I’ve already put up a piece about some of the events at this year’s Arise Festival. Yesterday I had a further email about their programme, which added these events to it.
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4) NHS @ 75 – How can we repair & restore it after 13 years of austerity?
Online. Wed. June 7, 18.30. Register here // Share & Invite here // Get Festival Ticket here // Retweet here
With: Nadia Whittome MP // John Lister (Keep Our NHS Public) // John Puntis (Doctors for the NHS.) // Chloe Brooks (North West. Rep, Labour Students.) July marks 75 years of our NHS. In light of Starmer and Streeting’s recent remarks, join the discussion on how we can end the current crisis, & secure its future as a universal publicly-owned, public service for all.
Hosted by the Labour Assembly Against Austerity at Arise 2023.
5) Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist & Scourge of Empire.
Friday June 9, 1pm, Online. Register here //Share & Invite here // Retweet here // Get festival ticket here
With Katherine Connelly – author of ‘Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire.’ Sylvia Pankhurst dedicated her life to fighting oppression & injustice. This event will look at how this courageous & inspiring campaigner is of huge relevance today.
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
6) People & Planet on the Brink – Socialist Solutions to Climate Catastrophe
Online, Sunday, June 11, 5.00pm. Register here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Olivia Blake MP // Tess Woolfenden, Debt Justice // Sam Knight, Green New Deal Rising // Sam Mason, Climate Justice Coalition trade union officer // Fraser McGuire, Young Labour. The world is on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, threatening the very future of humanity. Yet our Government – like many others globally – are more interested in protecting the profits of the fossil fuel giants than urgent action to tackle the climate emergency.
A Socialist Sunday session at Arise 2023.
7) Free Palestine – Mustafa Barghouti briefing + Q&A
Monday June 12, Online, 6.30pm. Register here //Share & Invite here // Retweet here // Get festival ticket here.
In-depth briefing + Q&A with Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian National Initiative, on the latest developments in Palestine as Israel’s far-right government steps up its aggression. With supplementary contributions from Young Labour, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign & Labour & Palestine. Chair: Louise Regan, National Education Union & PSC.
Free event but solidarity tickets & donations essential for funding Webinar & streaming. Hosted by Labour & Palestine as part of Arise.
8) The Case for Labour Party Democracy – for Members’ Rights & the Union Link
Online, Wednesday June 14, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Jon Trickett MP // Mick Whelan, ASLEF GS//Simon Fletcher // Rachel Garnham, CLPD // Nabeela Mowlana, Young Labour. Join a vital discussion to make the case for a democratic party & movement – & to map out next steps in campaigning for members’ rights & in defence of the union-link.
9) What would Marx & Engels say about today’s global capitalist crisis?
Online, Friday June 16, 1.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With Michael Roberts – economist & author, The Great Recession – a Marxist view.
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
10) The New Colonialism- resisting racism & exploitation of the global South
Online, Sunday June 18, 5.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Asad Rehman, Director, War on Want // Heidi Chow, Director, Debt Justice // Lubaba Khalid, Young Labour BAME Officer // Chair: Denis Fernando, Arise volunteer.
A Socialist Sunday session at Arise 2023.
11) No more Pinochets in Latin America – Stand with social progress, democracy & regional integration
Online, Monday June 19, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Guillaume Long, former foreign Minister, Ecuador // Nathalia Urban, Brasil Wire // Claudia-Turbet Delof, Wiphalas Across the World, Bolivia, // Dave McKnight, UNISON NW // Gawain Little, GFTU.
Hosted by Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America at Arise 2023.
12) Socialist economic policies explained: the alternative to never-ending cuts
Online, Wednesday June 21, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
Richard Burgon MP // Laura Smith, Labour Councillor & co-author of the No Holding Back report // Professor Özlem Onaran, University of Greenwich // Cat Hobbs, Director of We Own It.
Ask your questions & make your contributions on socialist alternatives to ‘Austerity 2.0.’
13) The Paris Commune – “Glorious harbinger of a new society”
Online, Friday June 23, 1.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With Sandra Bloodworth. Australian labour historian & contributor to The Paris Commune, An Ode To Emancipation. The Paris Commune is still studied throughout the world as one of the first working-class attempts at emancipation, direct democracy & social change – why?
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
14) Push for peace – No to forever wars
Online, Sunday June 25, 5.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Kate Hudson (CND) // Steve Howell (author, ‘Game Changer’ & former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn) // Shadia Edwards-Dashti (Stop the War Coalition) // Chair: Logan Williiams, Arise volunteer.
The Guardian posted a piece yesterday reporting that our shambolic, authoritarian leader in the Labour party has purged yet another group. Starmer seems to be trying to steal some of the Tories’ clothes as the leader of a patriotic party. Under Maggie Thatcher, the Tories draped themselves in all the imagery of traditional British patriotism – Union flags, references to Maggie’s hero, Winston Churchill and the Second World War. The 1987 Conservative general election film featured black and white footage of Spitfires zooming around while an excited voice declared ‘It’s great, to be great again’. Except she didn’t make us great. She nearly wrecked the country economically and institutionally while declaring she was. Starmer’s clearly seen how that worked, and wants to do it for the Labour party. Hence photos of him stood with a Union flag parked in a corner somewhere.
