Report for October-November
November 30, 2009
You can now download my report for October-November 2009.
It covers the Queen’s Speech; housing; the UK public’s support for the war in Afghanistan; transport issues; speeches on Palestine, nuclear weapons, Latin America; meetings attended; and local events.
Parliamentary interventions in October and November
November 30, 2009
The report of parliamentary interventions for October and November includes details of EDM on the Whittington Hospital, written parliamentary questions (WPQs) and interventions in the debates on Nuclear Non Proliferation, Arms Export Control and Sri Lanka. The WPQs are on Iraqi asylum seekers, Ehud Barak’s visit to the UK, the Freedom Pass, the Channel project and the Prevent agenda, aid to Syria, Sri Lankan Tamils, tenants’ rights, housing in Islington, the Office of the Public Guardian, rail transport, postal workers and Iran’s Nuclear Programme.
Where’s the democracy?
November 25, 2009
On Monday the House of Commons debated the foreign affairs and defence sections of the Queen’s speech. Most of the discussion was about Afghanistan and the Middle East, with prescient remarks about the Chilcot inquiry, which opened this week. The house did not like being reminded that British troops have been in Iraq for almost seven years. Even less did it like being reminded that there had been no substantive parliamentary vote on the deployment of British forces before the invasion took place.
The Chilcot inquiry is not without its limitations. Membership was appointed by the Prime Minister, it has no judicial function, witnesses are not required to take an oath and it has no counsel to interrogate those giving evidence. However, it could provide some answers as to how the British political system permitted an illegal war and how it is that the protagonists for military action have so far escaped any legal censure.
The root of the problem is the British parliamentary system’s supine relationship with the executive and the lack of parliamentary power in the constitutional structure. Executive powers and parliamentary accountability coexist amid a rich cocktail of patronage, inheritance and chicanery. To invigorate the elected chamber of the House of Commons a number of reforms need to take place. There should at the outset be an understanding that an elected parliament is there to represent the democratic wishes of the people and to hold government to account.
The House of Commons at the moment is essentially a creature of government, rather than a representation of the wishes of the people. MPs need to be empowered to decide what business the house should follow and what legislative programme it is to undertake.
Under current arrangements the government controls virtually all of the business time in the house and has no difficulty in controlling the time allocated for its own legislative programme. The Prime Minister’s Office has inherited the power of the royal prerogative and this can and is used to bypass Parliament. It is high time that all prime ministerial decisions were brought under parliamentary scrutiny. Additionally, orders in council signed by the Queen are subject to no parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever.
This was illustrated when the Chagos Islanders were denied their right to return and when the autonomous government of the Turks and Caicos Islands was suspended by royal fiat. In both cases, there was no possibility of parliamentary debate.
Prime ministerial patronage extends effectively to the appointments of most members of the House of Lords and to a vast number of quangos. Through the power to appoint ministers and officials of the house, including the leader and the chief whip, select committee appointments are also the subject of the same patronage.
If we want an effective democracy, the House of Commons must assert itself and show that it has the authority of the electorate.
MPs too often operate in their comfort zone. They are willingly being told what to do by whips - to vote for Bills they have not read on subjects they don’t understand.
There is a campaign going on for the establishment of a citizens’ convention. This is useful in promoting serious debate and discussion about democracy, but some caution should be exercised on the idea of the right of recall. The right of recall is often used by the rich and powerful to try to undermine a democratically elected government. For example, vast resources were expended to try to remove Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
And in the United States, some wealthy lobby groups campaigned for a right of recall to remove Democrat governor Gray Davis of California, who was then replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. One can imagine the kind of forces that would have activated a power of recall against Tam Dalyell when he was pursing the truth about the sinking of the General Belgrano. Many would have also wanted Tony Benn out of the picture when he was industry minister in the 1970s because he was upsetting the captains of industry with his pursuit of industrial democracy and planning agreements.
It’s important that MPs are elected for a specific geographical area and are accountable to localised political forces and communities rather than the dubious democracy of huge multimember constituencies.
Democracy was fought for to bring about rights for every citizen for health, education, housing and protection from destitution and poverty. It was also to control what governments do in our name.
It’s time the debate moved onto this fundamental territory.
