Cross party group of MPs call for green Spring Budget to tackle ‘underinvestment crisis’

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https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4180633/cross-party-group-mps-green-spring-budget-tackle-underinvestment-crisis

Image: The Spring Budget is due to be delivered on 6 March 2024 | Credit: iStock

MPs from Labour, Lib Dems, Green Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Alliance have jointly called for a green investment-friendly Spring Budget on Wednesday

A group of cross-party MPs and peers have called on the Chancellor to prioritise new public investment in net zero infrastructure and skills in this week’s Spring Budget, in a move they argue would help to “futureproof our economy and our energy system”.

In a letter addressed to Jeremy Hunt on Friday, Parliamentarians from across political divides urged the Chancellor to “use the forthcoming Spring Budget to address the ongoing underinvestment crisis the UK is facing” by funnelling more public spending to help deliver on net zero goals.

It also calls on the government to publish a Net Zero Investment Plan in order to “identify and close the gap between actual and required financial flows” and help catalyse increased investment from the private sector.

And the letter calls on the Treasury to work with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to set out a plan to ensure “every household has access to energy efficiency measures and fossil-free heat via a combination of grants and low-cost loans”.

https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4180633/cross-party-group-mps-green-spring-budget-tackle-underinvestment-crisis

Continue ReadingCross party group of MPs call for green Spring Budget to tackle ‘underinvestment crisis’

Jeremy Corbyn launches legal action against Nigel Farage

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-launches-legal-action-against-nigel-farage

Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

JEREMY CORBYN announced today that he is taking legal action against Nigel Farage for making “highly defamatory” comments.

The former Labour leader has instructed lawyers to take the first steps in legal proceedings against Mr Farage, after the GB News host made a “disgusting” statement about him on the network last week.

It is not specified what statement Mr Corbyn is referring to. However, it comes just days after Mr Farage aired a segment in which he accused Mr Corbyn of subscribing to an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-launches-legal-action-against-nigel-farage

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn launches legal action against Nigel Farage

‘Utterly shameful’: Suspended Labour politician slams Starmer’s Gaza stance

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Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Four London councillors have been disciplined by their local party after calling for a ceasefire

A Labour politician suspended for backing a ceasefire in Gaza has labelled the party leadership’s stance on the conflict as “utterly shameful”.

Martin Abrams was one of four councillors in Lambeth, south London, suspended by the local Labour group on Monday night after voting for a motion put forward by the local Green Party.

It called for “an immediate ceasefire and the end to human rights atrocities in the Israel/Palestine conflict”.

Speaking to openDemocracy, Abrams hit out at Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership for its position on the conflict, which has seen over 50 Labour councillors resign since 7 October.

“It is truly a moment of great shame for the Labour Party for us to be in this place,” Abrams said. “I will continue speaking out for what I believe is right because there is a complete absence of that happening from Keir Starmer and the Labour Party leadership.”

Abrams said Starmer’s leadership on Gaza has been “utterly shameful”, adding: “It has been from the very beginning.”

He referenced an interview on LBC radio in which Starmer, the UK’s former top prosecutor, appeared to sanction collective punishment of the Palestinian people by Israel – which is illegal under international law. Starmer has since denied this is what he meant.

Last week, chaos ensued in Parliament as Labour refused to back an SNP-tabled motion on a ceasefire. Although Labour has now supported a ceasefire, the party has been criticised for doing so through its own parliamentary motion, which was less critical of Israel than the SNP’s original text.

Abrams, who is Jewish, said Lambeth Labour’s decision to suspend him had been “disproportionate” considering it was a vote on “calling an end to the slaughter of children”. But he said he would not resign from his position as a councillor and would continue “standing up for the oppressed people”.

End the bloodshed

Abrams told openDemocracy that the crisis had taken a toll on councillors hoping to represent their ward.

“Many of us are very emotionally impacted by this because we’re solid members of our local communities. Some of us are Jewish, some of us are Muslim,” he said. “The vast majority of us are humanitarians and want to see an end to the bloodshed and the fighting.”

Lambeth Labour, which decided to suspend the four members following a disciplinary hearing on Monday, had said the motion risked “exacerbating the impacts of the deeply worrying rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crime across London witnessed in recent weeks.”

Sonia Winifred, another Labour councillor who voted for the motion, resigned as a councillor after being suspended. Winifred is a veteran Windrush campaigner, and said on Twitter the decision had left her with “no choice” but to resign.

