General Election

General election debates: Greens in uproar over exclusion from Scottish leaders’ debate

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/general-election-debates-greens-in-uproar-over-exclusion-from-scottish-leaders-debate/

STV is hosting a four-way debate on Monday

Leaders’ debates are now a key feature of General Election campaigns in the UK. So far, only one UK-wide debate has been announced. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will go head to head on ITV at 9pm on Tuesday, 4 June.

The day before, there will also be a debate between Scottish Party leaders on STV at 9pm. SNP leader John Swinney, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton will be taking part.

Notable in their absence from the Scottish debate are the Greens. While the Scottish Greens don’t currently have any seats in the House of Commons, they do have 7 MSPs – more than the Liberal Democrats – and they were until recently in government in Scotland.

The decision not to invite the Greens has led to outrage from key party activists and representatives.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/general-election-debates-greens-in-uproar-over-exclusion-from-scottish-leaders-debate/

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Faiza Shaheen left shocked after being blocked from standing as Labour candidate

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Further candidates deselected from Labour causes controversy

Faiza Shaheen announced last night that she will not be standing as a Labour candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green following ‘questions’ over past social media posts. 

In an emotional interview, Shaheen told BBC Newsnight on Wednesday that she had been deselected by Labour ahead of the general election. According to Shaheen, she had found out earlier that evening, firstly via the press, while she was out campaigning.

Shaheen has been Labour PPC for the east London constituency since 2018 and had already started drumming up support in the area for her general election campaign, taking on Iain Duncan Smith from the Conservative Party for a second time.

The decision was based on 14 tweets that raised concerns over her suitability as a candidate. Shaheen said one was about her experiences of Islamophobia within the party, and another about liking a sketch by a Jewish comedian that referred to critics of Israel coming under attack. She said she had since apologised at a disciplinary hearing about a tweet that “plays into a trope” about Jewish people. 

Speaking to Newsnight, Shaheen said she was in a state of shock at “being treated this badly after being such an active member of the party.”

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/faiza-shaheen-left-shocked-after-being-blocked-from-standing-as-labour-candidate/

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Hottest summer ever? Experts reveal what could be in store for Europe in the next few months

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https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/27/hottest-summer-ever-experts-reveal-what-could-be-in-store-for-europe-in-the-next-few-month

“One thing that is a massive, undeniable factor that cannot be ignored is that we are constantly breaking heat records,” says one forecaster.

Europe is bracing for its first spell of hot weather this summer as Germany and the Nordics are set for unusually high temperatures next week.

The risk of heatwaves at the Paris Olympic Games has left organisers sweating about the safety of athletes. Spain is bracing itself for another blistering summer, releasing a new map to help with more accurate heatwave predictions. Cities across the continent are preparing with adaptations for extreme heat.

We’ve now had 11 record-breaking months of heat in a row and sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic have soared to their highest in at least 40 years.

So you can see why forecasts have warned that the continent could be in for another unusually hot summer – possibly even the hottest on record.

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Europe has been warming at twice the global average since 1991, according to recent data from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and EU climate agency Copernicus (C3S). The continent is “no exception” when it comes to the consequences of climate change with both agencies warning that Europe needs to do more to cut its emissions and transition away from fossil fuels.

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https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/27/hottest-summer-ever-experts-reveal-what-could-be-in-store-for-europe-in-the-next-few-month

dizzy: Moving away from fossil fuels is the appropriate way to address the climate crisis. Anything else is not addressing the problem. In the UK that’s no more oil or gas licences and stopping Rosebank i.e no new fossil fuels.

Continue ReadingHottest summer ever? Experts reveal what could be in store for Europe in the next few months

Constituents launch election campaign to ‘clean Parliament of climate deniers’

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/constituents-launch-election-campaign-to-clean-parliament-of-climate-deniers/

‘As a country, we face urgent threats on climate and nature. We need to make policies that follow the scientific evidence.’

MP Watch, a grassroots network of constituents that scrutinise MPs and aim to make them more accountable, has launched its election campaign. The campaign aims to let constituents know if they have an MP who denies climate change exists, so they are able to vote accordingly.

The campaigners list several MPs who are associated with denying the climate emergency exists, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Craig McKinlay, Esther McVey, Mark Jenkinson, Andrea Jenkins, Liz Truss, and Suella Braverman.

At the heart of the campaign launch is a film that lays bare the climate record of Steve Baker, Conservative MP of Wycombe, who the group describes as “climate denier number one.”

Baker was first elected as an MP in 2010 and was re-elected in 2019 with just a four thousand majority. An ardent Brexiteer, Baker was chair of the pro-Brexit group of MPs, the European Research Group (ERG), until he resigned when he was promoted to Brexit minister in 2017. He resigned from the post a year later, following the resignation of David Davis over concerns about the government’s strategy on Brexit.

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MP Watch campaign head Jessica Townsend described the aim of the campaign, as to “clean up parliament at the next election and to finally get rid of the pollution of climate misinformation.”.

“As a country, we face urgent threats on climate and nature. We need to make policies that follow the scientific evidence. Yet at this dangerous time, some in Westminster are playing politics on the issue. Frankly, it beggars’ belief.”

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/constituents-launch-election-campaign-to-clean-parliament-of-climate-deniers/

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