We Own It Appealing for People to Attend Planned Protest Against NHS Privatisation

I’ve also had this email from the pro-NHS, pro-nationalisation organisation, We Own It about a planned demonstration they’re holding against the privatisation of the NHS in February. They’re appealing for people to go to it. I can’t, due to expense and illness, but I’m putting it up here in case there are people interested in it, who may be able to attend.

‘Dear David,

BREAKING: private health companies donated £800,000 to the Conservative Party over the last decade. Now we know why the government is doing nothing about NHS privatisation!

A recent Oxford study linked NHS privatisation to the preventable deaths of 557 people.

It is time to make the government feel the power of organised people over organised money.

Can you sign up to become one of 557 people in Parliament Square from 2 – 4pm on Saturday, 25th February demanding an end to NHS privatisation?

So far, 541 people have signed up. We need 89 people to reach our final goal of 630 (that is, 557 people representing the victims of NHS privatisation, 43 people to help carry signs and banners and 30 stewards to help manage the event).

Sign up to become one of the remaining 89 people on Saturday 25th February in Parliament Square

You are involved in our NHS campaign because you believe that our NHS should work for people, not the greedy private companies that donate to the government.

Unite the Union, Just Treatment, Doctors for the NHS and Socialist Health Association fully agree with you. That is why they are now supporting our action.

It is time we make the government feel the power of organised people over organised money.

We want to bring together 557 people representing the 557 people whose deaths are linked to NHS privatisation to put on a powerful display that can get into the papers.

More press coverage means more pressure on the government. The more of us there are at the action, the more likely the action is to get press coverage.

We need 89 more people to reach our goal. Can you sign up now to join us?

Sign up to take action from 2 – 4pm on Saturday 25th Feb in Parliament Square

Because of the incredible efforts of our NHS nurses and ambulance workers who are fighting to save our NHS, the government is already feeling pressure.

With the recent study that links NHS privatisation to 557 preventable deaths, there is no better time than now to pile onto that pressure they are feeling.

The government already knows that over 75% of the public, according to our last poll, want to end NHS privatisation. But they don’t feel that people will fight to see that happen.

You can show them from 2 – 4pm on Saturday 25th February in Parliament Square that you will.

The more people join this action, the more powerful it will be. The more powerful it is, the more likely it is to receive coverage from the press.

This coverage will pile on the pressure on the government and start forcing them to take action.

I will stand up and fight to force an end to NHS privatisation

We need 557 people to represent the 557 people whose deaths are linked to NHS privatisation, according to a recent Oxford study.

But we need even more people to make sure the action is big and effective. So after signing up, please send the link to your friends and family, especially those who live in London and ask them to sign up too.

Thank you so much for always standing up against NHS privatisation.

Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate – the We Own It team

PS: 30 years ago today the British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Act 1993 was passed, paving the way for privatisation of our railway. We’ve put together a list of 30 top failures of rail privatisation from the last 30 years. Take a read and share with friends and family.’

Message from the Megaphone: Triple Lock Pensions Reinstated, But People Still Need to Join a Union against Tories

I got this email from the Megaphone yesterday, with which I absolutely fully agree.

‘Dear supporter

Today the government announced in its Autumn Statement that the state pension triple lock will be reinstated for 2023.

Unite’s petition to defend the triple lock gathered over 20,000 signatures and demonstrated how strongly workers feel about the issue.

This is therefore an important victory which will mean that the state pension is protected against soaring inflation during the current cost of living crisis.

However, the campaign for a new workers’ economy must continue.  The full package of measures announced in the Autumn Statement amounts to a new austerity budget.

Commenting on the Autumn Statement, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said:

“Our economy is broken. This Autumn Statement is not for working people. The chancellor has taxed income over wealth, backed City bankers instead of nurses and chosen profiteers over public services. He has made political choices based on rules that he himself has the power to change.

“Austerity and tax rises for workers will do nothing to create decent jobs or put money in our pockets. As a country, we must now begin a discussion on how to do things differently. We need different rules and to make different choices. We need an economy that works for all.”