Now he’s passed another internal regulation preventing constituency Labour parties from affiliating to the anti-monarchist group, Republic. He justified this by stating that he was a patriot, and that was why he believed in a series of left-wing policies. Well, for now, at least, until he’s told otherwise by Murdoch or his donors. But the same could be said of Republic. Patriotism could be construed as wanting the very best for one’s country. If you adopt that point of view, then Republic are patriots in that they believe the country can be improved by ditching the monarchy.
But who are Republic anyway?
I admit, I’m a royalist, and so I don’t know anything about republican and anti-monarchist movements. The last such organisation I heard about was MAM – the Movement Against the Monarchy, who came and protested the Maundy Thursday service in which the Queen dispensed Maundy money several years ago at Bristol cathedral. I hadn’t even heard of Republic until Starmer acted and the Groan reported the issue. My guess Starmer is afraid that Labour would get embroiled in any controversy that flares up about the planned anti-monarchist demonstrations at the coronation tomorrow if it’s found that these organisations are connected to the Labour party in some way. But it’s still an attack on Labour grassroots democracy.
I realise many people, especially the older generation, strongly object to anti-monarchist demonstrations. This was especially true of the older generation who fought and served in the Second World War. Several of Mum’s older friends had done so, and had the privilege of receiving the Maundy money from Her Maj several decades ago. They were bitterly disgusted by the demonstration by MAM. But democracy says you tolerate opposing viewpoints. You might find Republic deeply offensive, but that shouldn’t deny individual parties the right to affiliate them. That’s their business, not Starmer’s. Although he did justify it by saying it was just putting into action regulations passed two years ago preventing local Labour parties from affiliating to organisations proscribed by the NEC. And boy, is there a list! It includes Jewish Voice for Labour, Sikhs for Labour, pro-Palestinian groups and so on. Any group that gives David Evans a fit of the vapours and causes Thatcherite apparatchiks to clutch their pearls.
There have always been anti-monarchists in the Labour party. When Clement Attlee and the great Labour government of 1948 came to power, the saw themselves in the tradition of a long series of working class radicals like Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense, which argued against the monarchy and aristocracy and supported the American Revolution. Back in the 1980s there was Willie Hamilton, who hated the monarchy as well as much of the British establishment. I remember all the jokes about him. On one of the Saturday morning radio panel shows, the contestants were asked to guess what was happening from a sound clue. You heard a swishing sound, then a scream. The panel’s fun answer was ‘the Queen knighting Willie Hamilton’. I haven’t heard of Republic, I haven’t heard of anyone affiliating to Republic, and I haven’t heard of anyone being put off voting Labour by Republic. I guess some of the radical London councils may have, but they’ve hardly caused a national panic.
This is Starmer trying to turn the Labour party into the Tories Mark 2. It’s more proof that he’s an authoritarian who’s totally unfit to rule. If does this in Labour, what will he do in government?
The Chew Valley is a part of north-east Somerset just south of Bristol. It takes its name from the river Chew, after which some of the villages are named, like Chew Magna, Chew Stoke and so on. Their local paper, the Chew Valley Gazette, also includes news from Bristol. As with many other towns, Bristol has a housing shortage. According to the Gazette, the city council has decided to help solve this problem by voting to raise the council tax on second homes, and to shorten the period unused buildings can be exempt from paying it from two years to one. I really do think this is an excellent idea, and should come in nationally. Especially in rural areas where outsiders buying second homes are pricing local people out of the housing market.
Yesterday there was a local election for the ward of Hotwells and Harbourside in Bristol. I had an invitation from the local Labour party to help them campaign for it, but circumstances prevented me from physically going and I do not believe in phone banking. Anyway, the results are in. It was won by the Green party, who took it from the Lib Dems by 26 seats. This is quite ironic, as in the last election the Lib Dems only won that ward by the same number. This victory now makes the Greens the largest party in the council, though I gather that none of them have an overall majority.
Hotwells is one of the city’s historic districts on the banks of the Avon running through the city, and where Bristol’s harbour was before it was abandoned in the 70s and the port moved to its present location at Avonmouth. It’s a mixture of retail, office and residential buildings, including some dating from the 18th and 19th centuries when it, along with Clifton, were the city’s spa districts. Some of the housing is very modern and upmarket, while there are also a couple of 60s/70s brutalist tower blocks. It’s also the location for one of Bristol’s private schools, Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital. It’s population also includes lecturers and academics from Bristol university, which is literally just up the road in Clifton. Just across the river are a couple of converted tobacco bonds, one of which now houses the city’s archives while another is, or was, the site of a green technology centre.
Bristol is quite a green city. Under the Labour mayor, Marvin Rees, the local authority’s put in a number of new cycle lanes and in that part of the city you do see people pedalling away, including women with their children in trailers behind them. The council has also announced other plans for developing a local green economy, including a clean air zone which has caused controversy in recent weeks because of the way it affects traffic.
Bristol Live reported that the new councillor, ‘ 24-year-old Cllr McAllister, who works in legal services, said his party was now preparing to take power in Bristol.
He said: “Successive Conservative-led governments and our Labour-run council have left our residents feeling frustrated — whether it’s through botched consultations on new developments, repair works to public throughways going on for years, the cladding crisis, or even threatening to take away our library.