Grassroots group Momentum said: ​​“This is an outrageous attack on a Jewish Labour councillor for having the temerity to stand up for the people of Gaza. Martin is a principled socialist and internationalist – and it is shocking that he has been forced out for standing up for a position endorsed by the majority of voters. This anti-democratic decision should be immediately reversed.”

Lambeth Labour has been contacted for comment.

Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Continue Reading‘Utterly shameful’: Suspended Labour politician slams Starmer’s Gaza stance

Labour suspends councillors for backing calls for Gaza ceasefire

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-suspends-councillors-backing-calls-%20gaza-ceasefire

A Palestinian stands on top of a mosque destroyed in an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024.

LABOUR councillors in two London boroughs have been suspended and face disciplinary action for backing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Lambeth Council’s Labour administration suspended four of its councillors today, including Jewish councillor Martin Abrams and a Hindu representative, for supporting a motion calling for a ceasefire.

Mr Abrams is an outspoken Jewish pro-Palestinian activist and spokesman for the left-wing Momentum campaign group.

He said: “My vote for the ceasefire motion was a matter of conscience for me.

“My great grandparents were persecuted and driven from Eastern Europe over 100 years ago in the pogroms of Kiev and came to this country as refugees with nothing, leaving and losing many close family in the process.

“It is exactly this history of persecution of my close ancestors in Europe over the ages that meant I was brought up to always stand with the oppressed and against oppression and when I say never again, I mean never again: for everybody.”

A Momentum spokesperson said:“This is an outrageous attack on a Jewish Labour councillor for having the temerity to stand up for the people of Gaza.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/labour-suspends-councillors-backing-calls-%20gaza-ceasefire

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Continue ReadingLabour suspends councillors for backing calls for Gaza ceasefire

Furious SNP hit back as Speaker denies emergency Gaza ceasefire debate

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https://www.thenational.scot/news/24145354.furious-snp-hit-back-speaker-denies-emergency-gaza-ceasefire-debate/

Stephen Flynn has hit back at the Speaker for refusing to allow the party an emergency debate (Image: PA)

THE SNP have accused the Westminster system of “failing the people of Gaza” after the Speaker denied the party an emergency debate on calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Lindsay Hoyle rejected the party’s application for a fresh debate on the issue on Monday afternoon, despite explicitly offering one after his decision to allow a Labour amendment during the SNP’s opposition day debate meant there was no formal vote held on the SNP’s motion.

The SNP tabled a new motion for an emergency debate so the UK Parliament could vote for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel and push the UK Government to take “concrete steps” to help make a ceasefire happen.

Following Hoyle’s decision, a furious Flynn said: “Yet again, Westminster is failing the people of Gaza by blocking a vote on the urgent action the UK Government must take to help make an immediate ceasefire happen.

Read the SNP’s full emergency debate motion below:

That this House officially reaffirms its position, as of 21st February 2024, to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel; further reaffirms its horror at the October 7th 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas and the subsequent collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza; demands the release of all hostages taken by Hamas; condemns any military assault on the 1.5 million refugees sheltering in Rafah; further demands the Government immediately halts all transfers of military equipment and technology, including components, to Israel, and to suspend the issuing of new licences; calls on the international community to ensure the rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief is provided in Gaza; further calls for an end to settlement expansion and violence; urges Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures; and urges all international partners to work together to establish a diplomatic process to deliver the peace of a two-state solution; recognises that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and not in the gift of any neighbour; instructs the Government to vote for an immediate ceasefire, or wording with that effect, during the next relevant motion brought before the United Nations Security Council.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24145354.furious-snp-hit-back-speaker-denies-emergency-gaza-ceasefire-debate/

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Continue ReadingFurious SNP hit back as Speaker denies emergency Gaza ceasefire debate

RMT leader Mick Lynch gives Jeremy Corbyn general election backing

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Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68393822

The RMT Union has announced it will be supporting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the next general election.

Mr Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North – a seat he has held since 1983.

Last year, the 74-year-old was banned from standing for Labour, having been suspended from the parliamentary party over an antisemitism row in 2020.

RMT leader Mick Lynch said the union would back Mr Corbyn should he run for his seat again as an independent.

“We will support all sorts of people in this election, because we’re not affiliated,” Mr Lynch told the War on Want conference.

He added: “We will support Labour candidates. We will support socialist candidates.

“We will be supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the next election.”

The RMT became estranged from Labour in 2004 under Tony Blair’s leadership, meaning – unlike many other trade unions – it is free to support other candidates.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68393822

Continue ReadingRMT leader Mick Lynch gives Jeremy Corbyn general election backing

Morning Star: Smearing protesters as a threat to MPs is an excuse to suppress democratic rights

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-smearing-protesters-threat-mps-excuse-suppress-democratic-rights

People take part in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally outside the Houses of Parliament, London, February 21, 2024

THE Prime Minister’s decision to frame the Speaker’s anti-democratic antics this week as “giving in to extremism” obscures reality.

Lindsay Hoyle’s claim he prioritised a Labour amendment over the SNP ceasefire motion because he was worried about MPs’ safety is a damage limitation bid.

But it chimes with ongoing Establishment propaganda painting peace demonstrators as extremists.

Every crisis of ruling-class legitimacy in recent years has prompted attacks on our democratic rights. Britain is racing towards an authoritarian future, with successive laws empowering police to make arrests on the vaguest grounds (such as causing a “nuisance”) and shut down protests before “disruption” even begins.

Now the idea that protest leaves MPs unsafe is used to justify curtailing democratic processes in Parliament itself. Keir Starmer did not browbeat Lindsay Hoyle into trashing procedures because he was worried about MPs’ safety.

He was trying to avoid the embarrassment of a revolt exposing divisions in his party.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-smearing-protesters-threat-mps-excuse-suppress-democratic-rights

Stop the War Coalition statement on democracy and the right to protest

Continue ReadingMorning Star: Smearing protesters as a threat to MPs is an excuse to suppress democratic rights

In Rochdale By-Election, Climate Policy is Also on the Ballot

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A long article discussing the Rochdale by-election that has only one candidate – Mark Coleman – promoting green policies and many opposed.

[12.50 correction.] A long article discussing the Rochdale by-election. Independent Mark Coleman and Lib-Dem Iain Donaldson are the only candidates promoting green policies with many opposed. Monster Raving Loony Party appears absent prom this list of candidates.

Original article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Fomer Labour MPs Simon Danczuk and George Galloway are standing in the Rochdale by-election on February 29. Credit: PA images / Alamy stock photos

From attacks on “eco-madness” and accusations of a “Net Zero Hoax”, here’s our climate guide to the MPs contesting Labour’s seat.

Amid February’s record-breaking temperatures, climate is emerging as a battleground – and faultline – between the UK’s two biggest political parties in the run up to the next general election.

In the past weeks, the Labour Party has dramatically scaled back its £28 billion green investment plans, while the Conservative government has committed to annual licensing rounds in the North Sea in a new oil and gas bill.

This legislation saw former green Conservative Chris Skidmore MP resign in protest in January, triggering last week’s by-election in Kingswood, which Labour won. 

Wrangling between the Tories and Labour has also opened the door for fringe political activists. Parties such as Reform UK have exploited mixed messaging over climate policy, which the UN authority on climate science, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says is essential to secure “to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. 

Next Thursday (February 29), voters in the Greater Manchester seat of Rochdale will go to the polls in a by-election triggered by the death of Labour MP Tony Lloyd. 

The campaign has been overshadowed by the sacking of the frontrunner candidate, Azhar Ali, who was dropped by Labour over his controversial comments about the October 7 Hamas attacks. It is too late for Labour to field another candidate, and Ali will now run as an independent. 

Green Party candidate Guy Otten was also dropped over past statements on Islam and Palestinians. Otten will appear on the ballot paper, but has abstained from campaigning.

The rows have given more airtime to several fringe parties fielding candidates strongly opposed to climate action. 

Simon Danczuk, who is standing for Reform UK, and George Galloway, the candidate for the Workers Party of Britain, have both repeatedly attacked the UK’s legally binding net zero targets, while Galloway has spread climate misinformation and backed new fossil fuel extraction.

Read on to find out all you need to know on where the candidates stand on net zero and climate policy. 

Simon Danczuk – Reform UK 

This month Danczuk announced he had joined Reform UK. Danczuk was the  MP for Rochdale between 2010 and 2017. He is seeking a return to the constituency following his expulsion from the Labour Party in 2015 after sending sexually explicit messages to a 17-year-old (he served as an independent until 2017). 

As an MP, Danczuk voted for measures to prevent climate change, and in 2015 shared an article on Twitter criticising climate denial in the Daily Mail. However, Danczuk’s views appear to have changed. 

Last June he wrote an article attacking the “eco-madness” of Labour’s (now scaled back) green investment plans and its pledge not to approve new oil and gas projects. He wrote that Labour “see implementing a green ideology as more important than jobs, security and sustaining the economy”. 

The article was published in Spiked, an online “libertarian” outlet which has a record of climate science denial and fossil fuel-linked funding. Between 2015 and 2018, Spiked received $300,000  from the Charles Koch Foundation, an arm of oil giant Koch Industries and a major funder of climate denial.

Danczuk repeated the “green ideology” argument in an interview with the fringe right-wing outlet Epoch Times, stating: “The idea of banning gas and oil exploration in the North Sea, before we’ve got alternatives in place, is just absolute madness.” 

In September 2023, Danczuk publicly voiced support for the Conservative government’s net zero U-turns, telling TalkTV that voters “are very despondent about these targets” and that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had “called it right”. TalkTV has its own record of spreading climate denial, and until last year employed Reform leader Richard Tice as a presenter. 

Reform is campaigning to “scrap all of net zero” and received £135,000 in donations from climate deniers and fossil fuel interests in 2023. Tice has said “CO2 isn’t poison, it’s plant food”, while the party’s London mayoral candidate Howard Cox has said “man is not responsible for global warming”.

George Galloway – Workers Party of Britain

Another ex-Labour Party MP, George Galloway, is standing for the Workers Party of Britain, a party he founded after the 2019 general election. Galloway was expelled from Labour in 2003 for “bringing the party into disrepute” after a party tribunal found he had “incited Arabs to fight British troops” and “incited British troops to defy orders”. He has since been elected to parliament twice – in 2005 for his Respect party and 2012 as an independent – each time serving one term. 

The Workers Party of Britain, calls itself a socialist party that “defend[s] the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc”.

The party is hostile to climate policies. Its website calls for “a much clearer debate on Net Zero” and argues that “a halt must also be made to the attempt to make working people pay for subsidies for large-scale green industrialisation”. 

Last July the party called for a Brexit-style referendum on net zero, a policy originally pushed by the right-wing Reform UK and led by its honorary president Nigel Farage. (Galloway and Farage have worked together in the past as part of the Aaron Banks-funded ‘Grassroots Out’ campaign for Brexit.)

Galloway has attacked net zero targets, advocated for clean coal extraction and spread misinformation about climate change.

In December, Galloway called for a net zero referendum in a post on the social media platform X. On his YouTube talk show in August 2022, Galloway spread the false claim that people would be forced to “eat insects” to tackle climate change, adding, “I think this net zero is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.” He then took a swipe at climate activist Greta Thunberg, a regular target for climate deniers, calling net zero “a 14-year old schoolgirl leading grown men and women up the garden path.”

The following month, he again dismissed climate warnings from activists like Thunberg, arguing that the main climate risk came from NATO and the “military industrial complex”. He said: “We are facing climate catastrophe; not man made the likes of Greta Thunberg talks about, but through our own governments.”   

Galloway has also called for more fossil fuel extraction. In an X post in March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Galloway wrote: “Britain needs to ice its [Net] Zero fantasy, step up its oil exploitation [and] invest in peaceful nuclear energy and seek to re-harvest the 1,000 years of coal under our feet employing clean-coal technology. Our Energy policy is hopelessly unbalanced.”

From 2008 to 2013, Galloway worked as a presenter for Press TV, the English-language channel run by the Iranian government. From 2013 to 2015 Galloway was paid £100,000 to present a show on RT (Russia Today), Russia’s equivalent. Both countries are major oil and gas producers. The channels have since had their broadcasting licences revoked by Ofcom for breaking its rules (Galloway’s broadcasts were not referenced in the ruling). 

Paul Ellison – Conservative Party

Little is known about the climate views of Conservative candidate Paul Ellison, who has been dubbed “Mr Rochdale” in the local press.

According to a favourable profile in Rochdale Online, Ellison has been active in the local community protecting green spaces, and is credited with winning Rochdale recognition by the Royal Horticultural Society In Bloom awards. 

He does not appear to have commented publicly about climate change. 

Azhar Ali – Independent (formerly Labour Party)

Newly independent candidate Azhar Ali criticised the government’s U-turns on net zero in September, accusing the Prime Minister of “playing to the climate change deniers in his own party”. 

