Justice denied for shepherd Brenda Sutcliffe, a remarkable woman

This is an unpublished article that was due to appear in the Landworker magazine. Brenda really was a force for good.  

Campaigner Brenda Sutcliffe, the Littleborough shepherd who became the unofficial spokeswoman for thousands of farmers and agricultural labourers who were poisoned, often with fatal consequences, by organophosphate sheep dip, died on 18 January.

Although the government's chief scientist Professor Solly Zuckerman warned as long ago as 1951 that organophosphate pesticides (OP) were deadly poisons and could be absorbed through the skin or inhalation, their use in sheep dip became compulsory in the late 1970s. Zuckerman's report remained lay hidden in the House of Commons until Brenda discovered it in 2005

Sheep dip users were left uninformed about the dangers or the need to wear suitable protective clothing to prevent serious illness. Those that became unwell — symptoms included feeling acutely tired, weak and nauseous, memory loss and blurred vision — initially found it almost impossible to be diagnosed by their doctors. 

Brenda, who suffered, along with members of her family, when forced by government officials to use OP sheep dip in 1992, faced a wall of silence when she began researching OP hazards. She eventually used the US Freedom of Information Act to uncover evidence of just how dangerous and deadly OP's can be. 

When Brenda began to publicise her research and contact the press, chemical companies, politicians and farming organisations she was inundated by requests to help from the victims of OP sheep dip. Eventually clinical tests were developed that can provide objective evidence of OP poisoning and this has assisted doctors to make a diagnosis when they are visited by potential sufferers, including military personnel known to have been exposed to the neurotoxins during tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus airline staff exposed to toxic air. 

Brenda calculated that between 1995 and 2005 more than 1,000 shepherds ended their own lives because of OP sheep dip. Brenda fought tirelessly — and ultimately unsuccessfully — for the victims families to be compensated. Generally the victims were the main breadwinner. 

Brenda's specially produced booklet 'Cause and effect — the search for truth' was first published in 2005. It became widely read right across the globe. In 2011, Brenda, whose husband Harold was a Unite member, received an award from Greening the North, a UK network with links to the Centre for Holistic Studies in India. She was cited for 'your work for the OP-affected, including your letters to the press.'

Brenda and other campaigners forced the HSE to issue health warnings and instructions on the use of OPs and bring to an end the compulsory order on sheep dipping. But the products — used to tackle sheep scab — remain on the market with the added requirement that anyone purchasing the dip must attend a course — costing in total £150 — to achieve the necessary 'Safe Use of Sheep Dip' licence. Each applicant must demonstrate that they understand the regulations including the necessity to wear protective clothing during the dipping operation. 

Brenda, whose work was featured regularly in Landworker, was rightly proud of her considerable efforts and achievements but when we last spoke she was, as always, forthright in expressing her views. "Justice has been denied to the likes of myself whose health was badly affected by OPs. We, with the help of people like yourself and Landworker, showed these were dangerous — deadly — products and we never hesitated to criticise the chemical companies who manufactured them. We damaged their sales but they have never sued us because our research backed up what we said publicly.  

"The government, whether New Labour or Tory, public health bodies and solicitors who were supposed to help us ran away from the battle. People still need prosecuting for their roles in this whole affair. I think we have won a number of battles but OPs are still deadly, too widely used and many products containing them need banning.” 

Around 40 people attended Brenda's funeral at which her friend Dee Uttley gave a marvellous eulogy.

Will we finally know who owns England and Wales?

This is a slightly revised - and unpublished - article I wrote for Landworker magazine in April this year. 

The rallying cry of those who campaigned to leave the EU was “give us our country back.” That's difficult as we don’t actually know the owners. There is good news though as we may finally soon have a list of all the landowners in England and Wales. 

Back in 1862 and 1875, attempts to start a land registry were crushed by the large landowners refusing to register their property. When a Land Act was passed in 1925 it allowed land that had been gifted or inherited to be left unrecorded. Large landowners who could trace their family history back generations didn't bother registering their land. 

