WPQ on London Metropolitan University
April 27, 2009
Text of a written parliamentary question (WPQ).
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what recent discussions he has had with the Higher Education Funding Council for England on the funding of London Metropolitan University?
David Lammy: The situation at London Met is clearly serious and I sympathise with the students and staff at this time of uncertainty. However, responsibility for resolving the financial difficulties properly falls to the funding council and the university. Ministers cannot be involved in those discussions. I am, though, kept informed of developments and remain confident that HEFCE is acting appropriately in the best interests of the university and the rest of the sector.
Deadly speculation
April 11, 2009
“It is wild speculation”, claimed a swivel-eyed and stressed President Bush when asked to respond to reports of a possible strike against Iran.
The current rise in tension between Iran and the US has led to vastly increased oil prices, fevered speculation, and has created an even greater gap between Bush and reality. On this occasion, the US President’s outrage had been prompted the publication of a balanced and clearly well-informed article for the New Yorker by respected columnist Seymour Hersh. Hersh is not just any journalist, he has a reputation on writing about Iraq and he has already painstakingly detailed the way in which the Bush administration has financed Iranian anti-regime groups.
Hersh claimed in the New Yorker that “current and former American military and intelligence officials said that air force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government and ethnic minority groups.” Bush, it seems, is obsessed with denying Iran the opportunity to enrich uranium. This obsession is built on the contempt for both international law and the role of the United Nations that he revealed during the run-up to the Iraq war, and ever since. The US believes that it has an inalienable right to decide what happens next, and its calculations take into account only its own interests, and how consequences in the region will affect them.
The very fact that all of this is being debated so publicly, with no regard to international law, demonstrates the new “morality” of the US, and Blair’s support for it. The US has never been entirely comfortable with the concept of international law over-riding the nation state. It never ratified the League of Nations, was the most prolific user of the Security Council veto at the UN, has refused to endorse the Kyoto Treaty and, ominously, has failed to accede to the statutes of the International Criminal Court. Bush has, in the past, attempted a rather incoherent intellectual justification of the Project for a New American Century’s “moral crusade”.
Blair, in his Sedgefield address and his more recent forays on the subject, has claimed that the asymmetric nature of conflict creates responsibilities on the powerful and, goes the logic, therefore morally correct states to intervene around the world. In the bizarre post-Iraq invasion world, all this seems logical. In reality, it is no more than the bankrupt language of the bully and colonialists down the centuries.
Bush believes that he has a “duty” to interfere in Iran and is trying to portray its activities as being in the interests of regional security. It is the same old story that we heard from 2001 to September 2003, when over 150,000 US troops were assembled in Kuwait for an exercise. This time, the build-up to an attack on Iran is cleverer. Huge sums of money are being invested in Iranian exiled groups in the US, apparently on potential allies in Iran, and the region is being treated to US diplomacy and payouts. Bush’s recent visit to India and Pakistan was not coincidental. He went to embrace free market economics in India, and military action in Pakistan. Both countries have developed wholly illegal nuclear weapons within the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But, since neither has signed the NPT, the law does not apply. In four years, the world has seen minor sanctions against both countries replaced by positive rewards. At the conclusion of his visit, Bush offered India the enormous reward of access to US nuclear technology and approved Pakistan’s internal military activities as a contribution to his war on terror.
There is one major flaw in the whole approach of isolating Iran. It is the only country in the region that has signed the NPT. Therefore, it is the only one to be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection and the only one obliged to co-operate with these visits. For all the US bluster and pressure from Washington on IAEA members to refer the case to the UN Security Council, the case against Iran remains thin. All Iran has done is to withdraw from the supplementary protocol of the NPT. The Iranian community in exile, like the Iranian people, has expressed a huge degree of unity in opposition to US policies in respect of any putative invasion. The human rights record of Iran over the past 30 years, from the time of the Shah to Ayatollah Khomeini, has been appalling, as was the record of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq. The experience of Iraq shows that the US intervention had little to do with democracy and much to do with oil, and an opportunity to demonstrate its military power. Tens of thousands of Iraqis and soldiers have paid the ultimate price for this vanity. An invasion or air strikes against Iran will have a terrifying effect in the whole region. Israel is being touted as the possible stooge to carry out the deeds of the US. Some US diplomats have even claimed that they have to act to prevent Israel taking premature and unilateral action against Iran. It is a strange turn of events when Israel, a nuclear power which is heavily funded and supported by the US and yet is not a signatory to the NPT, is supposedly allowed to control US policy. The situation is incredibly dangerous. The debate on how to invade, bomb, kill or destroy the country has become the subject of international examination, rather than condemnation. The BBC caught the mood with graphics on its news website outlining the relative merits of nuclear or conventional bombardment of the nuclear reactors. Any attack will kill thousands of wholly innocent people. It will spark an unpredictable regional reaction. It will encourage others to develop nuclear weapons.
