Fringes and solidarity

I enjoyed the fringes that I attended; all the ones I chose were activist led. Learning from such activism was reinforced by giving activists time at the rostrum, most importantly probably speakers from Amazon; the video stream starts here.

The fringe meeting I attended were the Apple solidarity fringe where I met the leadership of the recognition campaign; they’re impressive people. I hope we can bring similar success to London and also the fringe meeting hosted by the Migrant Democracy Project and the session was chaired by Lara Parizotto, who used to be in our branch. The speakers were from the voice of domestic workers, and the Bureau of investigative journalism. It also heard from Marcela Benedetti from migrants for labour, who spoke about the difficulties that Latinas had in making a home in the UK. The highlight for me was Emiliano Mellino from the Bureau of investigative journalism who presented, on his investigative project on the state of the living conditions of migrant workers working British farms, and finally I went to the Justice for Columbia campaign fringe. It was good to be reminded of the fact that in Columbia they have elected a left wing president, and established a peace agreement to bring the guerrilla movement into politics. They also announced their campaign of solidarity with ex-fighters; they are collecting money for a farm truck.

I say more overleaf ...

Immigration and Solidarity at GMB23

Immigration and Solidarity at GMB23

I was privileged to move M178 Immigration and Solidarity, which it would seem the video engineers did not record; they only turned it on in time to capture the second half of Lara Johnson’s excellent speech on M182 so they missed my & Joe’s speeches moving M178. I have posted the words of the two motions below/overleaf.

Our branch motion was designed to ensure that the Union and the Labour Party stood for an immigration policy based on decency and compassion, which are Starmer’s words from his ten leadership pledges an applied to all those seeking to come here, whether for work, to make a home or because they were fleeing war or political persecution.

I had been inspired by one of the fringe meetings, about Migrant’s Rights; a central piece of my speech in which I address part of the qualification, was,

If I had attended yesterday’s London Region Fringe, “Rights for all, organising and supporting migrant workers” before writing this motion, I would have focused less on the economics and more on the people but one of the purposes of the motion was to challenge the canard that migrants are an economic burden. It wasn’t true in 2016, and it isn’t true today. …

It is the view of the movers of this motion that the current immigration system which ties workers to jobs inhibits their ability to join unions and fight for their rights. Again the stories of the corruption and cruelty shared yesterday in the Organising Migrants session are an illustration of the truth of this.  Low wages aren’t caused by migrants they are the result of weak unions and poor enforcement of minimum wage and health and safety laws.

The video link above, has Dean Gilligan of the CEC presenting the CEC Qualification.

Both motions were carried with qualification.

See below for the words of our motion and full notes of the speech I made. I have also posted the words of M182, Support and solidarity with Migrant Workers. … …

A short rough guide to the world

A short rough guide to the world

It’s a terrible world, the forces of repression are growing and act with impunity and as with Spain in the 30’s a Tory Govt fails to act with honour for human rights and democracy. It does not strongly advocate the weak; it does the opposite.

Solidarity with the Uighers in China, the citizens of Jammu/Kashmir, the citizens of the West Bank & Gaza, the Kurds in North Syria, the independence movement in Catalunya, and the protesters in Hong Kong.

And the United Nations show’s its weakness, my list could be longer, perhaps it’s time to refresh my membership of Amnesty International. …

What Europe has to teach the anglosphere

What Europe has to teach the anglosphere

In my article, at http://blog.davelevy.info/remain/, I asked why we wouldn’t want to be in a union, a political union with the other members of the EU. I offered three stories and suggested there were 27 stories as to what we could and should take. In a piece of good timing, Michael Moore’s latest film, “Where shall we invade next?” is a whistle stop tour of Europe (& Tunisia) looking at the better life that solidarity & social democracy offers. …