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Category: politics

  • Cross-party MPs release landmark report on Green New Deal

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/02/cross-party-mps-release-landmark-report-on-green-new-deal/

    A cross-party group of MPs and Lords have today released a landmark report on the steps necessary to reach the UK’s climate targets. The report – published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on a Green New Deal – has made a series of major recommendations on how the climate crisis can be addressed at the local level.

    The report’s authors argue that powering up local communities with cleaner community energy, local food supplies and strengthened public transport networks is essential if the UK is to hit its 2030 climate targets. 

    Among the specific recommendations made by the report is a call for the government target of 68% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 to be made legally binding on all public sector organisations. This would apply to all their spending, programmes and projects.

    The report has also called for an end to tax allowances for the use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels, public transport systems to introduce free or low cost fares, and the creation of a new Local Food Investment Fund to provide support to localised agriculture and food infrastructure.

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/02/cross-party-mps-release-landmark-report-on-green-new-deal/

  • Vilifying Corbyn

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    Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
    Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

    A small part of an impressive article by Jonathan Cook at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-starmer-dark-politics-triumph-paving-way

    …

    Corbyn was judged to have interfered in antisemitism cases, with the implication that his office tried to stop antisemites from being expelled. The truth was the opposite, as the EHRC quietly conceded. His team “interfered” only in the sense that they tried to speed up the handling of disciplinary cases his right-wing opponents in the party bureaucracy stalled in a bid to fuel the antisemitism smears.

    Starmer is interfering in disciplinary cases too – and doing so openly and proudly, including overturning a decision in late 2020 by his National Executive Committee to reinstate Corbyn as an MP. But this time the EHRC seems unconcerned.

    The EHRC has given Starmer its official stamp of anti-racism approval even as his officials drive out Jewish members in unprecedented numbers. These are Jews whose mistreatment no one in public life seemingly cares about – because they back Corbyn.

    Last week, hot on the heels of that stamp of approval, and mocking the idea that Starmer’s party is interested in tackling racism, Labour barred its local constituency parties from affiliating with a range of progressive groups.

    Those included Jewish Voice for Labour, which represents Jews highly critical of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the main UK organisation representing Palestinian interests, as well as Somalis for Labour, Sikhs for Labour and the All African Women’s Group.

    The Equalities watchdog’s “special measures” on Labour are also apparently not needed even though prominent Black party members, such as former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, also a Corbyn ally, complain that Starmer’s Labour has done nothing to address anti-Black racism exposed in the recent Forde Report.

    The truth is that Starmer and the establishment media will not be satisfied until they have driven a stake through the heart of Corbynism, and its genuine commitment to anti-racism and a more egalitarian approach to the economy. That is why they have never sounded more desperate to vilify him and his supporters. 

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    A small part of an impressive article by Jonathan Cook at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-starmer-dark-politics-triumph-paving-way

  • Leaked letter between Jeremy Corbyn and Luciana Berger reveals centist establishment lies about antisemitism

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    https://dorseteye.com/leaked-letter-between-jeremy-corbyn-and-luciana-berger-reveals-centist-establishment-lies-about-antisemitism/
    Luciana Berger resignation letter to Jeremy Corbyn

  • The first fascists – and the first anti-fascists – in London 100 years ago

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/first-fascists-and-first-anti-fascists-london-100-years-ago

    Historian ALFIO BERNABEI tells the remarkable story of how Sylvia Pankhurst and Silvio Corio railed against the fascist ‘camorra’ in Clerkenwell’s Little Italy in the aftermath of Mussolini’s seizure of power

    Image thanks to Morning Star

    IT WAS from their office near the British Museum at 98 Great Russell Street that 100 years ago the newly born branch of the Italian Fascist Party issued an invitation to a ball in the heart of London, the first such event in Britain.

    The “Black Shirt Gala Ball” was to be held at the luxurious Cecil Hotel in the Strand on February 25 1923 “in aid of the fund for the fascista home in London.”

    The eyecatching announcement in the Italian fascist weekly L’Eco d’Italia listed: DANCING from 8.30 P.M. (Evening Dress, Black Shirts for members of the Fascista Party), SUPPER at 10.30 P.M. and more DANCING TILL 3 A.M.

    The wording made clear that the event was an official one organised “under the patronage of the Italian ambassador to the Court of St James, Marquis Della Torretta of the Princes of Lampedusa” with the Italian military and naval attaches in attendance.

    …

    Everything was going well for the fascists — except for a pioneering movement of opposition born in London that was using language equivalent to a call to arms.

    This movement was formed by a group of Italian anti-fascists centred around Soho who had launched their own publication, a weekly called Il Comento.

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/first-fascists-and-first-anti-fascists-london-100-years-ago

  • Greens mark 50 years since birth of political movement to protect people and planet

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    https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2023/02/24/greens-mark-50-years-since-birth-of-political-movement-to-protect-people-and-planet/

    Green Party founders, leaders and parliamentarians will gather today to mark the 50h anniversary of the founding of the Green political movement in the UK [1] – and the first Green Party in Europe.

    Around 40 past and present leaders of the Greens including Caroline Lucas MP, Green peer Natalie Bennett, founding members Lesley Whittaker, Michael Benfield and Freda Sanders, and Jean Lambert former MEP, will meet for the opening of the Green Party archive at the London School of Economics [2].

    The event marks the 50th anniversary of the first public meeting of PEOPLE, in Coventry on 22 February 1973. PEOPLE became the Ecology Party in 1975, before eventually becoming the Green Party in 1985.

    …

    https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2023/02/24/greens-mark-50-years-since-birth-of-political-movement-to-protect-people-and-planet/