In response to pressure from members and local parties, the Labour National Executive Committee has decided to extend the consultation to Monday 20 July. Still time to make a submission on international policy, and vote to support Labour CND’s five responses. Check out the details in the post below.
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Respond to Labour’s International Policy Review
Labour CND has responded to the Labour Party policy consultation with 5 submissions in answer to each of the questions posed in International Policy Commission document, Championing internationalism in the post-coronavirus world. The IPC consultation covers foreign, development and defence policies, as well as broader issues such as Labour values and concepts of internationalism. LabCND urges you to access our submissions, sign in or register, and support them with a brief comment and a vote, and please consider making a submission of your own too.
You can read a summary of our submissions, posted by our secretary Ruth Brown, on the Labour Policy Forum website below. Then click on the question numbers to go straight to the website and add your own comments and vote to support them.
Q1: Labour’s internationalist values should include a war powers act
There’s great stress on Labour values without specifying what they are – a feel-good approach that fails to acknowledge differences. The most basic human right is the right to life. Labour’s 2019 manifesto promised a war powers act ‘so that no prime minister can bypass parliament’. Keir Starmer reaffirmed this promise. Putting flesh on the bones of Labour’s post-Covid internationalism, starts with reaffirming our commitment to the primacy of peace and justice, and the introduction of a war powers act.
Q2: UK defence policy: realism vs illusion
Real security is human security. The UK National Security Risk Assessment has highlighted their chief risks facing the UK, including health pandemics and ecological disasters as well as terrorism and cyber-attacks. Trident does not protect Britain from the actual threats we face. The participation of defence contractors in the Ventilator Challenge Consortium shows the practicality of a just transition from nuclear weapon production to socially useful, sustainable alternatives. Let’s have a Shadow Defence Diversification Agency now in line with TUC policy.
Q3: International development values and strategy
Labour should re-assert the international development values expressed in our 2019 manifesto. Announcing his decision to merge the Department for International Development with the Foreign an Commonwealth Office, Boris Johnson said DiFD’s goals ‘will be wholly integrated with UK foreign policy and described the merger as ‘an opportunity to get value for the huge investments we make in overseas spending’. Labour should make the case for the retention of DFID with a standalone aid budget of at least 0.7% of gross national income, and commit an incoming Labour government to re-establishing an independent aid-giving department.
Q4: International priorities and global leadership
Global leadership takes many forms. Remembering Britain’s colonial legacy, we must be cautious about assuming that British leadership is what’s needed. The UK’s positive contributions to emergency and international aid, and to diplomacy are recognised by the UN and others. Labour should support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and push for progress on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It’s time to break with bipartisanship and strive for an independent, non-aligned foreign policy based on the primacy of peace.
Q5: Weaknesses in national security
Real security is that which makes our citizens safe. As criticisms of the Tories handling of the Covid19 crisis demonstrate, state security back up by military force does not always coincide with human security.Real security is not about national status that Trident supporters believe comes from Britain possessing nuclear weapons. Labour should commit to scrapping Trident replacement at the earliest opportunity and be prepared to dismantle the existing system when in government, starting with an end to at-sea patrols.
ACCESS MATERIALS HERE
To download a copy of Labour IPC document, the LabourCND submissions, or our quick guide to the IPC site, click on the links below:
Championing internationalism in the post-coronavirus world here
Labour’s internationalist values should include a war powers act here
UK defence policy: realism vs illusion here
International development values and strategy here
International priorities and global leadership here
Weaknesses in national security here
NPF: the basics here
Make your views known
Each of the eight National Policy Forum commissions are conducting policy consultations. Launched on 4 June, the consultation ends on 30 June. Now’s the time to make your views known.
The International Policy Commission (IPC) covers foreign, international development, and defence policy. Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy attends IPC meetings together with Preet Gill and John Healey, Shadow International Development and Defence Secretaries. Our readers will be intrigued to know that the unpopular and outdated ‘humanitarian military intervention’ of the New Labour era is being mooted again. Read Championing internationalism in the post-coronavirus world, the IPC consultation and respond.
