The current accommodation capacity of the barge is just over 200. The refit commissioned by the government will see that capacity more than doubled to 500.
Which of course inevitably means cramped overcrowding and unhygienic conditions.
Regardless of how the government tries to portray it or dress it up in benign rhetoric, this barge is intended to be used as a prison ship in which to incarcerate refugees, many of whom have fled for their lives from harrowing and torturous conditions in the hope of finding safety from war or persecution in what they believe to be a civilised country.
The barge will, after its refit in Falmouth, be tugged to Portland in Dorset where it will be permanently moored — ironically not so far from where the Tolpuddle Martyrs were unjustly deported for trying to form a union of farm labourers almost 200 years ago.
On Wednesday May 10, within a day of the arrival of the prison barge in Falmouth, over a hundred protesters gathered at a point overlooking the harbour where the Bibby Stockholm is moored, chanted and displayed No To Floating Prisons banners. Speakers called for an end to the racist violence that the Bibby Stockholm represents.
SIR Keir Starmer was accused of “reheated Blairism” today after he vowed Labour’s planned reforms would be like Clause IV “on steroids.”
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A Momentum spokesperson said: “Labour members and trade unions want what the public wants: transformative policies to fix the Tories’ broken Britain, from public ownership of public services to wealth taxes.
“By pursuing a path of reheated Blairism, the Labour leadership wouldn’t just be undermining party democracy.
“It would repeat past mistakes, leaving intact a deeply unequal and unpopular economic system. It’s time for change.”
I find it difficult to understand the strategy behind Starmer’s speech which on a superficial level is bound to annoy so many. He’s not popular anyway, why make it worse?
While a general election isn’t expected for some time is his team relying on mainstream media getting behind him? Will that work?
International fund set up at Cop27 is intended to provide compensation to countries worst hit by climate breakdown
A tax on wealthy Britons of just 0.5% could more than meet the UK’s entire “fair share” contribution to the international loss and damage fund established to support countries worst hit by global climate breakdown, a charity has suggested.
Taxing 5p of every £10 of individuals’ wealth over £1m would raise £15bn a year by 2030, well in excess of an estimated $15bn (£12bn) UK contribution to the new fund, according to an analysis by the anti-poverty campaigners Christian Aid.
The loss and damage fund, established at last year’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, is intended to provide compensation for climate-related disasters that are beyond the possibility of adaptation.
Estimates of its potential cost differ, but the range of $290bn-$580bn a year by 2030 is often cited, with a midpoint of about $400bn, taking into account inflation and rising climate impacts. Christian Aid estimates the UK’s “fair share” of this to be about 3.5%, or $15bn.
Motion calling for disaffiliation with right-wing, pro-Israel group leads to suspension by union – but GMB has not explained supposed inaccuracies or why democratic motion in line with union policy is problematic
The GMB union has suspended a former employee and current union member – because his London branch passed a motion for GMB’s 2023 Congress calling for disaffiliation from right-wing, pro-Israel group JLM (Jewish Labour Movement).
The motion, which was passed unanimously by Walthamstow branch, reads:
Congress accepts that the decision to work with the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) runs contrary to GMB’s support for Palestine, has brought the union into disrepute and should never have been countenanced.
Congress notes that the JLM is effectively the UK wing of the Israeli Labour Party, a racist organisation that governed Israel from 1948 to 1977 and was directly responsible for the massacre or the expulsion of three quarters of a million Palestinians. Today, some of their Knesset members support the most right-wing Israeli regime in history.
JLM conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism and by dint of its support, GMB is leaving itself open to accusations that it is supporting the racist treatment of Palestinian people. Therefore, Congress instructs the General Secretary and the CEC to sever all ties with JLM forthwith.
GMB, like the other major unions, has an official – and democratically reached – policy supporting the ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ movement, which JLM opposes and in both 2011 and 2013 passed resolutions not to allow its members to travel to Israel on delegations organised by ‘Trade Union Friends of Israel’ (TUFI).
But despite the apparently obvious alignment between the Walthamstow branch’s motion and the union’s official position, the GMB’s regional secretary has written to branch member Bert Schouwenburg, ‘in comradeship’, informing him that he has been suspended for the ‘antisemitic’ resolution:
Skwawkbox called and wrote to the GMB press office, asking:
As just discussed, please find attached the union’s letter to Bert Schouwenburg, suspending him because Walthamstow branch submitted a motion for disaffiliation with the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) on the grounds that affiliation risks GMB being seen as complicit in Israel’s racist treatment of Palestinians.
Questions:
JLM is an openly pro-Israel organisation, which – particularly given the current regime’s extremist right-wing politics and open intention to further expand illegal settlements, would appear to make affiliation at odds with the union’s longstanding, congress-approved position not to affiliate with Trade Union Friends of Israel or allow travel to Israel, because of the Israeli government’s racist policies and illegal settlements. Why is a branch motion being used to suspend a member?
Israel’s government has been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and others as an apartheid regime and its government is openly racist, including its Finance Minister who has boasted of being a ‘fascist homophobe’.Why is the union suspending one or more members for a democratic motion to open a conference debate about the morals of a link with a strongly pro-Israel group that does not appear to have condemned even the worst excesses of the current Netanyahu regime?
what are the ‘factual inaccuracies’ claimed by Warren Kenny? Is the union disputing that the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians took place in and subsequent to 1948?
No response had been received from the union by the time of writing, seven hours after the provided deadline.
Mr Schouwenburg told Skwawkbox:
By seeking to expel me from the union, GMB are trying to shut down any voices that dissent from their newly-found enthusiasm for Israel’s apartheid regime. Under Gary Smith, a union that once backed the call for Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) is now supporting the most vicious, right-wing government in Israel’s history.
I refuse to be silenced by the reactionary bureaucrats in charge of GMB and urge fellow members to join me in giving unconditional support to the Palestinian people
The richest 10% of citizens are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions. Taxing private jets would be a good place to start – and raise money for cleaner alternatives.
e tend to say ‘we are all in the same boat’, but frankly we are not. We are all in the same ocean, but not in the same boat.” EU Climate Change Commissioner Frans Timmermans was thinking of vulnerable, low-income countries when he made this remark, but the thrust of his quote also holds true for the division between the richest and the less well off in all countries. While the poorest everywhere are trying to stay afloat, battered by a storm of high energy and food prices and falling real wages for many, the richest continue to hop around in their private jets.
Yes, we must all change our behaviour and drastically reduce our emissions, but in 2023 let’s stop pretending we are all in this together. We need policies that force the very rich to pay for the outsized amount of pollution they cause.
Kevin Anderson, professor at the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, and economist Ann Pettifor have been making this case for years. “The green movement has lost its way by making us feel we are all equally responsible for the [climate] crisis,” Pettifor said when I interviewed her in 2021. Both have called for emission reduction efforts to be focused on the world’s wealthiest 10% of individuals, who are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions – and especially the top 1%. The super rich contribute close to 17% of global emissions.
