Shahrar Ali, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, speaking at 'Stop Bombing Syria' Downing Street demonstration yesterday.
WEMBLEY MATTERS News and views on local politics, the environment, climate change, culture and local history
Sunday, 13 December 2015
Shahrar Ali: It's not about Corbyn or Caroline - it's about Cameron's War
Shahrar Ali, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, speaking at 'Stop Bombing Syria' Downing Street demonstration yesterday.
Brent councillors to get 8 hours Prevent training
Although Cllr Harbi Farah has promised to arrange talks about concerns over the Prevent Strategy in Brent the Council is going full steam ahead in its implementation. Tomorrow's Cabinet is due to adopt a paper on 'Stronger Communities' which includes radicalisation in a bundle which also covers female genital mutilation, domestic violence and gangs. Councillors are also attending an 8 hour Prevent training on December 22nd.
The Council strategy fro Stronger Communities has for main objectives:
In an Appendix the Council does seem to recognise some of the problems:
The Council strategy fro Stronger Communities has for main objectives:
1. Promote common groundWhich all sounds well and good but clearly the strategy in the document which I publish below needs careful scrutiny, particularly in the light of the criticisms of Prevent set out at the public meeting.
2. Encourage participation in civic life
3. Tackle intolerance and challenge extremism and other harmful practices
4.Promote our vision and understanding of cohesion.
In an Appendix the Council does seem to recognise some of the problems:
However its Equalities Impact Assessment on the impact of the Strategy (which deems it positive) seems complacent in the light of fears that Prevent is fuelling Islamophobia (Christianity not listed):Brent is one of 43 Home Office “Prevent Priority Areas” of particular national concern for fermenting extremism and radicalisation. As part of the Prevent programme, Brent receives funding from the Home Office to tackle radicalisation through a range of supportive projects and interventions.
The Prevent and Channel programmes have been seen by some communities, in Brent as elsewhere, as a means of demonising Islam and for spying on youths. The concerns raised by communities must be heard and it is precisely this perceived one-sided approach, which undermines cohesion and divides communities. Indeed, the Government has acknowledged that ‘Prevent depends on a successful integration strategy, which establishes a stronger sense of common ground and shared values, which enables participation and the empowerment of all communities and which also provides social mobility.’
Brent will seek to minimise the risk of extremism by recognising that the drivers for extremist behaviour lie in the marginalisation of voices from the public square and that a positive approach, celebrating diversity while improving our diverse communities’ ability to recognise the signs of extremism and early radicalisation will foster resilience and reduce the risk of extremist behaviour. We will also recognise the geo-political drivers of extremist behaviours and create safe spaces for dialogue and debate, whilst challenging hate speech and those who seek to divide our communities.
The December 22nd event at the Civic Centre to which all councillors and some council officers are invited is entitled 'Prevent: Ideology and Radicalisation in Depth by FIDA Management and the Al-Saddiiq Foundation.'Religion or Belief – impact: positiveAccording to research conducted by Brent’s Business Intelligence team; the main faith groups in the borough are Hindu (17%), Muslim (12%), Judaism (3%) and Buddhist (1%). Achieving the four strategic objectives would ensure that the strategy is fully inclusive of residents of all religious and faith backgrounds. Furthermore, inter-faith dialogue is a key outcome of this strategy
Session One from 10am to 4pm will be 'providing advanced training on extremism and related global terrorism' to include':
- Ideology and its Development
- Theology, Politics and Violence
- Radicalisation (Concepts and Typologies
- The Core Narrative of AQ/ISIS
- Understanding Jihadist Narrative/Group
- Case Studies and Group exercises
- Assessing Vulnerability to Radicalisation
- Extremism and Behaviour
Here is the paper going to Cabinet tomorrow:
Councillor pledges to arrange talks on community concerns over 'counter-productive' Prevent Strategy
Cllr Harbi Farah pledged to arrange talks between community organisations concerned about the Prevent Strategy and Cllr James Denselow (lead member for Stronger Communities) or Cllr Muhammed Butt (leader of Brent Council).
The pledge was made at a public meeting where strong objections to the Strategy; which makes it a statutory duty for the Council, schools, colleges, health and social services to report anyone thought to be in danger of becoming an 'extremist' to the authorities; were voiced.
