Open Britain: Starmer’s Six Pledges Do Nothing to Repair and Strengthen Our Broken Democracy

‘Dear David,

General election campaigning has definitely started! Today,  Keir Starmer unveiled his “six steps for change,” the first six things Labour will do if/when they form the next government.

Starmer listed: stabilising the economy, lowering NHS waiting times, securing our borders, setting up a new British energy investment company, “taking back our streets,” and recruiting 6500 more teachers.

All well and good as far as it goes. But how will any of these “steps” mend our broken politics? Starmer doesn’t seem to realise how much danger our democracy is in.

We’re not surprised to see no mention of Proportional Representation, but what happened to Starmer’s 2020 pledges around protecting human rights, strengthening devolution, or democratising the House of Lords? Those original ten “pledges” turned into five “missions” which are now six “steps”.  With each iteration, Labour seems to be slowly moving away from strong commitments to democracy.

There’s no mention either of repealing undemocratic voter ID laws, re-establishing the independence of our crucial elections watchdog, restoring our full protest rights, or tackling the dodgy think-tanks and dark money donors eroding the public’s trust in democracy. As a democracy organisation, this is obviously a huge concern to us.

It’s easy to say that fixing democracy isn’t as important as some of the things on that list. But, if anything, it is EVEN MORE important. Because, unless Starmer priortises fixing our democracy, everything his government achieves can be almost instantly reversed by any hard-right government that follows.

Starmer needs to recognise just how rotten our democracy has become. And he needs to understand just how much we all stand to lose if Labour fails to act quickly. A democracy weakened by the corruption and vandalism of recent Conservative administrations is as dangerous for him as it is for us.

If today’s announcement has shown us anything it is that we really have our work cut out for us. We KNOW what needs to be done to revitalise British democracy. Now we also know we need to redouble our efforts to get Labour to listen to us.

All the best,

Mark Kieran

CEO, Open Britain

HELP US PUT PRESSURE ON LABOUR‘

Richard Burgon on Ending Arms Sales to Israel

I got this message from Labour MP Richard Burgon yesterday. While I’ve left the Labour party due to its increasingly right-wing nature under the leadership of Keir Starmer, Richard Burgon is definitely one of the few remaining Labour MPs I still respect.

Dear Friend 

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, I called on Rishi Sunak to end arms sales to Israel. 

When you watch the Prime Minister’s answer below, remember this: since 2015 the UK has licensed over £489m worth of arms to Israel.

The Tories have lost the argument. Now they are trying to mislead the public.

You can watch my question to Rishi Sunak here or by clicking the video below. 

The majority of the British public want an end to arms sales to Israel. And we are going to keep fighting to ensure that’s what happens.

Solidarity,

Forthcoming Arise Festival Events

‘REGISTER HERE: Vulture Capitalism – Grace Blakeley & Jeremy Corbyn In Conversation

Online. Mon. May 20, 6.30pm. Register here // RT here // FB share here.

Grace Blakeley & Jeremy Corbyn will talk about her new book Vulture Capitalism – the book you need to understand what is happening in the world around you – & what you can do to change it. (Order the book  here.) Join us for this very special event!

In Vulture Capitalism, acclaimed journalist Grace Blakeley takes on the world’s most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crisis are the intended result of our capitalist system. It’s not broken, it’s working exactly as planned.

Hosted by Arise – A Festival of Left Ideas. Free event, but solidarity donations essential to hosting & streaming costs – please donate £20 or what you can afford here.

ALSO COMING UP:

1) Class War in Britain – the Miners’ Strike 40 Years on

Online. Sat. June 1, 1- 4pm. Register here // RT here // Invite & share here. 

An afternoon of online political education, discussion & debate on one of the most important struggles in our history, including what really happened; the role of the state & media; & lessons for solidarity & socialism today.

With: John Hendy KC, who represented the NUM in the 1980s // Mike Jackson, Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners co-founder // Ian Lavery MP, striking miner in 84/5 & former NUM President // Chris Peace, Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign // Jon Trickett MP, councillor elected during the strike & campaigner for coalfield communities.

