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Green Party responds to UN Secretary General’s climate speech

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Ellie Chowns, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Ellie Chowns, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.

Responding to UN Secretary General António Guterres speech, Green Party parliamentary candidate for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, said:

“The UN Secretary-General has reiterated today that the climate crisis is here and it’s hitting us hard. He made clear that if we are to have a liveable future we need to act with extreme urgency.

“Yet the Conservatives are in denial, being reckless with our future, pushing to extract more fossil fuels. And Labour are tinkering at the margins, ditching their green investment plan and will leave the UK limping towards its climate targets.

“Only the Green Party is offering real hope and real change when it comes to the climate crisis.

“Green MPs will push the next government to stop all new fossil fuel extraction projects, cancel recently issued fossil fuel licences, including Rosebank, one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in the UK.

“They will also press for significant investment in the green economic transformation – something that will be good not just for our environment, but also the economy, creating thousands of new jobs. This investment makes good economic sense as the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of climate action.  

“This is an emergency. We don’t have long to act. Only the Green Party are offering the policies for a fairer greener country.”

Continue ReadingGreen Party responds to UN Secretary General’s climate speech

‘OUR FRIEND’: HOW THE ISRAEL LOBBY SPENT £30,000 ON WES STREETING

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/our-friend-how-the-israel-lobby-spent-30000-on-wes-streeting/

Wes Streeting faces a backlash over his support for Israel. (Photo: Imageplotter / Alamy)

Labour’s shadow health secretary has a long history of supporting Israel going back to his days at the National Union of Students—and has been rewarded handsomely for it.

  • Streeting was Keir Starmer’s first shadow minister to visit Israel
  • His visit in 2022 was paid for by Labour Friends of Israel, which “works really closely” with Israeli embassy in London
  • He has taken over £20,000 from Israel lobbyists Sir Trevor Chinn, Lord Mendelsohn and David Menton, with donations as recently as April
  • Pro-Israel newspaper said Streeting’s “track-record on Israel is clear” and called him “our friend at the NUS”
  • Streeting is being challenged by British-Palestinian independent Leanne Mohamad

Wes Streeting has received nearly £30,000 from Britain’s powerful pro-Israel lobby, Declassified has found. 

Two years ago, Streeting became the first member of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet to visit Israel, in a move designed to signal a break with Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Palestine position. 

The trip was paid for by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and cost £4,700. LFI also paid for Sarah Harrison, one of Streeting’s staffers, to visit Israel with him.

Another Streeting staffer, Anna Wilson, was paid an undisclosed amount to visit Israel last July. 

Her trip was funded by the European Leadership Network, a group whose UK branch is run by Joan Ryan, former chair of LFI. 

LFI is a secretive organisation that does not disclose its funders, although undercover reporting revealed Ryan, then a Labour MP, discussing a £1 million payment from Israel with Shai Masot, an Israeli diplomat, in 2016. 

In another covertly filmed conversation outside a London pub, LFI’s Michael Rubin said that he and Masot “work really closely together…but a lot of it is behind the scenes”. 

Masot was eventually forced to quit his job at the Israeli embassy and return home after he was caught on camera plotting to “take down” British MPs.

…

Israel is a serial violator of international law, and is judged to be practising apartheid against the Palestinians by both the US and UK’s top human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Leading Israeli group B’Tselem has also reached the same conclusion.

It is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide, while the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza.

Streeting described the ICJ case as a “distraction”.

…

https://www.declassifieduk.org/our-friend-how-the-israel-lobby-spent-30000-on-wes-streeting/

Continue Reading‘OUR FRIEND’: HOW THE ISRAEL LOBBY SPENT £30,000 ON WES STREETING

Labour’s new Barking candidate confirmed bully who tried ‘undue influence’ on scrutiny chair

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Labour’s new Barking candidate confirmed bully who tried ‘undue influence’ on scrutiny chair

Labour has announced that Enfield council leader Nesil Caliskan is imposed as the party’s candidate in Barking, the seat that has been vacated by right-winger Margaret Hodge’s retirement.