He doesn’t appear to have commented publicly about Labour’s weakening of its own net zero plans. Earlier this month, the party dropped its pledge to invest £28 billion per year in green measures, cutting its spending plans by 75 percent to £23.7 billion in total. Labour says it will still  keep to its target to decarbonise the UK’s power grid by 2030.

The party opposes new North Sea exploration, but supports unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology on existing rigs. Earlier this month, Labour leader Keir Starmer said current pipelines would “continue for decades”. 

In October 2016, Ali attacked plans to introduce fracking for shale gas in Lancashire, saying on Twitter (now X): “Conservative government gives green light to the ‘rape’ of our environment.”

Iain Donaldson – Liberal Democrats

Lib Dem candidate Iain Donaldson has said he wants to hold the government to account on “water companies polluting the rivers with filthy sewage”, among other issues. In a 2017 tweet he criticised the then U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. 

Donaldson was one of eleven of the party’s 15 MPs who voted against the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill this week, while four abstained. The Liberal Democrats propose moving the net zero target forward five years to 2045 and support large investments in renewable energy.

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said Donaldson had opposed the oil and gas bill, which “fails to take vital steps to grow the UK renewable energy sector and reduce energy bills, and fails to form a coherent path to net zero”.

“Iain wants to see the de facto moratorium on onshore wind farms lifted,” they added, “and allow the expansion of the cheapest form of energy to drive down bills in this cost of living crisis, and reduce our emissions helping to slow climate change.”

Mark Coleman – Independent

After dropping its own candidate, the Green Party has urged its members to back Reverend Mark Coleman, who has put climate at the forefront of his campaign.

Twice arrested for climate protest, Coleman was sentenced in April 2023 to five and half weeks in prison for blocking the M25 and other roads with campaign group Insulate Britain. 

Just Stop Oil has also asked its supporters to back Coleman. In a statement, the climate protest group said he is “the only candidate in the Rochdale by-election worth voting for”.

In a campaign blurb for local news outlet Rochdale Online, Coleman calls for “radical action on climate right now to stand any chance of a safe and stable future”. 

All candidates named in this article were contacted for comment.

 Additional reporting by Phoebe Cooke.

Original article by Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Continue ReadingIn Rochdale By-Election, Climate Policy is Also on the Ballot

Demonising Peaceful Protest Demonstrates the Level of Political and Moral Bankruptcy in Parliament

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https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/demonising-peaceful-protest-demonstrates-the-level-of-political-and-moral-bankruptcy-in-parliament/

Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in November 2019.

The fact that Westminster is content to play cynical games while Palestinians suffer is beneath contempt writes Lindsey German

The shameful scenes in parliament where Labour manoeuvred to stop a principled motion calling for immediate ceasefire in Gaza are bad enough. But even worse is the justification of many Labour MPs for the coercion of the Speaker: that they were fearful of intimidation and violence from demonstrators over Gaza.

Firstly, this is a lie: the protests that take place at MPs’ offices are overwhelmingly peaceful and no threat to MPs or their staff. They are a longstanding and valid form of expressing disagreement and concern over issues in a democracy. But such is the state of politics in Britain that they are now equated with intimidation of MPs. Perhaps these MPs – highly salaried and privileged in comparison with most of their constituents – should have reflected when they stood for office that being involved in politics of necessity involves disagreement and controversy at certain times.

There is a huge movement in support of the Palestinians across Britain and real anger that politicians have for the most part stood by as we witness a genocide in Gaza. None of these protests would take place if the MPs concerned had taken the very minimal step of backing an immediate ceasefire.

But there is also a second and more important question: why MPs are so self-centred to highlight the minimal inconvenience to them while people are starving in Gaza, while over 12,000 children have been killed and where the population is being ethnically cleansed? And why did the Labour leadership refuse to accept an amendment which talked about the collective punishment of the people of Gaza? The Labour position on Gaza has been a disgrace from the beginning and this is why they are facing a wave of protest.

The fact that they are trying to demonise protestors and to paint them as violent extremists shows their political and moral bankruptcy. The fact that they are content to play their cynical and pathetic games while the Palestinians suffer is beneath contempt.

22 Feb 2024

https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/demonising-peaceful-protest-demonstrates-the-level-of-political-and-moral-bankruptcy-in-parliament/

Continue ReadingDemonising Peaceful Protest Demonstrates the Level of Political and Moral Bankruptcy in Parliament