“There’s never been a more vital time to speak up for our communities, and that is exactly what I’m going to do from now on. The Green Party is now the biggest group in the council, with 25 councillors, and I recognise the weight of that responsibility. As a team we are putting together our programme so we are ready to run this city from next year.
“In the meantime, I think that the city council’s current leadership has a responsibility as well — they have to now recognise the mandate that the Green Party has. I’m really looking forward to getting on with the job and representing this amazing community with the commitment and enthusiasm that it deserves.”’
He undoubtedly has a point about local service. Roadworks with the attendant diversions have been going on in Temple Meads for many years now, as well as in the rest of the city. And the council is considering closing Bristol Central Library and moving it to another location. Rees has also made decisions that make little sense, and have ignored the wishes and opinions of local people. The city wishes to build a new, top-level stadium. The ideal location would be Temple Meads, because it’s the site of the railway station and is a very short drive from the motorway. Rees decided against that, ruling instead that it should be build in Patchway, a district miles away in the north of Bristol. He also upset the local people in Hengrove and Whitchurch in his plans for the redevelopment of Hengrove Park. This was to be the site of new housing, but locals objected because there were too many homes planned and no amenities. They voiced their complaints to Rees, who politely met them. They also submitted them, and their alternative plans, to the relevant supervisory authority, who ruled in the favour. But Rees ignored them, and bulldozed his plans through.
But some of those 26 voters may also have been swayed by national issues. I’ve got very strong reservations about the Greens’ social policies. I’ve got the impression they’re very woke. It was the Green-led local authority in Brighton and Hove which caused controversy a couple of years ago by teaching Critical Race Theory in its schools. In Bristol, former Green councillor Cleo Lake put forward the motion calling for the payment of reparations for slavery to all ‘Afrikans’. In Scotland, it seems to be the Greens behind the Gender Recognition Act, which would lower the age of consent for children to identify as trans to 16, cut back on the amount of time a transperson would have to live as a member of the sex they wish to transition to. As well as the policy that has seen dangerous biologically male rapists locked away in women’s prisons.
But they also have great economic and welfare policies. As I posted a few days ago, I caught their party political broadcast the other night, and they said all the right things when it came to the NHS and the utilities: they want them renationalised along with a proper welfare state. Brilliant! These are the policies that Jeremy Corbyn put forward in his brilliant manifesto, and which Starmer promised to retain. Until he dumped them during a policy review. A few years ago the Greens were gaining on Labour in Bristol before Corbyn became leader, and I have no doubt that some of that was due to the Blairism of Miliband’s leadership.
The Bristol Live report speculates that the victory could mean trouble for Labour in the local elections here in 2024. That’s a real possibility. Novara Media has put up a video today in which Michael Walker and Dalia Gebreal discuss the failure of the Labour leadership to voice support for the strikers. There has been no messages of support from their front bench and Starmer has been going around sacking those that have stood on picket lines. On the other hand, when asked about this, the local MP for Bristol south, Karin Smyth, said quite rightly that the party still defends the right to strike and gave some reasonable objections to MPs standing with the pickets. But it still looks to me like Starmer not wanting to be seen backing strikers and alienating all the Tory and Lib Dem voters he wants to atract.
The Greens have won by a very narrow majority, which could vanish come 2024. But it’ll be very interesting to see how well they do and how the local Labour party responds to their challenge.
Okay, a few years ago – I was when Cameron was in power – I was so worried about NHS privatisation that I wrote a couple of pieces of literature about it. One was just a pamphlet consisting of a few pieces of A4 folded together giving the main points about NHS privatisation and how it was killing the health service. Another was a short book, Privatisation: Killing the NHS, which I self-published through Lulu, the print on demand service. Since doing so, I’ve had next to zero interest in them. I have a page about them on this blog. Simply go to the relevant bar, and look at ‘pages’ and you’ll find them there, along with other books I’ve self-published. Here’s the pieces about them from that page.
Don’t Let Cameron Privatise the NHS, David Sivier, A5, 10pp.
This is a brief critique of successive government’s gradual privatisation of the NHS, beginning with Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair’s New Labour were determined to turn as much healthcare as possible over to private companies, on the advice of the consultants McKinsey and the American insurance companies. The Conservatives under David Cameron have continued and extended Blair’s privatisation, so that there is a real danger that the NHS, and the free, universal service it has provided for sixty-five years, will be destroyed. If the NHS is to be saved, we must act soon.
Privatisation: Killing the NHS, by David Sivier, A5, 34 pp. This is a longer pamphlet against the privatisation of the NHS. It traces the gradual privatisation of the Health Service back to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, John Major’s Private Finance Initiative in the 1990s, the Blair and Brown ‘New Labour’ governments, and finally David Cameron and the Conservatives. There is a real, imminent danger that the NHS will be broken up and privatised, as envisioned by Andrew Lansley’s, the author of the Tories’ Health and Social Care Act of 2012. This would return us to the conditions of poor and expensive healthcare that existed before the foundation of the NHS by the Clement Atlee’s Labour government in 1948. Already the Tories have passed legislation permitting ‘healthcare providers’ – which include private companies – to charge for NHS services.
The book is fully referenced, with a list of books for further reading, and organisations campaigning to preserve the NHS and its mission to provide universal, free healthcare.
