DEFEND PETER TATCHELL

a man who I respect incredibly is under a venimous attack in blogosphere. Peter Tatchell: renowned for his human rights campaigning needs our help now.

Human Rights Spokesperson of the Green Party, and the Parliamentary Party Candidate for Oxford West, Peter Tatchell, has come under a series of attacks from a following the publication of a book last year 'Out of Place'.

In Peter's words: "These attacks... stem from the lies in the book
Out of Place. They are now getting more numerous and more aggressive."
The accusations levelled against Peter are false, inflammatory and are hard to understand except in terms of demobilising his sterling human rights work. Even the publishers of the book admit as much .

Hilarious among those gathered for the occasion of muck throwing are David-bomb-Iraq-back-to-the-stone-ages-Aaronovitch (and his mythology about US 'restraint' during the murderous levelling of the Iraqi city of Fallujah)

I mean where do you start with the gutter allegation that Peter might be islamaphobic- an allegation reiterated in the publication? Isn't this the man who went on a Palestine Solidarity demonstration 2 years ago, a Palestine Solidarity Campaign placard in one hand and a 'support the people of Iran' placard in the other? Just one example of how baseless these attacks are, but as we know Peter's good work could be jeopardised by the acceptance of any of these accusations.

Peter has spent years in human rights work whether that's Ireland, Western Sahara or Gaza. The by-election he fought on behalf of the Labour Party in Bermondsey was noted by commentators as being the 'nastiest election in British history' as Peter battled Liberals and other Labour Party members as well as the tabloid press.

This is a man who deserves our support not for partisan reasons but because his work has helped change our world for the better.

The attacks on Peter are increasing in their ferocity and having an undue affect on Peter's health- he wants to spend his time getting on with his human rights work and not defending himself on blogs.

Peter has outlined a written response which is below and can be put on 'blogs, on facebook or to circles of friends or other activists you know. I am asking every reader of this blog to tweet, blog or facebook on the subject. Peter's sterling work or indeed his reputation should not come in for a battering, especially because we haven't done enough to challenge it. Similarly, Peter should not be left alone to fend off these bullies!
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Out of Place - Smears against Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell writes:

Despite having won an apology from Raw Nerve Books over a false and libellous chapter in the book Out Of Place, the lies and smears against me are continuing and escalating. For defending myself against untrue allegations, I am now accused of “censorship.”

Out Of Place contains a chapter - Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the 'War on Terror' - by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem. It was published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008.

These authors make highly defamatory, libellous and untrue allegations against me. This goes beyond reasonable criticism. It involves outright lies and fabrications. Criticism is fine. Untruths are not.

Dr Jin Haritaworn is based at the LSE’s Gender Institute; Tamsila Tauqir is from the lesbian Muslim Safra Project and was awarded an MBE last year; Esra Erdem is another acdemic, now in the US but formerly connected with Corpus Christi Oxford.

The authors’ friends and supporters are spreading further smears. They accuse me of “censoring” Out Of Place.

Among the academics making accusations of censorship are Dr Umut Erel, RCUK academic fellow at the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at the Open University, and Dr Christian Klesse, lecturer in Cultural Studies at the Sociology Department of the Manchester Metropolitan University:

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ek241009.html

The real censorship is by my critics. Some of them are posting entirely false allegations, often on closed lists that do not allow me to post my side of the story.

Many of my detractors now claim that I forced the book to be withdrawn from sale and that I pressured the publishers to declare it “Out of Print.” Not so.

I have not suppressed the book, Out of Place, or forced it out of print.
The book was listed as “Out of Print” on the Raw Nerve Books website before I contacted the publishers and challenged the lies and falsehoods written about me.

The book was not withdrawn on my account. It had already ceased to be available before I approached the publishers.

I have no objection to Out Of Place being reprinted, providing it does not include the lies and fabrications about me. I made this clear to Raw Nerve Books in a letter dated 29 July 2009.

I did not use the libel laws. This is another lie.

When I presented the publishers with evidence that refuted the accusations against me in Out of Place, they very honourably agreed to publish this apology:

http://www.rawnervebooks.co.uk/Peter_Tatchell.pdf

Academics are supposed to adhere to the highest standards of facts, truth and of evidence-based assertions, with proper footnoting and sourcing for what they write. The authors of the chapter that defames me did not do this. They made claims that are untrue and for which there is no evidence. They provided no footnotes or sources for their outrageous false allegations. They are guilty of poor research, shoddy scholarship and desertion of academic standards.

Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem suggest that I am anti-Muslim. This is pure fiction. I have campaigned against fundamentalist Muslims (in the same way that I have campaigned against fundamentalist Christians), not against Muslim people in general. I have always made this distinction very clear.

The authors explicitly claim or implicitly insinuate the following:

Tatchell has “claimed the role of liberator and expert about Muslim gays and lesbians.” Not true. I have never made such a claim or adopted such a role.

Tatchell is Islamophobic and is “part of the Islamophobia industry.” Not true. I have defended many Muslim victims of injustice and condemned anti-Muslim prejudice. Indeed, in 1998 I drafted a law to protect Muslims (and others) against discrimination, harsssment and hate crimes. It was, sadly, rejected by the government.

Tatchell is racist and has engaged in “racial” politics. Not true. I have a 40-year record of anti-racist and anti-apartheid campaigning.

Tatchell has described “Muslims as Nazis” and made the equation “Muslim=Nazi” and “Muslim=Evil.” Not true. I have never attacked Muslims in general – only fundamentalists who oppose democracy, equality and human rights.

Tatchell has “collaborated with the extreme right” and “participated with several racist and fascist groups.” Not true. I have fought the far-right for four decades and been a victim of violent attacks by neo-Nazis because of my defence of black, Muslim, Jewish and LGBT people.

It is utterly shameful for any authors, let alone academics, to abandon honesty, truth and integrity, in order to misrepresent and lie about other people in order to wage petty, sectarian political wars.

We should fight the real oppressors and not pick fights with, and publish false allegations against, other progressive people.

Sectarian attacks undermine the struggle for human rights, social justice, peace and anti-imperialism.

For me, the sole issue is that this book printed lies. I have no objection to people criticising me, but making untrue allegations and smearing fellow comrades is shameful and has no place in progressive politics.

All my articles, speeches and news releases are archived on my website. You can view them here:

www.petertatchell.net

I invite anyone to find evidence that I am Islamophobic, racist or a supporter of imperialist wars or the injustices of the “war on terror.” Take a look at the totality of my campaigns since 1967. Even if you disagree with a particular campaign or article, please judge me on my overall record.

Free speech, which I defend, should not include the right to print lies that cause other people harm and which seek to pursue sectarian vendettas and to discredit political opponents. This is what the chapter in Out of Place did to me.

No one should be allowed to falsely insinuate that someone is a racist and that they collaborate with fascists. These claims in Out of Place are fiction. I have campaigned against these, and / or similar, injustices for over 40 years.
This book should not be allowed to get away with such lies about me - or anyone else.

Lies and libel that cause other people damage (as Out of Place has caused to me) are not legitimate free speech.

You would not like to be falsely accused of equating Muslim people with Nazis, consorting with fascists, colluding with the “war on terror” and promoting a racist and imperialist agenda - which is what this book accuses me of doing.

IslamaphobiaWatch, which some of my critics cite, is not a truthful, honest website. It is run by political sectarians who defame and discredit people they see as political enemies. It is full of outright lies against me and many others, including progressive, left-wing Muslims, anti-racists and supporters, like me, of the anti-war movement.

An attack on me by London's former Mayor, Ken Livingstone, is also cited by some of my detractors. Ken has since apologised for making false allegations of Islamophobia against me.

I count many leading Muslim and black activists among my friends and political comrades. They know my 42-year record of anti-racist, anti-war and anti-imperialist campaigning. They are aware that I have been a fierce defender of Muslim and black communities against state oppression, including trenchant opposition to the so-called "war on terror". They would not support me and work with me if I had done the things that the book Out Of Place falsely claims.

Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem suggest that I am anti-Muslim and implicated in colluding with the “war on terror.” This is not true.