Cllr Michael Pavey, who was attending another event sent a message to the meeting:
However, Humera Khan of the An-Nisa Society, which has run a Muslim Sunday School at Park Lane Primary School for 30 years, told the meeting that they had repeatedly asked the council to arrange a meeting with headteachers to establish a meeting where a constructive dialogue could take place with headteachers about the issues involved. There had been no response and eventually An-Nisa had given up. This was despite the fact that the Strategy was supposed to be 'community led'.
Humera juxtaposed the impact of the Prevent Strategy on the Muslim community with the requirements of Brent's 2015 Equality policy. The default position of Prevent was that Muslim=Violent Extremism, the whole community was being stigmatised and marginalised.
Khalida Khan, of the An-Nisa Society, emphasised that teachers were not a branch of the Intelligence Survey. Reminding the audience of institutional failures over child protection she suggested that there was a huge potential for institutional failure on Prevent and gave the example of a primary school where the first names of pupils felt to be in danger of 'radicalisation; were publicly released.
The danger is that the Prevent Strategy is helping fuel Islamophobia. A recent Public Attitudes Survey had found that 71% of those surveyed thought that Islam was incompatible with British culture and 45% of Britons think there are too many Muslims in the country.
Khalida said that Muslim parents were now worried about the normal 'wierd or funny' things that all children say might now get them into trouble. Sympathy for the plight of refugees could now be seen as extremist.
She spoke of the effect on the Muslim community, which already felt excluded, of their children and young people being monitored. It would affect mental health and feelings of exclusion and negatively affect parenting. Making people afraid to speak out would damage the Muslim psyche and undermine self-respect and sense of belonging.
The Strategy put communities against each other and the promulgation of 'British Values' implied that only the British had these values, while in fact they were universal.
Khalida suggested that the ultimate goal was to abolish the Prevent Strategy, for the Council to work with others to pressure the government for its abolition, and meanwhile find ways of legally working around it. There was a need to adress the needs of Muslims as citizens.
Rizwan Hussain, speaking for Brent Anti Racism Campaign and the community organisation Jawaab, gave the example of a young man, Abdul, and how he was experiencing the present climate.
Abdul had been stopped and searched on the way to his mosque. This was an invasion of what he thought of as his 'safe place' - a place of solace and a constant in his life which offered protection and role models.
Abdul was scared about the attitudes he was now encountering which included attacks on his hijab wearing sisters. His personal and social spaces were being invaded by Islamophobia.
Rizwan said that in Jawaab's work with young people discussions of foreign policy figured but there were also major concerns over mental health and unemployment that needed to be addressed. Young people needed safe spaces where they can gain empowerment to become leaders, develop the skills to tackle difficult situations, develop self-empowerment to make change in their own lives.
These spaces could not be created under Prevent, because people like Abdul won't engage with that strategy, but created by organisations experienced in this area. Facilitators would help youth use their experience to create resilient young people, educating them but giving them power to make decisions.
Bill Bolloten, from Education Not Surveillance, welcomed the meeting as a 'conversation about Prevent' and a way of arriving at strategies to deal with the issue. There were different experiences at different ages in the education system with Prevent starting at the Early Years Foundation Stage. The Ofsted requirement that schools should pay 'due regard' to the Strategy and that this was part of the Ofsted inspection, meant that nursery and school staff had to monitor children for extremism/radicalisation and provide evidence that staff had been trained in the Strategy.
Training materials were not openly available and there was no empirical evidence justifying the theory behind the 'signs and indicators of radicalisation' that trainers gave.
Counter-terrorism experts had said that the Prevent Strategy indicated a 'shallow understanding of the radicalisation process'.
Despite the short-comings referrals to Channel (the conduit for passing on concerns about individuals and families) had gone up from 20 in 2012 to 424 last year, half of which had come from education.
Bill agreed that prevent was fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice. A survey of 6,000 pupils had found widespread anti-Muslim feeling. Pupils had estimated an average figures of 36% for the Muslim population of the country whereas it was actually 5%.
Bill concluded with the recommendation that we should ensure schools are safe places for Muslim pupils. We should make sure that they feel they belong. A dialogue with school headteachers and governors should be established. We need better ways of understanding our duties under the Equality Act.