Last chance to get back on course
November 17, 2009
Today will be the last state opening of this parliament, and Gordon Brown will produce what will, in reality, be a “wish list” of things he would like to do now that there are probably only 70 sitting days until parliament is dissolved for the general election campaign. The latest opinion polls on the back of the Glasgow by-election show a small increase in Labour support but still a depressingly large Conservative lead.
The political classes and punditry all offer some analysis of Brown’s problems, but in reality are talking up the prospect of a Conservative government, not analysing Conservative policy and generally giving Cameron an incredibly easy ride. The Liberal Democrats, after proposing huge public-spending cuts at their conference, have since realised how unpopular they are and are saying nothing more about them, and accept Nick Clegg’s proposal that we spend 70 days reforming the British constitution.
As ever, the PM appears to be indecisive and very cautious. I would hope that in the last few months of this parliament, he could at least concentrate on three crucial issues - wars, environment and inequality. During his speech in the City, amid all the splendour of the Lord Mayor’s banquet, he made a lame attempt at justifying the Afghan war on the rather spurious grounds that it somehow made Britain safer. At the same time, he indicated that the British military presence there had not succeeded in either occupying, pacifying or controlling the country, and that he would host a conference on handing “authority” over to the Afghan government.
In the 1970s and ’80s, the United States realised that the game was up in Vietnam and moved into “Vietnamisation.” I hope that Brown’s latest statement is a coded version of abandoning the whole misguided strategy in Afghanistan. With all the losses, carnage and costs, it’s a shame that Brown cannot just accept that the whole strategy has been wrong from the very beginning, making the world more dangerous and costing the lives of thousands of people who didn’t deserve to die.
US President Barack Obama is clearly going through a huge debate with his military, and one hopes that he will not put another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan and follow the McChrystal line of total occupation.
Moving on to the vital issue of the environment, next month, the Copenhagen summit will possibly agree on a global response to the environmental disasters that we’re heading into, but the omens are not good. In Rome, the very same leaders have so far failed to agree on a strategy for dealing with the food crisis. Instead, they’ve allowed the rich countries to carry on buying land in Africa and other places in order to guarantee their own food security, while the starving local populations look on. It’s the same poor people all over the world who suffer the consequences of draught, flooding and desertification of their lands, and are forced to migrate to the fetid shanty towns that surround every big city in the southern half of the globe.
Copenhagen must be about dealing with inequality and social justice, at the same time as protecting the environment.
Inequality in Britain is yet another issue that ought to dominate the next election campaign. New Labour has deliberately encouraged greater personal wealth, while simultaneously putting more money into the services that have benefited many of the poorest in our society, such as tax credits, nursery places and children’s centres.
The stark reality is that we have one of the most unequal societies in Europe.
A Tory government would do nothing to change this except perhaps to make it worse, with the promotion of tax havens and the reduction if not total abolition of inheritance tax.
Last Saturday, the Labour Representation Committee met and discussed a number of proposals for protecting jobs, promoting trade union rights and reducing inequality within our society. Brown would do well to pledge that there will be no cuts in socially valuable public spending. He should announce greater investment in housing, railway infrastructure and a continuing programme of direct investment in the health service. The only cuts should be in the Trident nuclear missile system and defence spending.
He would also do well to announce the protection of pensions and end the bid to privatise any part of the Royal Mail. The banking crisis of 2008 was bailed out with huge public investment. That investment should be used to create a socially responsible and accountable banking system which does not allow the private sector to once again transform Britain into a casino economy.
The broadcast media and most of the newspapers have reduced political debate either to personalities or to the endorsement of the concept of a Tory victory next year.
We need to show that there is an alternative to increasing defence expenditure, cutting social spending and creating even greater inequality.
It’s up to the Labour Party to rediscover itself and offer a radical alternative that conquers inequality and poverty.
Migration and detention
November 16, 2009
Just outside Bedford there is an industrial estate based on a WWII airfield, with bleak open spaces and gaunt buildings. The security at the entrance directs you to a series of diverse companies including Red Bull Racing, and a Home Office facility.
Yarlswood is a new, state of the art, detention centre built alongside the site of the one that was burnt down in the notorious fire when the detainees objected to their incarceration.