Plus: Sabby Dhalu. Stand up to Racism // Carolyn Jones, Morning Star // Mish Rahman, LP NEC // Matt Willgress, Arise // Sarah Woolley, BFAWU.

Hosted by Arise – A Festival of Left Ideas. Media partner – Labour Outlook. Free event, but solidarity donations essential to hosting & streaming costs – please donate £20 or what you can afford here.

2) IN-PERSON CONFERENCE: A Labour Movement Agenda for a Labour Government

All-day, Saturday May 25, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BB. Register here // Retweet John here.

John McDonnell MP // Mick Lynch, RMT General Secretary // Rebecca Long Bailey MP // Fran Heathcote, PCS General Secretary // Asad Rehman, War on Want // Ellen Clifford, Disabled People Against Cuts // Danny Dorling, Professor of Human Geography // Lord Prem Sikka // Mary Robertson, Lecturer at QMUL // Andrew Fisher, IPaper Columnist //Jess Barnard, Labour NEC // Johh Hendy KC, IER // Jacqui McKenzie, Human Rights Lawyer // Ann Pettifor, author, The Case for the Green New Deal.

Hosted by Claim the Future. Supported by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung London Office. Circulated by Arise & Labour Assembly,‘

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi Says Why ‘the Wrong Kind of Jews’ Are Supporting Palestine and Gaza

This is a video from Double Down News, one of the left-wing internet news channels that got our right-wing, establishment media so rattled. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is the head of the Jewish Voice for Labour, and another victim of the anti-Semitism smears and witch-hunts. I think she has been purged from the Labour party because she dared to criticise Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. She states here quite clearly that she is the wrong type of Jew, the Jews who aren’t shown on the media giving their support to the Palestinians despite the fact that there are thousands of them and more across the world. Instead the media goes to the Chief Rabbis, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and, heaven forfend, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, all of whom have support for Israel written into their DNA, instead of talking to anti-Zionist Jews like herself. The media presents Jews as the frightened victims of the police guarding Jewish no-go zones. Instead, the opposite is almost true. Jews are demonstrating for Palestine like other, reasonable people. They include Holocaust survivors and the children of Holocaust survivors, concerned that what was done to them will not be inflicted on another people. As for being scared and frightened, she is scared and frightened because she, and people like her, have been abused and silenced. But what is going on in Gaza is not religious, it is an attack on people by settler-colonialism, which is perpetrating human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing and plausible genocide. As for the chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ she states that this is about Palestinians being between those borders, with the implication that this does not mean the extermination of the Israelis.

She is given hope by the many people marching and demonstrating for Gaza across the world, including America, and trying to shut down arms factories. Many of them are Jewish, such as the young man she met today. He had family in Israel, and it was the first demonstration he’d been on, but it was the first time he felt empowered to do so.

The video concludes with her appealing to people to support Double Down News as a way of avoiding right-wing media bias.

The video shows Jewish demonstrators, including Holocaust survivors, marching and holding placards making their opposition to the genocide in Gaza very clear.

Richard Burgon’s Online May Day Rally with Palestinian Ambassador

I’ve resigned from the Labour party, but Richard Burgon is still one of the few Labour MPs I respect. Considering the ongoing barbarity of the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza, I have absolutely no hesitation in putting up the notice for this event.

‘Dear Friend 

Please join me, the Palestinian Ambassador and others for a May Day Rally for Palestine. We must continue the urgent call for an immediate ceasefire and to stop arms sales to Israel.

The rally is taking place online on Wednesday, May 1st at 6.30PM. 

Register your attendance for the rally by clicking here.

I hope you can join me in showing solidarity with Palestine at this critical time for the Palestinian people this May Day. 

May Day Rally for Palestine – Click here register 

Solidarity,

38 Degrees Survey on How to Cut NHS Waiting Times

‘David, it’s been reported that one in five of us are stuck on an NHS waiting list – 2 million more than previously thought! [1]

The Government has boasted about bringing the numbers down slightly in recent months. The truth is that millions of us are still left languishing in fear and pain, waiting for treatment – hundreds of thousands more than when Rishi Sunak promised that “NHS waiting lists will fall” back in January last year. [2] That’s nothing to celebrate.

We’re in an election year and the NHS tops the list of concerns for many of us. So our message to political parties couldn’t be clearer: enough is enough – we can’t wait any longer. Any party that wants to form the next government must make plans to end these endless waiting lists.

The plan is simple, David. If enough of us share our stories about how bad things have got, alongside our personal experiences of when things worked in the past, we can show how the NHS has worked for us before and can work again, but only if there’s the political will.

So David, will you share your NHS experience with us today to help pile the pressure on our politicians to bring waiting lists down? It only takes a few minutes to share your story but it could make all the difference. Here’s the first question to get you started:

Do you believe it’s possible for the NHS to give us the care we need, when we need it?

YES

NO

Only recently, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, was arguing for MORE privatisation of the NHS to tackle waiting lists. [3] But we all know that opening up the doors of our NHS to profit-hungry private companies could signal the end of the NHS as we know it. [4] The experts are clear, privatisation drains money from the NHS, poaches NHS staff and services and is ultimately bad for patients. [5]

This is not the solution.

Our NHS is in crisis: it’s no accident, but it is an emergency. Most of us will know someone who’s on the waiting list – often living in pain or discomfort – waiting for months or even years for treatment, tests or assessments. This is a direct result of the Government’s failure to deliver on their promise to bring waiting times down.

But it doesn’t have to be like this, David.

Will you help us highlight the difference in how the NHS used to work for us and the state of it today? There are a few quick questions for you to answer. Here’s the first question to get you started:

Do you believe it’s possible for the NHS to give us the care we need, when we need it?

YES

NO

Thanks for all you do,

Tom, Megan and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES:
[1] BBC: One in five waiting for hospital care in England, survey suggests
Independent: NHS waiting list could be 2 million higher than thought, new data suggests
[2] BBC: Rishi Sunak: Hold me to account if NHS waiting lists don’t fall
Huffington Post: Rishi Sunak Promised To Cut NHS Waiting Lists. They’ve Gone Up By 330,000
The Guardian: NHS waiting lists falling but will stay above pre-Covid levels until 2030, IFS says
[3] The Financial Times: NHS should ‘seek to use’ private healthcare capacity, Wes Streeting says
The Guardian: ‘Middle-class lefties’ won’t stop Labour using private sector to cut NHS backlog, Streeting says
[4] The Financial Times: Investors eye opportunities in Labour pledge to boost private health sector
[5] The Guardian: NHS privatisation drive linked to rise in avoidable deaths, study suggests
The Guardian: Investors are making a fortune from UK healthcare. Why is nobody holding private equity to account?
The Guardian: NHS doctors offered up to £5,000 to recruit colleagues for private hospitals‘

I’ve completed the survey. My experience with my local Hospital Trust has been excellent, but others haven’t been nearly so lucky with theirs. And yes, we do have to make appointments to see the doctor. I can remember, waaaay back when I was at school in the 1980s, when you could make an appointment with your GP and be seen the same day. So does Anne Widdecombe, now one of the leaders of Reform. Reform are Thatcherite to the core, and fervently anti-immigrant and pro-Brexit. Widdecombe says that it could be done, conveniently forgetting she was part of the crowd that reduced it to its present parlous state. It can indeed, Anne, but not by and Reform.

As to how it can be improved, my suggestions are:

1. Renationalise it, so that all the funding goes into paying its staff and not into the corporate bureaucracy, management bonuses and share dividends of the outsourcing companies.
2. Raise funding to continental levels.
3. Train more doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

If this is done, which requires real will and determination, we could have again the world class NHS that the Tories have done so much to destroy.

We Own It Celebrate Starmer’s Declaration that He Will Renationalise the Railways and Their Members Who Campaigned for It

‘Dear David,

Labour has just announced that they will take our whole railway into public ownership over the next five years.