How to take part
Each policy commission has its own page on the Labour Policy Forum website, where you can read submissions, comment and vote to agree or disagree with them, and make your own views known.
Using the drop-down menu, you can access
– a searchable list of NPF reps
– consultation documents
– policy statements by the Labour Party, and
– a postal address for sending submissions for cdes without internet access
You don’t have to be a party member or organisation to take part. Individual members of the public or outside organisations can also read the material and make submissions. Anyone visit the NPF site and view the content To participate though, you must register or log in.
Read Championing internationalism in the post-coronavirus world here
Take a look at Labour’s Policy Forum website here
Message from Shadow Minister for Peace
We simply cannot go back to business as usual in the post-Covid era – and that includes the proliferation of weapons and wars that claim thousands of lives, says Fabian Hamilton in a message recorded for Labour CND.
Trident vs NHS
The Tory government’s risk assessment warned that health pandemics were a major threat to Britain’s security, nuclear attack wasn’t. So why are we spending £205 billion on Trident when the NHS is chronically underfunded askes Labour CND Secretary, Ruth Brown in a recent letter to the Financial Times.
Defence diversification: covid crisis points the way
Covid19 has seen some companies in the arms industry turn their hand to socially useful production, which is what defence diversification is all about. In the UK, Airbus, BAE Systems, GKN Aerospace, Rolls Royce and Siemens UK are among the companies participating in Ventilator Challenge UK, the government consortium making ventilators.
In this short video made for Labour CND, Sam Mason of the PCS union explains that the response to this health crisis shows we can end the continuing waste of billions of pounds on the UK’s unnecessary nuclear weapons system. We need to lobby for a firm commitment from the new Labour leadership to set up a Shadow Defence Diversification Agency.
Angela Rayner: ‘I want a world without nuclear weapons’
Congratulations to Angela Rayner on her election as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. We reproduce below her response to Labour CND’s lobby for a Minister for Peace and Disarmament:
Thank you very much for getting in touch with me about the post of Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament and the other manifesto policies. My Shadow Cabinet colleague Fabian Hamilton has done a great job as Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament and I absolutely believe that there should be a front bench spokesperson with specific responsibility for disarmament.
I can also confirm that I continue to support the commitments made in the “New Internationalism” section of the 2019 Manifesto and would want to maintain those commitments. I want a world without nuclear weapons and that’s what I want a Labour government to work towards. When the last Tory government tabled their motion to renew Trident in the House of Commons, I voted against it.
Of course, I don’t want to do to workers in shipyards and the supply chain what Thatcher did to pit towns, so any change would need to be underpinned by a plan for replacing those jobs with other skilled, well paid and unionised jobs. I would much rather we invest billions in low carbon, sustainable infrastructure, creating jobs, and building a future for our economy in exporting the means to save lives, not take them – the new, green technologies of the future. I have also made contributions during the hustings on arms sales that you might find interesting, you can watch that here.
Any candidate for Prime Minister who by contrast relishes the thought of unleashing death and destruction isn’t fit for the office. I’d rather work towards reducing the nuclear stockpile across the world because that’s the one thing that would make us all safer. We need an international commitment to disarmament and cooperation; the Tories have dismally failed to provide such leadership and the next Labour government must provide it.
Minister for Peace & Disarmament remains
Labour CND is delighted to see that the Front Bench post of Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament is to be retained under the new leadership, and will continue to be ably filled by Fabian Hamilton MP. Fabian will be working with colleagues in the Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Office team, including Catherine West, another committed nuclear disarmamer and Vice President of London Region CND. Congratulations both.
Labour’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office team, led by Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy, comprises Wayne David (Ministter for Middle East and North Africa) Stephen Doughty (Africa, jointly with DFID) Stephen Kinnock (Asia and Pacific) Catherine West (Europe & Americas) and Fabian Hamilton (Peace and Disarmament). It is not yet known if Fabian’s post has the same brief before, which also ranges across policy areas within the defence team.
Thanks to everyone who participated in Labour CND’s online lobby in support of the Minister of Peace post.
Details of Labour’s new front bench here
Thank you Jeremy
RLB supports Minister for Peace
