Greens to stand in Copeland on an anti-nuclear and anti-poverty platform

After the controversy over the Green Party's decision not to stand in the Richmond Park by-election there has been an ongoing debate in the party about the pros and cons of a progressive alliance. Local parties are autonomous and it is their decision on whether to stand a candidate.

The Green Party will contest the Copeland by-election on an anti-nuclear and anti-poverty campaign.

Members of Allerdale and Copeland Green Party made the decision to stand last night (January 12th) at the local party’s AGM and a candidate will be selected on January 24th.

Clare Brown, chair of Allerdale and Copeland Greens, said:

We feel it’s vitally important to offer a vote to those people who want to see a fair and sustainable future for the area.
 

There are clear differences between us and the other parties and we welcome this opportunity to campaign on our priorities, which include sustainable energy and standing against nuclear power, as well as anti-poverty measures and exposing the lie of austerity.

With Labour looking set to select a pro-nuclear candidate the Greens will campaign for clean power in Copeland.

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said:

The Greens are the only party in Copeland campaigning against nuclear power, to defend the NHS and for a close relationship with Europe.

Voting Green is a vote for a renewable energy revolution which would create thousands of jobs in Copeland.

Allerdale and Copeland Greens are dedicated to ending poverty and inequality in their local community and creating a fairer society by putting forward the bold policies we so desperately need.

Green activists declare support for Brighton Cityclean workers

The GMB Cityclean picket line this morning

The Green Party has rightly been subject to close scrutiny over the performance of its first Green led (though minority) council in Brighton and Hove. The party has been hampered by an unholy alliance opposition of Labour and Conservative councillors but nonetheless has been able to implement some progressive policies. Its decision to stay in office and implement Coalition cuts has been controversial to say the least and one that I do not support, but some problems have been of its own making, through inexperience or poor decision making.

This is the case with the Cityclean dispute and I support the position put below in an Open Letter by a group of Green councillors and activists in the city:

As concerned Green Party activists, Councillors and trade unionists we feel we have no option other than to write this letter. This is our response to the news that the Council’s Cityclean workforce intend to take industrial action following the collapse of negotiations relating to proposed changes to their pay and allowances.

We are appalled that the situation has escalated to the point where Council employees are forced to take strike action in order to be heard. We are concerned that as activists from a party which has spent years arguing for workers’ rights that on this occasion the argument is wrong.

We continue to oppose the imposition of pay cuts as per the decision of our Emergency General Meeting in May. Further we will show solidarity with the workers affected by this decision.

We are Green Party members because we believe in its core value of social justice. Imposing a reduction to the take home pay of some of our lowest paid workers runs completely contrary to this.

We fully support the difficult process of trying to equalise the Council’s very complex allowance system so that all staff are treated fairly. That said we deplore the fact that previous Labour and Conservative-led councils failed to fix the problem when they had the opportunity.

However, we cannot accept a situation which attempts to impose a settlement on staff without the agreement of all Unions involved. Negotiations should not pit worker against worker.

We remain concerned that as yet there appears to be no satisfactory negotiated resolution which means that balloting has happened and industrial action will occur from 6am this morning for a week.

We ask all sides to urgently find a successful resolution to avert industrial action which we believe could cause all workers, the council and the City considerable pain.

Why Labour should support electoral reform and how the environment could benefit

Make Votes Matter fringe at the Labour Party Conference this week

The Green Party came up against a solid brick wall at the General Election when it tried to get agreement with the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats for a 'Progressive' (Electoral) Alliance which involved a commitment to campaign for electoral reform in exchange for the other parties standing down in favour of the party best placed to defeat the Tory candidate. In the event neither the Lib Dems nor Labour made the commitment although Greens did stand down in a number of seats.

Some Labour MPs made individual commitments on PR and a number of them spoke at the Make Votes Matter/Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference. Locally Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) has supported proportional representation.

Coinciding with Conference the two organisations published a well researched paper making the case for the Labour Party to adopt electoral reform as policy. The paper has the non-snappy title The Many Not the Few Proportional Representation and Labour in the 21st Century. On line copy here LINK.

This is an extract from the paper addressing the issue of environmental policy:

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The evidence

Studies have found that countries using proportional systems
 set stricter environmental policies and were faster to ratify the Kyoto protocol. On environmental performance, Lijphart and Orellana found
that countries with PR scored 
six points higher on the Yale Environmental Performance Index, which measures ten policy areas, including environmental health, air quality, resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture and climate change. 

Using data from the International Energy Agency, Orellana found that between 1990 and 2007, when carbon emissions were rising everywhere, the statistically predicted increase was significantly lower in countries with fully proportional systems, at 9.5 per cent, compared to 45.5 per cent in countries using winner-take-all systems. Orellana found use of renewable energy to be 117 percent higher in countries with fully proportional systems.

Explanation

The UK has historically lagged behind its European peers when it comes to action on climate change and uptake of renewable energy. Depressingly, this is despite having by far the best off shore wind and marine energy potential in Europe. Successive governments have at best taken relatively limited action to move away from fossil fuels and reduce emissions, or at worst have actively resisted such progress (with the current government determined to begin shale gas production despite strong opposition from both local communities and the general public). 

Using data from the International Energy Agency, in his 1990 book, Electing for Democracy, Richard Kuper offers an explanation for this which remains true to this 
day. “Were the Greens”, he writes, “in a position to obtain representation in proportion to their vote, it is inconceivable that Labour would not already have in place a coherent and much strengthened range of environmental policies in order to head o the challenge.” 

Because a vote for the Green Party remains a wasted vote in almost every constituency, we in the Labour Party have little electoral incentive to worry about winning those voters back by competing with the Greens with our environmental credentials. On the contrary, since the swing voters in marginal seats may not be keen on the idea of a wind turbine at the bottom of their garden, an electoral agent may well advise us not to make too much of a fuss about climate change. 

Twitter links @MakeVotesMatter  @Labour4PR

The Need for a National Campaign for Education

Writing on Wembley Matters I have repeatedly criticised Michael Gove's neoliberal reforms in education, the privatisation agenda represented by academies and free schools, and the way the emphasis on test results and league tables narrows the very concept of education and deprives children of their childhood.

The Anti-Academies Alliance has recognised the may strands of this battle and I fully support their support for a National Campaign for Education.

In this report Alasdair Smith, National Secretary  of the Anti Academies Alliance, outlines the issues and notes in passing the Green Party's opposition to the neoliberal vision.

Rumour has it that policy wonks in the DfE are hard at work on how to manage “market failures”.

Indeed the number of failing academies is soaring.  But then ‘failure’ is hardwired into a system of rationed exam success, the ever-changing goalpost of OFSTED and unbridled greed of ‘social entrepreneurs’ who now claim they have a special responsibility to transform education. Peter Hyman – pass the sick bucket please.

The wheels of big business intervention are in full motion.  I have looked, to no avail, to find figures on the increase in rate of investment by education businesses over the last 10 years. My guess it is huge. Rupert Murdoch’s re-branded edu-business – Amplify (www.amplify.com ) is clearly backed by huge investment.  Not surprisingly alongside big money, comes a whiff of corruption - nepotism, dishonesty and manipulation swirls around the system – with exam cheating, pilfering public money and appointing family members now part of Gove’s dystopian nightmare.

Revelations that several academies have adopted Section 28 style policy outlawing 'promotion of homosexuality’ come as no surprise. Deregulation and privatisation - what Gove calls 'autonomy' - can be a licence for bigotry. The outcry raised by the British Humanist Association report has forced the government into a review but we will need hard proof that no school has Section 28 style clauses in future.

The scandal of free schools is even worrying the likes of Graham Stuart – the Tory chair of Education Select Committee. The huge costs, obvious lack of value for money and, most disgracefully, the fact that free schools are opening in areas where there is no need for places is causing huge concern.

There is a ticking time bomb over the shortage of school places. Some parts of London now have several 5 form entry primary schools and are considering split shift education provision unless funding is dramatically increased.

Of course Gove will point to the odd ‘success’ in his new world order. But does he ask about the failures? And what will he do about them?

Is resistance to academy conversion futile?

The academy conversion process is now so clinical, so undemocratic and so dishonest that local campaigns rise and fall within weeks. Schools are handed to sponsors on a plate by DfE brokers. As John Harris argued in the Guardian last week there is murky relationship between OFSTED and academisation ( http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/16/ofsted-lashing-out-against-primary-schools )

This means there is little chance to build sustained campaign as happened at Downhills. Yet parents are still willing to fight. Neither Gove nor academy conversion is popular. Gove is hated by the profession. There is a profound sense that our communities are being bullied into conversion.

People understand that this policy is the same as policy as the privatising of the NHS. But unfortunately the patterns of resistance are similar to NHS too, although the sporadic protests tend to be even smaller.

One reason for the absence of serious resistance is that Stephen Twigg’s criticism of Gove’s policies has been too muted. Other Labour politicians have offered more - for example Andy Burnham's trenchant defence of comprehensive education. In some areas Labour MPs have worked hard to stem the tide and build alliances with parents and the profession.  But the few national policy announcement’s seems to be little more than ‘Gove lite’.

Elsewhere the Westminster village is in thrall to Gove. We should not believe for one minute that the Lib Dems are holding back Gove. David Laws has been central to propping up elements of Gove’s agenda such as Schools Direct and privatisation of teacher training.

Apart from the Green Party, a few principled MPs and a handful of commentators, the political class remain wholly committed to this neoliberal vision, or what Finnish educationalist Pasi Salhberg calls GERM – Global Education Reform Movement.

It means we need to think long and hard about our approach to education reform. There have been some bold initiatives. CASE, SEA and others have created Picking up the Pieces. This has identified some key features of what a good education system would look like.  The NUT and Compass have joined together to run an enquiry into future of education. Both initiatives appear to be focused on persuading Labour to change its policy going into the next election.

The viability of that strategy is a matter of some debate. In contrast the AAA has continued to try to mobilise parents and staff in campaign at school level, but with limited success. But it has also argued that we need something more. We need a new vision for education that stimulates a nationwide debate and action on achieving it.

The terrain has changed. We are not fighting a single battle against academies, but a ‘war’ in several different areas of education: curriculum, school places, primary, pre-school, teacher training and so on. The scale and breadth of attacks is unprecedented.

If the terrain changes, the vehicle has to change

From the outset we argued that the academies programme was a ‘Trojan horse’ to help break up state education as part of a much grander design to deregulate and privatise the whole system. That prediction is now becoming a reality. But just opposing academies and free schools does not always offer the best opportunities to fight back against Gove. Increasingly much of the secondary sector is now conditioned to academy status. And although academisation is new to the primary sector, it remains rare that single schools fighting alone stop conversion.

Our arguments about the real nature of the academies programme have stood the test of time, but our ability to halt it remains limited. So for the last couple of years the AAA has argued for a National Campaign for Education (NCE) to unite campaigns to create a greater sense of common purpose and above all to articulate ideas around what sort of education system we want not just what we are against.

There are many other areas of education policy on which Gove is more vulnerable. New campaigns are emerging all the time. The multiplicity of different campaigns working on different projects and timescales continue. Avoiding this sort of duplication of effort is a good argument for an NCE. But here is also another more compelling argument. The historic agreement between the NUT and NASUWT for joint programme of action that began on 27th June and will continue on 1^st and 17^th October offers new hope of resistance across the profession.

Whatever the success of the joint action there remains a job to be done for an NCE. It needs to keep alive ideas of what it means to have a comprehensive, progressive and democratic education system. It needs to engage in popularising a wholly different vision of education based on key ideas of the Finnish system - equality & ‘less is more’. But crucially this shared theoretical vision needs some genuine prospect of realisation for it to have any meaning. So the NCE needs to have a campaigning edge. It needs to take the debate on the future of education into schools and communities up and down the country.

As was reported at the AGM in March, progress towards an NCE has been slow. Support for it was agreed at NUT and UNISON conferences and a few practical steps have been taken.

The AAA is committed to working towards an NCE, but there remains plenty of work for us to do. Our primary function of supporting local campaign continues.
 

UKIP's Martin Ferguson sinks without trace and his successor gets into hot water

Martin Ferguson

Martin Ferguson, who was UKIP's candidate for Brent North was mysteriously replaced at the last minute by Alan Craig. There are mutterings of a possible 'embarrassment' regarding Ferguson that has been allegedly hushed up by the party. It is unclear whether he remains a member of UKIP. Ferguson has not responded to my enquiries about the reasons for him stepping down and his party status. His image still appears on UKIP's official candidiates' page LINK

His successor, Alan Craig, has lost no time in making his mark. Pink News has exclusively revealed LINK that he is due to speak at a 'gay cure' event. He will join a panel on 'resisting indoctrination' alongside Christian anti-gay activists.

Scott Bartle, Craig's Green Party opponent said:

The only ‘conversion’ the Green Party is interested in is from a bigoted society, to one where we’ve put an end to discrimination of people due to their sexuality and protect non-binary rights.

Sadly (and ironically for UKIP) it is prejudiced attitudes of people such as Mr Craig that contribute towards people seeking asylum in the UK because of the criminalisation, discrimination and violence they experience in their own countries.

It’s time to end this culture of disbelief which has not only denied LGBTIQ people of their refugee status but resulted in needless deaths, including that of Leelah Alcorn.

Alan Craig

Craig, a former leader of  Christian People's Alliance has a history of opposition to gay marriage and called advocates of homosexual equality the 'Gaystapo'. He said LINK

Whatever you think of the issue itself, the gay marriage legislation last year was a democratic disgrace. Faithful one man/one woman marriage has been a defining and enduring bedrock of our society and culture – and the preeminent place of nurture for the nation’s children – for a millennium and a half.

Bob Blackman

His position is very similar to that of Bob Blackman, presently fighting to retain his Harrow East seat for the Conservatives. Blackman was denounced by his ex-mistress for 11 years, Cllr Carol Shaw (Conservative, Brondesbury Park) after he spoke about the sanctity of marriage in parliament.

Blackman said:

If this (gay marriage) went ahead it would be difficult to promote Christian values in parliament. I also make a point to promote religious values in my constituency.

Marriage is for man and woman, and for same-sex couples there is a legal partnership. It certainly angers religious groups and constituents, many of whom have contacted me

Luke Parker, the Conservative candidate for Brent North, is rather more progressive. Responding to Pink News LINK over Alan Craig's speaking engagement he said:

I don’t actually think it’s funny… this is a very serious and growing party, and they’ve transgressed into a party of hate.

UKIP selection policy seems to be based on finding people who can get as many other people as possible angry about who they want to hate this week.

He went on:

I wonder if there’s aversion therapy that can stop you being a bigot. If there is, maybe we can set it up so every time someone looks at a UKIP leaflet, they get an electric shock.”

Greens should support national campaign for education

I have long argued on this blog that because of the broad and fundamental attack on education by Michael Gove and the Coalition that we need a national campaign which both exposes that policy and proposes an alternative.

I hope that the Green Party will be part of the campaign given that we have progressive policies on education which I hope will be strengthened at Spring Conference.

Towards a National Campaign for Education has been formed to promote such a campaign and they have organised a meeting on January 22nd to which they invited the London Green Party. I will be attending and I hope other Greens will come too.

You can order free tickets for this event and a similar one due to take place in Brixton on February 27th HERE

You can Tweet questions with #eqtime @NCE2014

The Campaign has its aims on its blog: LINK:

This blog is aimed at anyone who uses, works or is just interested in our education system. It has two main purposes.

The first is to expose the faultlines in the 'neo-liberal' education reform movement and in particular to target the weaknesses, errors and political ideology in Gove's education policies.

The second is to develop a discussion that hopefully leads towards building a National Campaign for Education. There are many excellent education campaigns in the UK (see our Links page). There are also several different unions representing teachers and support staff. There are governor and parent organisations and a raft of specialist organisations dealing with subjects or specific areas such as SEN. This creates a complex network of organisations and individuals. The danger is that their work is duplicated and their impact is dissipated.

For some time now, people have been arguing that we need a National Campaign for Education (NCE). The NUT and UNISON unions have conference policy calling for the creation of such a campaign. At its last National Steering Committee the Anti Academies Alliance agreed to work towards creating an NCE by engaging in wider discussion and debate, hence this blog.

The argument is fairly simple. Gove's attacks on education cover almost every aspect of education. It is not just about academies and free schools. It reaches in to the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It also affects the provision of school places and teacher education. It is about when and why our children are educated. On all these issues, the Coalition government have launched an all out attack. The breadth of their attacks require a coordinated and sustained response.

The idea for an NCE is modelled on the 1963 National Campaign for Education. This was an unprecedented education campaign that helped change the education landscape in the early 1960's. More on the history of the 1963 NCE will follow. But we want to make 2014 a year for education, a year of a National Campaign for Education.

For now this blog, will carry articles on a range of education issues with a view to engaging in a debate about how to defend education but, more importantly, about what sort of education system we want, about what sort of system is in the best interests of all our children.

This blog is not about replacing other campaigns. But it will argue more 'synchronicity' between different campaigns. Together we can build a campaign that halts the attacks and outlines the sort of education system that provides a good local school for every child.