The site of the old centre is surrounded by walls topped with razor wire - a fence guarding an empty space.
I visited Yarlswood with my colleague Diane Abbott on Monday. We were shown around the centre, the facilities, the medical unit, the rooms and the education and library facilities. I have visited some of the more modern prison facilities. As doors were opened, and closed, behind us with the prison key and interlocking doors programmed to remain locked until its neighbour was locked it felt like a prison. The rooms overlook a security perimeter area with a high wall, topped with barbed wire, and the sun peeps over the clouds that scud across the sky. The detainees are well aware that they are being detained.
As we asked questions about conditions and policies we had to remind ourselves that the detainees have committed no crime, the children watching videos and using computers are guilty of nothing, and that this is detention, British style.
I have met many asylum seekers or over-stayers who have been detained and whatever the conditions, they never forget the experience. The stories are sad and harrowing. Young women orphaned by aids who fled from the misery of lonely poverty in Africa; others victims of social isolation through their sexuality; and others who were fearful of being dragged into military conflict.
Anyone dispassionately listening would be moved by the human plight, yet these are the voices that do not get heard, the stories the popular media simply do not want to print. Much easier to appease the mob and scream for vengeance.
Three weeks ago it emerged that the Home Office had not deported released prisoners. In the cases where a Judge in Court, had ruled that deportation should follow completion of sentence, clearly there had been an error. In other cases the released prisoner was no different to any other ex convict. They had been released. The scream for vengeance has led to people who migrated to the UK many years ago such as Ernesto Leal from Chile. He served a sentence, following which he has lived an exemplary life and worked in the community. The hue and cry created by the popular press led by the Sun has resulted in his detention pending removal. We do not live in rational or normal times.
Our economy, particularly in London is heavily reliant on armies of people who are prepared to get up at 3am to clean offices and work in cafes. Many of those are badly exploited and lead precarious lives.
Not only do they have to work very hard, they cannot protest at their conditions as the employer could simply inform the Home Office and they could be deported. They have no access to health care or justice as their whole survival depends on anonymity. Their children attend school but fear being hunted due to their parent’s lack of the prized immigration status.
Jack Dromey of the T&GWU was forthright and clear when he pointed out over the weekend that these workers are doing no more than we expect of everyone else: working to support their families and achieve a reasonable standard of living. The Union, and other Unions, are well aware that if we have two grades of worker in Britain those without status can be used to undermine the conditions of others.
Strangely across the Atlantic in the USA there is huge popular protest in support of migrant workers. The racist and xenophobic utterances in the USA of the Republican Right about migrants from Mexico and Central America have provoked a massive response. Migrant workers pick fruit, wash cars, serve in check-outs, and build houses and sweat to achieve their dreams. Fed up with being denigrated, the revolt and marches have shown that they are united and care, and that they have economic power. The Bush administration, wary of the growing voting power of the legal migrants and their sympathies are talking openly about an “amnesty”. However, at the same time 6,000 national guardsmen have been ordered to the Rio Grande to protect the border from the south.
It is surely a statement of our times that the US should deploy troops along a border where there is no threat of invasion, only of people desperate to work. Will it be shooting next?
The popular papers could hardly contain their glee when six cleaners were found in the Immigration Offices who apparently did not have papers. In the resulting scrum and feeding frenzy nobody asked how much they were paid, by whom, or that they had actually done their jobs efficiently. Surely it is time for some humanity in the system. What is the point in armies of officials chasing those who work and provide and who due to their lack of status become prey to vicious exploitation?
In the wider world context, the disparities of wealth and power make victims of millions. Forced off land by globalisation, food dumping or drought the desperate seek a life somewhere. In exactly the same way the poor of central Europe and Ireland made the dangerous passage to the USA or Australia in the 19th century millions seek work and safety.
I saw a sad clip on the news two weeks ago. Apparently some people had their holidays “ruined” on the Canary Islands as the sight of hundreds of poor and emaciated people staggered on to the beaches having made the treacherous and dangerous crossing in open boats from Africa. Hundreds more did not, and their bodies were left at sea.
We need humanity and principle. Humanity to recognise the needs of people within our society, and principle to develop economic, social and environmental justice across the globe.