Bush, wounded by Iraq and Afghanistan, is more dangerous than ever. How about his close ally, our Prime Minister, standing up to him for once and opposing any military action against Iran?
Another way
April 5, 2009
In his 31st floor office overlooking New York, United Nations disarmament ambassador Sergio Duarte holds a map highlighting the areas of the globe which have been declared nuclear-free zones. The bright colours on the map are a testament to people turning their backs on fear and seeking to rid the world of the thunderous cloud of nuclear destruction that has existed for the last 60 years.
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has undoubtedly succeeded in preventing greater proliferation of nuclear weapons. But real steps must be taken next year to bring about disarmament among those outside the NPT club. And, if nuclear-declared states do not cancel plans for a new generation of weapons, we face the desperate prospect of a world languishing in recession and wasting billions on WMD that will merely create further tension and uncertainty. This is the backdrop to the NPT preparatory committee meeting at the UN headquarters, whose task is to lay the groundwork for next year’s review.
The stakes are high. The last review in 2005 ended in deadlock, but hopes are high that 2010 might see a real nuclear disarmament breakthrough.
For this to happen, the five nuclear-declared states must take the lead. A statement agreed in advance by US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev accepting their obligations under Article VI of the treaty has already helped to generate a positive atmosphere. UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon’s opening address was certainly upbeat. Ban said that the talks should aim to end the “stalemate that has marked the international disarmament machinery for too long” and to strengthen the NPT regime.
He concluded by reminding the delegates and an enormous number of non-governmental representatives that “nuclear weapons will never make us secure.”
Noticeably, while he called on Iran to “continue co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Authority” and work with the European Union-led talks, he did not indulge in the ritual condemnation of Iran that dominated previous preparatory meetings in Vienna and New York.
His words were likewise measured when it came to North Korea, which he urged to restart six-party talks to make the Korean peninsula nuclear-free.
Iran and North Korea are two of the central issues that must be resolved at the NPT talks if they are to succeed. Israel, India and Pakistan are the others.
Israel possesses nuclear WMD and has shown no desire to take part in a decommissioning programme. It could not sign up to the NPT under these circumstances and, as long as the US and EU give economic and political support to Tel Aviv, it has no incentive to change its stance.
India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons aimed at each other and their deployment would do equal damage to both countries and cause untold loss of life.
The instability in Pakistan has already spurred the US to question the “security” of the weapons and there are reportedly plans in place to “secure” nuclear sites in the event of a Taliban advance - potentially embroiling European and US forces operating along the Afghanistan border in a civil war in a nuclear-armed country.
Iran, despite all the rhetoric from Whitehall and the US State Department, is a signatory to the NPT and is present at all the meetings. Legally, it can develop nuclear power - the whole 1970 treaty apparatus envisages the use of civil nuclear power.
North Korea, meanwhile, is very poor, has huge problems of food supply and is isolated politically. It cannot afford to use its meagre resources on weapons.
But it would be naive to vaguely hope that the nuclear weapons states outside the treaty will suddenly change their position.
A new process and mechanism is required, such as a standing nuclear weapons convention to drive and promote disarmament.
Beyond the conference hall, peace activists are out in force to promote this message. They know that real security does not come from multibillion-pound weaponry but from the elimination of poverty and the cruel imbalances between wealth and opportunity across the globe.
They represent the view of millions upon millions of people worldwide - that there is another way.
<h3>Britain’s WMD</h3>
OUR government constantly claims that it adheres to the NPT and it is true that it has reduced its nuclear stockpiles.
But the government still defends its possession of nuclear WMD as necessary for security - an argument that could be used by any country in the world.
The recession has forced the British government to make huge borrowings, plan deep cuts in public spending in two years time and tax rises.
Its proposal to commit future generations to a £76bn bill for new subs and warheads is nothing but a criminal waste of money.