It was not until 2001 - and the release of Kevin Cahill's Who Owns Britain colossal book, which revealed that 189,000 people owned 88 per cent of the land — that the question of land ownership in the UK was re-opened. 

In Scotland since then the issue of land reform has been high on the political agenda. Less so in England and Wales but the last Labour Government's Land Registration Act 2002 did introduce a voluntary registration scheme that has proven to be highly successful as it has led to land registration levels doubling to over 80 percent in the last fifteen years. Even the Duke of Westminster was persuaded to register and his 140,000 acres was inherited last year by his son. 

In February the Housing White Paper was released. To the surprise of many the proposals included a much more open Land Registry - which was only saved last summer from being privatised thanks to a campaign in which trade unions were prominent — working with the Ordnance Survey to 'provide a more effective digital land and property data service...that can be made more openly available to the benefit of developers, home buyers and others.' 

There was also a commitment by 'the Government to ensure completion of the Land Register…with the aim being to achieve comprehensive registration by 2030.' However, individuals such as the Duke of Westminster and Prince Charles will remain exempt from registering. A precedent has though been established and it paves the way for a future government to tighten up the regulations.

Meanwhile, Guy Shrubsole, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth who deservedly describes himself as a "troublemaker," has established a fascinating blog - WHO OWNS ENGLAND - that follows in Cahill's footsteps. Cahill listed landowners, Shrubsole aims to map them. 

The author wants to "build the most comprehensive public map of land ownership in England: a modern Domesday book." Shrubsole has made a fine start with revelations that 50 companies own 1.3 million acres of England and Wales. The 50 include housebuilders Taylor Wimpey and supermarket giant Tesco. Nine water companies own 345,977 acres. 

Grouse moors cover at least 550,000 acres of England. Thirty huge estates, which enjoy public farm subsidies and some of which are owned offshore, cover at least 300,000 acres. 

The author is set to reveal over the following year who owns the land most sought-after for house building and the best-quality agricultural land plus what the Royals Own. 

Land is a scarce resource and no more is being grown. Once we do know who owns England and Wales then surely it is time to get everyone involved in getting to choose how it is used to grow our food, build houses, create employment and provide space for relaxation, recreation and wildlife? That really would be ‘getting our country back.’ 

https://whoownsengland.org

A booklet I edited, partly wrote and published over a decade ago. 

CLOSED OR FRANCHISED OUT: the future looks bleak for the rural post office

This article was written in April, but because of the General Election there was a delay on the publication of Landworker magazine, which has just been released this week. 

The future of six main Post Offices in rural areas has been cast into doubt after they were named in January on a list of 37 branches to be closed and franchised. All six in Petersfield, Diss, Redruth, Lancing, Camborne and Ulverston play a major role in their local communities. 

Unite represents the interests of 730 managers  in the Post Office. Along with their colleagues in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) they took part in a series of strikes late last year in protest at job losses, the closure of a final salary pension scheme and franchising, under which ‘partners’ within retail outlets such as WH Smith are found. 

The action was taken at the same time as the Tory government, the ultimate owners of the Post Office, undertook a consultation on the future of the Post Office network and for which Unite - and many others - submitted a considered response. 

Unite expressed concerns about the failure of the Post Office ‘to deliver a clearly articulated sustainable business plan’ in which ‘the ongoing provision of quality, secure, well paid jobs, via an efficient, sustainable and sought after Post office Network, is an important component of the UK postal industry.’ 

Additionally, ‘quality of services or access to all Post Office products was not being taken into account’ such that ‘the general public are not always aware of services available’ such as banking and cash withdrawal. The impact of separating the Royal Mail in April 2012 from the Post Office has made the latter “an unsustainable business in its own right” and has resulted in a  25 per cent drop in annual income from the government from £164 million to £128 million in 2016. 

Yet the ink was hardly dry when the news of further franchising was announced. No timetable to find partners has been established. The Ulverston branch in Cumbria has seven employees, including one member of Unite. 