Afghanistan, again
November 11, 2009
Last Sunday at War memorials all over the country the ceremonies recalled the horror of the millions slain in the two world wars, and in other more recent conflicts. The events inevitably encourage discussion on the role of the military, the purposes of war and of those who pay the ultimate price.
As the news of further losses of British soldiers in Afghanistan came out in the instant news fashion we are now accustomed to, the debate inevitably turned to why British troops are there at all.
Remembrance Sunday news coverage variously focused on Gordon Brown’s handwriting, his abilities at bowing his head, and a series of statements by former military chiefs who choose to blame all the problems of the military on equipment and thus the Government. The same process is going on in the USA.
British deaths are rising rapidly and the BBC website takes up a full twenty three pages of pictures of all the young men who have died in Afghanistan since 2001. As the bodies come home and the families grieve and politicians and generals alike mouth platitudes about fighting for their country and making our streets safer, many think rather more deeply about it.
Opinion polls taken for Remembrance Sunday show that nearly two thirds of the people questioned do not support the war and want the British troops home. Perhaps more tellingly, about half do not understand what the war is for. Indeed the more questions that are put to successive defence ministers on the purpose of the troop deployment, the more vague are the answers.
This is now the ninth year that British troops have been in Afghanistan, longer than the two world wars, and longer than any other conflict of the twentieth century excepting Northern Ireland. The best estimate from any of the Military is that on current strategy, they could leave in five years; some talk of thirty years.
In 2001 the World Trade Centre was attacked and collapsed, and over three thousand people died. George Bush and the US military decided that Afghanistan was the spiritual and military home of Al Qaeda, and after a perfunctory attempt to show a diplomatic effort which might enable the extradition of Osama Bin Laden, an attack on Afghanistan was launched.
Not surprisingly the Afghan army was quickly defeated and the country occupied. A coalition of war lords and pro western loyalists formed a Government of sorts, millions of dollars were poured in for “reconstruction”, and the country was meant to become a Western democracy.
Clearly this whole strategy is a failure; thousands of wholly innocent Afghan people have died, drug production is at record levels, the warlords are in the government buildings and support for various groups of Taliban fighters is rapidly rising. The Western forces largely rely on air support to move around as the roads are too dangerous. Karzai’s proclaimed re-election is a travesty of any democratic process, and the Western public are supposed to believe that there are successes in nation building.
The political problems of withdrawal are a smokescreen for the real purposes of being there.
The Bush doctrine of the Project for a New American Century used the Afghan military effort of 2001 to not only invade that country, but also to create a ring of bases and military capability all over central Asia; issues of oil pipelines to the sea and the huge untapped mineral potential of the country were, and remain, major considerations.
The argument about changing Afghanistan is clearly seriously flawed as the war has spread into Pakistan, and increasingly potential a civil war situation is developing there. The post colonial border has always been the subject of dispute; yet another legacy of Britain’s division of colonial India.
The legacy of the whole Afghanistan adventure is a combination of horror for the people, losses of young soldiers from the USA, Britain and other counties, and enormous damage to international law and civil rights.
Afghanistan brought us Bagram air base, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay and in the USA the dubious concept of “homeland security”; on this side of the Atlantic we now have the anti terror legislation that undermines the independence of the judiciary.
President Obama seems mired in a debate he cannot win. Having allowed General McChrystal to make public demands for 40,000 troops and envisaging a process of saturation coverage of the country, with embedding troops in every town and village, will surely gobble up thousands more. In Europe the opposition to the war is intensifying. In Britain our 9,000 troops are due to increase by another 500.
This is a turning point. If the McCrhystal formula is adopted, the losses will rise, the costs will rise, and the likelihood of an ever more humiliating withdrawal a few years down the line increases.
Vietnam cost the lives of millions of Vietnamese and 50,000 Americans. Afghanistan, more high technology on both sides, is an equally unwinnable conflict and an indication, as if one were needed, of the terrible to dangers to the whole planet of the thinking of the Bush administration in 2001.