I have been prominent in the campaigns to defend Muslims unjustly accused of terrorism, including Hicham Yezza:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/feb/23/hicham-yezza

and Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch:

http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/09/pakistan-marri-british-london

I stood bail and provided evidence for Mr Baluch during his terrorism trial, which helped result in his acquittal (and Mr Marri's).

I have also helped secure asylum for dozens of Muslim refugees and for Muslim victims of miscarriages of justice, such as Mohammed S:

http://www.petertatchell.net/criminalinjustice/judgechallenge.htm

For nearly four decades I have worked with the leading black, Muslim, anti-racist, anti-imperialist and left-wing campaigners in the UK. If I was the racist and Islamophobe that Haritaworn, Tauqir and Erdem suggest, why do these organisations and activists work with me?

I was one of the original endorsers of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK in 1982 and a keynote speaker at its founding conference, and I have supported oppressed Muslims from Palestine, to Iraq, Chechnya and Kashmir.

If, after reading this reply, you feel that I have been unfairly maligned, I hope you might consider posting this response or your own comments to any e-lists that you have access to. I would be most grateful.

I hope this reassures you. Best wishes.

Solidarity!

Peter Tatchell, London
peter@petertatchell.net

Remember Ian Baynham; Stand up to the Bigots Now!

NEWS FROM LGBTGreens In the GREEN PARTY of England and Wales

http://www.lgbtgreens.org.uk/

Remember Ian Baynham and all victims of LGBT hate crimes
LGBTGreens: Now is the time to stand up to the Bigots together!

For Immediate Release
22/10/9

Phelim Mac Cafferty, National Spokesperson for LGBTGreens:

“Talk of an era of acceptance must surely be open to challenge. Sadly there is overwhelming proof once again that deep-rooted homo, bi and trans phobia is alive and on our streets. In the last month alone, Londoner Ian Baynham and Brightonian Andrea Waddell have both been murdered while Liverpudlian James Parkes has been hospitalised- all of them for either their sexuality or gender identity.

“Now is the time to make an urgent stance. When stats from police authorities show increases in violent crimes on our communities, we need to unite to show the maximum opposition to those who attack us. We call on everyone to get to Trafalgar Square at 8PM tomorrow evening (Friday) to stand firm against hatred.[1] To those who can’t make it, please note the 2 minute silence at 9PM in memory of those who have died.”

Jean Lambert MEP, London’s Green MEP said:
“The Met reported a significant increase in homophobic crime across London this year, even though it is estimated that three quarters of homophobic hate crimes still go unreported. Two thirds of those who did report incidents found they were not referred to advice or support services. It is essential to support victims of crime and change our culture so that everyone can feel safe on the streets.”

Phelim Mac Cafferty continued:
“While leading Police sources rightly talk of an increase in reporting as an indication of engagement with the LGBT community, the latest violent hate crimes[2] speak of a renewed hatred, which has been sparked in part by the prominence of the violent, fascist BNP.”

“The savage murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square- a glance away from Soho- at only 10:30pm is a sad indication of how emboldened homophobes have become in the last period.[3] What unites the attacks on Ian Baynham and James Parkes, sadly, is the young age of their attackers.”

Chair of the London Assembly, Darren Johnson stated:
"Homophobic bullying is still rife and far too many schools have failed to put clear policies in place to confront it. If we want to eliminate gay hate crimes we must begin that work in our schools."

Phelim Mac Cafferty concluded:
“We achieved assurances from the Home Office in 2007 that Criminal Justice legislation would now come down heavily on those who perpetrate hate crimes against lgb people. Now LGBT Greens will push for:

(1) target incitement of hatred on the grounds of gender identity through re-writing the law. We believe that often some of the worst discrimination and violence is felt by trans people;
(2) lobby for sufficient investment (with the police and other crime-prevention agencies) in specific research into the prevalence of hate crime and perceptions of safety within the LGBT community so that hate crime trends reduce;
(3) harmonise hate crimes legislation so that homophobic and transphobic crimes are dealt with on a par with racist crimes;
(4) outlaw the performance, sale, promotion and broadcasting of music and other arts which incite hatred and violence towards lgbt people.
(5) police forces throughout the country which have yet to adopt and implement action plans on homophobic and transphobic hate crimes to be compelled to do so in the next 6 months.”
ENDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=152586453159&index=1