In 2019, Caliskan was found guilty of bullying a female fellow councillor – a decision upheld on appeal. Her claims that the allegations were racially-motivated smears was rejected. She was also found, in the same month, to have breached standards by attempting to unduly influence the chair of the council’s scrutiny committee, responsible for independent scrutiny of the council’s activities.

Those two, major issues, are far from the end of the issues surrounding Caliskan’s selection. She was the subject of a series of complaints and protests by local Labour members and councillors, as well as of action by the party’s Governance and Legal Unit (GLU), following a series of revelations by the SKWAWKBOX – which were picked up, without credit, by ‘mainstream’ media.

Caliskan was Labour’s local campaign forum (LCF) secretary when she oversaw an array of ‘irregular‘ selections of her allies, who promptly elected her leader of the council after last year’s local elections. The process also saw every BAME councillor in the borough deselected, to the outrage of local community groups.

As a result, half of Enfield’s cabinet demanded an investigation, while all the female Labour group officers resigned except for Caliskan herself in protest at bullying and intimidation.

The subsequent disciplinary process saw the Enfield Labour group placed into special measures – and the election process for a new cabinet delayed after Caliskan was rebuked for ignoring binding instructions issued by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC). When the election finally went ahead, many of the council’s cabinet members refused to stand, saying they could not work with her.

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Continue ReadingLabour’s new Barking candidate confirmed bully who tried ‘undue influence’ on scrutiny chair

More than 200 Labour members call on party to reconsider Kemptown selection

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https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2024/06/03/more-than-200-labour-members-call-on-party-to-reconsider-kemptown-selection/

Hundreds of local Labour members have called on their party to reconsider parachuting in a candidate after the Kemptown MP was unexpectedly barred from standing.

More than 200 people have signed a petition started by the Kemptown and Peacehaven Constituency Labour Party (CLP) ahead of a meeting where new candidate Chris Ward’s selection is set to be rubber stamped.

Mr Ward was announced as the new candidate last week, just a day after the previous MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle was suspended over unspecified allegations dating from 2016.

Journalist Michael Crick, who has been chronicling all the main parties’ selections, tweeted on Thursday afternoon that he was likely to get the seat – before another potential candidate. Nancy Platts, had even been interviewed.

Ms Platts, who has previously been leader of Brighton and Hove City Council and a parliamentary candidate in the same seat, called for an investigation into the fairness of the process.

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https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2024/06/03/more-than-200-labour-members-call-on-party-to-reconsider-kemptown-selection/

Continue ReadingMore than 200 Labour members call on party to reconsider Kemptown selection

7 Labour Councillors quit party over Faiza Shaheen deselection and ‘institutional racism’

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/06/7-labour-councillors-quit-party-over-faiza-shaheen-deselection-and-institutional-racism/

“This purging of loyal members in favour of subservient candidates reflects a party more concerned with power than principles.”

The row over Labour’s last minute deselection of general election candidates continues to rumble on. In a new development, seven Labour Councillors in Slough have quit the party over, among other things, the decision to block Faiza Shaheen from standing as a Labour candidate.

In a letter published on June 3, the seven Councillors cite a number of reasons for their decision including concerns over the democratic processes in the Labour Party. They go on to write that the deselection of Shaheen and the treatment of Diane Abbott “highlight the institutional racism within the party”.

They added: “This purging of loyal members in favour of subservient candidates reflects a party more concerned with power than principles. Slough [Constituency Labour Party], predominantly composed of BAME members, has faced threads of deselection for speaking out against injustices in Gaza and criticising Israel.”

Their letter concludes by saying: “We have exhausted every party mechanism to ensure our residents’ concerns were heard at both local and national levels. In light of these insurmountable barriers, we, the rank-and-file members, are left with no option but to resign. We must stay true to our values and conscience, even if the party we once believed in has abandoned them.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/06/7-labour-councillors-quit-party-over-faiza-shaheen-deselection-and-institutional-racism/

Continue Reading7 Labour Councillors quit party over Faiza Shaheen deselection and ‘institutional racism’