Campaigners gather on Fistral Beach, Newquay, as they take part in a National Day of Action on Sewage Pollution. Picture date: Saturday April 23, 2022.
WATER company bosses were paid almost £15 million in bonuses last year despite overseeing 825 unlawful sewage discharges a day, leaving every river in England and many coastal waters polluted.
Labour vowed today to “hold water bosses to account for negligence over unlawful discharges” and a campaign group is gathering tens of thousands of signatures on an online petition calling for the bonuses to be scrapped.
The petition has been launched by pressure group 38 Degrees, whose name derives from the angle at which fallen snow turns into an avalanche.
The group said: “Despite sewage being pumped into our rivers and seas 825 times a day last year, water company CEOs received nearly £15 million in bonuses.
Earlier today Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF’s) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Operations and Campaigns Rebecca Vincent arrived to visit Julian Assange inside Belmarsh prison but were denied access at the last minute.
RSF’s representatives had been granted permission to visit Assange before the four-year anniversary of his imprisonment in Belmarsh, where he has been held since 11 April 2019.
Christophe Deloire, RSF Secretary-General, said: “We are deeply disappointed by the arbitrary decision of the Belmarsh Prison Governor to prevent us from visiting Julian Assange, despite following all relevant prison procedures and rules. Julian Assange has the right to receive visitors in prison, and we are legitimate to visit him as a press freedom NGO. We call for an urgent reversal of this decision and to be allowed visitation access without further delay.”
Rebecca Vincent, RSF Director of Operations, said: “This is the latest in a long series of ludicrous obstacles that we have faced over the past three years in campaigning for the release of Julian Assange. At every level, British authorities have defaulted to secrecy and exclusion rather than allowing normal engagement around this case – from refusing to accept RSF petitions, to making it nearly impossible to access court, and now this. What do they have to hide? Regardless, we continue our campaign to #FreeAssange.“
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson commented on the news: “A press freedom NGO barred from visiting a political prisoner and a journalist (after visit had previously been confirmed). This is not Russia, China or North Korea but the United Kingdom. Remember this next time the UK Government tries to lecture you on lack of press freedom elsewhere.”
ISRAELI police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem today, firing stun grenades at Palestinians inside who responded by throwing stones and firecrackers.
Outside the mosque’s gate, police dispersed crowds of young men with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
People arrested and later released from the compound said police had burst in and attacked worshippers, using truncheons, rifles and even chairs to strike men, women and children, with video footage appearing to confirm their accounts.
Standards committee demands tighter rules after openDemocracy uncovers lobbying by firms including weapons makers
Unofficial parliamentary groups should face tighter rules, a new report has recommended after openDemocracy revealed that they are easy prey for private firms and lobbyists wanting to buy access to politicians.
On Tuesday, the Committee on Standards called for tighter rules for All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) – informal groups run by MPs and peers, which are often funded by or closely linked to external organisations.
The committee warned that there “remains a significant risk of improper access and influence by commercial entities or by hostile foreign actors”.
Now, in a report published this week, the Committee on Standards has demanded stronger regulations for the groups, which have been revealed by this website to lobby for big tobacco, fuel companies and arms companies.
The report called for a ban on APPG secretariats being supplied by foreign countries and a requirement that all groups produce an annual income and expenditure statement.
It also said that MPs should be allowed to join no more than six APPGs, and that when reports are published and funded by external organisations, this must be made transparent.
“When communicating with ministers, public officials, public officer holders or outside organisations,” the report says, “APPGs and their officers must declare their sources of funding.”
Sometimes one questions whether a group really is an APPG or just a personal campaign or a money-making venture
Chris Bryant MP
Last year, openDemocracy revealed that MPs who successfully lobbied the government to introduce for a controversial ‘greener’ petrol were part of an APPG funded by the fuel industry. The APPG for British Bioethanol, supported by various fuel companies, met with ministers and urged the government to roll out E10 petrol “as swiftly as possible”.
openDemocracy uncovered that the APPG for British Bioethanol’s influential report on E10, published in 2019, had been paid for by a bioethanol company, Ensus Ltd. We found that staff from Ensus provided “assistance” with researching and writing the report, which mentions Ensus numerous times and includes quotes from the firm’s commercial director, Grant Pearson.
Writing for openDemocracy in the wake of our investigation, Labour MP Chris Bryant, who chairs the Committee on Standards, said MPs should “run a mile” from APPGs that feel like “front of house for a direct commercial interest,” “a cover for free trips to exotic locations” or “the brainchild of a lobbying company”.
Bryant added: “Sometimes [APPGs’ AGMs] are so poorly attended as to make one question whether the group really is an APPG or just a personal campaign or a money-making venture masquerading as a parliamentary affair.”
Minister had secret meeting with oil-backed think tank that warned UK government not to listen to climate scientists
Badenoch has previously said she would delay the UK’s net zero goals. 06/09/2022. London, United Kingdom. Official Cabinet Portrait; Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade – Kemi Badenoch.
Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch met secretly with a US think tank that has taken millions of dollars from climate denial groups and claimed it would be “irresponsible” for the UK to follow climate science, openDemocracy can reveal.
Badenoch met representatives of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which campaigners say has a long track record of “distorting” climate science, for dinner in November while on an official visit to the US.
Scant details of the meeting were published by Badenoch’s department last week, as the minister’s Indo-Pacific trade deal faced criticism for “making a mockery” of UK pledges to tackle deforestation.
The AEI, which also met with Liz Truss in 2018 when she was trade secretary, has sown doubt over climate change science, describing a landmark 2021 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as “alarmist” and “deeply dubious”.
The IPCC report was produced by the world’s leading climate scientists and concluded that the world was approaching “irreversible” levels of global heating, with catastrophic impacts rapidly becoming inevitable.
But Benjamin Zycher and Peter J Wallison, senior fellows at the AEI, played down its findings by claiming that “we don’t understand all the elements in the complex climate system – the effects of clouds alone are understood poorly”.
The authors, neither of whom have backgrounds in science, added that it would be “beyond irresponsible” for governments to adopt policies on the basis of the report.
The think tank also separately criticised COP 26, the annual UN climate conference hosted by the UK in 2021, with one of its authors claiming that delegates spread a “false narrative” that urgent action is required to tackle climate change.
Researchers have found that AEI has received more than $330m in donations from climate denial groups since 2008, including $4.8m from US oil giant ExxonMobil.
A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told openDemocracy that Badenoch meets “all sorts of stakeholders that have different views – it’s no different to what it’s like in the UK”.
“There are various think tanks in Westminster that have sceptical views about climate change and ministers meet these people all the time,” they added.
The department has refused a Freedom of Information request by openDemocracy for minutes of the meeting with the AEI on grounds that there were “closed discussions under the Chatham House rule” – meaning that their contents are secret.
Badenoch also gave a speech at another US think tank, the Cato Institute, during her official visit in November. The institute was founded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, one of the top funders of climate denial in the US. Cato is “focused on disputing the science behind global warming and questioning the rationale for taking action”, according to Greenpeace US.
The minister, who was beaten by Liz Truss in the first of last year’s Conservative leadership elections, gave a speech promoting free trade at the institute’s headquarters in Washington DC in which she hinted that some policies to tackle climate change could “impoverish” the UK.
“We all know that climate change is a challenge for us all, wherever we live in the world. But we know that we can and should solve it by using free trade and investment to accelerate the technological progress that will protect the planet,” she claimed.
“And something that not enough politicians say: we must do this, we must protect the planet in a way that does not impoverish the UK, the US or, let’s be honest, any other country,” she said.
During her unsuccessful campaign for the Tory leadership, Badenoch came out against the UK’s net zero target, describing the policy as “unilateral economic disarmament”. She told the Telegraph she “believe[s] in climate change” but said “there is a better way of going about these things”.
The American Enterprise Institute has been approached for comment.
A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said: “Claiming that speaking to a particular think tank implies adopting every one of their policy positions is treating the public like fools. The Secretary of State visited Washington DC to emphasise the importance of trade as a force for security and prosperity, including green trade and investment, and to promote the UK’s high-talent, business-friendly environment and highly innovative economy.”