Diversionary tactics
April 1, 2009
Last week, the Metropolitan Police department of imagination excelled itself by announcing that people from the 1990s were re-emerging to cause mayhem on the streets of London. Londoners were told they should expect to be unable to travel round their city at the weekend due to the G20 protests.
The police went even further for the unfortunate residents of Tower Hamlets who live near the ExCel centre. They were told they could only leave their homes with at least two pieces of ID and visitors would simply not be allowed. Not surprisingly, the residents protested, but they were firmly put back in their box by the Met.
This police action and the massive security surrounding the G20 summit seemed designed to create an atmosphere of intolerance and unpleasantness to discourage people from attending demonstrations against global capitalism, climate change and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a way of marginalising anyone who dissents from economic orthodoxy. Indeed, many will remember that the day before the anti-war march in February 2003, the Ministry of Defence placed armoured vehicles around Heathrow airport on the grounds that there was an imminent threat. It was a magnificently absurd piece of overreaction, which did not appear to have the slightest effect on the million-plus who attended the demonstration the following day.
Many people have objected to the police attitude, including Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti and joint committee on human rights chairman Andrew Dismore, who said the police language was “not very helpful.”
All this distracts from a number of important issues.
Last Saturday, there was a large demonstration calling on the G20 leaders to take action on the environment, jobs and global injustice in the face of recession. It was a welcome coming together of the development groups and environmental groups with very large trade union assistance and input. The march was supported by Stop the War Coalition and CND, but the core message from the platform seemed to be almost Fawlty Towers-esqe in not mentioning the war.
So far, every industrial economy has gone into this recession by putting money in new shares to protect financial institutions. With each new tranche of money paid into the British banking system, repossessions have continued and very little new mortgage lending or manufacturing industry investment has followed. The demands of job protection and investment in public services and infrastructure are the only way of ensuring that living standards are maintained and that school-leavers don’t end up joining the ever-lengthening dole queue.
TUC leader Brendan Barber is quite right to oppose a public-sector wage freeze and the shrill demands of the more right-wing newspapers for public spending cuts, pointing out that public spending will be key to economic recovery.
However, we cannot go into this period accepting that we’ll continue pouring billions into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on an escalator of ever-increasing arms expenditure by all Western powers. The dreadful, catastrophic recession of the 1930s ended with World War II. This recession should be ended on a process of planned sustainable economic growth that eliminates poverty around the world, rather than increasing the power of the Western economies to invade and occupy Iraq, Afghanistan or any other country they may choose.
Women no better off after Afghanistan invasion
THE governments which launched the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan have often claimed enormous improvements to women’s rights to education and support in Afghanistan.
While many more girls are attending school than during the most intense period of the Taliban rule, it is disturbing to find that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is now backing a new law which the UN says legalises rape within marriage and will ban wives from stepping outside their homes without their husband’s permission. Karzai signed this into law a month ago. It has been condemned by many people in Afghanistan, not least by Senator Humaira Namati, who said, in reference to the law: “It is worse than during the Taliban.”
The war in Afghanistan is taking more and more troops from the US and Britain, there are ever-more casualties and now drones are regularly flying into Pakistan and bombing border villages. At the same time, drug production has increased and huge levels of corruption appear to sustain Karzai and his friends in office.
The Stop the War demonstration this afternoon outside the US embassy will be trying to remind the G20 leaders that for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan it’s been a crisis for a very long time. Resources would be better invested in Afghans’ social needs rather than their destruction.
Palestinian denied care
A VERY sad decision was taken in the High Court on Monday. A Palestinian man with chronic liver disease, blocked from returning to the West Bank by the Israeli authorities, is in desperate need of care. Under the inhumane asylum laws in this country, he has been refused financial support.
Now, Lord Justice Ward has decided that before the man could receive free NHS treatment, he must have resided lawfully in Britain for at least a year. The Refugee Council’s Donna Covey described the situation as “appalling and inhumane.”
Our country takes a brutal attitude towards asylum-seekers. The media generally fails to report the numbers who die trying to get into Europe from north Africa or the numbers of appellant asylum-seekers living in desperate poverty, begging on the streets or relying on churches and mosques for sustenance. It seems grossly inhumane, on top of this, to refuse asylum-seekers medical support and force them to rely on the generosity of individual hospitals.
