Brent's leading role in the anti-apartheid struggle has lessons for us today

Friday's talk about Nelson Mandela, the Anti-Apartheid struggle and Brent, organised by the Wembley Hisotry Society,  not only brought back memories for many of those attending, but also provoked thoughts about that campaign and what can be learned from it for those of us campaigning now on issues such as Palestine and Divestment from Fossil fuels.

Nelson Mandela first came to Brent in 1962 when he visited what was then Willesden Trades Council. Campaigners in Brent founded a Boycott South African Goods campaign in 1960 answering a call from Chief Albert Luthili, President of the African National Congress (ANC) LINK.

South African fruit was a particular target and small groups were set up across the country and in universities with at its peak  140-150 groups.  The deaths of two students in 1976 in the Soweto Students Uprising generated further support for action against apartheid and in 1984 Brent Anti-Apartheid was working with the National Union of Students, women's groups and black organisations appealing to Trade Unions not to handle South African goods. 

There were calls for boycotts that  have similarities with those promoted today by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign with a wider focus targeting sporting links, divest from companies profiting from apartheid, pension fund divestment, arms embargo and the release of political prisoners.  Barclays Bank, the biggest  high street  bank in South Africa,was targeted locally and Brent Labour Party moved its account to the Co-operative Bank.

In contrast with today's  timid Labour Council, the Labour Council at the time was part of a local authority delegation to Margaret Thatcher to present a petition if favour of the boycott and the Council stopped contracts with firms with South African links and councillors took part in pickets of supermarkets urging them not to stock South African goods.

All this helped the borough earn the 'Barmy Brent' label - they weren't 'barny' - just ahead of their time. In 1981   Brent was one of the first to name streets and buildings after Nelson Mandela with Mandela Close and then named Winnie Mandela House in London Road, Wembley.

1988  saw the huge Nelson Mandela's 70th Birthday concert at Wembley Stadium broadcast to 57 countries and watched by more than 600 million people - a huge impetus to the struggle. One of the audience at Friday's talk pointed out that there was no commemoration of the concert at Wembley Stadium or the Quintain development and urged the present council to make sure that this omission is put right.

With Mandela now seen as a heroic figure, celebrated throughout the world and locally in Brent schools during Black History month,  it is important to remember that he was denounced as a terrorist by Margaret Thatcher and Young Tories sported t-shirts calling for him to be hanged. Supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle were attacked as extremists, and supporters of terrorism, in newspapers and the House of Commons. Sound familiar?

As recently as 1990 as you will see in the video Tories in Brent went to the High Court to stop Mandela being honoured by the borough and this was only put right in 2013 at the instigation of Jim Moher, former councillor and  chair of Wembley History Society.

Local historian Philip Grant adds:
 

FOR INFORMATION:

Brent Council still has the scroll, pictured above, which would have been presented to Nelson Mandela in April 1990 if the Council had passed its resolution to make him a Freeman of the Borough.

It was brought along to the Wembley History meeting on 18 January by the Leader of the Council, Cllr. Butt, and shown to the c.40 people who had come to the talk.

It is hoped that the scroll, and the silver casket made to hold it, will be on public display at Brent Museum later this year. Look out for further news, if you would like to see it! 

 

St Raphael's residents appeal to Green AM Sian Berry to ensure they have a say on estate refurbishment/rebuild

Residents of St Rapahel's Estate in Brent have launched a petition appealing to Sian Berry, Green Party AM, to intervene with London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to ensure that the power for residents to control the future of their estate is upheld.

The petition is available HERE and the text is below

We the residents of St Raphael Estate,  do not want Regeneration. We want  Refubishment with the clause that we are  in control of how this is done.  we need to protect our homes and open space. We need to preserve it for our children and the generations to come. If our estate undergoes regeneration we will lose our community, pay higher rents,  private housing association as landlords, tower blocks, short and unsecure tenancy, higher water rates, losing green space, breaking up of famillies with older children.

The  upheaval of relocation, while work is being carried out, there is no guarantee of coming back to the Estate or London. Although St Raphael’s estate has always had pejorative connotations to it and is portrayed as an unplesant place. This is wrong, there is a strong , united community  here who do not want to be separated from their famillies , stripped of the place they have called home for so long , moving away from neighbour, friends and family simply because it’s profitable to the investors they’re leading us into an ambigious future. We need to achieve 2000 signature, so we can forward our plight to the London assembly member Sian Berry to insure that the Mayor pledge to allow the Residents the power to control the future of their estate is upheld

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FA claims Wembley events in 2017-18 contributed £150m to Brent's local economy

The FA has circulated a report on the economic impact of the Wembley Stadium 2017-18 season. One local resident immediately said, 'Do you belive any of this? I am sceptical.' I leave it to readers to make up their own minds and welcome your comments.