Rob Ferguson of the NUT and Newham Stand Up to Racism said that Prevent also applied to supplementary schools and classes and was a bridgehead to attack the whole community through young people. The Newham statement (see below) had been conceived at a local level by Muslim and non-Muslims to put pressure on the council to break with the Prevent agenda.
Rob said that both Newham and Brent were in the top 10 for attacks on Muslims on London. There had been a 300% increase in attacks. He spoke about the fire bombing of the East London Mosque and how hate crimes were being unreported. Muslim teaching staff were avoiding using public transport and not wearing the hijab in public. Parents were telling their children to keep silent in class - 'Don't mention the War' was no longer a joke.
After the softer Post 9/11 versions of Prevent where organisation took government money to promote social cohesion the Counter Terrorism and Security Act in February amounted to state promotion of Islamophobia. He warned that the next round of legislation citing 'reasonable justification' could be widened to a whole group of other issues.
Kiri Tunks speaking for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on the impact of Prevent on education about the issue said, 'If you can't talk about Palestine, there's something wrong with our society'. A film about Palestine for classroom use had been attacked as being anti-Semitic as a way of silencing discussion. Now in the current situation students tended to be silent and teachers frightened. Tis emphasised the need for schools to provide 'safe spaces' for children to talk about contemporay issues.
Hank Roberts, of the ATL, speaking from the floor commented that even during the worse of the IRA bombing campaign teachers had not been asked to spy on Irish children in the classroom for signs of IRA sympathies. We need to see through this nonsense, and incidentally reclaim the term 'radical' - 'there's nothing wrong with Radical. 'I'm a radical'.
Malia Bouattia from the National Union of Students was unable to attend but send this message:
Commenting that the Secretary of State can direct universities to comply with the Prevent Duty he asked, 'How can you not encourage contestation of ideas in universities? Students must be free to explore and discuss.'
Shahrar described the Prevent Strategy training he had undergone and the spurious video example of of extremism.
He concluded by pledging the Green Party's opposition to Prevent.
Cllr Harbi Farah, who attended after Cllr James Denselow (Lead member for Stronger Communities) and Cllr Liz Dixon (leading on Prevent) had been unable to attend, stressed that he was not t the meeting to defend Brent Council. He said that the Muslim community itself was diverse and many in it do not even know what Prevent is. The Council had a statutory responsibility to operate the Strategy but because secondary schools were now all academies (MF or faith schools) the council had little influence over them.
Harbi committed himself to try and improve the relationship between the voluntary sector and the Council and arrange a meeting with Cllr Denselow or Cllr Muhammed Butt.
In addition to the proposed meeting with councillors it was also decided to formulate a statement similar to that from Newham (see below) and develop the Monitoring Prevent in Brent Facebook so that people could report what is happening on the ground.
The pledge was made at a public meeting where strong objections to the Strategy; which makes it a statutory duty for the Council, schools, colleges, health and social services to report anyone thought to be in danger of becoming an 'extremist' to the authorities; were voiced.
Cllr Michael Pavey, who was attending another event sent a message to the meeting:
I think Prevent is completely flawed. At best it is patronising to our Muslim communities and at worst it is utterly alienating and therefore completely counter-productive.Cllr Margaret McLennan had also indicated her opposition 'for obvious reasons' while Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North, told the meeting on Syria a few weeks ago that the Labour Party was critical of the government's Prevent programme. It was a top-down model rather than the bottom0up approach that could harness forces at a community level.
However, Humera Khan of the An-Nisa Society, which has run a Muslim Sunday School at Park Lane Primary School for 30 years, told the meeting that they had repeatedly asked the council to arrange a meeting with headteachers to establish a meeting where a constructive dialogue could take place with headteachers about the issues involved. There had been no response and eventually An-Nisa had given up. This was despite the fact that the Strategy was supposed to be 'community led'.
Humera juxtaposed the impact of the Prevent Strategy on the Muslim community with the requirements of Brent's 2015 Equality policy. The default position of Prevent was that Muslim=Violent Extremism, the whole community was being stigmatised and marginalised.
Khalida Khan, of the An-Nisa Society, emphasised that teachers were not a branch of the Intelligence Survey. Reminding the audience of institutional failures over child protection she suggested that there was a huge potential for institutional failure on Prevent and gave the example of a primary school where the first names of pupils felt to be in danger of 'radicalisation; were publicly released.