If you would like one of the pamphlets, please get in touch using the contact form below. All details will of course be kept strictly confidential, and will not be passed on to third parties. If you only want single copies of the above, let me know and I’ll post them free to you.’
Now with the NHS facing a truly devastating crisis and the Tory and hard-right sharks circling and demanding its privatisation, I want to get these out to as many people as possible. And I’d be grateful for any ideas.
Of course, one way would simply be to have multiple copies of these pamphlets printed off and to set up a stall in town, and especially right when there’s a strike. But I only have a very small number of copies of the books around at the moment. Also, the myeloma means that I am not as mobile as I once was, and the council and bus companies in their infinite wisdom have cut the direct route from where I live into the centre of Bristol. But I’m hoping this might still be an option.
For the self-published book, one solution might be to go to see the buyer for my local branch of Waterstone’s and see if they would be interested in stocking it.
I’m also considering writing to my local Labour party and asking if they would be interested in stocking them, as well as contacting my local Labour MP to see if she would also like copies. I’m hesitant to do this, however, as I put the blame firmly where it lies – not just with Thatcher and the Tories, but also with Blair and New Labour. Kier Starmer is a true-blue Thatcherite and devoted follower of Blairism. He has said some ominous things about using the private sector to aid the NHS, even though it’s due to privatisation, as well as underfunding, that is responsible for this crisis. The local MP for south Bristol, Karen Smyth, is very firmly on the side of the health service, but she’s also an admirer of Starmer. Reading her messages about the health service, while she says much about how it’s been run down, she doesn’t condemn outsourcing. I can therefore see the pamphlets being extremely unwelcome in certain right-wing Labour circles.
Beyond this, any suggestions?
I’d be interested to know if there are any left-wing organisations that would be willing to accept copies of the book and pamphlet and/or publicise them. I’ve tried looking on Google for small press associations and organisations that might be suitable, but none have so far turned up. One possibility could be contacting some of the left-wing news and comment sites on YouTube and the Internet, but I’m not sure how willing they’d be to say anything about them. I haven’t had much luck in the past when I sent some of my literature to the Canary and a few others.
If you therefore have any ideas, please let me know in the comments section below.
I had an email from my local branch of the Labour party in Bristol this morning informing that they will be out this weekend canvassing people about the issues that matter to them. I wish them the very best of luck. Twelve years of Tory misrule have just about wrecked this great country and are forcing millions of ordinary, hardworking Brits into poverty. Not to mention the continued exploitation and impoverishment of the disabled and unemployment through benefit sanctions, work capability tests and all the rest of the welfare reforms that they have pushed through to enable them to stop paying benefits to people, who genuinely need it, all on the flimsiest of pretexts.
But one issue in Bristol that particularly concerns me is the way the slave trade is represented in exhibitions, the media and in education. Bristol was one of the major cities in the UK slave trade, along with London, Liverpool and I think Glasgow in Scotland. Although the slave trade was banned in 1807 and slavery itself abolished in 1837, it still casts a very long shadow over the city, just as it does the country generally. This was shown three years in the BLM riot that brought down the statue of Edward Colston and in a motion passed by the city council calling for reparations to be paid to the Black population. What concerns me about this is that it seems to me that a distorted image of slavery has arisen, in which White Europeans and Americans are seen as uniquely responsible and culpable for it. I am worried about the apparent lack of awareness that it existed right across the world and long before Europeans started enslaving Black Africans for labour in the plantations of the New World. It also appears that the BBC is determined to push this distorted image, as detailed by the group History Reclaimed and their document identifying the bias in twenty BBC programmes, several of which were about slavery. These included the edition of The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan when he went to Sierra Leone and Enslaved, presented by Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson. I therefore sent a reply stating my concern about this issue and the way it was handled by the local council. This runs
‘Dear Neil,
Thank you for your email letting me know that the party will be out this Saturday canvassing people in Bedminster about the issues that matter to them. I am afraid that long term illness prevents me from attending. However, apart from the continued cuts to public services forced on the mayor by central government cuts, there is one local issue that is of deep concern to me. This is the presentation and public knowledge of the history of slavery. Slavery has existed since antiquity and across the globe. Some of the earliest records come from the ancient near eastern town of Mari, which detail the sale of slaves and other properties. You can find lists of slaves on noble estates from ancient Egypt. Slavery also existed in the Muslim world, India and China. It also existed in Black Africa long before the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade. In some African societies, the proportion of the population that was enslaved varied between 30 to 70 per cent. By and large the slaves acquired by White European and American merchants were purchased from Black African slavers. Duke Ephraim, the king of Dahomey, had an income of £300,000 a year from slaving. There are records of British merchants to Africa being offered slaves Black chiefs. After abolition some of the slaving tribes attacked British trading posts in order to make us resume purchasing their human wares. Britain also paid compensation to former African slaving nations after abolition. In the 1850s we also fought a war with Dahomey in order to stop them enslaving the other local peoples.
But I am afraid I find little awareness of these issues in Bristol and among people generally. I am worried that this is creating a false view of the trade in the public, in which slavery, and particularly Black enslavement, is wholly the fault of Whites. This includes a lack of awareness that White Europeans, including British people and Bristolians, were also enslaved during the Turkish conquest of the Balkans and the Barbary pirates from Algiers and Morocco from the 16th century on till the French conquest of Algeria in the 1820s. I feel very strongly that this is creating an ideological motivated demonisation of Whites, especially if coupled with Critical Race Theory, which holds that all Whites are racist and will remain so.