I wanted to share with you the Wembley Stadium economic impact study we commissioned on the back 2017/18 season – a unique season for Wembley Stadium marking the 10 year anniversary of the new stadium, welcoming our 10 millionth stadium visitor and of course hosting Tottenham Hotspur FC for a full Premier League season. 

We entrusted Deloitte to analyse the economic impact of the stadium during this period – 58 major events, which, in addition to football, saw boxing, Rugby League, NFL and music concerts come to London.

We are looking forward to building on these successes with some of the biggest events in world entertainment, such as UEFA EURO 2020 and UEFA Women’s EURO 2021, just around the corner.

Report Summary

§  The 2017/18 season at Wembley saw a record 58 events and was the first time a Premier League football team had taken residency at the stadium. This higher number of event days resulted in an unprecedented amount of visitors to Wembley Stadium and the surrounding area.

§  Findings shows that Wembley’s events led to a boost of £150m to the local economy of Brent, £424m to London and £615m to England.

§  The 58 events attracted 3.8 million spectators, including 350,000 visitors from overseas. The project therefore reaffirms Wembley’s status as one of the leading event venues in the world that attracts significant numbers of visitors to England, London and Brent.

§  Deloitte’s analysis shows that the economic impact from the 58 events supports 1,800 FTE jobs in Brent, 4,900 across London and 6,100 across England.

§  Gross Value Added (GVA) is a common way to look at the value added to GDP by the production of goods and services. The GVA contribution of the 2017/18 event season was £83m to Brent, £231m to London and £334m to England as a whole.

The full report is below. Click bottom right for full screen version.

Confusion over alternative education provision at Roundwood Centre

On Thursday I published an article on the Counci's plans for the Roundwood Centre which, according to the Budget Scrutiny Panel  included the building accommodating a Pupil Referral Unit  to be run by the Brent Special Academy Trust LINK.  This would mean handing over the £5m asset to the Trust. The Panel must have got this information from somewhere because the original budget documentation merely said:

Site to be used for an Alternative Provision educational setting with evening and weekend activities being provided by the voluntary sector. 

There could be community concerns about the future arrangements. However the transformation of the Roundwood site to an educational setting with a wrap-around activity offer will mitigate community concerns.

According to several sources at the Labour Party meeting on Thursday evening Cllr Muhammed Butt said that the PRU (Alternative Provision) would be run by the Local Authority and was not suitable for a school.  He then muddied the waters by vaguely commenting that the authority was part of a consortium looking to set up a free school.

I sought clarification from Muhammed Butt asking:

I've heard that you told LP meeting last night that PRU at Roundwood Centre will be run by the LA and not a MAT. Is that correct? If so does Roundwood remain the property of Brent Council? I'd like to put the record straight if the Budget Scrutiny Report was wrong.

Butt replied, somewhat unhelpfully, that he never discussed Labour Party matters externally.

I have requested clarification from Brent Council's Press Office.

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services 'dismayed' over Brent Council's Capita contract

Barnet Trades Council amd Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) have issued the following statement LINK regarding Brent Council's decision to renew its business rates collection contract with Capita which we reported earlier today LINK

Barnet Trades Council and Barnet Alliance for Public Services are concerned and dismayed that Brent Council wants to renew its contract with Capita. Our experience of Capita is that it has delivered appalling service and therefore we, together with our local Labour Party, are campaigning for all services run by Capita for Barnet to be brought in-house forthwith. #kickoutcapita is our grass-roots campaign.

Examples of Capita’s misdemeanours in Barnet include:

• A two million pound fraud carried out by a Capita employee, Capita’s lax and opaque processes completely failed to detect
• A call centre which has consistently failed to answer residents’ calls in the required time
• Incorrectly withdrawing travel passes from disabled and vulnerable people
• Actually cost taxpayers more money than in-house services would, through extra charges and “gainshare” payments designed to maximise their profits at public expense
• Performed extremely poorly in audits of the council and brought down the overall standards of council services

We urge Brent Council not to renew its contract with Capita. Capita, along with other failed and failing outsourcing giants like Carillion and Interserve have proved to be entirely failed models. We want to Kick Out Capita from Barnet and bring all services back in-house and under local democratic control. Brent Council should do likewise. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell has spoken brilliantly about how properly funded, democratically accountable in-sourced public services are the future for the country and we agree. Together we are stronger.

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Privatisation marches on with PRU academy/free school at Roundwood Centre in Willesden

The multi-million Roundwood Centre

Readers will know that Brent Council cut their youth service leaving only the Roundwood Centre in Willesden which does not operate at full capacity and thus impacts on the council's revenue budget.

The Centre only escaped closure because Brent Council would have faced potentially having to pay back up to £5m representing the Lottery Grant that was awarded via the government's Myplace programme to fund the building. The fact that it resembles a group of white elephants is purely coincidental!

