Ninety-Nine magazine - September 2018

Challenging the power of the

Issue 12 - September 2018

After Windrush Putting an end to the hostile environment

Also in this issue Ten years after Lehman Brothers Britain in the Pacific?

Labour and inequality

ISSUE 12: September 2018 03 Campaign news 06 Global news 08 Turning the tide on migrant rights 10 Ten years after Lehman Brothers 13 Global Justice Now supporters 14 Kate Osamor interview 16 Windrush Women 18 The Trans-Pacific Partnership 19 Reviews

Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few.

We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice.

Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Graphic Design: Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover image: Protest in Brixton's Windrush Square, April 2018. Credit: Rob Pinney/LNP/REX/Shutterstock Printed on 100% recycled paper.

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2 Ninety-Nine 2018

I thought it would be over by now.

But it’s not Alex Scrivener Policy manager It has been ten years now since the onset of the financial crisis. And the repercussions of it are still with us – austerity, soaring global inequality, crumbling public services and failure to tackle climate change. Ten years after Lehman Brothers collapsed we are still told the lie that we cannot afford a better world while the super-rich cream off more and more wealth.

In many ways things are now worse than in 2008. The decision to pass the cost of the crisis onto ordinary people in the form of austerity has fuelled a backlash of anger. In some places this has led to the growth of positive grassroots movements but in others it has been channelled by xenophobic elites who point the finger of blame on the weak and defenceless. This has brought us a politics which is too often contested between pro-corporate ‘liberals’ and anti-immigrant demagogues.

We at Global Justice Now reject both sides. We stand firm as both proud internationalists and proud defenders of the victims of market fundamentalist dogma. We continue to oppose both the Ten years after austerity and corporate globalisation preached Lehman Brothers by the plutocrats and the xenophobia and collapsed we are still nationalism of many of told the lie that we those who back Trump and a hard-right Brexit. cannot afford a better And it is in movements world while the superlike ours that there is rich cream off more hope. If we answer every attack on the and more wealth. poor with a demand for economic equality and every xenophobic measure with resistance, we can help change the world for the better. Every time we push back against the cruelty with which the British state treats migrants, we move towards a world in which we are all equal, regardless of the lottery of birth. Every time we reject the government’s trade policy we move a step closer to global economic justice.

Nobody said it would be easy. And we at Global Justice Now are just a small part of the picture. But there has never been a more important time for our campaigns. It may be ten years since the 2008 crisis, but we will most likely not have to wait another ten years for radical political change. The current neoliberal consensus is collapsing. Whether what replaces it is better or worse depends on people like us succeeding. Let’s make sure that we do.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Together against Trump After two false starts and without the pomp and circumstance of an official state visit, US President Donald Trump came to Britain in July. As part of the Stop Trump coalition, Global Justice Now took part in the ‘carnival of resistance’ to his divisive, bigoted, © Reuben Ud u-W

all is

climate-change-denying policies.

Despite an itinerary designed to shield the president from demonstrators, Trump was made to feel “unwelcome” in London, where first a giant ‘baby Trump’ blimp, and then a march of up to 250,000 people made international headlines. It was the biggest protest against Trump outside the US to date, and the biggest week-day demonstration in the UK for many years. In Scotland, many thousands more marched through Edinburgh as Trump arrived in Scotland and there were dozens of local events up and down the country.

We helped organise two blocs on the London march: a

‘chlorinated chicken bloc’ featuring trade campaigners warning of the effects of a trade deal with Trump (see p.5), and a migrant solidarity bloc which emphasised the continuities between Trump’s demonisation of migrants and Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ policy (see p.4).

With the possibility of a US-UK trade deal making headlines during the visit, the march was an important moment to put across our campaigns.

And by showing solidarity with those marginalised groups who bear the brunt of Trump’s attack, it also sent a clear message to the UK government that we won’t accept the dangerous actions of the US president, or allow them to be the norm.

© Andy Aitchison

© Reuben Udu-Walli s

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

Minnie Rahman from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants speaking at our event in June.