I also feel this situation has been exacerbated locally by the motion passed a year or so ago calling for the payment of reparations for slavery, introduced by Green councillor Cleo Lake and seconded by Deputy Mayor and head of Equalities Asher Craig. This called for funding to be given to Black organisations rather than individuals, so that they can create sustainable, prosperous Black communities. This is obviously a noble aim, but the stipulation that the money should cover all Afrikans, as councillor Lake styles all Blacks, in the context of reparations means that Britain has accepted a moral responsibility for compensating people,. who were never enslaved by us, and which includes the vary African nations that committed the raiding and brutality that supplied the slaves. It also has nothing to say against the celebration in some African countries of these slavers, like Efroye Tinobue in Nigeria. It also erases from history the White victims of slavery.
I sent emails last year to Mdm. Craig and Councillor Lake pointing out these defects. I regret that I never received a reply. But this issue still has a particular urgency in Bristol. In previous correspondence, Asher Craig informed me that the local government was planning a new, ‘One Bristol’ curriculum for schools, which would foreground Black people. I have absolutely no qualms about Black Bristolians receiving the educational help they need, nor being included in our city’s history. But I am afraid that this curriculum will place the blame for slavery solely on White Bristolians and that this will lead to further racial division and prejudices.
I would very much like the local council to ensure that whenever slavery is taught or exhibitions on it mounted, its antiquity and the fact that other peoples, such as Black Africans, Arabs, Indians and so on were also involved, and that Whites were also the victims of the trade. This need not be an extensive treatment, but it should be there.
I hope you will take on board these concerns and recommendations, and wish you and the other party members all the best campaigning on Saturday.
A week or so ago Kelly-Jay Keen announced that she intends to stand as a candidate under her ‘Standing for Women’ banner against Keir Starmer at the next election. She had originally said that she would stand against Eddie Izzard if the Labour party selected him as their candidate in Sheffield. Keen is unhappy with drag, viewing as ‘womanface’ comparable to Blackface as an expression of prejudice and hostility towards those it caricatures. She did, however, like Izzard. She admired him as a comedian and had absolutely no problem with him when he identified as a transvestite. She turned against him when he announced that he had gone into ‘girl mode’ and was now a woman, despite being biologically male. She was particularly not impressed with Izzard running a marathon in fake boobs. Izzard lost the selection battle, the winning candidate being someone with a very Muslim name. One of the candidates Izzard was up against was a local, Asian woman, who had been a charity worker as well as a long term activist in the Labour party. It was natural that Sheffield Labour party would chose a local person, who had been active in the constituency for years, rather than an outsider. I don’t think the Asian lady was the successful candidate, but I’m sure the same reasons applied. I think there’s an element of deliberately sticking two fingers up to Starmer in this, as I’ve got a feeling that Izzard was Starmer’s preferred candidate. Now that Izzard is out of the running, Keen is going after Starmer, especially because many women feel betrayed with the Labour party over the trans issue.
Starmer has stated that the Labour party is fully for the trans rights campaign. I got an email from deputy head Angela Rayner and the head of LGBT Labour that if the Labour party was elected, they would outlaw all conversion therapies. This set alarm bells ringing in me. As Gay anti-trans activists like EDIjester and Clive Simpson have pointed out, the sadistic, inhumane and barbarous pseudo-medical practices used to try to turn gay people straight are illegal today. There’s simply no need for it. Modern conversion therapy involves psychiatric or religious counselling, which is voluntary. From American examples, and a brief story about one such in-patient centre in Wales in the ‘In the Back’ column in Private Eye some time ago, this can still be extremely unpleasant, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting to have this treatment very carefully monitored and legislated for.
But the ban on conversion therapy brings its own, anti-gay dangers. The Labour party also wishes to ban conversion therapy for transgender people. This could mean that they desire only the affirmative care model to be used in the treatment of transgender people. This mandates that someone going to the therapist believing that they are in the wrong sexed body should be affirmed in their gender identity and consequently set on a path to transition, complete with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and finally surgery. Gender transition may be appropriate for some, but it is grossly inappropriate for others. There are issues with the mentally ill and autistic children being incorrectly diagnosed as transgender. Gender-critical gays have also argued that it is being used by homophobic parents to ‘trans the gay away’. This is based on the very high number of gender non-conforming children being brought to the Tavistock centre, who, if left on their own, would probably grow up gay but with a stable personality and identifying with their biological sex.
Keen is particularly concerned with the way the gender ideology is detrimentally affecting women’s sex-based rights. Trans rights activists demand transwomen be identified as real women and so have access to all female-only spaces. This has meant that in Scotland and California violent, biological men have been incarcerated in women’s prisons because they have declared themselves to be trans. The American anti-trans lesbian activist, Arielle Scarcella, recently put up a post about a report in the Scottish Daily Record that most of the men, who were transferred to female prisons claiming they were transgender, made minimal effort to behave in a feminine way and went back to being blokes after they were released. If this is true, then they were obviously lying to get out of being sent to the much tougher male prisons. She also posted about the problem of violent, sexual predators being put in women’s prisons because they identify as female. These are men guilty of rape and child abuse. One of the most notorious of these was 6′ 3” and guilty of assaulting a 12 year old girl in a ladies’ loo. She escaped by whacking him in the happy sacks and running away. These men, it has been alleged, have deliberately arranged to enter women’s prisons so they can terrorise the women there. I’ve no doubt this is true, not because they are trans, but because they are sadistic rapists and predators. They should not be imprisoned with women, or at least, not the general population.