[2] Met Police annual increase +16% to April 2009 http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php;

Greater Manchester Police report +63% increase http://www.gmp.police.uk/

[3] http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/are+gay+hate+crimes+taken+seriously/3397262

No platform for hate; no platform for racists, homophobes and holocaust deniers!

photograph shows the aftermath of the nazi bomb in Soho in April 1999, planted by a former member of the BNP, David Copeland. The bomb killed Andrea Dykes, 27, John Light, 32, and Nick Moore, 31 and injured 56 people...

Much to my astonishment, 76 years after the first homosexual prisoners were sent to the Nazi death camps in Dachau, the same mistakes in placation of fascists are still being made.

The BNP have passed the BBC (2 x MEP) criterion for getting onto Question Time. However, OFCOM cite the selection as an “editorial decision” for the BBC – a decision that's described as "cynical" by Unite Against Fascism who will be picketing the event. I agree with the analysis here that the decision was aimed at boosting ratings without caring for the consequences.

This isn't the Oxford Union debate, where people exchange polite opinions and we all go off for brandy, cigars and a spot of punting. My big worry is that BME and LGBT citizens will be put in direct danger by Griffin's appearance on tonight's Question Time. In the aftermath of Enoch Powell delivering his 'rivers of blood' speech, for example, racist attacks on black bus conductors in London rocketed.

What is of great sadness is that there's a lazy, confused consensus in so-called 'radical' Middle England, which, somehow conflates the BNP as part of the democratic furniture and by logical extension states that Asians and gays being attacked as a side-effect is, in effect, ok. Well so much for the dilettante, delusional, Disneyfied version of life...I suppose when the nazis beat you up for any opinions which don't match theirs, you'll say I didn't warn you...If that isn't lucid, maybe talk to one of the Green Party's European election candidates who has had to move house because of the harassment they faced publicly opposing the BNP, or the (often violent) harassment that activists, including myself, face from fascists on a regular basis.

Official Police hate crime figures (which given the incidence of reporting will usually record lower than actual figures) show time and time again that when and where the BNP are allowed to speak attacks increase on BME and lgbt people. I might disagree with some of what he has to say but I think Ken Livingstone is right: the BBC bear a moral responsibility for any spike in racist attacks that results from Nick Griffin on tonight's Question Time.

This year's homophobic hate crime figures for London are the thin end of the wedge For an awful lot of the wet liberals out there this doesn't matter, because ultimately they can walk away from it. Figures from the North West where the BNP have a number of councillors and where their campaigning has deepened are more shocking still. With Griffin sepaking to the masses tonight and with a propaganda trumpet in Brussels they could yet get much worse: Greater Manchester Police reported a 63% increase in homophobic crime in the last year.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission state that the BNP's rules are illegal (they don't allow BME citizens to join)- their point couldn't be clearer: [the BNP should not be understood] "as equivalent to other political parties which abide by the law." Nevermind, I am sure we can find some bleeding heart liberal to argue the BNP's corner.

And in the same week that a trans woman in Brighton was strangled and a lesbian couple were beaten up I can't say that this is a good time to expect me to consent to fascists appearing on my television to spread their gospel of hatred, which ultimately would like me dead too. The attack and murder in Brighton have been mirrored by the murder of a gay pensioner, Ian Baynham, in London and a large increase in homophobic harassment in East London.

Nick Griffin, has a 1998 criminal conviction for incitement to racial hatred for distributing material denying the Holocaust and stated of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence: “Everyone down there knows he was notorious for taxing kids for their dinner money and he was a drug dealer. According to many people within the Metropolitan police, he was killed by another black –not a white racist attack at all.”

And in the aftermath of the Nazi bomb in April 1999 in Soho, which injured 56 and killed 3:
“The TV footage of dozens of gay demonstrators flaunting their perversions in front of the world’s journalists showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures so repulsive.”