Monsanto’s day of reckoning It's not every day that a powerful corporation is brought to account. But in August, a former groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson won a landmark victory against corporate giant, Monsanto. A jury in the US found that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller had caused his cancer and that the corporation had failed to warn him of the health hazards from exposure. He was awarded $289 million in damages. The decision backs the findings of the World Health Organization's cancer agency in concluding that glyphosate – the active chemical in Roundup – is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Glyphosate is used as a weedkiller on crops but also in public spaces and gardens and is highly pervasive in our food system.

In 2016 as part of our work against the corporate takeover of agriculture, we campaigned with many across Europe against the automatic 15-year EU relicense of glyphosate. Instead, it was only relicensed for 18 months, although later for another five years. However, some countries and regions – such as Portugal, Italy and the Canadian city of Vancouver – have banned glyphosate use in public parks and gardens. And the French government wants to ban it despite resistance from some French lawmakers. In the UK, this new court decision has prompted reviews by retailers such as Homebase and B&Q to consider taking Roundup off their shelves.

A spoof label tells UK shoppers the truth about Monsanto's Roundup and its corporate power.

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© Wayne Sharrocks/Global Justice Now

Growing opposition to the ‘hostile environment’ for migrants Since the Windrush scandal broke in April, Global Justice Now has stepped up our campaigning against the government’s ‘hostile environment’ for migrants.

Mainstream attention has focused on the plight of the Windrush generation, who were disgracefully caught up in the policy (see p.8). But we are demanding that the entire hostile environment is dismantled. Thousands have already emailed new Home Secretary Sajid Javid, and we organised a demonstration outside the Home Office on the day Javid was appointed, as parliament debated Windrush.

We also brought a range of allies and activists together to discuss building the movement for migrant rights in June.

In July, Global Justice Now and Migrants Organise launched a new campaign, MPs Not Border Guards. This was prompted by the revelations that MPs have reported hundreds of people to the Home Office for immigration enforcement. People facing immigration difficulties seek support from MPs, sometimes as a last a resort, and it is a betrayal of their trust for MPs to turn over such people to the Home Office. Over 100 MPs have now signed the MPs Not Border Guards pledge that they will not participate in the hostile environment in this way and will make sure their surgery is a safe place for all, regardless of immigration status.

See if your MP has signed the pledge and write to them if not at: globaljustice.org.uk/MPpledge

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Narrow defeat for trade democracy – but it’s not over yet After months of delay over Brexit wrangling, the government’s Trade Bill finally returned to parliament in July for a crucial vote on whether MPs will get to scrutinise, change and if necessary stop future trade deals. Despite huge pressure from campaigners up and down the country, and official support from Labour, the Greens, the SNP, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru, Caroline Lucas MP’s trade democracy amendment – which we helped to draft – was defeated by 30 votes.

Although a setback in the campaign, the Bill now moves to the Lords in the autumn, where there is a good chance that further amendments will be tabled and passed. In addition, the Scottish and Welsh governments are being lobbied to withhold ‘legislative consent’ for the Bill, since it denies them a say over future trade deals which would impact on devolved issues like health. While not legally binding, any such decision would be uncharted constitutional territory.

Meanwhile, growing evidence has been building up that the British public does not support the kind of measures the Trump administration will demand from a US-UK trade deal. An opinion poll

© Jess Hurd

crowd-funded by Global Justice Now supporters found that trade secretary Liam Fox’s own constituents – who were split, like the country, on Brexit – overwhelmingly oppose a US-UK trade deal which introduces chlorinated chicken (85% opposed, 4% support) or US companies running parts of the NHS

(63% opposed, 15% support). It echoed a wider IPPR poll which found 82% of the public opposed to reducing food standards in a US deal. Nevertheless, further secret talks between US and UK government officials over a future deal took place shortly before Trump’s July visit, alongside media revelations of secret lobby meetings between government ministers and US corporate groups.

The stakes continue to be high.

As soon as the Bill passed, Fox launched four consultations on future trade deals – with the US, Australia, New Zealand and, most absurdly, the UK joining the TransPacific Partnership. All four deals could see the further introduction of corporate courts and other unmentionables, which strengthens the case for trade democracy. The consultations run until late October, and you can make a submission via our website.

Make a submission to the trade deal consultations at: globaljustice.org.uk/trade-consultations

Chlorinated chickens on the Stop Trump demonstration in July and (above) delivering the results of our crowdfunded poll to Liam Fox in Portishead.

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GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS

Italians demand ‘open the ports’ amid rising anti-migrant rhetoric

© Ciro Fusco/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

A protest in Naples demands 'Let the harbours open. We guarantee rescue at sea' in June.

Activists in Italy have stepped up mobilisations in defence of migrants after the new populist coalition government began refusing access to ships containing migrants rescued from the Mediterranean. Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, an admirer of Donald Trump, made international headlines in June by refusing docking rights to the NGO-run Aquarius rescue boat, which had 629 refugees and

migrants on board. The Spanish government eventually offered the boat safe harbour in Valencia.

Demonstrations have taken place around Italy to ‘open the ports’ in the face of growing support for Salvini’s tough stance. In August, 177 migrants were only able to disembark from a rescue ship in the Sicilian port of Catania after Salvini was formally placed under investigation

for possible illegal detention and kidnapping. At an EU summit in June, European leaders failed to agree reforms to the bloc’s rules to share responsibility for taking in refugees more equally. Instead, they agreed measures amounting to contracting out their responsibilities to North African countries like Libya, where migrants have faced severe human rights abuses.

Mapping the world’s fearless cities The growing global municipalist movement Fearless Cities has launched an open source online map detailing more than 80 organisations around the world aiming to transform power locally, from radical local governments to those working outside formal institutions. “Municipalism is a rising force that seeks to transform fear into hope from the bottom up, and

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build that hope together,” says mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, whose Barcelona en Comu movement hosted the first global Fearless Cities gathering last year.

Since then, neighbourhood movements, mayors and local councillors have been collaborating to build global networks of solidarity and hope from the grassroots. Regional

gatherings took place in Warsaw, New York and Brussels this summer, and a new guide to the global movement is under production, written collaboratively by more than 140 people from 19 countries, including essays, organising toolkits, example policy platforms and profiles of municipalist initiatives from five continents. www.fearlesscities.com

GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS

NEWS SHORTS New Pakistan government warned against IMF loan

A rally took place in Karachi in early August against a possible new IMF bailout loan, which speakers warned would aggravate poverty and lead to further privatisations. Former cricketer Imran Khan was elected prime minister in July and is expected to approach the IMF, despite pledging to wean the country off loans and foreign aid.

UK arms to Saudi under fire after Yemen bombings The British government’s continuing military support for Saudi Arabia has returned to the spotlight following the killing of 40 children in Yemen in August, after a bomb was dropped on their bus on the way home from a school trip. The UK has licensed £4.6 billion of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia since the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen began in 2015, leading to what the UN has called “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world”. The Campaign Against Arms Trade has launched a legal

challenge to British exports of military equipment to Saudi Arabia.

Global Justice Now joined protests at Downing Street in March against the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to the UK. It followed the British government refusing to support a UN investigation into alleged war crimes by the Saudi-led coalition last year, over fears that it would damage potential trade relations with the kingdom.

Argentina transformed by women’s rights debate

Irish parliament votes to divest from fossil fuels

Ireland has become the first country in the world to vote to fully divest itself from fossil fuel companies. The Irish parliament voted through a bill in July for the country’s €8 billion sovereign wealth fund to start ditching all its oil, coal and gas assets. It is expected to become law by the end of the year.

One million strike in Argentina against return of IMF

A protest for Legal Abortion Now in front of the Argentinian Congress in Buenos Aires.

Road, rail and air transport workers brought Argentina to a halt in a 24-hour strike against a new $50 billion stand-by IMF loan in June. The government of Mauricio Macri has sought to bring the IMF back into the country for the first time since the debt crisis of 2001.

Women’s rights activists in Argentina have vowed to keep up the fight for legal abortion, after the narrow defeat in August of a bill to allow elective abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Huge mobilisations took place across the country in the runup to the vote, part of the ‘green tide’ of feminist activism that has spread across Latin America since 2015.

“For some, their last bastion of power is their power over women, and those people don’t want to concede that territory,”

© Fotografías Emergentes

said film director Lucrecia Martel, who backed the campaign. The bill would have replaced a near century-old law in Argentina which punishes abortion with up to 4 years in prison. Despite this, an estimated 450,000 illegal abortions are performed in the country every year.

“Things will never be the same, because society has been changed by these five months of debating the law,” said journalist and activist Soledad Vallejos.

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MIGRATION

After Windrush, we can turn the tide on migrant rights Global Justice Now activists demonstrated outside the Home Office in April, ahead of a parliamentary debate on the Windrush scandal in April.

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The Windrush scandal has lifted the lid on the cruelty of Britain’s ‘hostile environment’ for immigrants. We must make the most of this opportunity, argues ED LEWIS When the Windrush scandal broke during the Commonwealth leaders summit in April, it came as a shock to many.

Suddenly, widespread public attention was brought to the fact that people who had lived in the UK since childhood were being forced out of work, denied benefits, detained and even deported, because they didn’t have the ‘correct’ documents. The spotlight turned onto the insidious ‘hostile environment’ policy, introduced by Theresa May in 2012, through which the government has attempted to make life as difficult as possible for undocumented migrants so that they leave the country. For a moment, the link between immigration enforcement and racism also became impossible to ignore. As Anthony Bryan, one victim of the scandal, put it: “I hate to say it, but I don’t think I’d have this problem if I had come from Canada instead of coming from Jamaica.”

Already, the outcry has led to some measure of redress for those

affected (though much slower than promised and with significant gaps).

It has also forced the government to suspend some parts of the hostile environment policy. In July, data sharing between all government departments and the Home Office was suspended for people over 30. Some – but very much not all – of the surveillance that migrants and those suspected of being migrants have been subject to has temporarily abated.

But the respite is limited. The pause in data sharing, for example, is temporary.

More fundamentally, key planks of the hostile environment remain in place.

Upfront charging in the NHS still makes access to healthcare prohibitively expensive for thousands of migrants, while landlords and employers are still required to act as quasi-border guards.

It remains a criminal offence, punishable by prison, for landlords to knowingly rent accommodation to people without the correct immigration documents, and similar rules apply to employers.

‘GOOD’ VS ‘BAD’ MIGRANTS At Global Justice Now we started working on migration in response to the rising wave of hatred and intolerance in our society towards migrants. From the mass deaths of those fleeing fear and want in the Mediterranean to the attacks on migrants in Britain in the wake of the EU referendum, the demonisation of migrants has become overwhelming and intolerable in one of the richest parts of the planet. And, in the ‘borderless

world’ of neoliberalism and its promise of freedom, the borders facing most people, especially the poorest, have become ever more brutal – even as ‘money’ has been freed up to profit in ever new ways from the riches of the globalised economy.

We believe we need to reverse this logic – it is people that should be free, not capital. No-one should be forced to migrate, and to this end we support policies which create a fairer, more equal world. But the freedom to move and settle – one enjoyed to a much greater extent by those of us in the rich world – is a basic human right we must defend for its own sake. The fact that many millions of those who move are forced to by the injustices of the global economy only makes this more pressing.

There is a trend in the media to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ migrants. The former work hard, ‘contribute to society’, while ‘bad’ migrants are cast as sponges, a threat to British culture and values. The right-wing media have portrayed the Windrush victims as classically ‘good’

migrants, while resisting any idea that we should provide a welcoming society for all migrants. In fact, parts of the political establishment have tried to use the scandal to deepen the surveillance state, suggesting that ID cards would more effectively target ‘bad’ migrants.

We must reject these divisions. Those fleeing war (’refugees’) and those fleeing hardship (‘economic migrants’) are both seeking a way to realise their human rights and human dignity. Yet migrants of all kinds are being met by a punitive border regime, manifested in policies like the hostile environment, and a wider culture of xenophobia and racism.

Fighting for global justice means standing up against these forms of oppression and discrimination, just as we stand against economic exploitation in the global south. In the wake of Windrush, the UK government is vulnerable on its hostile environment agenda – we must keep up the pressure until it is dismantled for good.

MIGRATION

MPS NOT BORDER GUARDS Global Justice Now and Migrants Organise are asking MPs to pledge not to take part in the hostile environment, after news that hundreds of people have been reported to the Home Office by MPs. Please sign and return the enclosed postcard to your MP now.

Ed Lewis is policy and campaigns manager at Global Justice Now.

© David Mirzoeff/Global Justice Now 2018 Ninety-Nine 9

FINANCIAL CRISIS

A world still dominated by finance 10 years since Lehman Brothers, the financial system has been saved not changed. And now the unequal impacts of the crisis are fuelling the politics of hate, writes NICK DEARDEN

© REX/Shutte rsto

ck

I was in Quito, Ecuador, on 15 September FINANCIAL POWER, CRISIS AND 2008, the day investment bank Lehman INEQUALITY Brothers collapsed and the financial crisis The financial crisis was rooted in a global exploded. Appropriately enough, I was there economy that had come to worship to celebrate Ecuador’s financial power. ‘debt audit’, a process ‘Financialisation’ refers “If the problem is through which to a process whereby Ecuador meticulously finance becomes an financial power, examined the debts it end in itself: investments then surely the had accrued largely increasingly become through previous answer must be financial crises. definancialisation.”

The audit was a lesson in how the financial system works, and how overlyshort-term powerful finance benefits the very wealthy, speculative bets, and fuels inequality in society. Ecuador’s achieving nothing government used the audit to wipe out productive along billions of dollars worth of ‘illegitimate’ debt, the way. and it put in place new laws to control But this process finance. Sadly, those lessons were not isn’t just about big learned by the vast majority of countries banks and hedge that were about to plunge into recession funds. Finance and debt. infects the ‘real’ Ten years on, we’re still living with economy with its the consequences. The financial crisis quick buck logic. cracked our free market economic model, Supermarkets, known as neoliberalism, and those cracks mobile phone have grown into chasms, out of which companies, car crawled the eurozone crisis, Brexit, Trump, manufacturers – all and the emergence of authoritarianism increasingly profit around the world. from financial trading

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Left to right: Former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, Jr. faces protests as he testifies to Congress; Zombie bank Anglo Irish drained the Irish public sector of resources; Occupy London activists stress the impact of inequality.

© Jub ilee Debt Ca

mpaig n

FINANCIAL CRISIS

© Leepowe r/Wi kipedia

from inequality – the great scourge of our world today. The only thing that hides the inequality is the debt which has allowed so many to participate in the consumer economy.

When the debt dried up in 2008, everyone could clearly see what had happened to our society.

FROM ‘THIRD WORLD’ TO FIRST WORLD DEBT CRISES rather than from producing.

Households live on credit, paying interest and rent into the bloated financial sector.

Even public institutions like universities start to think more like hedge funds.

For global justice campaigners, three things stand out. First, such an economy is increasingly short-term in its thinking, making long-term development impossible. Workers, farmland, the environment – finance acts as a giant extractor to exploit anything for short-term gain. Second, it is deeply crisis-prone. The post-war period of more regulated finance saw very few financial crises, compared to the explosion of crises as finance was deregulated from the 1970s onwards.

Crises are bad for development too.

Finally, financial power is inseparable

It was a financial crisis in the late 1970s and early 80s that triggered one of the most significant events in the last 50 years – though you’d be lucky to learn about it in schools or even universities.

The ‘third world’ debt crisis was sparked in 1982 when reckless banks, which had been happily boosting their profits by lending to developing world countries, including many unsavoury dictators, suddenly raised interest rates to stave off inflation.

Starting with Mexico, dozens of countries were on the verge of default.

But rather than let the high street banks that had lent the money go under, western governments effectively bailed out the banks using public institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. They imposed ‘structural adjustment’ policies on countries, making them pay the price for the banks’ reckless lending. This continued throughout the 1990s.

The 2008 financial crisis should have

been a wake-up call. As banks started to fall, the system of toxic bets and debts unravelled and governments stared into the abyss. To stop the system seizing up, massive bailouts were organised, quantitative easing pumped vast sums of money into the economy and interest rates fell to near zero. These policies forestalled a deeper depression still. But they helped save the system, not change it.

With a few honourable exceptions such as Iceland, the banking sector, even when nationalised and publicly funded, carried on as normal. The private debts of the banks were pushed onto the public sector, then paid by the poorest in society through eye-watering levels of austerity and privatisation. Greece, the most severe case, was forced into one of the longest depressions in history.

Faced with growing inequality, serious poverty even in rich societies, and a lack of solutions from the centre left parties, anger grew. A breeding ground for xenophobia and the politics of hatred has been created, and without very substantial change, it will continue to grow. Our task has never been more urgent.

THE WORLD WE WANT How can we get out of this mess?

