it in the Euro, the simple fact is that Greece cannot repay its debts by making further cuts to jobs, wages and public services.

The ‘bail out’ let us remember is not intended to be a helping hand for the Greek people, but to save the international and national banks that lent money to the Greek government so recklessly and are now threatened with going bust, should Greece default on these loans. At best, any ‘bail out’ will only delay the inevitable for a while, because all the flesh has already been cut from the bone, and Greece is, after nearly five years of recession, falling further into debt, with a 7% drop in growth in the last year alone. The latest plan can only prolong Greece’s recession and will probably make it even worse.

Ironically, in the land where democracy was born, democracy has been suspended during this crisis, with an unelected Prime Minister and commissioners from the EU now running the country’s financial policies. There has even been a suggestion from the German government that the Greek general election, due in in April this year, be postponed so that the latest EU financial offer is not rejected by the people. At best, a gun will be held to the heads of Greek voters, effectively demanding that they endorse the austerity measures in a ballot.

Understandably, the Greek people have taken to the streets with widespread rioting across the country, in opposition to the policies being inflicted on them by remote political and economic elites. Political parties of the left are close to gaining a parliamentary majority in the latest opinion polls, and these parties have said that they will reject the austerity measures as they stand. Whether this would lead to expulsion from the Euro, and even the EU, is not clear, but if more favourable terms are not offered to Greece, it looks as though they will default on their debts, which is likely to lead to an exit from the Euro at least.

There is a precedent of sorts for this situation. In 2001 Argentina defaulted on its debts, and rejected the IMF imposed austerity programme. There was a run on the Argentine Peso, factories closed, and inflation ran riot, amid much pain for the people. But at least they had hit rock bottom economically, from where the only way was up. A new government in 2003 introduced heterodox (left wing) economic policies, setting aside large amounts of money for social welfare spending. With a cheap Peso, exports began to increase and Argentina got back on its feet again.

Argentina has more in the way of natural resources than Greece, and the world economic outlook was much better than that of today, where we are in the worst recession since the 1930’s, if not worse. For Greece though, the alternative is a decade of recession and austerity, with probably a higher national debt than it has now. Some choice.

If Greece does default on its debts; it will have a serious and negative effect on the world and particularly the European economy, including Britain. But we can’t stand by and watch the Greek people being punished like they are, just to prop up the banks, and should show support and solidarity with them. There is lesson for the UK here too, where austerity policies have led to misery for the people and an increase of £158bn in our national debt.

For the first time in Greece a documentary produced by the audience. See the excellent film "Debtocracy" here.

The photo above from The Guardian

Counter Power: Making Change Happen by Tim Gee

If you've ever stood on a windy street corner handing out leaflets to disinterested shoppers, or traipsed from Embankment to Hyde Park Corner and found yourself wondering “What am I doing here? How does this help further the cause to which I am committed?”, then this is definitely not the book for you. In fact, it's hard to know exactly who this book is for. It's not really political theory, because there isn't much theory in it. It isn't really practical tips for organisers either, because most of the examples which occupy so much of the book don't apply to capitalist democracies like Britain. There is little attempt to evaluate either tactics or overall strategies.

Gee asserts the legitimacy of 'counterpower', by which he means popular dissent and protest, then categorises it into Ideas Counterpower (conventional campaigning such as leaflets, petition and media strategy), Economic Counterpower (strikes and boycotts), and Physical Counterpower (everything from non-violent demonstrations to insurrections). He then spends the bulk of the book describing various popular struggles at considerable length, including the movement for independence in India, the campaign against the Vietnam War in the US (with walk-on parts for the UK supporters), and the struggle to overthrow Apartheid in South Africa in terms of the categories he has created.

The end result is a sort of relentlessly cheerful history of protests movements, with most of the politics taken out. There is no indication that either the anti-war struggle in American or the overthrow of Apartheid owed anything to the global balance of forces; the USSR may have been a really rotten model for how to construct an alternative society, but there can be little doubt that its military and geopolitical strategy in the Cold War acted as a brake on American power. But this does not even appear to have crossed Tim Gee's mind.

If you don't know anything about the history of protests around the world, you could do worse than read this book. But if you really want some strategic direction about how to make change happen, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Written by Jeremy Green
Haringey Green Party

Public Sector Unions set to Strike on 30th November

On Wednesday 30th November, probably millions of public sector workers will take industrial action in opposition to the ConDem government’s attack on their pensions. From nurses to teachers, from local authority staff to civil servants, this promises to be a dramatic statement of rejection of the government’s plans to make public servants work longer, pay more into their pensions, and receive less when they retire.