And they’ve gone beyond just pledging it – they’ve outlined a detailed plan to make it happen.

We’ll have to make sure they carry out this plan after the election, but this is HUGE – and your campaigning made it happen.

Labour’s pledge only affects England but whether you are in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, you helped make this happen.

Over the last few years, you’ve campaigned and won victories to take several rail services into public hands.

✅ TransPennine Express – renationalised in May 2023

✅ ScotRail – renationalised in April 2022

✅ Southeastern – renationalised in October 2021

✅ Transport for Wales Rail – renationalised in February 2021

✅ Northern Rail – renationalised in March 2020

NOW the rest of our railways will come into public hands where they belong – to work for passengers, not overseas shareholders.

This is YOUR win!

YOU won this – with your online actions, donations, protests, social media sharing, and talking to friends and family.

With your help, we were able to commission polling that shows that 67% of people want rail in public ownership!

We have been able to use today’s announcement as an opportunity to spread the message, with Johnbosco on BBC Radio Sussex and Times Radio.

YOU can quite rightly feel pleased and proud of these victories but there’s still work to do!

Labour is not planning to create a publicly owned ROSCO (ROlling Stock COmpany) to take on new fleets when needed. Currently, private rolling stock companies are extracting hundreds of million per year from our railway. Read our blog ‘Riding the ROSCO gravy train’ on our website.

YOUR campaigning can continue to make a difference.

The cost of travelling by rail has increased substantially in real terms since privatisation. And it’s no wonder: over £30 billion has leaked out of the system in the last 3 decades, mostly going to line shareholders’ pockets.

Under public ownership, we could be saving enough to bring down bills by 18% instead of hiking them every year.

YOU are passionate about public ownership, not only of public transport, but also water, NHS, energy, Royal Mail – and other public services. Public services should be run for people not profit.

So THANK YOU SO MUCH for all you do to fight for public services in public ownership. Whether you donate or not, every action you take adds strength to our movement. Together we can win so much more.

Public ownership is talked about as a solution much more these days: YOU DID THAT!

In solidarity,

Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, Imogen and John – the We Own It team.’

Starmer’s announcement is welcome, but I’m not entirely convinced. He’s still convinced, like all Thatcherites, that private enterprise is the solution for everything and state ownership and management is utterly dreadful and inefficient. I’m not surprised that he’s said that he isn’t going to create a state-owned rolling stock company, as nationalising anything runs very much against his grain. And I really don’t trust him to honour his promise, not after he’s broken so many in the past. But it’s a start.

Related to this, the Groaniad has put up a piece with a headline that was is needed is complete rail nationalisation. Exactly. And we could have had that, along with the nationalisation of the other utilities and the NHS, and so much more, if Jeremy Corbyn had got into No. 10. And the reason he didn’t was partly because the left-wing press joined the confected lies and smears of the right-wing press that Jezza was a terrible anti-Semite for not backing the Israeli state’s brutal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Over the past few years the Groan has published a number articles supporting policies that were very much part of the Corbynist platform. It’s too bad they didn’t do it when he was head of the Labour party.

Also related: the Torygraph has also, apparently, published an article with a headline quoting Starmer as saying that if he loses his seat, he’ll work in a Kentish Town bookshop. I don’t know which bookshop he means, as I didn’t read the article, but I look forward to him serving customers behind the counter.

Rather than high-tailing it into the House of Lords which is where failed politicos and their donors usually end up.

Open Britain on EU Opening Negotiations To Allow Free Travel to Young People

‘Dear David,

One of the many damaging things about Brexit was its massive impact on young people. The referendum (which the young largely voted against) deprivedBritain’s youth of their ability to travel and study abroad, barricading off opportunities and making their home a smaller, less cosmopolitan place.

Successive Conservative governments – hardly ever a mouthpiece for the younger generations – have routinely left the massive impact on Britain’s youth out of the conversation. Even among those willing to have that discussion, concerns arise over whether the EU would actually be willing to entertain any new arrangement with a country as politically unstable as ours is today.