Why embolden people who will happily make pillows from our hair, nazi trinkets from the fillings in our teeth and dispose on an industrial scale what wasn't useful? The BNP stand in the same tradition and German democracy (and the world's history) paid the harsh price because so many stood in the wings, didn't care when attacks happened on the Nazi untermenschen and didn't stop them when they could.

Giving Nazis a public platform to enunciate their hatred was still viewed by liberals in 20's Germany to be the method to combat them- and worst of all the same failed methodology is coming today from the same place. I'd like to think historical events illuminate the future. On looking around now I'd hate to say that we hadn't learnt a jot...


We must now ensure that this is the BNP's high tide mark in electoral terms and this is our biggest challenge, especially given that at no other period in UK history have fascists managed to be as effective in nationwide polls, not even Mosely.

"We have no illusions. Some very hard decisions have to be made"

these were the words of Irish Greens leader, John Gormley at the weekend as members voting overwhelmingly to stay in coalition government with Fianna Fail (FF). As it stands they will now continue in government with a party who only earlier this week had their Speaker ousted from office amid a financial scandal.

There were votes on two motions at the special meeting-
"The Green Party / Comhaontas Glas will continue to participate in Government on the basis of the new Programme for Government presented to this meeting."
which was passed Yes: 523 and No: 99 (15.92%)
and
“The Green Party/Comhaontas Glas rejects the National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009 and requires the Parliamentary Party to reject it in the Oireachtas."
which was PASSED Yes: 189 and No: 415.

Ireland's Greens might be 100 or 1000 miles away ideologically from FF, my fear is that it doesn't actually matter because their assent to a renewed coalition subsumes their capabilities to enunciate said differences.

Many of the Irish Greens must surely know that that they have dug themselves into a very deep hole. And by aligning themselves with a government about as popular as a Bernard Matthews farm will be among our turkey population in the next few weeks, many must also know they have jeopardised and possibly annihilated the vote for Greens in Ireland for the forseeable future.

As Ireland struggles with surging unemployment (as I stated in my previous post, emigration has not been this high since the 90's as Irish citizens emigrate to find work) and a deficit that joe public is being forced to pay at the expense of their pensions and wages, few will have sympathy for many of the progressive elements that the Irish Greens have whittled out of the negotiations, which 60 hours and 40 pages later form the Renewed Programme for Government document.

The National Assets Management Agency is a new agency to take over the running of the bad debts the banks have accumulated and which nearly junked Ireland just over a year ago. This despite the record profits of Irish banking in 2007: The Allied Irish Bank €2.7 billion; Bank of Ireland €1.794 billion and Anglo Irish €1.24 billion. And of course, despite what the Daily Mail says about public sector workers, the only people with platinum pension funds: the heads of the banks, the fat cat speculators and the userer land developers.

NAMA has already been written into legislation, the Government narrowly winning a 2nd vote in the Dail. NAMA will have serious long-lasting negative consequences for the Irish taxpayer in the form of higher taxes and further severe cutbacks (see previous blog post). Further NAMA outright ideologically rejects viable, Green, sustainable alternatives such as temporary nationalisation never mind the idea that an economic crisis can be about fighting the culture of cuts with investment- like the Green New Deal.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that NAMA while bailing out the very people who created the mess in Ireland will punish workers and the most vulnerable in society. Ireland's national debt will be doubled - requiring savage cuts in vital services, jobs and pay for ordinary people for many years to come.

NAMA will be accompanied by the recommendations of the An Bord Snip report which highlighted €5 billion in cutbacks- €1.8 billion in social welfare, €1.2 billion cut in health spending, €746 million worth of cuts in education.

While I was travelling to Ireland last week, the Irish Times was explaining the 'red lines' that the Irish Greens would not cross (particularly prominent was education) and if you examine the Renewed Programme for Government, the education section has some obviously progressive elements. And while Green TD Paul Gogarty told the Teachers' Union of Ireland as negotiations were ongoing that he would not be supporting any Programme for Government if education at all levels was not protected, the question is: how will Greens keep FF to any promises especially as the picture looks so gloomy?

The fact that the deal with FF comes with yet more flak for Green parties throughout the Uk and Europe as we struggle to explain to a rightly cynical public about how we truly represent difference, is merely by the way.

The decision to bail out FF and their fatcat friends comes soon after the decision to campaign for Lisbon- indeed when I was in Dublin I saw many Green posters and was aware of their campaign- so I am now resigned to the idea that the leading lights among the Irish Greens have lost whatever they had remaining of the political compass.

The only very hard decisions which the rest of us face regrettably now are how to disassociate ourselves from the Irish Green Party and how to do it as soon as possible. They follow the German Greens decision in Saarland to ally themselves with yet more wretched, neoliberal privateers.

Can I be clear: I am writing this entry in my blog because I am deeply worried about the state of my country- I am very worried that the Irish Greens have made a mistake but if members of sister parties can not say these things in the hope of debate, I really don't know who can...

For everyone who wants a text book case in how not to win friends and influence people, I would hope Ireland would show the path that Greens should avoid!

I can not support the actions of the Irish and Green sister parties and their 'politics as usual'; I will never be fooled into a cul de sac coalition where far from being the vanguard of the revolution Greens become the mudguard for the stale, corrupt evolution of politics. Irish and German Greens have yet to learn that they, of course, are entirely disposable to the political machinery of both Ireland's Fianna Fail and Germany's CPD.

Resurrection

apologies for the lack of posts of late. At Green Party conference in Hove in September, I was elected with Farid Bakht onto the National Executive of the Green Party as International Coordinator. I feel it has been a bit like the finale to Beethoven's 9th Symphony ever since- soul warming but just wish we could stop for a breather sometime soon!

It was in attending a performance of Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony 'Resurrection' conducted by Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall that I had an epiphany of sorts. Mahler started to compose resurrection when he was 27 and finished only when a close friend, Hans von Bulow, died. 'Resurrection' is loud (possibly the loudest piece of classical music I have ever heard in a concert hall), extremely angry, passionate, yet reassuring, comforting and reaffirming: a painful story of anger at loss and hope for the future, culminating in the most overwhelming conclusion- in Mahler's words: "One is battered to the ground and then raised on angels' wings to the highest heights."

I went to see the concert with Joseph Healy and met my friend Alison McGarry who now works for the International Transport Workers' Federation. It is sadly, an appropriate symphony for our times: yes we must have space to contemplate the sorry state of the world and in the words of socialist novelist, H. G. Wells, "human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe..." but we must also have hope. And in the words Mahler used:
"With wings which I have won me
In love's fierce striving
I shall soar upwards..."

Events have moved incredibly rapidly in the last few months and I am glad to say that our attempts to get our first MP, in the shape of Caroline Lucas our current MEP for the South East, are gaining foot- not being a bookies man doesn't prevent me telling you that they have us down as joint favourites to win Brighton Pavilion.

For delegates arriving at Labour Party conference we had a series of billboards produced- see above- which made our point quite strongly although I personally would have preferred an equally damning take on the Tories' chances in Pavilion. The Tories btw have opted for the democratic-lite option of an open primary in Pavilion, something the much-respected Electoral Reform Society condemn.

I finally had a my first holiday of 2009 and went to Ireland for a week. The Lisbon Treaty was agreed by a large majority in the referendum in the country while I was there. I despise everything to do with a corporate Europe where the unelected Euro Commission call the shots but many Irish citizens felt that what they understood as 'walking away' from Europe at a time when they need jobs wasn't something they could do. I still maintain that the result of the Irish referendum was forced on the Irish people and some of the patronising commentary in England including a stand-up performance from UKIP's Farrage (shouldn't that be Ferrari?) in the Euro Parliament have only strengthened the arguments of the 'Yes' vote lobby in Ireland. Ireland will lose its long-held neutrality under Lisbon and could open the doors to a revivified Tony Bliar as President within weeks, which would have been enough for me to vote against it! It might provide more opportunities for a citizen's arrest on the war monger though so fingers crossed.

