How Halifax CLP supported their MP in refusing to condemn state rape

 

When Halifax CLP backed their local MP after she refused to vote against a bill sanctioning criminal behaviour such as rape, murder and torture by public servants including spy’s.

 

I was a member of Halifax CLP from around 2018 to 2023 when I quit the Labour Party.

 

Around 2018 I had raised the issue of the ‘Spycops’ women who had been deceived by members of the London Met Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) into having relationships with them.

https://www.bigissuenorth.com/features/2022/04/the-spy-who-duped-me/

 

At the time, LUSH had highlighted what had been going on in a public campaign and, as to be expected in a world where most of the media can’t contemplate not supporting whatever the police do, was criticised.

https://www.elle.com/beauty/a21098901/spycop-lush-cosmetics-explainer/

 

The Halifax MP at this time was Holly Lynch, who was asked by myself at a CLP meeting about supporting the campaign and the policeman’s daughter replied she would not and furthermore she sought to condemn it by stating “it was inappropriate.”  

 

There were murmurs in the room but nobody amongst the other delegates present said anything until I said that what had happened to the Spycops women was state rape and at which point some delegates clearly felt I had gone too far.

 

Two years on the issue had become much more high profile especially as desperate to defend the murky actions of their agents the Tory government wanted to give them the backing of the law and had introduced legislation, known as the Covert Human Intelligences Sources (CHIS) Bill, to do so.

 

Now being led by security technocrat Kier Starmer, who funnily enough back in 1991 I had given short shrift to when he wanted to boost his profile by taking up on a pro bona basis cases that were being supported by the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign, Labour nationally was desperate not to be seen as in anyway ‘anti-police’.

 

Despite some considerable discontent amongst many members nationally, which did result in some MPs being willing to vote against the legislation, Starmer got his way and the vast majority of Labour MPs abstained

 

https://labourlist.org/2020/10/35-labour-mps-break-whip-to-oppose-spycops-bill-as-seven-frontbenchers-quit/

 

The Tories bill thus became the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act of 2021.

 

In late 2020 I took the issue to my ward branch meeting and the following resolution (below) was passed and subsequently sent for debate at a Halifax CLP meeting that proved to be one of the largest in many years. It was proposed to condemn the MP for her actions.

 

It being in the middle of COVID the event was held on Zoom.

 

I spoke first in support of the motion and following which Holly Lynch spoke. Other delegates spoke afterwards including several who were very supportive of my raising of the issue but who all subsequently abstained on the motion which was eventually defeated by 33 votes against 4 in favour.

 

Resolution

 

The Warley ward of HALIFAX CLP unreservedly condemns the action of our elected Labour MP, Holly Lynch, for her refusal to vote against the Covert Human Intelligences Sources (CHIS) Bill, known as the Spycops Bill, which will allow undercover agents to break the law and engage in rape, murder and torture in the name of national security.  

 

The British state has a long history with undercover agents operating without much scrutiny, interfering in and devastating the lives of innocent people including dozens of women who were deceived by members of the London Met Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) into having relationships with them. The family of Stephen Lawrence was also targeted by police spies.

 

These and many other similar cases and organisations, totalling over 1,000 political groups, are now being examined at a long running public inquiry, which has already been severely restricted by the shredding of numerous documents by one of the secret intelligence units when the inquiry was first announced. Warley Ward member Mark Metcalf was for many years spied upon for exposing police corruption and also seeking to improve pay and conditions for workers by the SDS’s Mark Jenner. Mark Metcalf is a Core Participant at the said inquiry. The CHIS bill is clearly aimed at undermining the long-fought campaign to force an inquiry into abuses by police spies.

 

This ward notes that by abstaining in Parliament when the Bill was voted upon that Ms. Lynch joined a large number of similarly cowardly Labour MPs who sought to argue that the security services must have the powers needed to keep us safe and that other countries such as Canada have similar legislation in place. Yet clearly giving the state powers to murder, torture and rape people is not the best way to keep us safe and other similar legislation internationally explicitly prohibits murder, sexual violence and other serious crimes.