There are similar problems with toilets and changing rooms in schools and sports facilities. In sport particularly, born women feel that they are being robbed of victories and opportunities by men like Lia Thomas, who seem to have opportunistically changed their gender. There are also related issues of dignity and care in medicine, with women being denied treatment by members of their own sex because of the ideology. And so on. Women are particularly vulnerable to the spread of the ideology and the feeling that they are really trans. For many activists and medical personnel critical of the ideology, it’s a psychological contagion like the spread of anorexia and eating disorders in the 1970s. In America, girls as young as 12 have had mastectomies. Some of those, who have transitioned have no come to feel it was wrong, and are detransitioning. Their stories are heartbreaking. One Dutch male detransitioner, who had been left with severe bowel and bladder problems following surgical transition, put up a tearful video last week announcing he was going for medical euthanasia as he could no longer live with these problems.
This is also not an organic movement. It is not grassroots, despite what trans activists claim. It is funded and promoted by big business and particularly the pharmaceutical companies producing the drugs. It is also extremely lucrative for those clinics providing the treatment. And some of the lobby groups in America promoting the ideology have received extensive funding from freedom of speech groups, who in turn are funded by the pornography industry.
This is a movement that demands very close scrutiny, if not to be actively fought. There are gay and trans people actively critiquing and opposing it, like Gays Against Groomers and Trans Against Groomers. But the mainstream gay organisations like Stonewall are actively promoting it, to the exclusion of gay interests. There have been complaints from the gay community that when a delegation was put together for some kind of mission to promote gay rights, it was composed entirely of gay men and transwomen. Lesbians were not represented, despite having suffered the same prejudice and persecution as gay men.
But the Labour party is captured. My local branch in Bristol passed a motion censuring the initial judgement in favour of Keira Bell, which ruled that this young woman had been misled and so damaged through medical treatment involving puberty blockers. The LGBT officer blandly stated that puberty blockers were safe and completely reversible. This has been revealed as untrue. I opposed the motion, and was thanked by some of the women afterwards for doing so, but the motion was passed. Militant trans activists spoke at the Labour party conference. The LGB Alliance, which was formed especially to fight for the rights of gay people against the trans ideology, was denied a place when they applied.
Starmer has said he will back trans rights, and made a public fool of himself by running away from questions about the fundamental nature of womanhood. When asked if women had cervixes, he refused to answer the question and said it was one that shouldn’t be asked. He has also apparently stated that if Labour gets in, legislation will be passed demanding the use of trans people’s preferred pronouns. This is the issue that catapulted conservative ideologue Jordan Peterson into the public limelight. When that legislation was being mooted in Canada – I think it may even have been passed – Peterson stated that he would defy the law. He also made it clear that if a student in his class was transgender, he would of course do them the courtesy of using their preferred pronouns.
Keen does not expect to win, but she intends to use the opportunity to raise questions and promote her cause, not just against Starmer but all politicians supporting the trans ideology. She has had a problem with advertising in the past. When she paid for a billboard in Liverpool to show the dictionary definition of woman as ‘adult human female’, which is the common sense definition, the local council banned it as hate speech. But if she registers as a political candidate, it will be impossible for councils to do this as censuring free speech and political debate.
I don’t think she’ll win, as she herself admits. The election is still some way off yet, and she intends to do more foreign tours to places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand first. But it should make for a very interesting election.
Here’s the video in which she announces her intention to stand against Starmer
I caught a brief look at a video by Mahyar Tousi on YouTube last night. Tousi’s a true-blue, hard-right Tory Brexiteer. He was crowing because Johnson had made a statement that he was going to come down hard on councils like Oldham, which had tried cover up the Pakistani grooming gangs and which were still trying to stop public inquiries into them. Tousi gave as an example of this a stormy public meeting with the council in Oldham last week, where furious citizens did not accept the council’s denials that any such cover-up had taken place. Those citizens who confronted the council on this had ASBOs slapped on them, in what looks very much like a display of totalitarian power by a local authority determined to silence critics of its wrongdoing. Johnson, however, has said he’s going to take action against authorities like Oldham,, and make them apologise to their victims.
This cheered the Tory hordes, but only to a certain extent. Despite their continuing faith in the blonde bozo, Johnson has connection to the working class and absolutely no interest in their welfare. This includes that of the raped and exploited White girls. He’s only interested in gaining a political advantage, and in hanging on to power for as long as possible. But the Tory base, or at least that part of the party that watches Tousi, Nigel Farage and the others like it because it’s primarily an attack on Labour. Tory spin on the issue is that, as most of the authorities where the gangs were allowed to operate while the police and council officials looked the other way, it’s a case of the Labour party siding with the rapists against the White working class. This ignores the fact that, as commenters on this blog have pointed out, Labour MPs and whistleblowers on these councils were heavily involved in the campaign to bring the rapists and child abusers to justice. Furthermore, Telford, the site of further revelations last week about depredations by another gang, has been under Tory control for the last couple of years. Johnson’s interest in the issue isn’t about obtaining justice for the girls, but about exploiting a popular and controversial issue over Labour.