The unions taking part, with the ballot results are as follows:

AEP 64% for strike action
ASPECT 75.1% for strike action
ATL (30 June ballot mandate still valid)
CSP 86% England & Wales for strike action (89.1% Scotland)
FDA 81% for strike action
GMB 83.7% for strike action
NAHT 75.8% for strike action
NASUWT 82% for strike action
NUT (30 June ballot mandate still valid)
PCS (30 June ballot mandate still valid)
Prospect 75% for strike action
SCP 85.3% for strike action
SOR 86% for strike action
UCATT 83% for strike action
UCU (30 June ballot mandate still valid)
Unison 82% for strike action
Unite 75% for strike action

The government spin has been all about ‘gold plated’ public sector pensions, but in reality, the average public sector pension (median, i.e. the one that 50% will receive) is a paltry £5,600 per year. Not even copper plated, let alone gold plated. The government is trying to divide and rule, by pointing to the private sector, where most workers are not in inflation linked pensions, as the model for the public sector. It has long been an attraction of public sector employment that although the pay is lower than in the private sector, at least the pensions were reliable. Indeed two in three private sector workers have no workplace pension at all. These workers without a pension should not direct their anger at public sector workers, but should be livid at the extraordinary costs of providing pensions' tax relief, with two-thirds of the £30 billion bill going to higher rate taxpayers.

This latest assault on public sector pensions comes after the government reduced the rate at which pension’s rise, by moving from the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which excludes housing costs, and generally runs at about 1% less than RPI. Whilst at the same, the government refuses to do anything about pay, bonuses and the pension arrangements of those in boardrooms of private corporations, even the banks, some which are publically owned, and most of who received bail outs from the public purse.

But we are well used to this kind of hypocrisy from the government, where everything possible must be done to encourage the so called ‘wealth creators’, who are really responsible for creating chaos and poverty in our economy, but are revered rather like rock stars. I’ve never understood why rich people need to be paid more to encourage them to work harder, but poorer people need to be paid less.

The Green party supports public sector workers in this fight for fair treatment and our two London Assembly Members, Jenny Jones and Darren Johnston will not be going to work on 30th November, as a statement of solidarity with those taking action. There is a march in London, starting at 12.00 noon from Lincoln Inns Field to a rally at Victoria Embankment, plus a protest at the GLA building at 12 noon also. There are hundreds of events planned all over the country on the day, check here for details.

Locally, there will be a rally in support of the industrial action at the College Of North East London (CONEL) at 10am on the day and Haringey Alliance for Public Services (HAPS) is intending to visit picket lines around the borough, to give support to striking workers. Please join them as it is good for morale when the public shows support for their cause. There is also a protest at Haringey Civic Centre, beginning 12.00 noon.

Shell Death Rope - In Memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa

Shell Death Rope - In Memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa from You and I Films on Vimeo.

On the 9th of November 2011 at a Shell-sponsored awards ceremony in the swanky corporate offices of the CBI (Britain’s biggest business lobby group), young entrepreneurs are looking towards a bright future.
Sixteen years ago, Shell made sure that Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other young Nigerian activists had no future. On 10th November 1995, Shell was complicit in their execution at the hands of the Nigerian military government for campaigning against the devastation of their homeland the Niger Delta by oil companies, in particular Shell.

And every day, all over the world – from building dodgy pipelines in Rossport, Ireland, to mining the world’s most polluting oil from the Canadian tar sands – Shell’s oil exploration and extraction activities undermine our collective future by pushing us ever closer to the brink of climate catastrophe. At the same time, it rakes in billions in profit every month, while the rest of us struggle to get by.

Shell doesn’t want us to remember these horrific things. So it channels a miniscule fraction of its obscene profits into sponsoring events like Livewire – not to mention most of the major arts and cultural institutions in London.

That’s why we’re here tonight: to remember – and to resist.

Nigeria: Shell’s dirty secret

The hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues – whose only crime was to speak out for environmental and social justice – caused shock and outrage around the world. But whatever we might like to think, the human rights abuses perpetrated by Shell continue to this day. Shell’s routine payments to armed militants exacerbate armed conflict, and oil spills and gas flaring continue to devastate the fragile environment of the Niger Delta and the lives of the people who live there. But resistance continues as well; the UN has issued a damning report on the ecological impact of oil spills in Ogoni, and Shell was recently forced to admit liability and pay out millions of pounds in compensation for two massive oil spills after a lawsuit filed in London.

Sponsorship: buying us off

Sponsorship of events like Livewire is one of the most important ways Shell tries to protect its reputation and buy our acceptance. By sponsoring a social 'good' like an award to help young entrepreneurs, the oil giant is able to represent itself as a responsible organisation, and distract our attention from its environmental and social crimes around the world. By being here tonight, we strike a blow to Shell’s precious brand, chip away at Shell’s powerful position in our society, and move towards the day when Big Oil – like Big Tobacco – is no longer seen as a socially acceptable.

Remember climate change?

Climate change may have disappeared from the news recently, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is already claiming 300,000 lives a year. Glaciers, permafrost and sea ice are disappearing. Sea levels are rising, seasons changing and extreme weather becoming more extreme. As temperatures rise, we’ll see more flooding, more drought, more disease, more famine and more war, creating hundreds of millions of refugees and causing the destruction of entire ecosystems and species.

We can’t afford to forget about climate change – or the fact that companies like Shell are at the heart of the problem.

For more information and to get involved:

risingtide.org.uk
Twitter: @shelldeathrope and @risingtide_UK

Occupy London SX TV Debate

This is a short discussion on the Occupy movement, between an oaf from the Tax Payers Alliance, which is a right wing pressure group, close to the Tory party, and Guardian journalist, Polly Toynbee. In my view, Polly spoils it a bit with her talk of 'good' capitalism, which is rather a contradiction in terms, but she shows up the bloke from Tax Payers Alliance as a shallow apologist for corporate capitalism.

Green Party Leader Gives Support to Occupy London Stock Exchange

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the England and Wales Green party, will today attend the protest by ‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’, which has continued for the last three days, with hundreds of demonstrators camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, close to the heart of the City of London financial district.

Initially, the police had tried to disperse the crowd on Sunday, but were stopped by the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, canon chancellor of St Paul’s, who was happy to see the peaceful protest continue.

The Green party leader said, “As awareness increases of the injustice and unsustainability of the global economic system, more and more people are taking to the streets in opposition.

"The camp that has been set up a stone's throw from the London Stock Exchange is an opportunity to explore a different kind of future to the one the mainstream political parties have constructed.

"The authorities must now respect the right to peaceful protest.

"If they have any sense, they will also start to listen to the voices of those ordinary - and extraordinary people - who want to invest in a greener, fairer future rather than the stocks-and-shares house of sand that sustains corporate capitalism."

The demonstration was inspired by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement in the United States, and spread to many cities financial districts all around the world, with the same aim, of calling for an end to the disastrous corporate capitalist system which is ruining lives everywhere, and is the effective cause of the worldwide financial crisis.

The London group have released this statement about why they are protesting:

The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.

We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

We support the strike on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

Tottenham Riots – Public Consultation with Police and Haringey Council

It looked good on paper: a public meeting at the College of North East London (CONEL) on 21 September, arranged by the head of Haringey Council at which the recent riots in Tottenham would be discussed, and suggestions welcomed for how to heal the area. I went with my neighbour - K - who was delighted on our arrival to see a packed hall containing so many of her old friends, activists she'd known and worked with when she lived at Broadwater Farm in the eighties.

The meeting began in a sedate and respectful manner, as we heard the first two speakers: Symeon Brown, who is involved with the excellently-named HYPE (Haringey Young People Empowered), and Sharon Grant, who spoke of the hostility often encountered by her late husband Bernie, and also referred to the possibly dangerous effects of the cuts favoured by our millionaire ConDem masters. The third speaker was Council leader, Claire Kober, to be followed by questions from the body of the hall. It was after Ms. Kober's few anodyne remarks that the feeling in the hall abruptly changed.

First of all, the "Chair" who was in charge clearly had his own agenda i.e. to prevent anyone saying or asking anything remotely embarrassing or challenging. He (one 'Fred Ellis' - who he?) spent the entire time interrupting and barracking questioners; secondly, the vast numbers wishing to pose questions were selected by the handing over of a microphone, which mostly DIDN'T WORK (!!!) so they could barely be heard anyway, unless they shouted.

The first questioner was a woman seated immediately behind us, so we could hear her perfectly. She was also so angry that she could probably be heard in Ealing. Her challenge to Claire Kober was that Haringey Council bore some responsibility for the events of August because of their swingeing cuts to youth services, such as the closing of number ten Broad Lane, which had been a centre for youth-oriented groups, but had been re-assigned by Haringey as commercial offices, thereby hurling the youths onto the street.

Claire Kober stated that the woman was wrong, and that there had been no such closure. The woman erupted in fury, "How can you say that, I WORKED there!" Oops.

Ms. Kober, clearly thinking on her feet, or maybe using them for thinking, suggested that she 'would be around' after the meeting, and would discuss the matter with the woman privately.

Hm. Except this is an alleged public meeting, and the woman's perfectly legitimate question had not been answered, or even addressed, just lied about, while she herself was accused of lying.

And now, suddenly, there was anger in the room. Perhaps Ms. Kober was demonstrating to us how to start a riot? She was fortunate that the hall was filled, not with disaffected youth, but veterans of community spirit and action, and that they were determined to force the 'top table' to confront the underlying causes of the disturbances of August. There were dozens of hands up after this, people wishing to ask questions, but they were all ignored, as the Police Acting Assistant Commissioner got up to make his contribution. Steven Kavanagh (pictured above) looked and sounded like he'd been educated at Eton. He was immediately challenged by a man behind us, who said that he was a 'people's reporter', and that he'd gone to the scene of the riots to witness them for himself. It was self-evident, he said, that the police were only interested in protecting the police station, but that the rest of Tottenham could burn to the ground, for all they cared. There was no response to that either.

Stafford Scott is also involved with HYPE and, despite the attempts of the Chair to subvert his speech, managed to make a very eloquent one, saying that he had not been surprised one bit by the riots, as the young people he worked with had become ever more marginalised by recent policy, both of central government and the council. Stafford had made a similar argument in The Guardian just after the riots. It is worth a read.

He also referrred to the iniquitous 'Stop and Search' laws, and the fact that the rules have now changed so that when exercising it, the police no longer have to indicate the race of their prey. So we will not know in future that 85% of those stopped and searched are black.

My friend K managed, after about an hour of waving her hand in the air, to get to speak, and she challenged the police representatives about their collusion with the media. She pointed out that the story about Mark Duggan shooting at them appeared in the media before even his family knew what had happened. She also pointed out that the story is of dubious veracity anyway, and was nothing but propaganda.

The late and unheralded arrival of Lynne Featherstone MP, and even later one of David Lammy MP, convinced me that the entire farce was a PR stunt, an attempt to pretend that the authorities cared a whit about the riots, or their effects on Tottenham.

I decanted to the foyer outside the hall, and met a fellow who had missed the contribution of the original speaker. He was furious when he heard what had happened, and vowed to accompany the speaker if she wished to confront Ms. Kober later, as he knew well that HYPE had been turfed out of the same address she was referring to. I also met a woman who had recently gone back to work as a nurse after having children and, in the fifteen years of her absence, could not believe the degree to which the NHS has been privatised, "everything", she said, "has already been outsourced". Then there was the elderly gent who came out of the hall saying to me that he had one fervent wish before he died - to see the end of the forty-year domination of Haringey Council by Labour. They think they're untouchable and can do what they like, he said. Yes, I agreed, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Too right, he said.

I got back to the hall just in time to see Lynne Featherbrain on her feet addressing the crowd. Fortunately, however, she was given the non-working microphone, so nobody heard a word.

On the way home, K asked me what the point of the meeting had been. I didn't know. Why, she said, were we obliged to sit there as if we were in school assembly while we were lectured by the staff, instead of having several 'workshop' groups which might have been more productive. I didn't know that either.

I know that it was a shameful waste of time, and I don't hold out much hope for the achievements of the Haringey Community and Police Consultative Group, if this was their idea of consultation.

Written by ANNIMAC (nom de plume)
Haringey Activist and Green Party Supporter
Photo from the Hornsey Journel

Tottenham People Speak Out About the Recent Riot

Tottenham people speak out in this video about the fatal killing of Mark Duggan by the police, the subsequent IPCC cover up, police harrassment in the area, and the riot that spread across London and numerous English cities.

Why do we have to wait until the end of the year for the IPCC investigation into the shooting? An attempt to brush things under the carpet, I think.

Please share this video with as many people as possible, we need the truth about what happen to Mark Duggan to come out. No whitewash.

Solutions after the riots – what now ?

The aftermath of the riots has seen Cameron authorise use of water cannon and plastic bullets, and an alarming public endorsement of these measures notably by 90% of the sample in one opinion poll.