The danger is that the Prevent Strategy is helping fuel Islamophobia. A recent Public Attitudes Survey had found that 71% of those surveyed thought that Islam was incompatible with British culture and 45% of Britons think there are too many Muslims in the country.
Khalida said that Muslim parents were now worried about the normal 'wierd or funny' things that all children say might now get them into trouble. Sympathy for the plight of refugees could now be seen as extremist.
She spoke of the effect on the Muslim community, which already felt excluded, of their children and young people being monitored. It would affect mental health and feelings of exclusion and negatively affect parenting. Making people afraid to speak out would damage the Muslim psyche and undermine self-respect and sense of belonging.
The Strategy put communities against each other and the promulgation of 'British Values' implied that only the British had these values, while in fact they were universal.
Khalida suggested that the ultimate goal was to abolish the Prevent Strategy, for the Council to work with others to pressure the government for its abolition, and meanwhile find ways of legally working around it. There was a need to adress the needs of Muslims as citizens.
Rizwan Hussain, speaking for Brent Anti Racism Campaign and the community organisation Jawaab, gave the example of a young man, Abdul, and how he was experiencing the present climate.
Abdul had been stopped and searched on the way to his mosque. This was an invasion of what he thought of as his 'safe place' - a place of solace and a constant in his life which offered protection and role models.
Abdul was scared about the attitudes he was now encountering which included attacks on his hijab wearing sisters. His personal and social spaces were being invaded by Islamophobia.
Rizwan said that in Jawaab's work with young people discussions of foreign policy figured but there were also major concerns over mental health and unemployment that needed to be addressed. Young people needed safe spaces where they can gain empowerment to become leaders, develop the skills to tackle difficult situations, develop self-empowerment to make change in their own lives.
These spaces could not be created under Prevent, because people like Abdul won't engage with that strategy, but created by organisations experienced in this area. Facilitators would help youth use their experience to create resilient young people, educating them but giving them power to make decisions.
Bill Bolloten, from Education Not Surveillance, welcomed the meeting as a 'conversation about Prevent' and a way of arriving at strategies to deal with the issue. There were different experiences at different ages in the education system with Prevent starting at the Early Years Foundation Stage. The Ofsted requirement that schools should pay 'due regard' to the Strategy and that this was part of the Ofsted inspection, meant that nursery and school staff had to monitor children for extremism/radicalisation and provide evidence that staff had been trained in the Strategy.
Training materials were not openly available and there was no empirical evidence justifying the theory behind the 'signs and indicators of radicalisation' that trainers gave.
Counter-terrorism experts had said that the Prevent Strategy indicated a 'shallow understanding of the radicalisation process'.
Despite the short-comings referrals to Channel (the conduit for passing on concerns about individuals and families) had gone up from 20 in 2012 to 424 last year, half of which had come from education.
Bill agreed that prevent was fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice. A survey of 6,000 pupils had found widespread anti-Muslim feeling. Pupils had estimated an average figures of 36% for the Muslim population of the country whereas it was actually 5%.
Bill concluded with the recommendation that we should ensure schools are safe places for Muslim pupils. We should make sure that they feel they belong. A dialogue with school headteachers and governors should be established. We need better ways of understanding our duties under the Equality Act.
Rob Ferguson of the NUT and Newham Stand Up to Racism said that Prevent also applied to supplementary schools and classes and was a bridgehead to attack the whole community through young people. The Newham statement (see below) had been conceived at a local level by Muslim and non-Muslims to put pressure on the council to break with the Prevent agenda.
Rob said that both Newham and Brent were in the top 10 for attacks on Muslims on London. There had been a 300% increase in attacks. He spoke about the fire bombing of the East London Mosque and how hate crimes were being unreported. Muslim teaching staff were avoiding using public transport and not wearing the hijab in public. Parents were telling their children to keep silent in class - 'Don't mention the War' was no longer a joke.
After the softer Post 9/11 versions of Prevent where organisation took government money to promote social cohesion the Counter Terrorism and Security Act in February amounted to state promotion of Islamophobia. He warned that the next round of legislation citing 'reasonable justification' could be widened to a whole group of other issues.
Kiri Tunks speaking for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on the impact of Prevent on education about the issue said, 'If you can't talk about Palestine, there's something wrong with our society'. A film about Palestine for classroom use had been attacked as being anti-Semitic as a way of silencing discussion. Now in the current situation students tended to be silent and teachers frightened. Tis emphasised the need for schools to provide 'safe spaces' for children to talk about contemporay issues.
Hank Roberts, of the ATL, speaking from the floor commented that even during the worse of the IRA bombing campaign teachers had not been asked to spy on Irish children in the classroom for signs of IRA sympathies. We need to see through this nonsense, and incidentally reclaim the term 'radical' - 'there's nothing wrong with Radical. 'I'm a radical'.
Malia Bouattia from the National Union of Students was unable to attend but send this message:
We're encouraging Student Unions and student officers to take up a stance of non-compliance with PREVENT and working with academics and staff to undermine the implementation of the Prevent duty and essentially, make it unworkable in practice.
We've had over 30 Student Unions now pass policy to this effect.
The NUS Black Students' Campaign have produced a student handbook to PREVENT and campaigning against it which is available online.
We're also encouraging students to lobby their university/college to come out against PREVENT but so far we're at early days of the campaign and are prioritising raising students' awareness of PREVENT and getting them to build opposition amongst students and academics on their campuses.Shahrar Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party told the meeting that the Prevent Strategy was counter-productive on its own terms. he said, 'You can't fight injustice by perpetrating injustice'.
Commenting that the Secretary of State can direct universities to comply with the Prevent Duty he asked, 'How can you not encourage contestation of ideas in universities? Students must be free to explore and discuss.'
Shahrar described the Prevent Strategy training he had undergone and the spurious video example of of extremism.
He concluded by pledging the Green Party's opposition to Prevent.
Cllr Harbi Farah, who attended after Cllr James Denselow (Lead member for Stronger Communities) and Cllr Liz Dixon (leading on Prevent) had been unable to attend, stressed that he was not t the meeting to defend Brent Council. He said that the Muslim community itself was diverse and many in it do not even know what Prevent is. The Council had a statutory responsibility to operate the Strategy but because secondary schools were now all academies (MF or faith schools) the council had little influence over them.
Harbi committed himself to try and improve the relationship between the voluntary sector and the Council and arrange a meeting with Cllr Denselow or Cllr Muhammed Butt.
In addition to the proposed meeting with councillors it was also decided to formulate a statement similar to that from Newham (see below) and develop the Monitoring Prevent in Brent Facebook so that people could report what is happening on the ground.
Saturday, 12 December 2015
What will McDonnell say about Brent Council cuts on Sunday?
 |
| From the current Kilburn Times |
On Monday at 7pm Brent's Labour Cabinet will be setting in motion consultation on the latest round of cuts and increased charges and fees as they implement the Conservative's austerity agenda.
Rather than challenging the cuts agenda they will be operating a bidding war where supporters of different services compete with each other for survival - rather than unity against the Tories attack on local government this will be divisive. According to Michael Pavey's comment it could be those with the loudest voice who will win out : 'If the public is up in arms about any one of these issues we will talk it through and if necessary we will change it.' On the surface this sounds reasonable but leaves those who are most vulnerable and lack a voice at a disadvantage.
There appears to be little appetite for a change of policy in the Labour Group. There are only one or two who have lined up with the recently formed Brent Momentum LINK while others have joined the anti-Corbyn Labour International. Brent Momentum is urging its members to attend Sunday's event and canvas for the Labour candidate but the effect will be to elect a 55th Labour councillor (out of a total council of 63) who will vote for cuts. If he wins they will hail this as a victory for Corbyn's Labour - all rather contradictory.
This is why the election of Jafar Hassan as a single Green councillor pledged to oppose cuts and hold the dominant Labour group to account would be a much better outcome in Kensal Green.
Sudbury Primary School staff call for formal ballot on strike action
Statement from teaching and non-teaching unions at Sudbury Primary School
On Wednesday a packed meeting of staff from Sudbury Primary in Brent, expressed anger that,
after their overwhelming vote of no confidence in their Headteacher LINK
the governors had
not acted. They voted to call on their unions to move to a formal ballot for
strike action. The vote was 43 in favour and 2 against.