I have to say that in my opinion, the anti-racist movement has badly handled the issue. I wrote various emails last week to the papers and to the local deputy elected mayor of Bristol, Asher Craig, who is also head of equalities and child services, urging multicultural marches against the grooming gangs. I may as well have whistled for it. The letters weren’t published and Craig did not reply to my inquiry. Not that I expected she would. Neither she nor Cleo Lake, the Green councillor in Bristol, replied to an email I sent them months ago criticising the motion they introduced and had passed at a city council meeting supporting reparations for slavery. Craig and others were, however, on local television the other night talking about the importance and legacy of a Mr Hackett, a Black gent who led the boycott against Bristol bus company. He had died at the grand old age of 93. At the time the bus company wouldn’t employ Blacks. Haskett’s actions was not only a victory over discrimination in Bristol, but influenced the passage of the first race relations act.
While it’s entirely right that Haskett should be commemorated and honoured, Craig’s failure to reply to me says much about the attitude of the anti-racist establishment. They are extremely uncomfortable, if not actually opposed, to confronting the issue of anti-White racism. Organisations like United Against Fascism and Stand Up To Racism were formed to combat anti-Black and Asian racism, which certainly was rife and violent. But prejudice, abuse and violence against Whites is generally played down or actively denied. This is largely because of the fear that inflammatory accounts of it,, like Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, will result in further anti-minority feeling and racism. And underneath that is the fear of the Nazis, that noxious organisations like the BNP will exploit it to gain power, dragging Britain into dictatorship and racial murder.
That’s part of the reason, no doubt, why councils and police forces like Oldham’s did not take action against the gangs. The police said they didn’t want rioting to start, while there was also the fear that they’d be accused of racism. And anti-racist organisations like Stand Up To Racism don’t want to touch the issue. A month or so ago, the notorious islamophobe, grifter and thug Tommy Robinson was up in Brum with his Storm Troopers publicly showing a film they had made about the grooming gangs and their rape of the city. Stand Up To Racism turned up and protested against Robinson, shouting ‘Off our streets, Fascist scum!’ and ‘Refugees welcome here!’ But while these slogans are entirely right directed at organisations like the NF, they miss the point with Robinson. He’s been able to exploit the scandal, because Sabby Dhalu and Stand Up To Racism have allowed him by not marching or publicly condemning the venomous anti-White racism of the grooming gangs. Thus to a certain class of alienated working class Tories, Robinson’s a hero. As you could see from the many comments praising the thug on Tousi’s wretched video.
Commenters here have pointed out that Robinson is a bigot with no real interest in combatting child abuse per se. He hasn’t, for example, protested against notorious BBC abusers like Rolf Harris or Jimmy Savile, the last of whom was a friend of Maggie Thatcher. As for Robinson exposing the gangs through his supposed journalism, that’s a lie. Robinson’s often come late to the party after they’ve been exposed by others. And his citizen journalism is a menace. He’s been prosecuted several times for contempt of court for broadcasting his feelings about the trials of various gangs outside the courthouse while the trials were proceeding, making it very clear that in his opinion the accuse were guilty. The problem with this is that there are very strict rules on court reporting in order to make sure the accused have a fair trial. Robinson’s biased reporting, by contrast, threatens that and could lead to the trial being abandoned. Which would mean that, if the men were guilty, they’d get off scot free.
I’m very much aware that some of the commenters here may be uneasy about my call for a multicultural march against the gangs. Several commenters have said, quite rightly, that all the victims of child abuse and rape are of equal value, whatever their colour or the colour of their attackers. None should be regarded as more important than any other. I actually agree. But the case of the Pakistani grooming gangs has racial aspects to it which caused its White victims to be ignored and silenced for decades. And it exposes the deep flaws in an anti-racist political establishment which is swift, or wishes to be seen to be swift, to act against anti-BAME racism while covering up assaults against Whites. This double standard needs to be confronted and torn down, if we are to have a genuinely anti-racist society.
In my opinion, this can only be done by the left, if they can reject their own reluctance to deal with it. And in this struggle, Johnson is definitely not an ally.
Sarah Champion was the Labour MP for Rochdale, who was forced to resign from the front bench after writing a piece in the Scum stating that the grooming gangs were made up of Pakistani men. Which they largely have been, though not exclusively. Champion was, however, defended by Sara Rowbotham, the council whistleblower who exposed the gangs and there was a letter in the Times by members of the Sikh, Hindu and British Pakistani communities defending her and applauding a female Muslim councillor, who also worked to bring these scumbags to justice. I found this report from the Huffington Post UK by Owen Bennett from the 5th September 2017. It begins
‘Religious Groups Defend Sarah Champion For Claim UK Has A ‘Problem’ With Pakistani Rapists
‘Victims are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.’
A number of Sikh, Hindu and British Parkistani groups have come to the defence of a Labour MP who claimed “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”
In a letter to The Times today, representatives of the groups – including Lord Singh of Wimbledon – praised Sarah Champion for taking a “courageous stand” in highlighting “a clear trend in criminality.”