To fight back we need a united, organised working class.  This starts with joining a union and getting actively involved.  You can join Unite today with membership options for those in work, out of work and retired from work:

https://join.unitetheunion.org/

In solidarity

Unite for a Workers’ Economy

Website
Twitter: @UniteEconomy
Facebook: Unite4WorkersEconomy
Instagram: Unite4WorkersEconomy‘

Yes, it’s a recruitment drive by Unite. But the message being given by the left generally is that with the Tories’ new austerity drive, working people do need to join unions and do need to unite to resist them.

My Email to Hope Not Hate about Mainstream Anti-Racism’s Failure to Tackle Robinson and the Grooming Gangs

I’m still annoyed about the conduct of the counter-protesters nearly three weeks ago, who turned up to demonstrate against Tommy Robinson’s film ‘The Rape of Telford’. Robinson has been exploiting the issue of the Muslim grooming gangs to push his own violent, deceptive and malign islamophobia against Muslims as a whole. But there is a real issue there, as the gangs were enabled to prey on some many extremely vulnerable girls and young women for twenty years and more because the authorities – the police, local councils and social workers – were afraid of being called racist and starting riots if they did anything to stop them. And the grooming gangs were racists – they mainly targeted White girls, and those girls were physically and verbally abused because they were White. But this aspect of the gangs is ignored by mainstream, liberal anti-racism. There are no crowds of people demonstrating against the gangs chanting ‘Black and White, unite and fight’. The crowd, drawn from the trade unions and Stand Up to Racism, who turned up to protest against Robinson did nothing but chant the usual anti-fascist slogans – ‘Fascist scum off our streets!’ and ‘Refugees welcome’, but did nothing to tackle him on the issue he was exploiting. Although they told Callum of the Lotus Eaters that ‘Of course they didn’t support the grooming gangs’, they didn’t denounce them. They could easily have done so without supporting Robinson. Instead they look worse. Because Robinson’s supporters included a Black man wearing a sweatshirt with the slogan ‘Black and White, unite!’ The counter-protesters, by contrast, marched off before the testimony from the abused girls began. They looked at best complacent, at worst anti-White, because anti-White racism is outside the mindset of liberal anti-racism. They don’t know how to handle it, and my guess is that they don’t really believe it exists or is as important as tackling racism against Blacks and ethnic minorities.

I was so angry I wrote to Hope Not Hate about the issue, suggesting that we needed to incorporate marches and demonstrates against anti-White racism into mainstream, liberal anti-racism. I chose Hope Not Hate because in addition to attacking White supremacism and fascism, it also dared to tackle Islamism and religious extremism. It seemed far more open to attacking anti-White racism than some of the other, similar organisations. For example, I also wrote to about this issue to Stand Up To Racism, and didn’t receive a reply. And I don’t expect to get one either. Yes, I know Hope Not Hate has connections to the wretched Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, the smear factory accusing decent anti-racists of anti-Semitism because they support Corbyn and the Palestinians. And yes, I’m very aware that Hope Not Hate pushed the anti-Semitism smears against the Labour leader. But sometimes you have to use the materials present, as there’s little alternative. So I sent them this email.

”Dear Sir,

I have always been impressed by the great work Hope Not Hate has done and is doing in uniting people of all races and creeds in this country against the threat of racism and Fascism on the one hand, and Islamist religious extremism on the other. I have read with great interest and pleasure about your organisation’s attempts to combat Tommy Robinson and his very real islamophobia. But I am writing to you in this instance to express my grave concerns that the liberal left’s response to his rally and film, ‘The Rape of Telford’, has been so poor and catastrophically mismanaged that by contrast Robinson and his supporters seemed good.

As you are aware Robinson has been exploiting the very understandable and entirely reasonable public fears about the grooming gangs as part of his wider campaign to sow hate against British Muslims as a whole. A couple of weeks ago he turned up in Birmingham to show his film about the grooming gangs, The Rape of Telford, which included testimony from the abused girls. He was met with a counterdemonstration from Unite the union and Stand Up To Racism. And this is where the problems lie.