 

Proposed by Mark Metcalf

 

Calderdale TUC letter to Kate Dearden MP urging her to oppose local wind farm

 

To sign the petition opposing the Calderdale Wind Farm go to:- https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/149305262/verify?token=8UPrGHiiwn7EXj2cFAHG

 

 

Mark Metcalf

An NUJ and FWA member

07392 852561 metcalfmc@outlook.com

 

To: Kate Dearden MP,

kate.dearden.mp@parliament.uk

As a Halifax voter I am writing in my role as Calderdale Trades Union Council treasurer and delegate to STRONGER TOGETHER – STOP CALDERDALE WIND FARM, to urge you to support our call on the government to ban wind farms on protected peatland in England.

As you’ll know a company called Calderdale Wind Farm proposes to construct a 100MW+ wind farm  on the highly protected Walshaw Moor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0344pq9melo  In October 2024 it announced its intention to submit a Development Consent Order application under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects planning regulations, that it was confident the government’s planning reforms would make possible.  (The Planning Inspectorate has since told us that if they want to do this, the developer will have to restart the scoping process and submit a new Scoping report to them.)

The proposed onshore wind farm - the first in England to be proposed for a peatland site - follows the Government’s decision to accelerate the planning process for more land based wind turbines, a policy that the CTUC would, generally, support. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3lq3ylzr0o

However, the CTUC is convinced that to allow the building of 65 wind turbines on, as would be the case, peat bog would not only be disastrous for the climate and biodiversity but also for many people living in the Calder Valley. This is because of the increased flood risk from inevitable damage to the irreplaceable blanket bog.

Peatlands are the UK’s largest natural carbon land store,  and wetlands such as Walshaw Moor blanket bog are among the most biodiverse habitats in the world. They are also the most threatened, and are disappearing three times faster than forests. They are essential for mitigating extreme weather events such as storms and floods, and there are compelling climate change reasons for restoring wetland biodiversity.

The need to preserve peat bog is something I have written about – mainly for the Big Issue North and UNITE Landworker magazine - on many occasions over the years. Damage to Walshaw Moor peat bog has previously been caused by heather burning to support intensive driven grouse shooting. The effect has been to lower the water table, causing peat to dry out, thereby releasing carbon and stored pollutants such as heavy metals. This was identified in a 2015 study of The Effects of Moorland Burning on the Ecohydrology of River basins  funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Dewatering and drainage of the blanket bog to enable the wind farm’s construction and operation would cause similar damage to the peat’s hydrology, with a similar increased flood risk in surrounding valleys. Drying out the blanket bog would kill off sphagnum moss and other peat-forming vegetation that slows the flow of rainstorm runoff from the moors and reduces peak flows in the catchment’s rivers. Destruction  of the vegetation also threatens endangered birds that depend on these highly protected habitats, that are legally required to be restored to a favourable condition. (2019 Conservation of Habitats and Species (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations.)

In its consultation on proposed planning reforms last autumn, the government itself recognised that  there is a case for “additional protections” for “habitats …containing peat soils.” 90% of respondents agreed. So please will you tell both Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and Angela Rayner, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government with responsibility for the proposed planning reforms, that you support the call for a ban on windfarms on protected peatland in England?

Over the past two days,  33 Halifax constituents have signed the Parliamentary petition to ban windfarms on protected peatland.  And before Christmas a number of Halifax Constituents signed letters to you about this at a stall in Calder Valley. The letters will shortly be delivered to your constituency office.

Although your predecessor Holly Lynch never officially recognised that damage to the Walshaw Moor peat bog worsened flooding in the Calder Valley in places such as Mytholmroyd, Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, following a very large number of letters from her constituents she did support significant investment in flood defences, which only recently (only just) prevented widescale flooding in the Calder Valley. These costly flood defences could easily be overwhelmed by any increase in peak flow due to damage to the blanket bog from infrastructure construction.

It is clear that the government is concerned about restoring damaged  peat bogs. The Peatland Restoration policy team at DEFRA note that “England’s upland blanket bogs, lowland fens and valley mires are places of striking natural beauty. They are also valuable carbon dioxide stores and home to a rich variety of rare wildlife. When in good condition, these peatlands help fight climate change and provide wider environmental benefits.” Consequently, the Defra Peatland Restoration policy team  are working to turn the tide on peatland degradation and drive forward progress on peatland restoration through a collaborative, landscape-scale approach based on peatland partnerships across England’s major peatlands areas.
https://defraenvironment.blog.gov.uk/2024/10/08/how-peatland-partnerships-are-transforming-and-restoring-degrading-landscapes-into-healthy-vibrant-peatlands/

Landscape-scale blanket bog restoration on the protected South Pennine Moors Special Protection Area, Special Conservation Area and Site of Special Scientific Interest is a much better way of tackling the twin climate and nature crises than allowing for the building of the largest wind farm in Britain on a peat bog on Walshaw Moor.

We need windfarms but not on protected peat. There is plenty of non-peat land in England for all the wind farms that are needed for the 'green transition'. Without the ban we’re requesting, windfarms could be built on protected peatland across England – not just on Walshaw Moor above the Calder Valley, but from Kielder all the way to Exmoor and Dartmoor, as well as other extensive areas of protected peatland across Northumberland, Cumbria, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, the Peak District, Staffordshire Moorlands, with bad consequences for the climate and biodiversity:

• Peat forms over thousands of years and disturbing it releases stored carbon into the atmosphere. It cannot be replaced
• Intact and restored peatland will continue to absorb carbon long after the life span of a windfarm
• The mosses which grow on peat absorb water and create hummocks which help to prevent fast runoff and flash flooding in the valleys.
• Disturbance of peat can also lead to peat slides which can cause structural, chemical and ecological destruction.
• Peatland supports various species of flora, fauna and fungi some of which are endangered - Just like it is impossible to replace peat that has been disturbed, it is impossible to replace these species once they’re gone.

I am therefore writing to ask you to support our call for the government to ban wind farms on protected peatland, and to make public your support. I am aware of a number of your constituents who feel the same. I am more than willing to join any of them in meeting you to express our concerns.

We are also inviting Ed Miliband to come and walk on Walshaw Moor with us to find out what blanket bog is and does, and we would also like to invite you too.

Many thanks,

 

Mark Metcalf

SECOND ‘DOMESDAY BOOK’ TO GO ONLINE

 

 

SECOND ‘DOMESDAY BOOK’ TO GO ONLINE

uniteLANDWORKER Autumn 2024 

The achievements of farmers and agricultural labourers on 300,000 English and Welsh farms who fed the nation in World War II is amongst the most requested record series at The National Archives. It is therefore great news that a £2.13 million grant from the Lund Trust will help digitalise the 1941 National Farm Survey, (1941 NFM) described as the ‘Second Domesday’ book.

Prior to 1939 only eleven of 33 million tons consumed annually was produced in Britain. Hitler thus set out to starve our ancestors by torpedoing convoys bringing food from North America. In response farms were revitalised after the state took control by establishing County War Agricultural Committee’s to propel farming into postwar productivism.

Playing an essential part in the defeat of fascism, run down farms were revitalised to boost annual production to 22.5 million tons of food, much of which was also healthier to consume. Remarkably all this was done despite many farms not having any electricity.

The 1941 NFM is one of the most comprehensive records of land held at the National Archives. Currently though ‘the complex filing of the paper record makes it difficult for readers to order and use, with the records only available in physical copy.’

The new funds will digitalise the records allowing in due course each farm to be searchable online by, amongst others, family historians.

Analysis by historical economists, geographers and ecologists may also offer an opportunity to explore how the state can today play a role in boosting food production.

Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

 

Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

Partly used in Landworker magazine of Autumn 2024

It does not matter where anyone was born. If they work the land here, even temporarily, Unite, with a tradition dating back to 1872 and the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, will recruit and represent them.

It requires pressurising bosses and governments for protective regulations on safety, pay and conditions. It was why Unite forced Labour to introduce the Gangmasters Licensing Authority when  21 trafficked Chinese cockle pickers died in Morecambe Bay in 2004.

Thus, when the Tories launched the 2019 Seasonal Workers Pilot to bring here temporary non-EU agricultural workers, needed to pick unharvested crops, Unite were concerned. Especially after research uncovered workers were funding their travel costs and working on zero hours contracts.

In subsequently offering 45,000 annual Seasonal Workers Scheme (SWS) horticultural places to overseas workers the government was forced to conduct internal studies whilst refusing financial support to migrant community organisations and trade unions, essentially Unite.

The review, completed prior to the General Election, paved the way, without significant protective changes, for the SWS’s extension to 2029. This was despite, for the second time in a year, the scrapping in May of a scheme operator’s licence to sponsor workers.

In 2023, Unite and the TUC joined NGOs in establishing the Seasonal Worker Interest Group (SWIG) to advocate for migrant seasonal workers. With Keir Starmer’s new government content to maintain the SWS largely unchanged, SWIG is calling for its radical overhaul and wants Labour to reassure migrant workers stung by the recent revocation that they won’t lose out financially or have their immigration status affected. Individuals should have access to independent worker support.

UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

 UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

Landworker Autumn 2024 article

By joining UNITE, harbour workers at Ardglass, Kilkeel and Portavogie;  three small historic villages on the Irish Sea, have boosted their pay and legal standing, writes Mark Metcalf.

Employed by the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority (NIFHA) these highly skilled employees, who maintain the facilities, responded to their wages dropping like an anchor to minimum wage rates over the years by joining Unite in January 2023. “It was all new territory for us,” states Unite rep Jim Lenaghan, a qualified welder, keen to maintain the high standards of service to privately owned boats who land our best loved, healthiest food, fish.

At Ardglass, at least £8 million passes through the fish trade, mainly in herrings, prawns and whitefish, annually.

Very reluctantly, Jim’s union colleagues were set to down tools. “They wanted us to accept £11.44 an hour,” he explains. “But with UNITE’s assistance we managed to pressure NIFHA and we got £12 an hour. That was backdated  to April 2023. It means that as we also obtained the £1,500 one off payment awarded by Stormont to all civil servants plus then we were owed £5,000. The key to our successes was joining UNITE.”

In 2022 an estimated 150,000 public sector workers in NI went on strike at different times. Then on January 16, 2024 there were was joint strike action, the largest in more than half a century, by workers from 16 trade unions led by Unite.

The fact that NIFHA workers were included alongside civil servants in being awarded the £1,500 is significant. Because NIFHA is an arms-length body funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Jim is not technically a civil servant.

“This has previously allowed our employer to sink our pay to the lowest levels. We now see ourselves as more part of the civil service, a much bigger body than we are on our own,” says Jim whose fellow trade unionists are now casting ahead to “significantly increase” the pay rates of harbourmasters who remain on £14 an hour and who are threatening to quit.

UNITE’s research has established that in similar posts that are not even commercial that harbourmasters are being paid up to £38,000 annually. “You can’t just replace these jobs easily. Harbourmasters are highly skilled. If we lost any of them then the future of all of us is endangered.” 

Unite regional officer Joanne McWilliams said, “winning these workers a minimum of the Living Wage was only the start. We are now benchmarking pay with similar workers elsewhere so we can present the employer with a claim that sustains skills and employment. The harbour workers are highly skilled and are responsible for multi-million pound vessels day in and day out – the days of low pay are well and truly over.”

UNREST IN ARGENTINA

 UNREST IN ARGENTINA

Return of the right wing causes problems for smallholders and unions

Unite Landworker magazine – Autumn 2024

The election of Javier Milei, a right wing talk show host, last year as Argentina’s President has seen him attack small farmholders, trade unions and workers. In response he has been met by strikes and protests across the second largest nation in South America.

Describing himself as an anarcho-capitalist, Milei, whose victory by 10% was the largest by the right since the end of miliary rule in 1983, is ripping apart the remnants of the welfare state and flogging off the family silver. He HHeHhhhh

 In February 2024, less than a month after the three main trade union federations took strike action with a 12-hour general strike against labour law reforms and the lack of an economic plan, smallholders protested at the lack of government support and funding for sustainable farming.

A fever linked with the damaging use of agrochemicals hit food production. Citing ‘cost-cutting,’ Milei dismantled the National Institute of Family Farming whilst according to the labour movement’s anti-poverty charity War on Want (WOW) kept “policies which benefit large commodity traders such as Dreyfus, biotech corporations such as Monsanto and the large plantation landowners and agricultural oligarchies.”

Local farmers’ problems have been further exacerbated by Milei, another populist leader whose pre-election rhetoric of attacking elites always turns out if elected to be substituted by attacks on the working class, agreeing to facilitate the undermining of domestic food production by permitting the import of cheap imported basic foodstuffs.

The actions of Argentinean smallholders were mirrored globally and followed protests last year. Farmers in over 63 countries held national demos at the start of 2024. Indian farmers held marches in protest of a legal minimum support price guarantee for their crops. Protests across Europe have highlighted the lack of EU support for small farmers at the expense of large farmers and agribusinesses only too keen to drive them off the land.

According to a WOW spokesperson “Argentina  demonstrates how ultra-liberal governments in the Global South ally with foreign capital and large corporations, prioritising corporate profit and the extraction of natural resources over people’s sovereignty. Milei….  will exacerbate poverty and inequality…. peasants and indigenous communities will bear the brunt of environmental and social destruction.

“Latin American peasant movements ……….have long advocated for an alternative vision…. based on the principles of food sovereignty. Their lives and livelihoods must no longer be treated as expendable in the pursuit of corporate profit.”

Of course, the linking of the struggles of the smallholders and trade unionists –40% of Argentina’s 13 million workers – will be essential in what could be a life-or-death struggle. Trade unionists can best support their comrades in Argentina through the ITUC, Uni Global Union and IndustriALL.

A WOMAN’S BREW? The Devil’s in the Draught Lines

 A Unite Landworker book review 

A WOMAN’S BREW?

The Devil’s in the Draught Lines

1,000 years of women in Britain’s Beer History

Dr Christina Wade

CAMRA Books

Men now dominate the beer industry with just 4% of head brewers being women and even less being owners.

Beer historian Christina Wade’s highly interesting book, combining throughout each chapter the medieval world with the 21^st century, shows the imbalance, brought on by the Industrial Revolution, is relatively recent.

Even before hops were added, the primary producers of beer were women who today are acting as inspirations for a growing band of women re-assuming their roles within one of the most important cultural sectors of British society.

In 1203, Maud, wife of Hugh, was fined for selling a false gallon of ale. Women dominated the brewing industry in the Middle Ages in England, Scotland and Wales. They brewed sporadically, often when they needed money.

When the price of beer was frozen following the Black Death in the 1300s this proved unpopular amongst brewers in an era of rising wages that encouraged increasing alcoholic consumption, which in turn led to the early development of the public house.

In 1511 The Aberdeen Council Registers detailing the inner workings of the city reveals that 135 of the 136 of those who brewed beer for profit were women who reflecting the legal practices in place were referred to as a wife or widow.

In Scotland many women were accused over many centuries of witchcraft.  205 were executed and the story that ‘alewives’ inspired the modern image of the witch has become common. Wade, who runs a popular blog, meticulously debunks these myths.

Simultaneously in a book packed with unknown gems she credits Jane Robinson with highlighting the importance of Mary Seacole’s British Hotel behind enemy lines during the Crimean War. This served French beer and champagne to soldiers escaping, even briefly, the horrors of war.

Seacole, voted recently the greatest Black Briton, amongst whom today there includes a number of brewing owners such as Helena Adepipe of Peckham based Eko Brewery, also made a mean claret.

In the 19^th century many women ran pubs and alehouses with 24,652 compared to 48,533 men serving as proprietors in 1851. This resulted in, at least, some men seeking to have women removed from the trade by contending it was unproper for women to run public houses.

The situation facing barmaids, many of whom such as Charlotte Drake and Mary Elizabeth Phillips, were suffragettes, was also difficult. Low pay meant long hours. There was harassment.

The barmaids’ cause was taken up Eliza Orme, a leading suffragette and she helped compile report a report on barmaids for the Royal Commission in Labour. Trade union organisation though, like today across the hospitality sector, was difficult due to the barmaids’ isolation.

CAMRA has published Wade’s book which I’d strongly recommended reading over a glass – or two – of your favourite tipple.