The
meeting also agreed that parents should be properly and fully informed. It was
agreed that an open meeting should be called by the unions to which all
parents, staff and governors would be invited to enable full discussion to take
place.
UPDATED; What on earth is happening in King Eddie's park?
Local residents have contacted me to ask if I know what is happening in King Edward VII Park in Wembley where the sports field remains a churned up soggy mess surrouneed by fencing.
One resident wrote:
The main field of King Edwards Park is STILL fenced off (nearly 4 months now, despite a notice saying some disruption for up to 5 weeks) The West side of the park smells really bad….(drainage still an issue??) Lots of the regular users the joggers, walkers, dog owners, have stopped using it, and its getting quite ‘creepy’ walking in itdue to the big pile of sand, and the fence you can’t really see whats around the corner…..especially on these dark afternoons and mornings…The short reply is that poor drainage is being replaced but why the delay is a mystery. Weather may be blamed but actually it has been unusually mild or perhaps a spring has been discovered under what used to be a meadow. Whatever the answer what is not in doubt is that this is costing a considerable sum of money.
Also there has been a particularly unsavoury character hanging around the ‘bunker building’ who shouts and spits at passers by.
I’ve tried Brent Council, Parks dept. the local councillor but no response…so I was just wondering if you had any suggestions?
An FoI request got this response from the Council:
Which leaves £207,000 from Council funds.The total cost is approximately £300k of which £93k is grant funding from the Mayor of London (via The Football Foundation) sports facilities fund and Sport England ‘s Protecting playing fields fund.
UPDATE
Since publication Cllr Sam Stopp (Wembley Central) has written to the appropriate Brent Council Officer as below:
I have previously made enquiries (although not directed to you) about the situation in King Eddie's Park, Wembley Central. Several residents have brought to me concerns about developments in the park and I am asking that the Council clarifies matters.
Residents have raised a number of concerns, including the unexplained fencing off of the main field in the park, as well as a foul smell in the west side of the park (associated with drainage issues).
Please could we have some information about what on earth is going on? Ward councillors have not been informed and residents deserve to know. It was not that long ago that we saved the park from being built on - I had hoped its importance to the community would be better recognised as a result.
Friday, 11 December 2015
BRENT’S INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES (Don’t mention a ’C’ word unless you’re asking for a cheese sandwich)
Guest blog by Peter Murry
As a
disabled Brent resident, I was invited to the International Day For
People With Disabilities event held in Brent Civic Centre on 3rd
December 2015. Attending this event was my second visit to the Civic Centre
since its opening in June 2013.
The event
gave certain Brent Councillors, (Cllrs Butt, Hirani & Pavey), an
opportunity to grandstand Brent Council’s achievements for People with
Disabilities. Perhaps because many in the audience may not have understood some
of the speeches, or were attending as paid carers for other audience members, the
councillors were able to express their concerns for People with Disabilities
without anyone asking any awkward questions, like:
·
How will the London
Borough of Brent implement central government austerity policies without
harming People With Disabilities or other vulnerable Brent residents?
Or
·
Will Brent Council make
any effective attempt to resist these central government austerity policies or
even visibly protest against them, in view of the fact that these policies
are now forcing even more severe cuts than those that Brent has already
carried out?
We heard
a lot about ongoing improvements to Brent Civic Centre, which was apparently
still the ‘greenest public sector building in Europe’. It is indeed an
impressive edifice, but I suspect, most Brent residents use it even less
frequently than I have; still it’s nice to think about the council workers
having such a wonderful warm spacious atrium to sit and eat their lunches in,
instead of being outside on cold, wet, winter streets.
The
various stalls from a variety of organisations at the PwD event were quite
useful although the display table shared by Unison and the GMB, didn’t seem to
have many anti-cuts leaflets on it.
The Choir and Dance group, both featuring
performers with disabilities, were good and it’s nice for a diabetic like me to
get a few sweet biscuits once in a while; however once I’d had my free
cheese sandwich lunch, I’d had enough, so I never found out if the elephant in
the Civic Centre trumpeted and stomped on Councillor Pavey during his closing
address
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Brent councillors join criticism of Stop the War Coalition and Lucas steps back from involvement
Brent Labour councillors Neil Nerva, Bernard Collier and Sam Stopp have signed an Open Letter to Jeremy Corbyn launched today by a new organisation called Labour Internationalists.
