The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (or LGBCE) published its draft recommendations for Brighton and Hove on 1 February and these proposals are under consultation until 11 April 2022. No ward in Brighton Pavilion retains its current boundaries.
Major changes to our local government wards include the abandonment of traditional boundaries between Brighton and Hove wards, with the whole of Westdene being shunted together with Hove Park and a similar fate for parts of Regency and Brunswick & Adelaide wards. Residents in Hollingdean are proposed to be split away from Stanmer and instead merged with current Preston Park residents in a new “Fiveways” ward, while most of the rest of the existing Withdean ward is confusingly renamed “Preston Park”. (Clearly returning to the old name of “Preston”, which existed as a parish and ward for centuries, was too complicated for the commissioners.) There’s a new Round Hill ward as the existing SPNL ward is carved up, with a new Seven Dials, St Peter’s and North Laine ward (that would be SDSPNL!) also being formed.
We urge all residents to study these proposals in detail and submit responses before the deadline of 11 April. You can access the proposals, including interactive maps and all the Commission’s consultation documents here, which is also where you can submit your comments on the proposals and alternative suggestions.
The new local government wards proposed by the LGBCE on 1 February 2022
We also remind residents that there is still an ongoing parliamentary boundary consultation, which has seriously objectionable ramifications for Queen’s Park ward in Brighton Kemptown constituency – as it proposes to move large parts of that ward, including most of the vibrant town centre area commonly identified with Kemptown, into Brighton Pavilion constituency.
We encourage residents to have your say on this before the deadline of 4 April, when the parliamentary boundary consultation closes. You can find detailed information on this separate consultation here and directly access the Commission’s interactive maps displaying its proposed new boundaries, here. A guide to using the Commission’s site and making your comments can be found here.
The new parliamentary boundaries move Queen’s Park ward into Brighton Pavilion
INFORMATION ABOUT THE AGM OF BRIGHTON PAVILION CLP
The AGM of Brighton Pavilion CLP will take place on Saturday 11 December 2021. This will be an online only meeting, beginning 11am. Delegates should check their final meeting papers to confirm start time for registration, which is likely to be from 10am.
(Delegates may recall that the CLP has already held an AGM in May this year. That was the CLP’s Covid-delayed 2020 AGM. With things a little more back to normal, the CLP is proceeding with its usual schedule of holding its annual meeting in December. Hopefully, after this one, Pavilion Labour won’t be holding another CLP AGM before December 2022.)
Candidates and Voting
Valid and confirmed bona fide General Committee (GC) delegates in post for the AGM will be eligible to vote at the CLP AGM and to stand for election to the Executive Committee (EC).
All branches and affiliates must have notified their GC delegates to the CLP Secretary, CLP Assistant Secretary and CLP Treasurer by 11am on 27 November 2021, including each individual’s contact email address and Labour Party membership number.
Elections to the Executive Committee
Elections will be held for the CLP’s Officers and members of the EC. Subject to any constitutional amendments to be considered by the AGM, the EC posts to be elected will comprise:
A. CLP Officers:
Chair
Vice-Chair / Campaigns
Vice-Chair / Membership
Secretary
Treasurer
Women’s Officer
Policy Officer
Youth Officer
BAME Officer
Older People’s Officer
Disability Officer
LGBT+ Officer
Trade Union Liaison Officer
Political Education Officer
Communications and Social Media Officer
The Women’s Officer and at least another three of the elected Officers 1 – 7, a minimum of fifty per cent of the elected Officers, and at least half the Executive Committee must self-identify as women.
The Trades Union Liaison Officer must be a member of a trades union in accordance with national Labour Party rules.
Auditors
The AGM will also elect two auditors for the CLP, at least one of whom must self-identify as a woman.
Labour Group Observers
The AGM will further elect two Labour Group observers and up to four substitutes for the CLP. At least half of the elected postholders must self-identify as women.
Nominations
Nominations are invited for all posts. Except for Chair and Treasurer, all CLP Officer posts may be job-shared by a maximum of two people.
Any branch or affiliated organisation can nominate any bona fide GC delegate as a candidate for election to the EC.
For the avoidance of doubt, nominations are not restricted to any branch or affiliate’s own delegates, but may be made from among all valid GC delegates.
Other Business
The AGM will receive interim accounts and annual reports from Officers and the EC, consider amendments to the constitution of Brighton Pavilion CLP and deal with any motions proposed to the AGM, plus any other urgent business of the CLP.
Deadline for Receipt of Nominations and Other Business
All nominations will close at 11am on Saturday 27 November 2021. Late nominations and proposals will not be accepted.
Nominated candidates must accept their nomination before 11am on Saturday 27 November 2021 and can choose to submit a written statement of up to 150 words in support of their candidacy, for circulation at the CLP AGM. Statements must be submitted before 11am on Saturday 27 November 2021. Late statements or statements which denigrate another candidate will not be accepted. Long statements will be truncated.
Nominations and any other proposals for the AGM, acceptance of nominations and candidate statements, should be submitted to the CLP Secretary by email to secretary@pavilionlabour.org.ukand the CLP Assistant Secretary by email to gc@pavilionlabour.org.uk and copied to the CLP Treasurer by email to treasurer@pavilionlabour.org.uk by 11am on Saturday 27 November 2021. If an acknowledgement is not received within a reasonable period, please re-submit your original email.
Join-in the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice
Saturday 6 November
Assemble 12pm at The Level
Rally 3pm at Hove Lawns
On 6 November 2021, as world politicians meet in Glasgow, towns and cities across the world will take to the streets demanding global climate justice.
If you are able to, please wear red and bring your banners, to join us at the Brighton action, so that we send a loud and clear message to the world leaders discussing our future: we want climate justice now!
Please assemble at 12pm (midday) at The Level, where there will be speakers and a march to the Peace Statue, for a 3pm rally on Hove Lawns, BN3 2WN.
Alternatively, at 7:30pm, join the COP26 Coalition’s digital rally for global justice, bringing together voices of activists across the world, campaigning for climate justice. You can register here or join via Facebook or Instagram.
In the 2017 and 2019 election manifestos, Labour committed itself to the socialist Green New Deal to combat global warming and build a new green economy for a sustainable future. However, the Tories continue to support fossil fuels with the development of new oil, gas and coal fields, despite the growing climate crisis.
World leaders are meeting in Glasgow now at the Global Climate Summit, COP26. The decisions made there will shape how governments respond (or not) to the climate crisis. They will decide who will be sacrificed, who will escape and who will make a profit. COP26 is happening at a crucial moment in our history. Across the world, across communities and across movements, we are seeing a wave of resistance, global solidarity and grassroots organising. We have a unique opportunity to rewire our system as we recover from the pandemic. We can either intensify the crisis to the point of no return, or lay the foundations for a just world where everyone’s needs are met.
We are living through a period of multiple breaking points – from climate to covid to racism. We know that these crises not only overlap, but share the same cause. While no one can escape the impacts of these crises, those who have done least to cause them suffer the most. Across the world, the poorest people and communities of colour are too often those bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. From coastal villages in Norfolk whose sea-defences are eroding faster than ever, to people living by the Niger Delta rivers blackened by oil spillage.
The transformative solutions that we need to survive and build a just and fair world can only be brought about through collective action, solidarity and coordination – from our local communities and internationally. The COP 26 Coalition is bringing together people from across the world to build power for system change – indigenous movements, frontline communities, trades unions, racial justice groups, youth strikers, landworkers, peasants, NGOs, grassroots community campaigns, feminist movements, faith groups – and all of us…
Climate justice won’t be handed to us by world leaders or delivered by big, private corporations. So far, governments have done too little too late: colluding with corporations and hiding behind green-washed “solutions” – promised technological miracles that actually don’t exist yet, don’t address the scale of the problem and, in many cases, rely on an intensification of exploitation of people and our planet. The very things that got us into this predicament in the first place.
No More Cooking the Books: No to Fossil Fuels, Net-zero And False Solutions!
Fight For 1.5C
We Need Real Zero, Not Net Zero
Keep It in The Ground: No New Fossil Fuel Investments or Infrastructure
Reject False Solutions: No to Carbon Markets and Risky and Unproven Technologies
Rewire The System: Start the Justice Transition Now!
Start The Justice Transition
Global Climate Justice: Reparations and Redistribution to The Global South!
Fair share of effort from all rich countries
Cancel the debts of Global South by all creditors
Grant-based climate finance for the Global South
Reparations for the loss and damage already happening in the Global South
The overall increase of 9% also masks gaps in recording where some police forces fail to identify disability hate crimes as such. For example, where police treat hatred towards or abuse of disabled people as anti-social behaviour rather than a hate crime. Other police forces fail to record disability hate separately, in addition to the crime with which it is associated.
Most disabled people believe that the recorded level of disability hate crime is only the tip of the iceberg – making a recorded rise of 9% even more worrying. While there are no standalone aggravated offences for disability hate crime, as there are for race and religion, police officers cannot, for example, charge an offender with an offence of assault aggravated by disability hostility.
Source: Gordon Johnson, Pixabay.com
On top of police failings, when abuse is so common that it is more than an everyday experience for many disabled people, and reporting is feared to be a cumbersome and unsupported process, most disabled people simply do not bother to report incidences of disability hate, particularly when few, if any, shops, entertainment venues or passenger transport services have any staff trained to make reporting of any hate incidents or crimes a quick and easy process.
In previous years, Brighton and Hove City Council’sSafe in the City initiative worked together with local disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) to encourage the reporting of disability hate crime, reach many different disabled people’s groups and develop materials for different communities, ensuring that learning disabled people were specifically included due to the extreme and frequent abuse experienced by people with learning disabilities.
Safe in the City was a hugely valued local service, staffed by expert professionals supporting disabled people who wanted to report the abuse and attacks they suffered and pursue justice. However, more than a decade of Tory austerity cuts to local government have decimated a respected programme of most of its resources. What’s left is over-dependent on funding from Sussex Police budgets, and reflects the shortcomings associated with the police’s own failure to identify and record disability hate crime. And that takes us back to where we came in at the top of this blog…
Disabled people need change – both in the law itself, the way our laws are applied and recorded by the police, and – perhaps, most importantly – in society’s attitude towards disabled people.
Pavilion Labour aims to organise our meetings so that they are accessible to all our members. Is there something we could do differently to help you attend? While the switch to online events helps some members, we are concerned that other members may be struggling with arrangements for virtual meetings, such as the timing of meetings, inadequate captions or with problems obtaining internet / broadband access.
We want to do what we can to ensure that members can attend our meetings. So, we are asking all members struggling with access to contact our Disabled Members’ Branch (DMB) who will be reviewing arrangements for our local Labour Party. Whether you consider yourself disabled or not, please contact the DMB by email to disabilities@pavilionlabour.org.uk with a short description of the issue you have experienced.
After the police violence at the Brighton vigil for Sarah Everard, our Women’s Branch sent a resolution on Women’s Peaceful protest and the Police (shown below) to Pavilion Labour’s General Committee (the ‘GC’ – the policy-making body of our local Labour Party) where it was adopted unanimously. We called for an end to violence against all women and girls, expressed our love and support for all people continuing amid the aftermath of domestic violence, called for a review of disgraceful, aggressive policing of peaceful vigils and urged opposition to the Tory Government’s draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
We remember Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Nicole Smallman, Bibaa Henry – and all the 81 women (allegedly) killed by men this year since Sarah Everard’s murder, as well as their family and friends. (Sadly, since that count was compiled, statistically, that total’s now likely to have risen again, probably more than once.)
As the TUC’s Frances O’Grady says: “Once again, we must ask: how many more times does a woman have to lose her life before we confront male violence? Some say this type of crime is rare. But that is simply not true. Male violence against women and girls is everywhere. It is every day. In our homes, in our workplaces, and in public and digital spaces… We remember Sabina Nessa and all those who have lost their lives to male violence. We stand with survivors. We demand safety. We demand justice. We demand equality.”
Further, after a tribunal ruled that an undercover police officer breached a campaigner’s human rights when he engaged in a sexual relationship, the misogyny and abuse of women by the police must be addressed. The Tory Government should withdraw its recent new and proposed laws extending the powers of all police, pending a fundamental review.
Couzens is not an anomoly
More than 750 Met Police staff have faced sexual misconduct allegations since 2010. Just 83 have been sacked. It’s not women’s behaviour that needs to change but police culture and the misogynist justice system. (Zarah Sultana MP)
Femicide Census highlights a serious problem: “62% of all women killed by men (888/1,425) were killed by a current or former partner” and “a history of abuse was known in 59% of 1,042 femicides committed by current or former partners or other male relatives” and of those, “a third were known to have reported the abuse to the police”.
The Met has tried to distance Couzens’ identity as a murderer from his identity as a police officer, but his sentencing, for the murder of Sarah Everard, heard of warning signs ignored by fellow officers and a deeply embedded culture of misogyny inside the police. The force tasked with keeping us safe repeatedly both failed to identify the dangers Couzens posed to women and failed to prevent his most horrific abuse of power – because violence against women is widespread throughout the police.
Among others, Cressida Dick must take responsibility and resign. The Met telling women to flag down a bus if they don’t trust a police officer is a damning admission. But instead of tackling institutional misogyny, it puts the responsibility on women. We need structural and cultural change, not more victim-blaming “measures”.
When Johnson says making misogyny a hate crime would overload the police, what is he suggesting? The Tories chose to inflict some of their harshest austerity cuts on the justice system. Now we’re seeing the consequences – a PM with no confidence that the police can deal with violent crimes against half the population, backed-up courts and overcrowded prisons. The solution is clear: let’s get the Tories out!
Brighton Pavilion Labour Party extends a warm, personal welcome to all our fellow Party members who will be attending Labour Conference 2021 in our home town from 25 – 29 September. If you know a Labour member coming to #Lab21, please direct them to us!
Delegates and visitors will be able to find us at stand 100 in the Conference Exhibition. Our stall isn’t listed in the Conference Guides, so don’t forget to look our for us and visit your friendly conference hosts. Look out for something similar to our stall from Conference 2019:
We look forward to meeting new friends and welcoming old friends back. Our volunteers can provide you with local tips on where to go and answer your questions about the local area. You can choose from our range of popular handmade badges, hear local campaign news, and take a look at our local campaign materials.
Brighton’s long tradition of radical politics, including some of Britain’s earliest co-operatives and communal healthcare, informs our socialism today. In the Conference Hall, along with sixteen other CLPs, we’ll be asking delegates to support our constitutional amendment (or, rule change) proposing a fully accountable Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP):
Brighton Pavilion CLP has submitted four references back to the National Policy Forum Report, concerning: p.56 – Health and Social Care, p. 72 – Housing, Local Government and Transport, p.81 – International, and p.117 – Work, Pensions and Equality. We’ll post again about these and other references back we’ve heard about and support.
We’re also waiting to hear from Conference Arrangements Committee whether our emergency motion has been accepted onto the Conference agenda. Members of Brighton Pavilion CLP, like most people across Brighton and Hove, have a long history of steadfastly opposing nuclear weapons and supporting nuclear disarmament. Our Executive Officers were considering the Tory Government’s announcement of the AUKUS agreement and agreed to support the call from Labour CND to submit an emergency resolution opposing the AUKUS security pact. We hope that all delegates will get the chance to hear and support this emergency resolution opposing the AUKUS security pact:
Outside of Conference, there’s always lots going on. As we say in Pavilion Labour – celebrate diversity, fight prejudice, and have fun! And we hope that delegates will return to having some fun at Labour Conference this year!
Please support our rule change, our references back and our emergency motion – and come to meet us when you visit our stall at #Lab21!
But, whatever you do, have a fantastic time at 2021 Labour Conference and welcome to Brighton Pavilion!
Pavilion Labour’s BAME Officer, Maureen Winder, made the five submissions below to Labour’s 2021 policy consultation, on behalf of our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Members’ Branch. It’s no surprise to us that our BAME members had a lot to say about health inequalities after the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope that you view these five submissions from our BAME Branch, and, if you want to, vote to support them on Labour’s national policy website, using the relevant links for each submission, shown below:
Tackling Health Inequalities to make the country the best to grow up and grow old in
The questions we addressed:
What lessons can we learn about health inequalities from the experience of the Coronavirus pandemic? See response on Labour website here and in full below.
What are the greatest challenges we face in tackling health inequalities? See response on Labour website hereand in full below.
What policy action is needed address health inequalities in our country? See response on Labour website here and in full below.
What steps must we take to ensure a cross-governmental and societal approach to tackling inequalities? See response on Labour websitehere and in full below.
How can we realign public services to focus on the prevention of ill health in the first place? See response on Labour website here and in full below.
Narratives that focus only on ethnically and culturally different experiences of racism will fail to address disproportionate health inequalities experienced by people from BAME communities. We need an anti-racist approach that recognises and challenges the powerful and unequal systemic, institutional and interpersonal forces, rooted in history and colonialism, driven by a particular economic approach and experienced across all public bodies and in everyday life. (Khan Runnymede 2020.)
A mass of historical evidence, about systemic, institutional and interpersonal racism disproportionately and persistently affecting health outcomes in BAME communities already existed. This was evidenced in how people from these communities interact with public institutions compared with the white majority across all sectors: housing, employment, access to income, healthcare, education, immigration, justice – impacting negatively on the health of people from these communities in different and intersectional ways. Recent research shows the very experience of systemic, institutional and interpersonal racism (including micro aggressions) causes disproportionate mental and physical ill health, experienced over a life course as ‘weathering’, shortening lifespan. ‘We need to see racism as a public health issue.’ (Nazroo 2021.)
Decades of austerity increased inequalities and left NHS and social services vulnerable to a pandemic. Persistent failure to implement recommendations from equality organisations and actual experience of Covid-19 highlighted and exacerbated these embedded inequalities and related health outcomes in the most devastating, existential ways and continues to do so.
In September 2020 over a third of people in intensive care were from BAME backgrounds.
A man from a black African group is almost 4 times more likely to die from COVID than a white man. If a woman from a black African background, you are almost 3 times as likely to die than a white person.
A man from a Bangladeshi background is 3 and a half times more likely to die from COVID than if white. A woman from a Bangladeshi background just over 2 and a half times as likely to die compared to someone white. (Nazroo 2021)
People from BAME communities have been more likely to lose employment, be in precarious zero hours contracts, vulnerable to infection as more likely to be in front facing jobs, yet less likely to have access to adequate PPE than their white counterparts. Black and brown staff have reported being expected or deployed to work in COVID infected areas more than white counterparts. Runnymede 2020. Lack of trust in race complaints processes, fear of losing one’s job if one complains, all increase risk to health.
The communities experiencing greatest poverty and deprivation include BAME groups. This translates into living in overcrowded housing, leaving whole families and communities vulnerable to infection from increasingly transmissible variants. Lack of money to isolate mean people continue to work whilst infected, as they cannot afford to stay at home.
The disproportionate deaths and data are so stark, so very great, they cannot be ignored, nor can the complex, historic, persistent systemic racism at the heart of this. Yet the UK Government narrative around disproportionate deaths de-prioritised racial inequality in its recent definition of discrimination (Sewell Report 2021) arguing for socio economic and geographic factors, explaining disparities in terms of culture, language and family issues in order to avoid action to tackle structural and institutional racism.
Even now the majority of children that have died from Long Covid are from BAME backgrounds. Yet the Government is pursuing a policy of herd immunity in schools without mitigations, removing mandatory mask wearing, not funding ventilation and air filtration, not yet vaccinating adolescents (as in other countries), devastating for the children especially from vulnerable BAME backgrounds and for their communities.
It is a vital challenge to argue for and secure a consensus for an anti-racist socialist economy necessary to reverse decades of accumulated austerity driven by increasingly corrupt crony capitalism, privileging white elites, dependent on racialised narratives driven by the Tory leadership and the mainstream media.
Privately owned media in the hands of a few tycoons is a major barrier to revealing the true precariousness of the NHS and securing public consensus for massive investment during the remainder of the pandemic and afterwards, above all in the NHS and social care but across all public bodies.
This corrupt media is complicit with government in suppressing findings and data from race equality reports and enquiries into impact of COVID on BAME groups. (Peter English 2021.)
The likelihood of private pharmaceuticals profiting from a data grab and our health data being shared across official institutions like policing, immigration, employment and welfare, threatens vulnerable and BAME people above all, as it facilitates an American style privatised insurance based system, unethical research for profit and the use of health data from NHS database to restrict access to health care, benefits and other services from marginalised BAME groups, including migrants. It erodes the vital patient-doctor relationship dependent on trust. This impacts negatively on the health of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic people, increasing vaccine hesitancy and anxiety about status or deportation.
Privatisation of public services and persistent underfunding of the NHS and social care has left these unprepared for a pandemic. Greater funding of Tory councils than Labour ones is leading to shortfall in vaccine provision in BAME areas eg Oldham.
Addressing the risk to public health and to migrants themselves with large numbers of migrants subject to NHS charging declining to take up free treatment and/or testing for COVID-19 or vaccine due to fears of immigration enforcement. “57% of migrants surveyed by MedAct, The New Economics Foundation and Migrants Organise ‘avoided seeking healthcare because of… migration enforcement concerns.’” MedAct 2020. Risk to their health and to that of their unborn babies of pregnant women subject to NHS charging delaying seeking antenatal care for months.
These policies are necessary immediately to address survival and health in this pandemic:
Adopt advice from internationally agreed scientists rather than follow the approach of English exceptionalism. Any plan must be globally responsible.
Halt criminally reckless ‘murderous’ and ‘barbaric’ government plan to release restrictions on 19.7.21. (Emergency summit of international scientists 16.7.21)
Re-instate mandatory masking in secondary schools and extend to primary schools.
Vaccinate adolescents by September (as in US and France etc..) and of younger students if science supports.
Fund Ventilation units/CO2 monitors in all schools as in New York classrooms, so parents can monitor standard and quality of air filtration online.
Provide PPE for school staff as necessary.
Fund provision of filtering FFP3 masks for NHS staff nationally, following risk assessments.
Maintain Social distancing policy.
Close borders and have strict quarantine rules to bring R rate below 1.
End privatisation of NHS.
End hostile environment eg charging for NHS. Support people with No Recourse to Public Funds.
Urgently establish and/or maintain national and local multi-agency consultations, including with BAME representatives, with clinical advisory and other groups, to launch and maintain effective public information campaigns, addressing language and cultural needs to overcome vaccine hesitancy and support migrants subject to NHS charging, and support other hesitant groups with physical access to vaccines.
Government to initiate a thorough review of the NHS Charging Regime.
End immigration raids on care homes during the pandemic. See: here
End detention at least temporarily as it spreads COVID and breaches human rights.
Implement policy based on joint statement from GMB, NEU, Unison and Unite re safety in schools.
Collect disaggregated ethnicity data re deaths and publish. Increase transparency re disaggregated ethnicity data more generally eg re mental health and impact on people from different BAME groups.
Copyright (c) Ted Eytan
Government has persistently failed to implement recommendations from key reports
Strengthen Equality Act 2010 by bringing into legal effect Section 14 of the Equality Act providing protection for a person discriminated against because of 2 or more protected characteristics.
Bring into legal effect the public sector duty re socio economic inequalities.
Government to comply with Section 9 (5) of the Equality Act 2010 to make caste an aspect of race so caste based discrimination is equally prohibited under law. (see Runnymede 2021.)
‘Government to create a race equality strategy, as called for by the EHRC developed with Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and with the confidence of all those it affects.
Any strategy should:
Ensure all departments and public bodies conduct race audits and produce a roadmap to improve the recruitment, retention and progression of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people
Support the implementation of the public sector equality duty to ensure proper compliance
Have a strong mechanism for parliamentary accountability and clear milestones to measure success, including related to disparities outlined in previous Government reviews’
The Lawrence Review: An Avoidable Crisis
Commit to Labour Party policy (suggested by John McDonnell) for a Minister for Race Equality and for every government department to conduct EIAs and develop anti-racist policy in line with recommendations from Lawrence Review above.
Labour Policy to include commitment to an internal cross departmental group to develop and monitor anti-racist policy and practice.
‘All children should be taught an accurate and inclusive history of Britain, including the history of migration, enslavement, empire and decolonisation, and the history of racism and the struggle for equality in Britain.’ Khan. Ethnicity, Race and Inequality in the UK 2020. Encourage schools to use the NEU Anti-racist framework as a self-evaluation tool to help explore ideas around race equality and plan how to tackle racism with children, young people and staff.
Pavilion Labour’s Policy Officer, Elaine Bewley, made the submission below to Labour’s 2021 policy consultation on behalf of our Labour Party. You can view Elaine’s submission, comment on it and, if you want to, vote to support it, here on Labour’s national policy website.
Labour must put our Party’s socialist Green New Deal at centre stage of all policy
In the preface to Labour’s 2021 Environment, Energy and Culture National Policy Forum (NPF) consultation, Kier Starmer calls on us “to seize this moment, and go forward to a future that builds a more secure and prosperous economy” and “to set out a bold vision for a brighter future as we emerge from the pandemic”.
The document rightly criticises the Tories for their absence of ambition in the face of climate emergency and its inherent inequalities – from their failure to meet climate targets, their piecemeal approach and continued blind trust in technology, markets and private companies’ abilities to solve these issues.
However, we are mindful of the fact that the entire report of the Environment, Energy and Culture Commission’s report was referenced back by 2019 Labour Conference for its own lack of ambition and scope in the light of the emerging climate crisis.
Whilst we welcome the focus of the Environment, Energy and Culture policy commission on jobs and the need for a just transition – forcefully argued and adopted by Conference 2019 – this has to be rooted within the context of catastrophic climate change. We contend that once again this policy consultation is lacking in ambition. There is no context or overarching goals. It lacks detail and a strategic driver. The rise in all inequalities and the international context is missing and the global situation remains unacknowledged. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Conference 2019 adopted the composite motion on Labour’s Green New Deal and endorsed the Green Industrial Revolution policy. We propose that the overarching strategy on jobs and inequality needs to be Labour’s Green New Deal. Even though Keir Starmer has pledged to “hardwire the Green New Deal into everything we do”, this is only mentioned in passing in the second to last paragraph, echoing the words of Adam Tooze, “The Green New Deal’s time has come – but what’s happened to Labour’s radicalism?”. We propose that Labour Party proudly adopts the ambitious, integrated and socialistic vision and goals of the Green New Deal and put it centre stage of all our policies.
We support the overarching aims and proposals put forward by Labour for a Green New Deal and recommend all comrades to read their documents, which respond to all areas of the NPF policy consultation through the prism of a socialist Green New Deal (GND). We believe that Labour also needs to address what our policies should be on jobs that are not unionised, many of which are exploitative, precarious and underpaid.
Kerr Starmer writes of our “insecure and unequal economy” and the commission writes that we need to “rectify the inequalities that scar the UK”. But in addition to systemic inequalities within the UK, the Covid pandemic has brought us a devastating “inequality shock” that demands a new social contract, not just on jobs, but on gender, disability and race.
On the first of May 2019 Britain’s parliament declared a symbolic climate change “emergency”, backing a call by Jeremy Corbyn for “rapid and dramatic action” to protect the environment for generations to come.
• A serious plan to deal with the UK’s fair share of emissions and to halt critical rises in global temperatures. • Our entire carbon footprint be taken into account – in the UK and overseas. • The active conservation and restoration of nature here and overseas, recognising the damage we cause through the goods we import. • Those in power not to depend on future technologies to save the day; technologies that are used as an excuse for us to carry on polluting. • Ordinary people to have a real say on the right way forward in a Citizens’ Assembly with bite.
As one of the youngest members in our branch said – “if the climate is buggered, there won’t be any jobs for anyone.”
INFORMATION ABOUT THE AGM OF BRIGHTON PAVILION CLP
The AGM of Brighton Pavilion CLP will take place on Saturday 22 May 2021. This will be an online only meeting, beginning 11am. Delegates should check their final meeting papers to confirm start time for registration, which is likely to be from 10am.
Candidates and Voting
Valid and confirmed bona fide General Committee (GC) delegates in post for the AGM will be eligible to vote at the CLP AGM and to stand for election to the Executive Committee (EC).