The counterdemonstrators seemed not to understand that victims of racism in this instance were White and to tackle this issue while at the same time expressing their disgust at Robinson. Instead they shouted the usual slogans like ‘Fascist scum off our streets’ and ‘Refugees welcome’. These are fine and suitable against the usual anti-immigration and racist demonstrations. But here they miss the point. They give the impression that the established anti-racist organisations are so fixated on anti-Black and Asian racism, that they find the very concept of anti-White racism literally unthinkable and have no response to it. This is not the impression they should give, and I’m sure it’s unintentional. One of the members of the right-wing Lotus Eaters YouTube channel actually asked them if they supported the grooming gangs. They replied that they certainly didn’t, but did not reply to his next question about why they weren’t over there with Robinson protesting against the grooming gangs.

They shouldn’t, of course, but this doesn’t mean that they should stay silent when it comes to anti-White racism and abuse. The real issue behind the grooming gangs is that they were allowed to get away with it for so long by the police, social services and local authorities because the victims were White and the authorities were afraid of being accused of racism. There are concerns about how the inquiry has been managed,, with some of the witnesses complaining that they have been instructed to limit their testimony and some of the evidence being redacted. There is speculation that some very prominent people, going as high as Blair’s government, are being protected.

It wasn’t always the case that anti-White racism was ignored. In the 1990s the CRE published a report, written by Independent and i journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown about Black and Asian anti-White racism as it was found that 60 per cent of the victims of a racist incidents were White. In the first decade of this century Sunny Hidak in the Guardian wrote a piece stating that anti-racism must now include poor Whites and attack religious extremist organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir. But this inclusive message seems to have been forgotten or discarded in the age of Black Lives Matter.

I strongly believe that the way to fight Robinson is to take this issue out of his hands. People should be marching against the Muslim grooming gangs, just as they should and do march against White fascists and racists. Indeed, a few years ago when the Islamic preachers of hate were emerging with the Satanic Verses controversy in Bradford, liberal Muslims organised marches and demonstrations against them. But they complained they were given no support from mainstream society. Blacks, Asians, Muslims, Christians, atheists, Hindus and other faiths need to unite and march together against anti-White racism. I believe this is possible and non-Whites would be willing to join such marches and protests if it were organised by genuine anti-racist organisations. You can protest against anti-White racism without supporting fascists and islamophobes like Robinson or the BNP.

But this is what the established anti-racist organisations are failing to do. And I’m afraid their refusal to engage with this is handing Robinson a terrible weapon. If you watch the video he produced with Voice of Wales and Free Man Media on the ‘Rape of Telford’, one of his supporters is a young Black or mixed race man with the sweatshirt bearing the slogan ‘Black and White unite’. This is what the real anti-racists should be doing, but aren’t.

I would like to see it changed, but I’m afraid it seems that you may be the only organisation that will take this on board. I wrote a similar email to Stand Up to Racism a few weeks ago and have not received a reply. I would be very interested to receive your views about this subject, which I intend to place on my blog. You can contact me wit the email below: ————-

Yours with very best wishes,

David -‘

To be fair, I did get a reply from Hope Not Hate’s head honcho, Nick Lowles, telling me I’d get a reply before the end of the week. But all I got was an invitation to join the Zoom webinar about the current State of Hate, which seems to be entirely about White fascists. It’s good work, but not an answer to my inquiry.

Clearly anti-White racism isn’t an issue mainstream anti-racist organisations want to touch. And so they leave it to be exploited by the real islamophobes and Nazis like Robinson.

Labour and Palestine Online Event – Women Speak Up for Palestine

I had this short email from Labour and Palestine yesterday notifying me that they are going to hold an online even on the 14th of next month, in which Labour women will speak up against the Palestinian’s oppression.

‘ONLINE EVENT: Labour Women Speak Up for Palestine

Monday 14 Mar, 18:30. Register here // Share & invite here // Retweet here to spread the word.

With live link from Palestine with Samia Al-Botmeh, Birzeit University.

Plus speakers from Palestine Solidarity Campaign. UNISON, Unite the Union, Labour & Palestine + more tba.

An online event in the run up to Labour Women’s Conference 2022. Free event. Open to all.