The letter LINK urges Corbyn to pull out of the Stop the War Coalition dinner he is due to attend on Friday and states;
The spokesperson said:
Many Green Party members support the StWC through attending its demonstrations and meetings, although this is not uncritical support.
Shahrar Ali, Green Party Deputy Leader,spoke at the Stop thr War 'Don't Bomb Syria' demonstration at the end of November. LINK
Whatever criticisms we can make, Stop the War Coalition remains the single strongest anti-war organisation in the country and I don't doubt governments, both Labour and Tory, would have engaged in more military adventures if it had not been for StWC's ability to mobilise large numbers in opposition.
Stop the War, as its name states, is a Coalition, and contains people of many different parties, religions and philosophies and is a vital part of a movement that challenges increasing aggression and militarism. It has come under attack from media and right-wingers as a means of undermining its fundamental challenge to the flimsy basis of Cameron's.
At such a time they deserve our support.
Lucas differs from Labour Internationalists in her anti-bombing position. She said in a recent Huffington Post article:
The letter LINK urges Corbyn to pull out of the Stop the War Coalition dinner he is due to attend on Friday and states;
We believe that StWC stands apart from the Labour movement’s values of Internationalism, anti-fascism and solidarity. The vast majority of Labour MPs who heard Hilary Benn’s powerful speech in parliament last week (regardless of how they voted), supported his broad argument that fascism must be defeated, and that the UK must be prepared to join coalitions to do this.and concludes:
We urge you to distance yourself from this organisation. We believe that Labour Party unity, and electoral credibility in the face of a Conservative government that is pursuing a right wing domestic agenda, would be advanced if you pulled out of this event.Meanwhile it was announced today that Caroline Lucas, Green MP, had stepped back from her involvement with Stop the War Coalition a few weeks ago.
The spokesperson said:
Caroline stepped back from the Stop the War Coalition a few weeks ago. Her busy parliamentary and constituency schedule means that she doesn’t have time to fully engage with the role of a Patron and, in light of some recent StWC positions that she didn’t support, she felt standing down was the responsible thing to do. Like the Stop the War Coalition, Caroline is opposed to British bombing in Syria because it will neither keep Britain safe nor help bring about a lasting peace in Syria.
Caroline was specifically troubled by some Stop the War Coalition statements after the Paris atrocities. Though the pieces were subsequently taken down she felt unable to associate herself with them.
She was also concerned that some Syrian voices were not given an opportunity to speak at a recent meeting organised by the StWC in Parliament.
StWC has played an important role in building the anti-war movement in Britain, and Caroline will continue to work in support of peace.That view is not necessarily the view of the Green Party as a whole. Policy is made at its twice yearly conference rather than by its MP or leader.
Many Green Party members support the StWC through attending its demonstrations and meetings, although this is not uncritical support.
Shahrar Ali, Green Party Deputy Leader,spoke at the Stop thr War 'Don't Bomb Syria' demonstration at the end of November. LINK
Whatever criticisms we can make, Stop the War Coalition remains the single strongest anti-war organisation in the country and I don't doubt governments, both Labour and Tory, would have engaged in more military adventures if it had not been for StWC's ability to mobilise large numbers in opposition.
Stop the War, as its name states, is a Coalition, and contains people of many different parties, religions and philosophies and is a vital part of a movement that challenges increasing aggression and militarism. It has come under attack from media and right-wingers as a means of undermining its fundamental challenge to the flimsy basis of Cameron's.
At such a time they deserve our support.
Lucas differs from Labour Internationalists in her anti-bombing position. She said in a recent Huffington Post article:
I listened carefully to the Prime Minister make his case for why the UK should join the bombing campaign against Isis. The debate in the House of Commons was thorough, and the horror and revulsion at recent atrocities in Syria, Paris, Beirut and elsewhere is shared by MPs from across the political divide.
Yet I have still to see any evidence to suggest that UK bombing Isis targets in Syria is likely to increase our security here in Britain or help bring about a lasting peace in the region in question - to the contrary, the evidence appears to suggest it would make matters worse.Nerva, Collier and Stopp appear to be supporting military intervention, if not the bombing operation itself.
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