EDM 2256: Trade union rights in Saudi Arabia
November 9, 2009
That this House believes it a fundamental human right to be able to form independent trade unions; is concerned that Yahya Al Faifi was an active trade unionist in Saudi Arabia and due to threats made against him left and came to the United Kingdom; and calls on the UK to express its concerns at human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and not to allow any deportations to take place of those who have been active as trade unionists and thus face persecution.
How many more illegal acts will it take?
November 3, 2009
At one of the border points between Syria and Iraq, reached after a four-hour drive across the stony desert from Damascus, the road is barred to all vehicles and travellers by a checkpoint.
Those allowed through drive on. This is the road to Baghdad, where armies have marched, peace-makers have travelled and refugees have fled. Beside it, where the huge lorries lumber up to speed, are the refugee tents covered in standard-issue UN High Commission plastic, makeshift roads and bored kids wandering about.
These are the refugees who have left Iraq but have not yet been allowed into Syria. Their stories are heart rending. I meet many families and am moved by so many tales of the endless search for a place of security and hope, always dashed. I sit in a tent - carpeted and clean, but still a tent - with a couple and their children.
Both are Palestinians born in Baghdad, whose parents lived and thrived as children in Haifa until the state of Israel was founded and they were driven out as unwanted residents from a land given to somebody else. They joined the hundreds of thousands who fled. Many went to Iraq, others to Jordan, Gaza and all over the region - and indeed the world.
In Iraq they had identity and recognition as Palestinians and held onto the dream of returning to their homes. But life was never easy and they worked hard until the invasion of 2003.
In the chaos of the ungoverned post-Saddam Iraq, the Shia crowds turned on the Palestinians and accused them of being Saddam stooges and supporters of the Sunnis. Death threats followed and some were assassinated. Fearing the worst, many families either went into hiding, fled to other parts of Iraq or tried their luck in neighbouring countries.
Despite all the pro-Palestinian rhetoric of most countries in the Middle East, only Jordan and Syria have taken in Palestinians.
The border camp at alTanaf is home to hundreds of people as they await their fate.
The family explain how their lives consist of daily bread and basic food deliveries from the UN and a primary school in the camp. It is bitterly cold at night and they are fearful of snakes, scorpions and fires which can set tents ablaze during cooking. But these families do not criticise their treatment by Syria or the UN but by Iraq and the big powers.
In the midst of such apparent hopelessness, the children are an inspiration for the future. A bright 12-year-old girl tells me of her ambitions to be a doctor and her family proudly listen. All have one aim: to get out of the camp.
Other camps house Palestinians as the UN bears their food and living costs, waiting for decisions on where they will go. These Palestinians are the children of the survivors of the “nakba” of 1948, when huge numbers were displaced from their homeland, along with the victims of the “liberation” of Iraq who now await the outcome of complex negotiations as to their ultimate destination. Meanwhile, the weather worsens and conditions deteriorate.
Four hours down the road there are more Palestinian camps, or rather Palestinian towns that happen to be in Syria.
On Monday - Balfour Day, when Arthur Balfour gave his infamous declaration of support for a Jewish state of Israel - I sit in a crowded room with a group of Palestinians who describe their lives and their dreams.
Clearly well aware of all aspects of their history, they roundly condemn Britain and the US for their plight and take a keen interest interest in the putative talks for a settlement of the conflict. Their lives forever blighted by the war and loss of nationhood, it seems appropriate that another big disappointment awaits on Balfour Day.
Once again the Israeli tail wags the US dog as Hillary Clinton drops demands to even halt new settlements as the Netanyahu government pushes to continue its dismemberment of the West Bank.
Barely a week has passed since the British and US did not vote at the UN Human Rights Council on the reference of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war to the security council.
Just what more illegal acts does Israel have to commit before it is condemned? Israel’s argument about living space convinces some that they have the “right” to continue to take Palestinian land and water.
Yet across the region and the world, six million Palestinians wonder what happened to their rights.
Wars always leave a trail of human suffering that goes on and on. Those freezing on this isolated border - victims of the power politics of the 1940s and the absurd and dishonest assertions of Bush in 2003 - are but one tragic example of this incontrovertible truth.
Report for September-October
November 1, 2009
You can now download my latest activity report. It covers: Transition Highbury, a sustainability project; transport; housing; the war in Afghanistan; Western Sahara and what I’ve been doing in Parliament.