The letter also accused the Labour leadership of having a “weak response” to the issue of grooming gangs.
In a letter today, representatives of groups including the Network of Sikh Organisations, the British Pakistani Christian Association and Hindu Council UK, said: “We commend Sarah Champion and the Muslim councillor Amina Lone for speaking up on a clear trend in criminality: the conviction of men of largely Pakistani Muslim heritage in sexual grooming cases.
“Despite being sacked from the shadow cabinet, Champion continues to make a courageous stand.”
The letter argues that it’s not just “white girls who fall victim” to grooming gangs, but youngsters from their respective communities.
“The common denominator is that victims almost always tend to be non-Muslim girls,” the letter reads , adding: “We are dismayed by the Labour leadership’s weak response.
“We are not willing to see the betrayal of victims, who are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.
“It’s not racist or Islamophobic to raise a matter of significant public concern. Smearing those speaking an inconvenient truth is unacceptable.”’
This does indicate that there’s a religious component to the grooming gangs predations. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten either that whatever Tommy Robinson, Britain First or whoever else says, these men were definitely not practicing Muslims. Not when they were into drugs and alcohol, which are definitely forbidden to Muslims, and their crimes have nothing to do with Muslim sex slavery. They were just evil men, preying on the vulnerable, as rapists and child abusers among all races and religions do.
And despite the Tories’ divide and rule strategy, it was Labour MPs who stood up for these girls and who had the backing of a wide section of the Asian community.
One of the people Ed Hussain speaks to in his book Among the Mosques A Journey Across Muslim Britain is Saima Afzal, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Blackburn with Darwen council. Previously, all the Muslim councillors had been men and there had been considerable opposition to women standing. Afzal is described as having experience as an activist and police adviser, focusing on women’s rights and religion among Lancashire’s ethnic minority communities, for which she was a awarded an MBE 2010.
She was forced into a marriage at a young age in Pakistan, a marriage which she rejects as invalid and views her husband as her abuser. She has therefore campaigned against forced marriages, as well as honour-based violence, female genital mutilation, Child sexual exploitation and been involved in issues such as sexuality within Islam and children’s rights in Islam, as well as a number of other issues issues prevalent with communities in which human rights and religious beliefs are irreconcilable. She has set up and runs two organisations which do this, Saima Afzal Solutions and SAS Rights. She is concerned with women’s issues and wellbeing not just in Islam, but in all religions including Christianity, Skihism and Hinduism. She’s been criticised for not wearing the hijab, and there was intra-Asian racism against her election to the council, as the local Asian elders wanted a Gujarati woman. Hussain questioned her about the Muslim grooming gangs, to which she answered
‘What’s worrying us professionals in the field, and what the academic studies don’t explain, is why Asian or Muslim groomers operate are operating in gangs. White groomers often work alone. Don’t underestimate for a moment that White girls are seen as ‘easier’ and ‘available’. But Asian and Muslim girls are also victims of these criminals and perverts. Only the Asian girls don’t talk. There’s more fear, shame and dishonour of the family involved.’ (p. 83.)
She complains that ministers and officials do come up from London for what she calls ‘photo ops’ and ‘tourist fashion cohesion’ ‘because as outsiders they take photos with people of all colours and pretend that all is well. All is not well’. She then talks about how she’s been rejected for these photo shoots because she didn’t wear a hijab, an attitude that is no different from that of the Muslim elders. She also describes how one candidate endorsed by Muslim Council of Britain didn’t shake her hand or make eye contact when he met her, because he’d been advised not to by the council. This was because she was not considered sufficiently Muslim for her refusal to wear the hijab. She also talked to Hussain about other incidents of abuse within the Muslim community, which had to remain confidential. And she also described how the local government was empowering Muslim clerics and community leaders, who claimed to speak for the entire community, as well as corruption and an attitude of ‘Asian votes for Asians’ which means that certain candidates were re-elected.
On the subject of children, she talks about how one local headmaster withdrew girls from swimming lessons because he considered the swimming costumes inappropriate. She also told Hussain she was working on issues relating to the nikah, or Muslim marriage contract, and rulings about couples cohabiting rather than being married.
‘Finally she explains that racism is not a one-way street in the communities she works with. Muslim leaders often decry ‘Islamophobia’, yet frequently refer to White British people as ‘goras’, a racist term’. (p. 84).
This is all very important, especially her comments about the grooming gangs. Elsewhere in the anthropological literature about European Islam researchers have noted that there is an attitude among some Muslims that western women are viewed with contempt by some Muslims because of their sexual freedoms, an attitude that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown also commented on the Independent when she was worth reading. And much of the criticism about the grooming gang inquiry is that its range has been very restricted so that it doesn’t go far enough. As for the local and national authorities, I got the distinct impression long ago that they really don’t want to investigate and reveal some of the negative issues in minority ethnic communities and especially Islam because it threatens the image that everything is otherwise well in these communities and with multiculturalism.
I strongly believe that the left should be open about these issues and should tackle them. It’s partly a matter of simple honesty and doing the right thing, but also because, if the left doesn’t, then they’re going to be exploited by the real bigots and Islamophobes like Tommy Robinson and the EDL.
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