Zarah Sultana leads call from UK parliamentarians to halt arms exports to Israel

Top marks to Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana who was quick off the mark in responding to Israel’s refusal to implement the UN Security Resolution calling for a ceasefire. She has successfully coordinated a cross party letter signed by a 134 MPs and Lords calling on the government to ‘immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel’. In this context, the 134 say, busines as usual for arms exports to Israel is totally unacceptable.

Earlier this month, Richard Burgon MP wrote to the Foreign Secretary demanding an investigation into whether UK-supplied military equipment was used in the bombing of British doctors volunteering in Gaza.

To address climate change, we need peace

In her latest blog, Samantha Mason addresses issues from the King’s speech on the opening of parliament.

ATTENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE HAS UNDERSTANDABLY
taken a back seat as we’ve watched the horror of events unfolding in Gaza and mobilised around the call for a ceasefire and peace.  However, as climate campaigners have pointed out, including in a letter to Ed Miliband, fighting for the “cause of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people” is not separate from the colonial violence and dispossession which is also at the heart of the climate crisis.

There’s no bigger action for climate change
than achieving peace for Gaza

The impacts of climate change continue apace as 2023 is likely to be declared the warmest on record. The UN Secretary General’s call for the world to end the madness of the fossil fuel age which is driving don’t seem to have reached the ears of the UK government who is forging ahead with the issuing of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

The  oil and gas bill announced in the King’s Speech follows Rishi Sunak’s statement in September pledging a “pragmatic, proportionate and realistic approach to reaching net zero“. This also included the removal of energy efficiency standards for private landlords, condemning renters to totally avoidable high energy bills – a point well made by the UK Green Building Council and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Of course, this is all part of the new ‘Uxbridge’ narrative of the government being ‘on the side of car drivers’ pushing-back on a number of measures including targets to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars. Unfortunately, the science of climate change doesn’t care about political posturing and the only reality here is that we cannot put off until tomorrow what we should be doing today.

Any new oil and gas in the North Sea won’t benefit
UK energy consumers because we
don’t own it

Likewise, financial and health burdens will also certainly not be ‘eased’ for people as a result. Any new oil and gas produced in the North Sea will not be to the benefit of UK energy consumers as we don’t own it. It is therefore false to say it will help bring down bills – a point the new Secretary of State for DESNZ Clair Coutinho has finally conceded.

There are undoubtedly costs in transitioning to a decarbonised economy and these should not be falling on workers in terms of jobs, pay and other terms and conditions, or hard-pressed communities. These costs should be ‘proportionately’ distributed and socialised by ending the greed of fossil fuel corporation profits and bringing all energy assets back into public ownership. Not least when we see the renewables sector trying to fashion itself on a fossil fuel ‘for profit’ business model.

A crisis in the offshore wind industry, not just impacting the UK but in Europe and the US as well, has seen the main offshore wind farm developers pulling back from bidding in government auctions.  Big players such as Ørsted and Vattenfall have also pulled out of projects due to issues of “profitability” as inflation and higher interest rates have increased costs.

And the idea that nuclear power will be an answer to the energy and climate crisis is also starting to wobble (unsurprisingly) on financial grounds.  The ‘poster child’ for small modular reactors (SMRs), NuScale in the US, has ended a major project on basis of costs defeating one of the primary arguments for SMRs that they can be built more quickly and cheaply.  Indeed, many technological fixes being proposed for tackling climate change such as Carbon Capture and Storage and Direct Airsource Capture are proving to be the false solutions many climate campaigners have always argued.

The idea that nuclear power is an answer to
climate change
is starting to wobble

It is clear that climate change will be one of the battle grounds in the next general election and this should not be allowed to turn into binary choices of cars over clean air or arbitrary fiscal rules. Right now, we need a coherent long-term plan that aligns reducing greenhouse gas emissions with addressing the energy, health, and cost of living crises all of which are inter-connected. Similarly, the plan needs to recognise the need for global cooperation and climate justice. This should be seen as an opportunity for the Labour Party to provide a real alternative to Tory climate and environmental policies that will continue to cause long-term harm to us all.

At the end of November, the global climate talks – COP28 – will take place in Dubai. There is little faith in these talking shops that fail to address the fossil fuels in the room and on 9 December there will be a Global Day of Action with mass demonstrations planned across the globe. In the UK these are being coordinated by the Climate Justice Coalition.  

People everywhere have risen up for Gaza and it’s possible, sadly, we may yet be coordinating joint actions that day.  Whether this is the case or not, one thing is clear, there is no bigger action for climate change than achieving peace for Gaza, or other areas of the world suffering conflicts, and it must remain an integral part of our climate demands.

Support Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance candidates in Labour’s internal elections

Labour CND urges you to vote for Centre Left Grassroots Alliance candidates in this year’s internal elections. Details, including candidate statements are available on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy website, CLPD

The six candidates for National Women’s Committee have also published a joint platform, including committing to: ‘support for an ethical foreign policy with peace, conflict resolution and nuclear disarmament at its core. Labour must support women struggling against oppression across the globe.’

Labour CND’s statement on the decision to block Jeremy Corbyn from standing as the Labour candidate for Islington North

Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury Festival.. Hundreds of thousands of new young members joined the party when Corbyn became leader, making Labour the largest social democratic party in Europe.