The proposal is to hand over the site to an academies trust with youth provision being delivered by an an external provider.  This could be the Brent Youth Foundation, a voluntary organisation  that was originally set up to help existing voluntary youth organisations apply for funding. It is funded itself via the Harrow School foundation arm, the John Lyon's Trust. Running youth services directly  would be a departure from the original remit. The Budget Scrutiny Panel suggested an examination of the long-term viability of funding from John Lyon's and the City Bridge Trust, presumably before the council makes a commitment.

In addition the council proposes that a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) be set up in the Centre. This would provide for pupils temporarily excluded from school. It would be classified as a new school and as such would have to be a free school or part of a multi-academy trust. It is proposed that it be run by Brent Special Academies Trust (currently consisting of Manor and the Avenue special schools).

Given Labour's policy of not creating any new free schools and academies this is controversial within the local Labour Party. This is not only about the issue of lack of public democratic accountability of academies but also the very ad hoc way special needs provision is being developed in Brent and the backdoor privatisation of most of the borough's non-mainstream special needs provision. A practical issue is whether the BSAT has any relevant experience in running a PRU -  a different kettle of fish from managing special schools.

The Budget Scrutiny Task Force recognised this dilemma stating:

It is far from ideal in our opinion, that this new school would be a free school, but unfortunately the law ensures that new schools opening are always outside of local education authority control. Perhaps a change of central government policy [a Corbyn government?] in future may allow the school to one day become part of the Brent family.

The arrangement is also not perfect for Brent because the asset would transfer to Brent Academies Trust meaning any additional income they derive from hiring out other rooms on site would not be retained by the council, However we will retain some oversite (sic) of the organisations as a senior officer will sit on the Trust's board.

An asset worth £5m handed over in the form of a very long-term lease.

So far no academisation proposals have beend made for the local authority Phoenix School on St Raphaels which specialises in provision for autistic children and of course staff at The Village School are fighting academisation. If academisation went ahead there another multi-million Brent asset would be handed over to a Multi-Academt Trust.

I would argue that democratic accountability is even more important in special needs provisoon because of the particular needs and potential vulnerability of special needs pupils.

Brent grants permission for 8 extra events at Wembley Stadium up to May 2019

Fans leaving Wembley Park station for the stadium

Tottenham Hotspur will be able to play 8 additional matches at Wembley Stadium following a decision by Brent Planning Committee last night.  Up to three events will be up to 90,000 capacity and five at a 62,000  between 15th January and 12th May 2019. The 62,000 capacity crowd will now be able to use the upper tiers of the stadium.

Originally 17 events had been requested of which 10 were capped at 62,000 and 7 up to full capacity.

The Planning Committee approved the plans unanimously after receiving assurances about mitigation measures. 62 residents had objected to permission being granted along with a local residents association. Wembley Traders Association supported the application.

A substantial number of objections were from people living in the new Quintain development and the rest were spread fairly evenly in the area around the stadium.  Committee members expressed concern about the impact of mid-week evening matches at Wembley Park station when commuters and fans combined. Cllr Maurice said that there was over-crowding at Baker Street station on such event days. He was told this was outside the remit of the Planning Committee but that TfL had not submitted any concerns. Furthermore, when he told the Committee about the concerns of a fellow councillor in Harrow about the impact on Stanmore, when fans parked there and came into Wembley via the Jubilee line, he was told that this should be taken up with Harrow Council.

The Committee were told that action could not be taken against local residents who let their drives out to fans but that action was being taken over 'rogue parking lots', particularly in the industrial estate bordering the stadium. One appeal had been successful and the Council were taking it to the High Court. Officers did not mention that they were taking action against local schools that let their playgrounds out for parking to earn much needed additional income at a time of cuts.

If Spurs move to their new stadium early in the period the Committee were told that the additional events granted could not be transferred to another organiser.

Note: During the meeting I tweeted concern that the toilets at Wembley Park station have been closed for some time on the recommendation of the Metropolitan Police because of 'anti-social behaviour.' My requests for information on when they will re-open have not been answered.

The recording of the Planning Committee Meeting can be found here  https://brent.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/398566

Labour Brent Council awards contract to Capita as Tory Barnet consults on getting rid of them

Brent's Labour Council has awarded Capital a further 5 year contract, worth up to £3m, to collect its business rates at the sasme time as Tory Barnet Council is consulting LINK on ending its partnership with Capita (popularly known as Crapita in the borough) and bringing its services back in-house.

In November 2018 Capita agreed to pay Barnet Council £4.12m as compensation for poor performance LINK.

Capita's press release celebrating their new contract with Brent Council quoted Deputy council leader Cllr Margaret McLennan:

Thanks to the big improvements to business rate collection rates, we have been able to invest more in frontline services to make Brent a great place to live and work. The new contract we have signed with Capita will increase the level of business rate collections in Brent and enable us to deliver more efficient services to our residents.

In December Barnet's Kick Out Capita Committee had marked Capita's possible demise with a special Christmas song: