TUC calls for a cross-party 'Just Transition Commission' to pave the way for low-carbon economy

The TUC has today (Monday) published A just transition to a greener, fairer economy – a roadmap to meeting the needs of working people in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The roadmap sets out proposals for:

1. A Just Transition Commission: a cross-party national commission including business, consumers and unions to plan a clear and funded path to a low-carbon economy.
2. Workplace Transition Agreements: to put workers’ voices at the heart of transition plans in every workplace where change is required.
3. Transition skills funding: so that every worker has access to training in the new skills needed for a low carbon economy, and guaranteed pathways to new work.
4. Employment standard protections: to ensure new jobs in the low carbon economy are not of lower quality than jobs that are changed or superseded.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

Trade unions are committed to addressing the climate emergency. A greener economy can be a fairer economy too, with new work and better jobs right across Britain.

It’s vital to avoid the mistakes of the 1980s, when industrial change devastated communities because workers had no say. This time we need a plan that everyone can get behind, with workers’ voices at the heart of it.

That’s why we’re calling for a politicians, businesses, consumers and unions to make those plans together, through a Just Transition Commission.

An-Nisa urge Brent Council to reject the APPG definition of Islamophobia at tonight's Council Meeting

Statement from An-Nisa Society

An-Nisa Society urges Brent Council to reject the All-Party Parliamentary Group's ill thought out and regressive definition of Islamophobia at the full Council meeting on Monday July 8th that has been tabled by for adoption by Cllr Ahmad Shahzad (Labour - Mapesbury) LINK.

An-Nisa Society rejects this definition which states that:

“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” 

The definition and the arguments in the report are riddled with thinking that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

We reject that Islamophobia is a form of racism. Rather, it is a deeply rooted historical hatred and prejudice of Islam as a faith and of its adherents, who are Muslims who are from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. This manifests in prejudice, discrimination, abuse and attacks. It is a hatred of Islam and Muslims that drives the discrimination and attacks. This is not just the case in the West but also in places like China, India and Myanmar.

To subsume Islamophobia into racism, which is about colour and ethnicity no matter how much this definition is trying to manipulate it as a form of ‘cultural’ racism, is to minimise the alarming extent of the hatred of Islam. We cannot combat Islamophobia effectively if the root cause is not properly identified.

This definition of Islamophobia, like the Prevent policy and its Public Sector Duty, will do little to improve conditions for our local Muslim communities. It not only fails to identify the root causes but fails to address the most important issues that are about implementation and resources for implementation.  This report does not offer any guidelines how it will be implemented in practice.

If racism alone was the issue then the anti-racism policies that have been implemented for decades would be enough to tackle this social exclusion of Muslims and the hate crimes perpetrated against them. But they clearly haven’t.

While there is often intersectionality with racism Islamophobia is s specifically anti-Muslim religious discrimination. Unless this is understood and taken on board then adopting any definition that says otherwise is not only not fit for purpose and unworkable. It is also detrimental as there will be a false impression that something is being done, thereby preventing a more relevant and meaningful definition to be worked at,

The definition is regressive and undermines all the work that has been done since the mid 80’s to identify Islamophobia as faith based and not race based. The campaign to tackle anti-Muslim exclusion and anti-Muslim hatred began in the mid 1980s in Brent, led and initiated by An-Nisa Society as a call for the government and the anti-racist movement to acknowledge anti-Muslim discrimination as a specific discrimination separate but sometimes intersectional with race. It is ironic that a movement that started locally by Muslim women and taken on board nationally has never been addressed in it’s place of origin. (1)

Our Director has worked for Brent Council in its Race Relations Unit and has served as a Commissioner with The Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia and as a trustee for the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism.

Getting the definition right should not be piggybacked on other existing recognised hatreds or as a defensive reaction to those who will attack the existence of Islamophobia. For example,

Pragmatism

“In this definition of Islamophobia, the link to racism is made for both pragmatic and theoretical reasons.  Pragmatically, many large organisations already have in place mechanisms and protocols for dealing with racism; therefore, by articulating Islamophobia as a form of racism, there is no need to invent new procedures to deal with complaints and concerns that arise. Theoretically, racism is understood to be a form of regulation based on racialization by which collective identities are formed and placed in hierarchies." (2)

If these race-based structures had worked for Islamophobia we wouldn’t have had to campaign for decades for separate recognition. And why should we be pragmatic? We have to be bold and courageous and chart our own experience of prejudice and discrimination and how to it need to be addressed.

Lazy thinking

Should the definition be an almost word for word copy of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism?

“The authors of the report have taken the structure and content of IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as their starting point and, in many places, done little more than cross out ‘Jew’ and insert ‘Muslim’ in its place. Most forms of bigotry have some common characteristics but diverge significantly in their details and form. Homophobia doesn’t take the same form as anti-Black racism. Transphobia isn’t identical to misogyny. If you start out with a definition of antisemitism and try to apply it to the sort of hatred that Muslims face, you will miss the mark.” (3)

Freedom of Speech & the Right to Criticise religion

And of course the issue of freedom of speech and the right to criticise religion. Yes we agree that any criticism of Islam that is made in good faith is welcome. What is not welcome where this is used as a cover to incite hatred of Islam and Muslims, either directly or indirectly leading to discrimination and attacks on Muslims. This needs to be addressed robustly through our laws around incitement to hatred, which at the moment it isn’t.

We urge Brent Council to reject this definition.


References

1) http://www.insted.co.uk/islam.html#concepts

2)https://www.criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/defining-islamophobia/?fbclid=IwAR3cm0gC1VyFJSMTJAyxqS9R1OZq_jRtBZKXVy0-QevvUmKFHtwSmFGspUg

3)https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/we-need-an-effective-definition-of-islamophobia-1.481712

Brent Council statement on the weekend's fatal incidents in Wembley

A message from Cllr Tom Miller, Lead Member for Community Safety at Brent Council

The fatal incidents we saw in Wembley over the weekend are truly shocking and our sympathies go to the victims and their loved ones.

While the full details are still emerging, I know that many of us will be alarmed by the violence which is sadly not unique to our borough. Despite these terrible incidents, it’s important to recognise that violent crime has been falling in Brent with 13% fewer serious violent offences compared to the previous year. The council’s community safety team is working closely with the Police and I would like to reassure residents that there will be more Police officers on our streets over the coming days to make sure that those responsible are brought to justice.

Anyone with information about what happened should contact the Police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Please don’t assume that somebody else has reported it.

Brent Year 6's - Remember...YOU ARE MORE THAN A SCORE!

As children, parents and primary school staff anxiously awaiting the results of the Key Stage 2 SAT tests this is a reminder that a child and their achievements are so much more than a single test result.

Willesden Green Library - Celebrating the great survivor's 125th anniversary

Guest post by Philip Grant

It’s not often that you get invited to a 125^th birthday party, but that is what is happening on Thursday 18^th July, a century and a quarter to the day from the opening of Willesden Green Library in 1894.

Live music; in a library!? Well, that’s just what happened on the evening of 18^th July 1894. The choice of music may be different now, but this was the concert programme then:

Public libraries were something new in Victorian times, and local Councils had to get special approval from their ratepayers before they could raise an extra penny in the pound to be spent on providing them. There was quite a battle in the correspondence column of the “Willesden Chronicle” over the issue in February 1891. 

An anonymous letter, headed “Proposed Pauper Libraries for Willesden Parish”, gave some of the arguments against:

‘Acquiring a taste to waste time reading foolish and frivolous literature may be less bad than acquiring a taste for some habits of a more actively vicious description. Nevertheless it is very much the reverse of desirable.’  … and:

‘It should be remembered that desirable residents are apt to select a parish, and become ratepayers, because the rates are low compared with those of other parishes, and not because the parish luxuriates in a free library at the expense of the ratepayers.’

A local vicar, and Chairman of the Willesden School Board, replied:

‘It is easy to nickname these places “Pauper Libraries”, but they are no more pauper than our public parks, or our street gas, or the public promenades at seaside resorts.’

… and:

‘People must have recreation, and a certain degree of excitement. If they do not take it out in poetry and fiction, they will have it in drinking and gambling.’

W.B. Luke, a local councillor and leading campaigner for a “Yes” vote in the poll, wrote:

‘The time has come for a recognition of the higher duty, to humanise and elevate the thousands who throng our tenement dwellings, and to make intelligent citizens of the children who leave the elementary schools only to graduate in the university of the gutter.’

Education*, and helping the large proportion of the local community who were in the working class to better themselves, through access to reading material they could not afford to buy for themselves and their families, was a key aim of free public libraries. The ratepayers of Willesden voted by 2,257 to 1,070 in favour of paying more rates to provide one for each of the three main districts of Harlesden, Kilburn and Willesden Green.

*[It should be remembered that free elementary education for all children had only been introduced as recently as the 1870 Education Act. The “Board Schools” only provided a basic education, often described as “The Three R’s” – Reading, Riting and Rithmetic (perhaps spelling wasn’t on the curriculum, because it didn’t begin with an “R”!)]

The origin of our free public libraries is part of an illustrated local history talk (from 5pm) which forms part of the 125^th anniversary programme. It then goes on to cover developments through the whole 125 years, including some more battles along the way. I have prepared the powerpoint slide show, although I will not actually be able to present it on 18^th July (it will be in the capable hands of a friend from Brent Museum & Archives).

So how did I, a “Wembley” local historian, get involved with the history of Willesden Green Library? It all began when I was asked to take part in a focus group in February 2011, as a user of the Museum & Archives, about the future of the then Willesden Green Library Centre. Brent’s Regeneration Department were putting forward “options” for dealing with what they considered to be a sub-standard building, and rather than repair or refurbishment, their preferred option was to get a private developer to build a new Brent Council "hub", including a library, on the site. Everyone in our group (and, I discovered later, in a second group of library users) said that if this option was the one chosen, the remaining part of the 1894 building should be retained as part of the new library.

Many of you will remember the battle that took place in 2012 and early 2013, after our views on retaining the Victorian building were ignored. If you weren’t around at the time, you will find plenty of articles about it in the “Wembley Matters” archive for those years! I researched the history of the library as part of making the heritage case for retaining the 1894 frontage, which Brent and its development partner wanted to demolish. A great community effort achieved that in the end, and today’s “The Library at Willesden Green” includes the original library’s face on the High Road.

Luckily, I still had my research material available when plans for the 125^th anniversary were being drawn up a few months ago. If you can’t get to the talk, “The Willesden Green Library Story” will soon be available to read or download from the Brent Archives website, at: LINK  Just click on the “local history articles” link from the home page to find a varied menu of illustrated local history material.

Things may have changed since Victorian times, but I believe our free public libraries are still something to be valued, used and supported. I’m confident that many “Wembley Matters” readers will agree with that.

Philip Grant.

Brent Cabinet set to approve of purchase Gloucester & Durham blocks from Telford and Notting Hill Genesis for c£92m

Brent Council's Cabinet will decide on July 15th to pay circa £92million for a site sold on leasehold to Telford Homes PLC and Notting Hill Genesis in May 2018 for £3million. REPORT

The Gloucester and Durham blocks will contain 235 housing units and Brent Council will purchase the leasehold interest, merging the leasehold title with the freehold. The units will be let as affordable homes. As they will be counted as new affordable homes they will attract a grant from the GLA towards the cost of acquisition and the remaining costs will be be via borrowing based on the Housing Revenue Account which is no longer capped.

Officers claim that if the homes are let at London Affordable Rents the finance will be paid back in c50 years.

The financial details are in Appendix 1 which is withheld from the public under the Local Government 1972 because it contains 'information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).' The sum of £92m is not mentioned in the report and is presumably in the Appendix but is mentioned in the notice to Matt Kelcher, Chair of Resources & Public Realm Scrutiny (above).

A request for information to the Brent Council Press Office and Amar Dave, Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment went unanswered last week.

Turkey & Cyprus - New Threats & Old Wars Monday July 8th Brent Trades Hall

College of North West London's Dudden Hill Campus to be sold off for housing & everything moved to Wembley Park

The College of North West London, now part of United Colleges after its merger with Westminster College, is getting involved in another property deal after selling off its Kilburn site some time ago LINK and one of its Wembley Park buildings to the Education Funding Agency for Michaela Free School.

The latest move is to sell the Willesden campus on Dudden Hill for housing development, vacate the remaining Wembley Park building for redevelopment, and move everything to what is currently the Network Housing building on Olympic Way.

Colleges are not now part of the local authority but have Corporation status.

The present Wembley Park building, together with the shopping precinct, McDonald's and the ex-TV studio, temporarily the Troubadour Theatre, together make a prime development site close to Wembley Park station.

Brent Council is proposing that it provide United Colleges with a bridging loan facility of £50million to  facilitate the process as UC have been unable to get a loan from other sources due to the period involved.

A report to the Cabinet LINK sets out the rather complex deals involved:

In order to consider the loan transaction being proposed this report now sets out the essential features of the overall transaction. In summary: 

 

•       United Colleges would swap the former CNWL site at Wembley with Quintain for the site currently occupied by Network Homes. This latter site would in turn be redeveloped to provide the long-term, and substantially enhanced educational facilities for United Colleges, and the former CNWL site for housing, in line with the existing masterplan for Wembley Park. 


•       The current Willesden site would be developed to provide new housing, including affordable housing. This would happen in stages, so that there would be continuity of educational provision during the development. 


•       United Colleges would use the proceeds from the sale of their Willesden site to fund the development of what is currently the Network Homes site. Since this will, be before the whole of Willesden is sold, United Colleges need the bridging finance set out in this report.

•       On agreement of the terms between United Colleges and Quintain the development would commence, with the approximate expectation that the permanent facilities in Wembley Park (the current Network Homes site) would open in July 2023 and the two stages of the Willesden site would complete in July 2020 and July 2023. The former CNWL site in Wembley Park would be developed by Quintain by after it is vacated by United Colleges in July 2023. 


•       In order for United Colleges to be able to sign their contracts ‘and any other agreements with Quintain they would need to be sure that they had access to a loan facility to enable them to fulfil their construction contract (i.e. to develop the college facilities at Wembley Park). They therefore require reasonable certainty from a lender that these funds will be available. This report proposes that the Council provide such a facility 


The report admits that there are risks involved and nothing can be done before thorough due diligence is done and planning permission will be involved, although one can be for forgiven for thinking that such permission is a foregone conclusion.

According to the council the risks are outweighed by the benefits of building 1,500 new homes at Dudden Hill (the report actually says Willesden Green but we can't expect local geography to be planners' strong point) with a further 250 at Wembley Park, the enhancement to the Wembley Park area through a state of the art further education establishment improving the mix of development, an improvement in the actual education offer to local young people and the provision of employment opportunities.

One factor not mentioned in the report is that this further centralises facilities on Wembley Park with Kilburn and Willesden losing out in terms of neighbourhood further education facilities.  The suggestion of a former Brent Council Chief Executive that the London Borough of Brent should be renamed the London Borough of Wembley appears to be coming close to reality - although I personally favour the London Borough of Quintain!

A pertinent question from an ex-CNWL lecturer: 'Is the college's primary role now that of a property developer?'