Most people probably think water cannon just make a crowd unpleasantly wet. Actually, the water comes at a force which can knock you over – or even blind you, if a jet hits you in the eye. If you can bear it, see a photo here of someone blinded in Germany when struck by a water cannon in the face. This weapon is indiscriminate, potentially hitting bystanders and people trying to escape from the scene as well as rioters. Early in this debate, the Green Party called for rejection of water cannon and Jenny Jones’ statement on the web site can be found here.

Rubber and plastic bullets or ‘baton rounds’ have caused around 17 deaths, and some blindings, in Northern Ireland. Children are particularly vulnerable to both, and again, innocent bystanders have been amongst the victims, for example a middle aged woman looking out of a window.

There are calls not just for lethal weaponry against teenagers, but for collective punishment of their families. Wandsworth Council already began eviction proceedings against the mother of a ‘rioter’ – but he had not even been convicted, merely charged! Homelessness is likely to drive people further into crime and joblessness.

No-one doubts that theft and arson deserve to be punished. But in courts sitting through the night, with both magistrates and lawyers reported last week to be falling asleep ? What kind of ‘fair trial’ is that ?

There are calls from Duncan Smith and his ilk for daily persecution of ‘gang members’ by tax authorities, job centre, DVLA, etc. No doubt this would exacerbate the situation and punish the innocent along with the guilty, just like the excessive use of stop and search powers which are one of the main grievances which youth, especially black and Asian youth, have against the police. Indeed the riots in Mare Street and in the Kingsland Road are said to have been provoked at least partly by street searches last weekend.

The Network for Police Monitoring has spoken out against authoritarian policing, saying

‘Tensions created by incessant stop and search operations and aggressive policing have undeniably contributed to the conditions which have led to widespread rioting. Young men from working class communities, especially black communities, have consistently taken the brunt of the ‘harassment style policing’ implemented by the Labour party and continued under the present government.

They have also taken the brunt of police violence. The experience of a police monitor from the Network, who was repeatedly punched to the face and head in the back of a Metropolitan police van after a stop and search, is sadly not an isolated one. What would help is not more ‘robust’ policing, but a police force that does not act in a disproportionate, vindictive or discriminatory way.’

How could that happen if police numbers are cut ? Police have already been working up to 20 hours and more without sleep in the last week. That’s hardly conducive to good decision-making or good tempers, let alone fair working conditions. Cuts in police numbers will also make ‘capital intensive’ solutions like more weaponry seem inevitable. Against the gross injustice of firing first against Mark Duggan and the attack on a 16 year old woman outside Tottenham Police Station, must be set the police mindfulness of Ian Tomlinson’s death and that fact that so far, neither riot control weapons nor horse charges were used. Cameron seems intent on reversing the better parts of recent police tactics.

The University and College Union, with Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, have called for reinstatement of youth services and the Educational Maintenance Allowance, a large increase in JSA, and repeal of the ‘stop and search’ laws, as measures to tackle some of the root causes of the riots. Their petition to the government can be signed here.

In a resolution rejecting both police violence and the ‘cuts’ affecting youth, the Stratford (E.London) branch of the RMT says:-

‘The police killing of Mark Duggan…is not an isolated incident. Violence in custody, predominantly against black people, is routine….Stop and search is used as a daily form of humiliation. Police brutality against demonstrations and any form of political dissidence has increased.

The savage spending cuts imposed upon us by the Coalition Government weaken our communities and create anger and despair, and have fallen disproportionately on the young, the vulnerable and the unemployed. Meanwhile, in the last year alone, the combined fortunes of the 1,000 richest people in Britain rose by 30% to £333.5 billion.’

So these people’s pay rise alone would halve the public sector deficit and allow most of the ‘cuts’ to be reversed. Why is nobody but the Green Party and the far left calling for a serious tax hike on the super-rich ?

We all want justice – against obscene inequality, against thieves and arsonists, for proper compensation of residents and businesses, especially small ones, who suffered in the riots. Long prison sentences for rioters will benefit mainly the private prisons industry – they will introduce those convicted to the university of crime, but not rebuild homes or shops or give people their property back. Long community service orders could be used to help rebuild and clean up. And if the police can offer an amnesty for knives as they did in 2006, which resulted in 100,000 being handed in over five weeks, why not an amnesty for goods stolen in the riots ? Or for guns ? Last but not least, sale of guns, including air pistols and replicas (like the one Mark Duggan converted) should be absolutely banned.

Written By Anne Gray
Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Tottenham 2010