The Speaker of the Irish Parliament, the Ceann Comhairle (presides over debates/ stops scraps/ gets paid too much etc etc), has been ousted from office in a move that is a carbon copy of the ousting/disgracing of the House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin. John O'Donoghue was as corrupt as Martin too. Ah the universality of corrupt politicians has no borders- and ironically althoug we have achieved one of the oldest demands of the Chartists in gaining the rights of MPs to be paid, how far are we away from the Chartist demand of a defined period for elections?


Meanwhile the absolutely savage cuts proposed by the Fianna Fail and Green coalition are going to hit the poorest and most marginalised hardest. Emigration although buoyed by accession country citizens heading back home has not been this large in Ireland since the mid nineties.

There are billions uncollected in tax revenues yet the solution for Irish politicans, so similiarly to their British counterparts, is to attack public sector workers and to raid public funds rather than chasing the coporate pirates and the real spongers- the Bonos, the Haugheys and millionaires who've been evading the Irish taxman for decades. I was glad to see that the Irish unions including 'big' Jim Larkin's SIPTU, IMPACT and the Irish TUC will be opposing the cuts and while there's a degree of the rhetoric of the UK trade union movement about their positioning, at least the law in Ireland means coordinated strike action is achievable, legal and probably absolutely necessary.

What has also provided some inspiration and much needed action on left unity are the moves to stand aside for Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham- Salma is standing on behalf of Respect in Birmingham Hall Green and Green Left published a statement on the subject, denoting the necessity of left unity in the upcoming general elections.

Salma Yaqoob threw her support behind the Greens at the Euros and I think we now need to keep to our end of the bargain and get her elected in the next parliament, not least because we need to start pushing practical cooperation over the sorts of voices we want in the next parliament. So for example I think that others on the left should stand aside for Caroline in Pavilion but Greens should stand aside in Birmingham, Coventry (dave Nellist of the Socialist Party is standing) and in Hayes and Harlington (incumbent John McDonnell, of the Socialist Campaign Group in the Labour Party) and we should be part of the necessary realignment of the left.

Cool little film

Workers' Co-op to Save Vestas Jobs

4pm, Friday 31 July 2009
County Hall
High Street
Newport
Isle of Wight
PO30 1UD
The Isle of Wight's Green Euro-MP is to submit an urgent proposal to the Leader of the Isle of Wight Council for support for a workers co-op at the Vestas wind turbine manufacturing plant to be established under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007.

Dr Lucas's submission, which offers a practical and sustainable solution to the current dispute over the proposed closure of the plant, will be delivered tomorrow at 4pm to Cllr David Pugh by Brian Lucas from Isle of Wight Green Party and a representative of the workers at the Vestas plant.

Under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, councils and communities have the opportunity to put forward proposals on sustainable improvements to local economic, environmental and social wellbeing. Once established, individual councils' proposals are sent to the Government via the Local Government Association. The deadline for
current submissions to the LGA is 31st July 2009.

In a last ditch attempt to keep the Vestas plant open, Dr Lucas will call on the IoW Council to ask for Government support under the terms of the 2007 Act to ensure that:
- The workers of the wind turbine company Vestas are permitted to form a Workers' Cooperative, and are supported in doing so by the government.
- Financial support (at the very least unemployment benefit) is paid to the workers of Vestas until such time as the proposed Workers' Cooperative is financially viable.
Dr Lucas commented: "If the government is serious about tackling climate change, helping to protect the future of UK manufacturing, and safeguarding local jobs, it must act now to keep the Vestas facility open for business.

"By submitting a proposal under the Sustainable Communities Act for a workers' co-op, the Council can demand that the government provides the investment and assurances necessary to save this facility - on the basis that it plays a crucial economic and environmental role in the local community.

"Failure to keep the Vestas plant open will represent a spectacular failure by the government to match its rhetoric on green jobs with real policy action. It should be seizing the opportunity to create a renewable energy revolution that can see us through a transition towards a more environmentally and economically stable economy.
Allowing the IoW plant to close now would be a massive embarrassment for ministers - and devastating for the IoW's workers."