Keir Starmer’s resolution to block Jeremy Corbyn from standing as the Labour candidate for Islington North constituency at the next general election is an attack on Party democracy and on the rights  of local Labour Parties.

The right of Party members to choose their own candidates is fundamental to the democracy of the Labour Party. In 2020 Starmer said ‘local Party members should select their candidates for every election’. His about-face at the National Executive Committee in March 2023 represents an attack on the rights of all Party members and affiliates.

It is a shameful disregard of natural justice and of the wishes of the electorate of Islington North who have shown their support for their MP at successive elections over the past 40 years. The implications, however, go beyond one person and one CLP.

It should go without saying that the Party’s processes and procedures must be fair and transparent. The means by which Starmer banned Corbyn from standing as a candidate was neither.

The wording of his NEC resolution was based on the view that Corbyn is an electoral liability. If Labour leaders were to be banned from re-standing as Labour parliamentary candidates on the basis of a bad election result, then Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and many other past leaders would have suffered a similar fate.

In reality, elections are won or lost for a number of reasons. In 2019, Brexit played a significant role in Labour’s defeat. Starmer, Shadow Brexit Secretary at the time, will undoubtedly be aware of this.

This procedure adopted for preventing Corbyn from standing takes power away from the party membership collectively to decide what they believe to be in the best interests of the Labour Party. It transfers that power to a small group of individuals to impose their subjective, and often contested, view of what Labour’s best interests are.

On the basis of such a procedure, the NEC is able to remove whomever the Party leadership may decide should go and for whatever reason. This process encourages factionalism and fosters a climate of suspicion and fear in the Party.

Opposition to removing Islington North CLP’s right to reselect Jeremy Corbyn extends beyond supporters of Corbyn. Labour CND stands with the many local Parties, individual members, and affiliates who believe this decision is wrong and profoundly dangerous.

STATEMENTS & COMMENTS

Islington North CLP Officers
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs
John McDonnell MP

Nominate for Labour’s national committees

The Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) has agreed unified slates for the National Women’s Committee, the National Constitutional Committee and the Conference Arrangements Committee. Although members’ eyes are inclined to glaze over at the mention of elections to these bodies, all of them are vitally important for defending democracy and members’ rights in the Labour Party.

The CLGA supported members of the National Women’s Committee have done excellent work supporting women and calling for the reinstatement of a standalone Women’s Conference. Unfortunately, despite their campaigning, this year’s Women’s Conference is just one day tacked onto the beginning of the Annual Conference in Liverpool. The members of the Women’s Committee will be elected by delegates to the Women’s Conference, so it is important to select delegates who support the work that has been done and needs to continue.

There are also positions up for election on the National Constitutional Committee (NCC) which deals with disciplinary issues, and the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) which organises conference business. They are also to be voted on by delegates to Annual Conference, part of anti-democratic moves away from one member, one vote ballots. OMOV was only brought in for national committees in the first place because the then General Secretary couldn’t ensure that there was no interference from Party staff during elections amongst Conference delegates!

The NCC is very important to try and ensure due process and justice for members faced with disciplinary action from the Party. The CLGA members on the CAC are vital to try and prevent constituency resolutions being ruled out of order for spurious reasons, and to try and allocate more time at Conference for delegates and less for the platform.

Members have until 12 noon on Friday, 23 June to get their CLP to nominate the CLGA-recommended candidates, but don’t leave it till the last minute! CLPD have made candidate statements for all three elections available on their website. That is also the last date to nominate Conference delegates and putting forward Constitutional Amendments (Rule Changes).

There are no National Executive Committee elections this year.

Experience counts on the NEC

Take note of the wise words of Labour CND Vice Chair, Christine Shawcroft who is a former member of the Labour Party National Executive. Please suppport the six Grassroots Voice candidates in the ballot for CLP reps on the NEC. They stand on a platform of peace, internationalism, and nuclear disarmament.

Real security, lessons from the pandemic

CND’s 2020 annual conference on 18 October had a great line up, including a keynote speech from Jeremy Corbyn MP. Take a look below. He wrote later: ‘Thanks to everyone for the conference. It felt strange not being at a real conference and talking to old friends. However, it shows just what we can do with good communications.’

You can watch still watch Jeremy’s keynote speech and the roundtable with Tom Unterrainer from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in conversation with Prof Paul Rogers, Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz and Unison’s Asst Gen Sec Roger McKenzie

There are two extracurricular activities available until the end of October, just click on the images below


Hear #GV6 candidates on peace and internationalism

Labour CND asks our supporters to vote for the Grassroots Voice candidates for constituency places on the Labour Party National Executive Committee. Why? Because these candidates are committed to nuclear disarmament as part of a peaceful, internationalist platform for Labour.

Hear what each of the #GV6 candidates have to say on international policy, click on the images below:

Gemma Bolton


Yasmine Dar

Ann Henderson


Nadia Jama

Laura Pidcock


Mish Rahman

The economy stupid, Mark II

This half hour exchange with Prof Paul Rogers and Kate Hudson is one of the best and most challenging things out there on the UK government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It takes a look behind the headlines about hard working NHS and other essential workers… and ask why they’re still unprotected, untested and undervalued three months in to the crisis.