The local Barrow and Furness Labour MP John Woodcock has denounced the proposals and told Landworker, “The post office in Ulverston has stood for hundreds of years and if the local community were deprived of this vital asset it would be a disaster for the town.

“I have sought guarantees from management that the service would not be lost, and it is worrying that those assurances have not been forthcoming.

“There is clearly a strong feeling in the town that people want to post office to stay, and I will continue to campaign alongside Unite and the CWU to defend services and jobs in the weeks ahead.”

A petition drawn up by Woodcock had attracted over 5,000 by mid-March. 

Brian Scott is the Unite officer for the Post Office. "We will fight to preserve decently paid jobs and an effective, quality Post Office network. But the negative changes going on across the Post Office, along with the Government reluctance to fund Post Office services means the picture looks less than rosy, especially as state funding is set to end next year. 

"There is evidence that the quality of services and reliability in offices that have been franchised is less than that from the original Crown Office. Why? It is clear that as well as looking to pay their workers less in wages than experienced in the Post Office, there are problems with recruitment, training and retention of workers.  

"In small franchised sub Post Offices there are now longer hours than before but the owners are experiencing no increase in postal related trade. For the Post Office Network to move forward it requires a clear strategy to be developed in which franchising is re-examined,” concludes Brian. 

Forests Under Attack - are tough times ahead in our forests about to get worse?

The Unite lead rep at the Forestry Commission, Neil Grieve, has expressed his fears after it was confirmed that the organisation will be split up in 2019.

Four years ago the FC in Wales was transferred to a new body - Natural Resource Wales. (NRW) This marked the end of the Commission’s 94 years as a GB organisation. 

The Forestry Commission (FC) was established in September 1919 after Britain struggled to meet wartime demands for timber, because the nation’s woodland resources had fallen to an all-time low of just five per cent. The figures today is 12 per cent. 

The FC is Britain’s biggest land manager and costs each of us a whopping 40 pence a year! All this for looking after some of our most spectacular landscapes, providing outdoor recreational facilities for millions, harvesting timber to supply domestic industry and regenerating brownfield sites. 

No wonder that when the ConDem government sought to sell off much of England’s forests they were forced by public opinion into a humiliating climbdown in February 2011. But as a result of the government’s unnecessary austerity programme the champagne has remained on ice as many FC jobs have since been lost.   

The jobs include, according to Tony, (not his real name) a NRW employee, “many experienced expert staff, which is going to be a problem in the future.” In 2016, NRW planted no new trees, which is not a great success story.

Now the FC, which at present is a cross-border public authority overseen by the Forestry Commissioners, will be cut in two in two years’ time when FC Scotland (FCS) will be separated from its English counterpart. Following which the Scottish Government will assume responsibilities for managing the organisation.  

Galloway’s Neil Grieve, who since becoming Unite FC lead rep in 2014 has persuaded more Unite members to become workplace reps, wants to ensure that the new arrangements will not lead to a reduction in FCS direct staff or a poorer service to the public. 

The FC Trade Unions have met with the SNP’s Fergus Ewing MSP, the rural economy and connectivity cabinet secretary at the Scottish Parliament. Neil wanted to discover what the future might hold for FC Unite members in Scotland. Especially as in 2009 it was the SNP who planned to lease off 25 per cent of forestry land to private companies for 75 years. 

It was a Unite led campaign, which enjoyed massive public support that forced the proposals, which would have endangered forestry workers’ jobs and restricted access to the forests, to be abandoned. 

“We came out of the meeting with Fergus Ewing re-assured about retaining our status as public servants along with our negotiated terms and conditions and pensions. 

“The minister also assured us that there would be no less jobs. But the majority of the Scottish government’s funding comes in the form of a block grant from Westminster. This to continue falling in the immediate future. Unless monies are found from another budget then retaining the same number of jobs may be difficult,” states Neil, a wildlife ranger with 30 years experience.

Meanwhile, according to Tony “Wales has been trialling block contracts to private forestry companies.” 

This is now happening in Scotland. “Private companies are doing some of the harvesting, road repairs and replanting. This could reduce the direct workplace and we are aware that, just like in Wales, the employees are not enjoying decent terms and conditions. Some come from areas in Ireland where unemployment levels are high. They are being exploited by being employed on zero-hours contracts. For the first time in my 30 year career I have seen planting contractors who are living in tents in the forests,” explains Neil.

Further south, English FC staff have been under attack. There were reports late last year that the FC were asking forestry workers living in the New Forest in Hampshire to pay between £650 and £900 a month, instead of £500 a month previously. 

George Whitcher, Unite’s rep in the New Forest, criticised the increases. “You can’t keep forest life going if you can’t stay in the forest. It would totally change - there would be no forest life.”

Unite organised a public meeting with staff past and present who live in FC houses. But some staff are still being asked to pay substantially more - in some cases more than they earn! Unite wants to get management to justify these unacceptable increases and bring the issue to the negotiating table. 

English rural workers have, of course, suffered when they have found themselves divided from their counterparts across Britain. In 2013 the ConDem government scrapped the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB), which not even Margaret Thatcher had considered doing during her term of office.  

Thanks to the Welsh Assembly a successful supreme court challenge was mounted that helped establish a Welsh AWB leading to improvements in pay and conditions. In comparison, the English agricultural worker’s lack of union representation, means they have not obtained a wage increase. 

“I’m worried,” states Neil, “as the Tories are in power in England. If they harbour desires to sell off the forests they may use the fact that most - around 70 per cent - of the FC’s current income comes from the sale of wood from trees in Scotland. 

“England is more about conservation and recreational parks. Some Tories may try and persuade the electoral that the FC is uneconomic, which was the grounds  used by the Thatcher government to sell off forests in the 80s.” 

FEARS FOR CUMBRIAN COMMONS

 Article from Big Issue North magazine of 26 June to 2 July. 

MoD plans to de-register seized land 

Residents fear their birthright could sell 

Cumbrian people feel they have been betrayed by Ministry of Defence plans that could see thousands of hectares of commons land sold into private ownership. 

The MoD wants to de-register 9,700 hectares of land near the village of Warcop that it has used as a training range since the Second World War. 

In 2001, the MoD acquired all grazing rights on three commons, near Kirkby Stephen and Appleby, against the wishes of local people, who felt use of Hilton, Murton and Warcop was their birthright. But the MoD did promise that it would continue to preserve its status as common land “in perpetuity”. 

That meant allowing the public access, on de ned paths, and farm animals to graze when there is no training, and ensuring the land is transferred back to public ownership if the MoD has no further use for it. But now the MoD has applied to Cumbria County Council to de-register the land. 

An MoD spokesperson said de-registration would help “to provide more effective military training” but “there were no plans to sell off any land within it”. 

William Patterson, vice-chair of Eden District Council and a member of the Hilton Commoners’ Association, said locals, who accept the army’s need to train recruits, feel very strongly about the plans. 

“No one was happy at having their land compulsory purchased by the MoD over a decade ago but we felt a degree of satisfaction that it would remain on the commons register,” he said. “We believe the MoD is reneging on its word and using spurious grounds to do so. 

“If the MoD marches away, the currently common land should not be left in private hands, which de-registering facilitates. As the MoD intends dumping its original commitments how can we trust its word that it won’t sell the land? Farmers and anyone wanting to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and walk the land could turn up after the MoD departs and padlocks on the gates.” 

The Federation of Cumbria Commoners, which is dedicated to promoting commoning in Cumbria and aims to maintain and improve the viability of hill farming on common land, has made a representation to Cumbria County Council about the application. 

Its spokesperson Viv Lewis said she did not trust the MoD and wanted there to be an “open decision making process, including the opportunity for the public to comment on any report prepared by Cumbria County Council’s commons registration officer prior to a final decision by the regulation committee”. 

A CCC spokesperson said: “Once the MoD has responded, the council’s common registration service will make a decision on how to adjudicate the applications. It is therefore too early to say what the next stage of this process will be.” 

Colombian activists targeted by right-wing paramilitaries

Article from Big Issue North magazine of 19-25 June 2017. 

Peace process has not ended 52-year conflict 

Government ‘denying’ killings are political 

A British organisation that played a key role in Colombia’s peace process has urged the Bogota government to do more to protect community activists threatened by right-wing paramilitaries. 

An agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas concluded in Cuba last year and brought to an end a con ict that stretched back to the 1960s and left 200,000 people dead. 

‘Worrying developments’ 

Justice for Colombia (JFC), established by British trade unions 15 years ago, used its experience of campaigning for peace in Northern Ireland to play an important role in negotiations, organising delegations of unionists and nationalists who participated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. 

But more than 100 community and human rights activists were murdered last year by right-wing paramilitaries since the peace agreement was concluded, and 42 more have been killed this year. The paramilitaries are seeking control of areas once held by FARC. 

“These are extremely worrying developments,” said Hasan Dodwell of JFC. “There is an intensification of violence by paramilitary groups, which are reported to be moving into rural communities where they have previously had no presence. 

“The Colombian government is denying the political nature of the killings. This casts doubt on their willingness under the peace agreement to protect community activists by tackling the paramilitaries. 

“This is a grave situation. Protection has to be ensured by the Colombian government for all those who are politically active.” 

A JFC delegation was the first international group to meet FARC’s negotiating team at the start of the six-year peace process that last year was derailed when a referendum failed to ratify it. It was ratified in December following revisions. 

One of the delegates, Brian Campfield, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said: “The peace message we took to Cuba was a powerful one as the delegates included previously bitter opponents and demonstrated that conflicts that were considered intractable had real potential for being resolved with the right conditions and political leadership. 

“The peace agreement was a major achievement. But rati cation doesn’t end matters. FARC has disarmed and the communities in their areas of in uence are vulnerable to murderous activity by right-wing paramilitary groupings. 

“The government must ensure that demobilised insurgents are safe as well as trade union, human rights and land rights activists. The murders of community activists highlights much more needs to be done.” 

The British government has condemned the killings. The Colombian government did not respond to Big Issue North’s requests for comment. 

An invitation to Blackburn residents to help with plans to commemorate famous events in the town in 1842.

Press release — immediate 

An invitation to Blackburn residents to help with plans 

to commemorate famous events in the town in 1842. 

Thursday 29 June at 6pm at Blackburn Museum 

An invitation is extended to anyone who would like to help with plans to mark the 175th anniversary of Blackburn’s part in the first General Strike.

In August 1842, what began as a strike movement in Lancashire, Staffordshire and West Riding of united resistance to the imposition of massive wage cuts among workers in the coal, cotton and engineering industries immediately took on a political character to become an all-out struggle for universal suffrage. 

In Blackburn on 15 August 1842, thousands walked out of the mills to meet crowds converging on the town from right across Lancashire. 

After the Riot Act was read the Army opened fire and, at least, four women were killed and many others seriously injured. The five men who organised the strike in Blackburn were later sent to Tasmania and never returned. 

In August 1993 a plaque that commemorated this bloody chapter in Blackburn’s history was unveiled at BBC Radio Lancashire’s headquarters in Darwen Street. It is still there 24 years later.

On of those involved in 1993 was councillor Tony Humphrys and he subsequently went on to conduct further research into the events in 1842 and even discovered the names of four women who were killed on 15 August 1842. These names and other information remain unpublished but it is proposed to end some of the mysteries on 15 August this year.

A meeting to help plan events on 15 August is to be held at 6pm at the Blackburn Museum. It will be chaired by councillor Tony Humphrys. Also in attendance will be Mark Metcalf, who is employed by Unite the union on the Rebel Road project (*) that publicly commemorates labour movement heroes and events that are publicly commemorated in the form of plaques, statues and buildings named after them.

For more details contact councillor Tony Humphrys on 07759 629361 and/or Mark Metcalf on 07392 852561 mcmetcalf@icloud.com

* http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/education/rebelroad/