Organised by Labour & Palestine. Kindly streamed by Arise Festival.‘

This will no doubt send Stalin and his witch hunters into a fearful bate. After all, Young Labour passed a motion in favour of the Palestinians, resulting in Keef trying to shut their annual conference down. Which was completely against the party rules and fortunately also unsuccessful. Israel is, as Amnesty International amongst other international bodies has pointed out, an apartheid state. For seventy years it has engaged in a long process of ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Arab population. Its left-wing critics are opposed to this, not because it is Jewish as the anti-Semitism smear merchants contend, but simply because it is a western, settler colonialist state. And it’s interesting that, despite Stalin’s attempts to shut criticism of Israel down in the party, the Labour left is still determined to organise and protest against Israel, and other, domestic forms of racism.

Lies, Libels, Criminal and Political Manipulation Catch Up with the Israel Lobby

Oh dear, the various crimes and misdeeds of prominent members of the Israel lobby are starting to come to home to roost. Mike yesterday put up a series of article discussing the various shady figures in the Jewish Labour movement, their criminal activities, and the connections of the organisation’s leading members to the Israeli embassy at the time when Shai Masot, an official at that embassy, was taking it upon himself to decide what Conservative politicians should be in our cabinet.

First of all, Jonathan ‘No Morals’ Newmark, as I have decided to dub him, the former chair of the JLM, is now being investigated by the fuzz at the request of the organisation he once headed. No Morals has been credibly accused of stealing funds from Jewish charities when he was one of the head honchos of the Jewish Leadership Council. They released him, but decided not to start a police investigation in order to avoid a scandal. No Morals denied this, of course, and claims that he resigned instead due to health reasons. Well, we shall see.

The JLM is the morally corrupt organisation, which the Labour party wanted Mike to go to for a ‘training day’. They’re the outfit that smeared Jackie Walker as an anti-Semite for questioning the exclusive concentration on the Jewish Holocaust during the Second World War at their workshop on Holocaust Remembrance Day. She wanted other groups, who had also suffered genocide, like Blacks, to be included. It was meant to be a ‘safe space’ where anyone could speak freely without repercussions, but they taped her comments and then released them. She also committed the unforgivable sin in their eyes of rejecting their tortured attempts to expand the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel. As Israel is a racist apartheid state, she was right to do so. The anti-Semites themselves defined anti-Semitism, a word coined by their leader and founder, Wilhelm Marr, as hatred of Jews based on their biology and race. But this is forgotten by the Israel lobby, who are more concerned with defending Israel than really battling genuine anti-Semitism. Mike refused to attend their wretched training day, because he believes that this would be an admission of guilt on his part. And he’s absolutely right.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/newmark-to-be-focus-of-jewish-labour-movement-police-investigation-the-jewish-chronicle/

Then Mike posted up this 2016 article from the Electronic Intifada, pointing out that the JLM’s new director, Ella Rose, was an official at the Israeli Embassy during Shai Masot’s interference with our politics at the highest level. She did not declare this connection on her CV, stating only that she was head of the Union of Jewish Students. No Morals Newmark has declared her appointment a good career move, which seems to Mike to be highly suspicious.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/jewish-labour-movement-director-was-israeli-embassy-officer-the-electronic-intifada/

And he’s also put up a piece showing that Labour Against Anti-Semitism have also been libelling Jennie Formby, the new left-wing candidate for the post of General Secretary of the Labour Party. They claim that in 2016 she was forced to leave her post as Political Director of Unite the Union, because she questioned the impartiality of Baroness Royall to head an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism amongst Labour students at Oxford University. This is supposedly because Baroness Royall had made several trips to Israel. Mike makes clear that this is based on the tortured definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the Zionist organisations, which states

“it is antisemitic to accuse ‘Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations’.”

This isn’t actually part of the definition, but just a guide to deciding what is or isn’t anti-Semitic.

There’s only problem with the LAA’s accusation against Ms. Formby. T’ain’t true. The union has issued a statement refuting the LAA’s accusation, pointing out that her departure had nothing to do with such allegations, and that she was a valued and respected part of their team. They state that rather than opposing Royall’s appointment, she actually supported her and wanted her investigation to be properly resourced. And also, nobody actually knows if Royall herself is anti-Semitic or not. And if she isn’t, this alone blows their accusation away. You cannot be anti-Semitic against someone who isn’t Jewish.

Mike’s article ends with this statement

LAAS is fronted by Euan Philipps, chair of Tonbridge and Malling Constituency Labour Party. He wrote a libellous blog article about This Writer on the Huffington Post website, so it is clear that he enjoys a questionable relationship with factual accuracy. The HuffPost‘s lawyers reckon his comments were “honest opinion” but that has to be based on accurate facts, so they are both in a highly actionable situation.

And a promise that he’ll let his readers know how this strand will develop.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/03/03/another-organisation-that-claims-to-fight-anti-semitism-is-accused-of-lies/

Mike states that he is actually fully in agreement with the IHRC’s guideline that it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to the Israel, or the interest of Jews worldwide, than to the nations of their birth. As a generally principle, so do I. But I make an exception to certain members of the Israel lobby, who clearly do make it clear that their priorities are elsewhere.

Like Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, who is one of the most vocal supporters of Israel in America and a lavish political donor. Adelson states very clearly that he is ‘Israel first’. So by his own admission, he is more loyal to Israel than to the America in which he lives and made his money.

As for Ella Rose and her connections to the Israeli embassy while Shai Masot was trying to manipulate the Tories’ selection of cabinet ministers, if she was involved in this, then she too has dangerously divided loyalties. People who genuinely love their country don’t conspire with officials of a foreign power to manipulate their nation’s politics. They may try to alter the policies or appointment of personnel through negotiation at official levels, which is natural. But they do not do so at private, secret meetings, carefully hidden from scrutiny.

I am not saying that the Israelis are unique in this. America has plenty of form in manipulating the politics of other nations, either trying to stop the election of parties they don’t like, or then overthrowing them when they do get in. And it’s a long list of countries, about 54 or more. The latest was the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, overseen by Obama’s woman Victoria Nuland, and Hillary ‘Queen of Chaos’ Clinton. And Killary herself has gone on recorded saying that she regretted not interfering in the Palestinian elections.

But just because the Americans are doing it, doesn’t make it any better for the Israeli lobby over here to do so too.

There are series questions to be asked of all the pro-Israel organisations in the Labour party because of their smears, libels and political manipulation. And this isn’t anti-Semitic, because amongst the decent people they’ve vilified are decent, self-respecting, anti-racist Jews, many of whom have suffered anti-Semitic abuse and violence.

It’s time to end the charade that the JLM and similar bodies care anything about anti-Semitism. They’re just right-wingers terrified of the Left, and afraid that Israel’s Fascist character is being increasingly exposed.

Trade Union Meme on EU Benefits for British Workers

This is another meme I found on the SlatUKIP page. It’s been produced by Unite the Union. It shows the benefits British workers get and are guaranteed by European legislation. These are: protection at work, paid holidays, 48 hour working week, workers’ rights, equal pay, fair treatment if you’re ill, maternity leave, and parental leave to look after children, healthcare on holiday, and rules against discrimination because of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

These are the real reasons UKIP hates the EU, and why they want to take us out of the European Union. They’re the same reasons the Tories have also become increasingly Eurosceptic, because of the rights granted to British as well as other European workers by the EU social charter.

A long line of Kippers have denounced current legislation giving workers paid holidays, maternity leave and other workers’ rights, claiming that they penalise and created added burdens for industry. Like the Tories, they wish to create a Britain where workers have absolutely no rights, and live in fear of being sacked at the bosses’ whim.

They are very definitely not the party of the people, and are interested in working for no-one except the extremely rich. Just like the Tories they came the oppose.

Day of Action against Benefit Sanctions on the 19th of March

Mike over at Vox Political has this story, National day of action to stop benefit sanctions – Unite the Union. It begins

More and more people are facing benefit sanctions. Over two million people have had their money stopped in the past two years, according to Unite.

That’s two million people, many of whom have been plunged into poverty, unable to heat their homes or even eat. How is this meant to help prepare people for work?

He also lists the four ways to get involved, with links. These include joining one of the events in your area, telling your story, if you’ve been sanctioned, and signing the petition against sanctions.

The article’s at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/02/28/national-day-of-action-to-stop-benefit-sanctions-unite-the-union/

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a demo in Bristol. There are, however, protests organised for further afield in Taunton, Exeter, Weymouth, Bideford and Truro further south, and Swindon further east.