But now there are signs that the Brexit freeze can possibly be lifted. The European Commission today proposedopening new negotiations with the UK over youth mobility, giving young people a thread of hope. While the Council still needs to agree on the proposal, it’s a sign that there is a real chance of repairing the damage done by Brexit – if we ever get a UK government willing to enter negotiations in good faith.

Therein lies the real challenge. Even Labour now view Brexit largely as a “settled” matter. Despite the fact that 87% of young people want to rejoin the EU, and a majority (55%) of the general population say they’d vote to remain if the referendum was held today, we still seem to be locked into the political choices of seven years ago.

Navigating our post-Brexit relationship with Europe democratically will be no easy task, but it’s clear that our current government is simply not up to the job. To do it properly, we’re going to need a system that actually represents the public’s real feelings about Britain’s role in Europe. We’re going to need a real democracy.

In that sense, the only thing holding us back is ourselves. A real democracy that can collectively own the mistakes of the past and move forward is no impossibility in Britain. We know what we need to do to get there. We just have to make it happen.

All the best,

Matt Gallagher

Communications Officer,

Open Britain’

Labour & Palestine’s May Day Rally

This is another message that came a few days ago. It had another item asking people to sign a form letter to their MPs supporting an early day motion from Zarah Sultana calling for Britain to stop selling arms to Israel. I think I was too late for this to be practical, but if people think otherwise and want me to put it up, I will.

EVENT: May Day Rally for Palestine!

Online, Wed. May 1, 18.30 : Register here // Share here // RT here

Announcing: H.E Ambassador Husam Zomlot // Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP.

Plus: John McDonnell MP, Beth Winter MP, Louise Regan (Palestine Solidarity Campaign & NEU,) Maryam Eslamdoust (TSSA General Secretary,) Gawain Little (GFTU GS,) Jess Barnard (LP NEC member,) Mish Rahman (LP NEC member,) Hugh Lanning (L&P) & Palestinian guests.

Demand a #CeasefireNow, an end to arms sales to Israel & justice for Palestine.

Hosted by Labour & Palestine in association with Arise – A Festival of Left Ideas. Free event but solidarity donations essential towards streaming & hosting costs – please donate £20 or what you can afford here.‘

Rejoin EU Party Interview SODEM’s Steve Bray

I found this on the Net this morning. I’m not a member of the Rejoin EU party, put I’ve been advising people on this channel to look at the alternative parties if they’re unsatisfied in the direction Labour has gone. By which I means Starmer’s transformation of the party into another version of the Tories. Steve Bray and SODEM, the video tells us, have been campaigning around the country against Brexit for the past eight years. Rejoin EU’s man asks Bray what he has noticed change in this time, and his reply is a sharp reminder how democracy and the right to protest has been undermined by the Tories in this time. Bray states that it began under Johnson and is now worse with Sunak telling the police to arrest protesters. The attitude to protests vary from police force to police force. In London they’ll arrest protesters, but in Liverpool they won’t. But they will in Manchester. The Rejoin EU fellow and Bray joke about that grand city being the next place the Tories will hold their conference. Bray states that the government has been telling the police to crack down on protests. This isn’t democracy, but authoritarianism.

This is all true, although I think the attacks on public protests began under David Cameron. Cameron passed legislation against them under the pretext of protecting residents from the noise and nuisance caused by demonstrations in their areas. And both Blair and Cameron have supported the legislation setting up courts where you can be tried in secret without knowing the evidence against you if this is considered necessary for national security. Open Britain has also described the way the Tories are nobbling the Electoral Commission to allow their infractions of the rules governing elections and the conduct of political campaigns, as well as the pernicious influence of corporate donations and dark money.

As for the EU, despite the attempts by right-wingers like Michael Heaver and Jacob Rees-Mogg to present it as a glowing success, Brexit has done much to wreck this country’s economy. And despite the claims of the anti-migrant Tory lobby that it would it would halt mass migration, it has clearly done no such thing as the continuing arrival of the Channel migrants shows.