All branches and affiliates must have notified their GC delegates to the CLP Secretary and to the CLP Treasurer by 9am on 8 May 2021, including each individual’s contact email address and Labour Party membership number.
Elections to the Executive Committee
Elections will be held for the CLP’s Officers and members of the EC. Subject to any constitutional amendments to be considered by the AGM, the EC posts to be elected will comprise:
A. CLP Officers:
Chair
Vice-Chair / Campaigns
Vice-Chair / Membership
Secretary
Treasurer
Women’s Officer
Policy Officer
Youth Officer
BAME Officer
Older People’s Officer
Disability Officer
LGBT+ Officer
Trade Union Liaison Officer
Political Education Officer
Communications and Social Media Officer
The Women’s Officer and at least another three of the elected Officers 1 – 7, a minimum of fifty per cent of the elected Officers, and at least half the Executive Committee must self-identify as women.
The Trades Union Liaison Officer must be a member of a trades union in accordance with national Labour Party rules.
Auditors
The AGM will also elect two auditors for the CLP, at least one of whom must self-identify as a woman.
Labour Group Observers
The AGM will further elect two Labour Group observers and up to four substitutes for the CLP. At least half of the elected postholders must self-identify as women.
Nominations
Nominations are invited for all posts. Except for Chair and Treasurer, all CLP Officer posts may be job-shared by a maximum of two people.
Any branch or affiliated organisation can nominate any bona fide GC delegate as a candidate for election to the EC.
For the avoidance of doubt, nominations are not restricted to any branch or affiliate’s own delegates, but may be made from among all valid GC delegates.
Other Business
The AGM will receive accounts and annual reports from Officers and the EC, consider amendments to the constitution of Brighton Pavilion CLP and deal with any motions proposed to the AGM, plus any other urgent business of the CLP.
Deadline for Receipt of Nominations and Other Business
All nominations will close at 9am on Saturday 8 May 2021. Late nominations and proposals will not be accepted.
Nominated candidates must accept their nomination before 9am on Saturday 8 May 2021 and can choose to submit a written statement of up to 150 words in support of their candidacy, for circulation at the CLP AGM. Statements must be submitted before 9am on Saturday 8 May 2021. Late statements or statements which denigrate another candidate will not be accepted. Long statements will be truncated.
Nominations and any other proposals for the AGM, acceptance of nominations and candidate statements, should be submitted to the CLP Secretary by email to secretary@pavilionlabour.org.ukand copied to the CLP Treasurer by email to treasurer@pavilionlabour.org.uk by 9am on Saturday 8 May 2021. If an acknowledgement is not received within a reasonable period, please re-submit your original email and also copy-in the CLP Chair at chair@pavilionlabour.org.uk .
Matt Webb, Trade Union Liaison Officer – Brighton Pavilion Labour Party, writes:
Any day now, the Regional Schools Commissioner will be announcing which Multi Academy Trust (MAT) will be tasked with taking Moulsecoomb Primary School away from Brighton and Hove’s family of local authority schools, despite staff and 96% of parents stating their opposition.
One of the OFSTED inspectors involved with the visit that ruled Moulsecoomb Primary School was to be forced to join a MAT was (and remains) employed by one of the MATs being named to take over the school.
Since the controversial OFSTED report in 2019 even OFSTED has had to admit that the school has greatly improved and that academisation has been a distraction.
Multi Academy Trusts do not improve education provision and they are not accountable to either local authorities or local communities. Money that should be spent in classrooms is instead spent on massive salaries of MAT CEOs and senior management. MATs cut staff numbers, attack staff terms and conditions and, more often than not, refuse to formally recognise or engage with trade unions.
MATs are extremely bad news. Staff, parents, pupils, governors, trade unions, local businesses, councillors and members of parliament have all strongly opposed the forced academisation of Moulsecoomb Primary School.
Parents and the community are campaigning hard. UNISON, GMB and NEU members went on strike last week and will strike again in April if they have to.
A forced academisation will have a terrible effect on school staff. We must always have one another’s backs and do what we can to help each another. What will only take you less than a minute will make a huge difference – so please click here to support school staff.
Thanks for your help with this important campaign to save a much-loved local school.
Brighton Pavilion Labour Party 