Caroline Lucas makes case for staying in Europe despite Greece

Caroline Lucas has contributed to the debate reported below LINK where iIsaid that some Greens were looking critically at our 3 Yeses Policy (Yes to Referendum, Yes to Refor, Yes to staying in Europe).

This is part of what she had to say:

The EU is far from perfect, but turning our backs on it is a risky strategy. Profoundly re-imagining what a reformed EU might look like shouldn’t just be left to David Cameron. We should be building a progressive case for Britain’s membership of a radically reformed union that works better for all of us. Completely reappraising the values and end goals that lie at the heart of the European Union.

With the European council made up of ministers from each member state, it often simply reflects the prevailing currents in European politics. The imposition of austerity in Greece – forcing a population to pay the price for a crisis they didn’t cause – is simply an extension of an economic logic that spans our continent.

It’s easy to blame the EU when free-market economics tramples across our continent’s welfare states, but it’s governments like our own who have overseen the EU becoming a byword for greater liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation. The left lost the last election in Britain – giving Tories a seat at the top table in Europe. Perhaps we’d be better off reflecting on our own failings to successfully inspire hope and unity, rather than kicking out at the EU.

The full article is HERE


Green Party policy of course remains decided by Conference, rather then the leader or our single MP (something the media sometimes find hard to grasp) and it is essential that a discussion happens at Conference in September.

A vital aspect will be the question of where we will stand, if as seems likely, that any 'reforms' that Cameron negotiates will undermine the positive social aspects of the EU that the Green Party supports.

15 tonnes of food collected by Sufra NW London during Ramadan

Congratulations to Sufra NW London who have sent me this news:

Yesterday the title of this email was 10 tonnes. But in the last 24 hours is has evolved to exceed 15 tonnes. Well, 15.442 tonnes to be precise. That’s how much food has been raised in the last month, thanks to the generosity of the local Muslim community during the month of Ramadan, which comes to a close this weekend.

It's been competitive and we've heard stories of hanky-panky antics at local mosques. Scroll down for more...

Building St. Raphael’s Edible Garden

We’ll soon be unveiling the landscape design for our new food growing project on St. Raphael’s Estate!

To be the first to see the design (and our new water supply which is being installed next week) we need a little help clearing the final debris on the site in preparation for the first raised beds and planting.

The final clear-up will take place on Saturday and Sunday 25/26 July and you’re welcome to join us for just a few hours or the whole day. There will be plenty of pizza and refreshments so make sure you register for the lunch-time slot on the rota! We’re also hiring a rotavator (it’s basically a plough with the horse replaced by a motor) so if you know how to use one, please get in touch.

To volunteer for the clean-up weekend, click here.

A yet to be disclosed local company is sending over a carpenter to run a workshop for 20 people on how to build raised beds on Wednesday 29 July, with the first plants hitting the soil on the same day.

If you want to go down in history for the planting the first tomato plant, click here. Although you should probably sign up for the clean-up as well. You have to do some graft for the glory.

Colleen & Matt Take the #FoodParcelChallenge

Our two friends from MyLotto24 have decided to live for 5 days on a typical food bank parcel from next week to experience the reality of food poverty in the UK (for those who manage to get to the food bank!). Check out our Facebook and Twitter accounts for daily updates on how they’re getting on.

They’re also raising money for the food bank, so show your love and sponsor them here.

Remember, you can do the #FoodParcelChallenge any time of the year! All you have to do is pick a week, let us know, and we’ll send you a typical food parcel.

Together, let’s raise awareness of the tragedy of food poverty in the community. For more information on how to take part, click here.

Summer Academy

If you missed last year’s Summer Academy, it’s back! (in partnership with Innisfree Housing Association and the Head Start programme run by the Challenge)

The Summer Academy is an intergenerational project that celebrates food growing and experimental cooking. Across 4 glorious sessions, we’ll visit Sudbury Court Drive Allotment to harvest fresh produce (courtesy of Michael and Patrick’s frantic efforts since early February) to cook a delicious meal (well, that’s open to interpretation). Though I must confess, Jim’s Irish potatoes are to die for. Quite literally, when you think about how much butter goes into them.

What’s more, there are no chefs and no recipes! It’s truly experimental and a chance for people to learn cooking skills from one another. Or watch, and be entertained. Last year, Tanzeel used a blender for the first time, and got strawberry milkshake all over his face.

The Summer Academy is open to young people aged 11-19 years and older people aged 60+ years... but we’re happy to slip in a few eager beavers. You can attend as many or as few sessions as you like, so why not give it a try?

The sessions run from 10am to 4pm on: Tuesday 4 August, Thursday 6 August, Tuesday 11 August and Thursday 13 August. To take part, download a Registration Form here.

Ramadan Food Collections

It’s been a vicious month as local mosques have competed and sweated to outbid one another in their generosity. There’s also been a little hanky-panky with bags of rice disappearing from one mosque and emerging at another and the mysterious 500g packs of lentils from ******* Mosque, which weighed over 3kg. The perennial rivalry between Harrow Mosque and Stanmore Mosque was settled in the early hours of the morning, each congregation raising 3,600kg and 4,058kg respectively. This year’s newest contender, Hendon Mosque, raked in 1,852kg in one night!

Our stock rooms are bursting to the brim, and we are very grateful to all those who supported our food collections during Ramadan, including the many individuals and families who visited us with their donations.

We’re also grateful to Pick & Save on Kenton Road for donating 1,300kg of sugar and pasta and Waitrose and Marks & Spencer in Brent Cross who have set up temporary collection points until Sunday 9 August.

We’re Moving In

It’s taken a while, but our newly refurbished building is almost ready. It’s looking amazing (if I might say so).

Over the next week or so, we’ll be shifting all our services across. There’s been a lot of excitement around the new building, so if you’d like to come and visit us, get in touch, and we’ll arrange a private viewing.

Linguists (or speakers of other languages) Needed

Following last week's appeal, some truly talented linguists (and some more dubious) have been busy translating our Food Lists into different languages. And they keep coming in! In fact, I can just see Ali's Arabic translation in my inbox now.

Over 120 languages are spoken in North West London and there's still a few prominent languages we need to account for. So if you speak (and type) any of the following, we want to hear from you:

Gujarati, Urdu/Hindi, Tamil, Russian, Romanian and Somali

And finally…

We’d like to wish our Muslim donors and supporters, a joyous Eid al-Fitr. Thank you for your generosity throughout Ramadan.

UPDATED: Dan Filson asks Brent Council, 'What do you know about £91m PFI?'

The 'World of Brent Council' is a strange place as any regular reader of this blog will know but the fact than Cllr Dan Filson, Chair of the  Scrutiny Committee, has to seek information via a Freedom of Information request to his own council, speaks volumes.

This is a request posted on the What Do They Know website:

Dear Brent Borough Council,

1: What evaluation, if any, has been made of the Public Finance
Initiaive contract made apparently on 19 August 2009 for a period
running to 18 December 2028 for a cost of £91,573,000?
2: Does the report to councillors at the time of the contract set
out the cost savings supposed to be achieved by this contract?
3: Did the contract cover services (the information I have suggests
'real estate services' but what that covers is unclear,) beyond the
financing of a capital requirement, and if so what services were
they?
4: Is there any break clause in the contract should either party
wish to end the contract, and if so would the exercise of such a
break clause incur penalties, and if so on what scale?
5: What is known of the other party to the contract, e.g. Is this
the subsidiary of a major bank, and what contingent risks, such as
the cost of replacing this contract, would arise in the event of
either the other party to the contract or the parent company
becoming insolvent?

Yours faithfully,

Daniel Filson

UPDATE July 17th Last night Cllr Filson in an exchange on Twitter justified using the FoI route, rather than asking the Council directly for the information, in conversation with a Green Party member:

Cllr Filson may be interested in this article I wrote on Wembley Matters in July 2011 entitled 'Civic Centre costs shrouded in secrecy':

Opposition to the Civic Centre, now under construction opposite the Wembley Arena, is increasingly evident and Cllr Ann John has been forced to defend the project at the current round of area consultative forums. Residents in Kilburn have criticised the Council for being 'Wembleycentric' and neglecting land that could be redeveloped in South Kilburn while others have been frustrated when trying to pin down the actual cost of the scheme and mistrustful of assurances that the project is 'self-financing', 'cost neutral' and 'won't cost residents a penny'. They are told that the £100m centre will make annual savings of amounts ranging from £2m to £4m due to efficiencies' and moving out of other Brent buildings, and pay for itself in 25 years. Transferred to personal housing this is tantamount to saying that a new house 'costs nothing' if expenditure over 25 years is equal to the amount saved from not renting.

In the light of the cuts ahead and the diminishing role of local government it is not clear how many council staff will be left in 25 years and whether the building will even last that long - think of Willesden Green library, scheduled for demolition by the Council, which was opened only 22 years ago.

My Green Party colleague, Shahrar Ali, has made a freedom of information request for financial details of the Civic Centre, which have been shrouded in secrecy.

There are however some clues in the budget document. The medium term forecast for central items included a forecast of an increase in debt charges from £23.359m in 2011/12 to £26.563 in 2012/13, £27.603 in 2013/14 and £29.104m in 2015/15 as 'a result of capital programme commitments including the civic centre'. The report states that the estimated borrowing requirement for the Civic Centre is £53.868m over the next two years.  In a key comment Clive Heaphy, Director Finance and Corporate Services states:

Clearly capital money is not free - it has a revenue impact and hence the strategy for future years will be to support programmes which are externally funded and those which deliver revenue savings which are equal to or greater than the debt costs. Conversely schemes requiring unsupported borrowing and have net debt costs must be reduced to a minimum or eliminated.

This gets to the nub of the issue of information. We need figures from the Council that will enable council taxpayers to assess whether the Civic Centre project meets this criteria.

After Greece where should the Greens stand on the EU and the Referendum?

Events in Greece have led to a discussion in the Green Party, particularly amongst Green Left, about the party's position on the EU in general and the referendum in particular.  The Green Party's official position is what has been called the 'Three Yeses': Yes to a referendum, Yes to major EU reform, and Yes to staying in a reformed Europe.

The benefits of EU social policy are now being weighed against the neoliberal assumptions and anti-democratic tendencies revealed in what Caroline Lucas has termed 'a coup'.

The Green's Autumn Conference takes place in September and will offer a forum to discuss these issues which could contribute to a change of position.

Below is a video of Romayne Phoenix of the Green Party and Green left speaking at the demonstration which took place outside the German Embassy in London last night and a guest blog by Haroon Saad of London Green Party and  Green Left which was first published on the London Green Left blog LINK.

The European dream is being destroyed by those who claim to act in defence of that dream. The dream was already beginning to fade but the front of screen and back of screen machinations that have accompanied the “Greek tragedy” played out over the last six months and the eventual   “treaty of reparations” –or otherwise known as the “deal” – has killed the dream for me.

It’s salutary to go back to the beginning. As hardly anyone knows, the current EC grew out what was called the European Coal and Steel Community. It’s here that one can locate the European Dream.

Again as hardly anyone knows, 9 May is known as Europe Day. 9 of May is Europe Day because it was on that date in 1950 that what is known as the Schuman Declaration was launched and which laid out the key features of the European dream. A revisit to this is illuminating in terms of “progress to date”.

• It would mark the birth of a united Europe.

An element of the dream that no longer relates to reality. In treating Greece as an “outsider” we have seen the reemergence of an imperial and colonial mindset. It may yet come to German style “stormtroopers” being the response that explodes in Greece. It’s not just Greece, however, the EU may be united but it is unequal. It’s an EU dominated by Germany with several smaller states simply being vassals. The problem goes even deeper when you consider the impact of EU funds and how they have widened disparity between regions in the EU.

• It would make war between member states impossible.

If you ignore the Balkans and Srebrenica, then this has held up well in terms of old style warfare. However, the Troika, the replacement of the elected government in Italy with an appointed technocratic boss, the bulldozing away of the Greek prime minister when he had the nerve to suggest that it might be appropriate to check out what the Greek people thought about the terms of the bailout being stuffed down the throats of the Greeks by France and Germany, the contempt with which the Cypriots were treated etc has just been warfare through financial markets and financial institutions like the ECB.   

• It would encourage world peace.

It's salutatory to remember that “black lives are worth less”- more African, Asian, Latin American, and Arab, people have died through conflict  since the Second World War than those  who died in the second world war. Europe in fact has exported war and the EU has financed state terror. Follow the money as they say and voila you will find that the EU arms industry is doing very well.

• It would transform Europe in a 'step by step' process leading to the unification of Europe democratically, unifying two political blocks separated by the “Iron Curtain”

There is a huge democratic deficit if the European Institutional framework that has been established. Everyone goes round pointing out what important work the EP undertakes and how it is directly elected by citizens. The EP for its first 30 years simply rubber stamped 83% of what the European Council decided. The EC is the place where our elected leaders wine and dine and talk and make decisions without any accountability. Sure there is “cloak of accountability” provided by the phase “some decisions of the EC have to be ratified by national parliaments”. However, this just conveniently ignores the fact that the EC sits on top of a largely broken and corporate dominated party political system.

There is no democratic accountability for the European Commission. Incredible given the fact that it has the power to initiate legislation. That it has the power to deal with trade and investment matters.

With Nato trashing the 1997 agreements with Russia regarding expansion of Nato and the “soviet bloc”, need I say more given the fact the phrase “cold war” has suddenly come back out of hibernation.

• It would create the world's first supranational institution.

If you ignore the UN then this element of the dream may just hold up. The problem is that over 60% of European citizens have no trust in the supra national institutions that have been created.

• It would create the world's first international anti-cartel agency.

This has turned out to be the exact opposite. The EU has institutionalised corporate democracy. Big business interest rule in Brussels, there is a revolving door mechanism from and to big business and the EU institutions. The expert groups that “advise” the EU institutions are dominated by corporate interests. Key texts produced by the Commission turn out to be just cut and paste versions of submissions made by vested interest groups.

• It would create a common market across the Community.

In terms of capital and goods one could say that the dream has been largely realized but when it comes to labour then it’s a nightmare scenario with deportations now taking place regularly  between member states(e.g. Belgium is routinely deporting EU citizens without work). With the coming restrictions on access to welfare benefits for EU citizens, the free movement of labour will be reduced to one for those who can afford it.

• It would, starting with the coal and steel sector, revitalise the whole European economy by similar community processes.

Steel production has declined. A renaissance in coal is underway with Germany and Poland (or coal land as it is referred to in environmental circles), but this will be very short lived as China moves off coal usage. Growth for the past 15 years has been anemic and globally the EU is in decline with its share of the shrinking global trade set to decline further in the coming decades.  We have rising poverty in Europe. A whole new category of “in work poverty” has been created. We have had youth unemployment levels running at over 14% since 2000. Long term unemployment is growing. Indeed, given the current stagnation the EU has created structural unemployment as feature of the economy.   

• It would improve the world economy and the developing countries, such as those in Africa.

Far from improving the situation in Africa, it has initiated a new rape of continents like Africa through dumping of subsidized farm goods, through displacement of rural labour by the introduction of agri-business style agriculture which produces food for anyone but the Africans. It has fermented civil war through arms sales and bribes. It has participated in destroying countries like Libya and Syria through its so called “wars for democracy”. The saga of the migrants in the Med is just a visible sign of how much damage has been inflicted upon Africa.

So the dream is dead. What will we be voting for next year in our referendum? The issue is no longer just about whether or not any more power can be ceded to the EU institutions. Nor is the issue about what powers need to be repatriated.  It’s not about being pro- or anti-Europe. We need to dismantle what we currently have and re-establish the European project with a new dream. For that we need new dreamers of which there is simply a dearth at this moment in time.

Written by Haroon Saad who is a member of the London Green Party and a supporter of Green Left

Mayor's inaction on air pollution is killing people

Today’s research from King's College, London, has estimated London's air pollution caused the early deaths of almost 9,500 people in 2010 LINK and is proof that the Mayor's inaction is killing people, Green MEP Jean Lambert says.  In contrast, MEPs on the European Parliament's Environment Committee voted in favour of a fresh round of air quality standards today, with the committee voting this morning to back a new package of measures requiring member states to meet limits on six pollutants by 2030.

Current estimates already list air pollution as responsible for more premature deaths in the UK than obesity, alcoholism and road traffic accidents combined. 

Jean Lambert responded:

'More proof, if indeed it were needed, that we face a clear crisis. When will London's Mayor realise that his inaction is killing people?'

Trade unionist attacked in wake of Pride and anti-Fascist mobilsation

 Helen Davies, Barnet Unison Branch Chair has issued the following statement:

It is with deepest anger I have to report that our Barnet UNISON branch secretary, John Burgess, had his car vandalised as it was parked up outside his own home. After the day’s activities on 8^th July, which involved a strike and protests, John returned home to find a large note stuck on his car windshield: “Fucking Union Faggotts Get Back Home From Here!”  and a nail stuck into a front wheel of his car. This came within 2 weeks of the Barnet UNISON banner, and a branch presence which of course included John, proudly appearing on the Pride Demo. It is our view this particular use of offensive language is far too coincidental for us not to understand this as an attack on John as a trade unionist and also for being seen on the Pride demo.

We also think there is a strong coincidence that our branch was a very early signatory to the Unite Against Fascism statement about the proposed Fascist gathering in Golders Green and encouraged our members to attend the protest last weekend (4^th July). We are proud that we were part of a larger community mobilisation which meant Fascists could not raise their heads in our community. Fascists are organisations which peddle hatred and what happened to John is in every sense a Hate crime which has been reported to the police.

John has a job to do and that is to represent the members of his union branch. We choose him year after year as we believe he is the best placed person to do this. He enjoys the confidence of the branch membership. This means whoever did this is trying to intimidate and silence all of our membership. We will not be silenced!

We believe it is the demonisation of trade unions by the current Government which also encourages this type of personal attack on individual trade unionists. We condemn such attacks and call on our supporters to rally round and show solidarity and support to one who has done nothing other than defend us and offer solidarity to all those fighting the effects of Austerity and oppression.

George Binette, branch secretary, Camden UNISON said: 

On behalf of Camden UNISON I express our shock and horror at the vicious homophobic vandalism carried out against John Burgess, Barnet UNISON branch secretary. This attack is a perverse tribute to the effectiveness of John’s tireless commitment to both his members and the defence of public services. Unfortunately, all too many politicians and sections of the media seem set to whip up a Jeremy Clarkson-style climate where it is literally open season on active trade unionists. Solidarity with John and the Barnet branch.

This afternoon Noel Lynch (Chair) and Pete Murry (Secretary) of the Green Party Trade Union Group released the following statement:

The Green Party Trade Union group and Brent Green Party condemn the vandalism and homophobic abuse directed at John Burgess, Barnet Unison Secretary.  John, like many other Trades Unionists is involved in opposition to the London borough of Barnet’s extreme free market policies and also to an avowedly anti-semitic demonstration scheduled to take place in Golders Green. He had also been a participant in the recent Pride march.

On all these counts we wish to send our support to John. The Green Party opposes free market based austerity and privatisation policies, it opposes racism and it opposes homophobia. We are grateful that Trades Unionists, like  John, stand up against such obnoxious tendencies and we hope we will be able to work together to defeat them.

(Pete Murry is also Brent Green Party Trade Union Liaison Officer)

Brent Housing Partnership scorched at Scrutiny

Current works on BHP properties on Pilgrims Way Estate. Wembley (roof, windows, boiler) this morning

Things did not bode well at first last night when the public found that the Scrutiny Committee was not listed on the Civic Centre event screens, but eventually they found that the meeting was indeed on and a few were in the public gallery. Transparency was not improved when yet another delegation by Philip Grant was refused on officer advice. I hope to publish more on that from Philip later.

There were two main items on the agenda: a performance report from Brent Housing Properties (BHP), Brent Council's 'arms length' council housing provider, and the Committee's plans for future work.

Dan Filson opened with a couple of rebukes concerning an inadequately anonymised case study in the BHP report and bureaucratic language that seemed to ignore the actual people who were BHP tenants and leaseholders. Today the report has been removed from the Council website.

Recent government proposals formed the backdrop to many of the concerns and a stumbling block was that social housing providers had yet to receive any detail on how some of the proposals would be implemented.

The budget proposal for a 1% annual social housing rent reduction over a four year period starting in 2016 LINK was a concern because it would amount to a reduction in rent receipts of £10m by the end of the period. For comparison the BHP's repairs expenditure is about £2m per year.  it would also affect the income of housing associations ansd their ability to build new homes adding to the problems caused by the right to buy proposals.

There was a range of potential impacts from benefit changes as well as the proposal that high value properties should be sold off. Lead member for Regeneration, Cllr Margaret McLennan suggested that the latter would affect Council proposals for building larger 4-5 bedroomed houses for the borough's high number of larger families. It was unclear exactly how the high value social homes would be  identified, regionally or by borough. If the latter there were homes in particular areas of the borough that would be affected and could amount to one third of the total.

The higher rents to be imposed for tenants with a joint household income of more than £40,000 was discussed as well as the problem of the removal of benefits from young people.

The Committee were keen to assess the effectiveness of consultation and tenant involvement as well as engagement with young people. There were detailed questions on the makeup of the BHP Board and representation of tenants and leaseholders.

Dan Filson was bitingly critical of the BHP's performance in filling 'voids', getting new tenants into empty properties, remarking that in some boroughs such figures would lead to dismissals. He reminded BHP that every delay resulted in the Council paying for people in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation. The turnaround time for 'major voids' was 79.3 days against a target of 61 and for 'standard voids'  55.7 against 24.

The Committee questioned in some detail the data on complaints:

It was unfortunate that with 'job completion' the main issue there was no discussion of the performance of the BHP's contractors such as Wates for major projects and Veolia for grounds maintenance.

The BHP were given a number of requests for further information by the Committee and Dan Filson asked for a paper clearly setting out the issues for the Committee, the Council and the public.

Hear the Green GLA List candidates on Sunday

Come and hear from the candidates who want to represent London Green Party on the London Assembly list in next year's London wide elections. 

Next year is not just the London Mayoral race - Londoners also vote for the London Assembly. The Green Party currently has two Assembly Members (AMs), elected by a proportional system. Our current AMs Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones are both standing down and we are aiming for more than two AMs next year! So our candidates need to be ready to step in to this important role if elected, but equally as important the list candidates must also help us run an exciting and inspiring campaign.

This event is a great opportunity to ask questions of the candidates and hear what they have to say. We are expecting a lot of interest so you must sign up for a ticket- these are free but limited. The hustings will start promptly at 2pm, please arrive in plenty of time.

If you would like to submit a question to be considered (some questions will also be taken from the floor, but there is very likely to be many more questions than time) please email your question to caroline.allen@greenparty.org.uk. Please make the title of the email 'Assembly Hustings Question'. The deadline for questions is noon on Wednesday the 16th July.

Please note this event is for LONDON GREEN PARTY MEMBERS ONLY.

Do you have questions about Assembly List Hustings- London Green Party? 

 Contact Caroline Allen

REGISTER FOR A TICKET TO THE EVENT

London-wide Assembly List (of whom 11 will be selected to an ordered list)

 

Andrea Carey Fuller, Barry Cooper, Benali Hamdache, Caroline Russell, Dee Searle, Jonathan Bartley, Michael Gold, Noel Lynch, Peter Underwood, Rashid Nix, RoseMary Warrington, Shahrar Ali, Sian Berry, and Tom Chance.