If the problem is financial power, then surely the answer must be definancialisation. This entails, of course, serious financial regulation.

But we’re still heading in the wrong direction. We must make sure banks are forced to behave responsibly, to think long-term, and to shrink. The establishment of public banks and support for cooperatives and local banks, serving local community needs, is vital too.

We must reverse the trend of introducing financial markets into every aspect of life by building strong, democratic public services and public

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FINANCIAL CRISIS

institutions. We must look to new forms of ownership, reinventing the ‘commons’ as a system of collective ownership and control over large swathes of our economy.

Globally, we must stop letting financial and corporate power exploit the world. Rather than telling southern governments to let the market work its magic, we need to support them in regulating and taxing investment, which is the only way to make investments genuinely useful for a country.

Only an economic justice movement can ensure real change happens. Even the best politicians in the world cannot deliver transformative policies without activists prepared to support but also push them. And the big changes we need can’t happen in Britain alone – they must be international.

Early in the crisis, it looked © UN Photo/Pierre -Mic hel Virot. like Southern countries might finally get more say over the future of the global economy.

The UN General Assembly elected the late Rev Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a leftwing Nicaraguan priest, as its president, and he tried to lay out a different pathway for the global economy.

Ultimately d’Escoto’s efforts were quashed by the power of the rich countries and institutions like the IMF, but his refusal to accept a world dominated by finance should inform our battle against injustice today: “The antivalues of greed, individualism and exclusion should be replaced by solidarity, common good and inclusion,” he said. “The objective of our economic and social activity should not be the limitless, endless, mindless accumulation of wealth in a profit-centred economy but rather a people-centred economy that guarantees human needs, human rights, and human security, as well as conserves life on earth.”

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now. From 2008 to 2013 he was director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

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“The financial crisis cracked our free market economic model, and those cracks have grown into chasms, out of which crawled the eurozone crisis, Brexit and Trump.”

Above: Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly in 2008, championed a people-centred global economy after the crash.

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ed up to our organisation you’re part of sign are ups gro t ivis act al loc ’s be a great way to Glo bal Jus tice Now Interna tionalist Network could uth to mo Fal from ntry cou the und spread aro global justice. help build the movement for try we how of t par tral Dundee. They’re a cen -up form, contact t when we For more information, or a sign tha w kno we But . nge cha to create m: Effie Jordan in the activis m tea for the rights of cam paign for trade justice, or or 020 7820 490 0. e union e.jordan@globaljustice.org.uk effi trad : too s allie er oth e hav we mig rants, Or find out more online at gre ssive pol itical bra nches, local section s of pro nalist-network globaljustice.org.uk/internatio atio ns, solidarity par ties, local religious associ groups and mo re. new initiative That’s why we’ve lau nched a ter with all of the se wh ich aim s to con nect us bet to date with our local allie s, keeping them up wo rk together cam paigns and allowing us to mo re effectively. redatio ns of free In a wo rld still ruled by the dep also now facing ma rket fundamentalis m, but authoritarian a dangerous rise in racist and ted to antipopulis m, tho se of us com mit up our game. racist internationalis m need to iative our That’s why we’re cal ling this init Internationalis t Net wo rk. supporter, If you’re a Global Justice Now ting another but aren’t in a local group, get © Fotog raf ías Em

New council elected e saw Global The run -up to our AGM in Jun on who should Justice Now members voting l. The succes sful represent them on our counci at the AGM. candidates were announced Josefine Brons, Nicola Ansell, Jean Blaylock, Steve Rolfe, Martin Powell, Asad Rehman, lor and Louise Susanne Schuster, Andrew Tay mbers, with Eve Taylor were all elected by me nominated to Nortley and Mary Steiner being um. council by the Area Reps’ For

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time in July The new council met for the first chair of the and elected Nicola Ansell as or of human organi sation. Nicola is profess , and in a previous geography at Brunel University ional secretary. term on council ser ved as nat our main governing Global Justice Now’s council is get, key priorities, body, deciding on our annual bud ction. All members staffing policy and political dire years and can serve are up for election every three taking a break. a maximum of six years before

GLOBAL MOVEMENT

'More equal societies are better for everyone' Labour’s new vision for international development makes tackling inequality a major part of the fight against global poverty. It’s a step change from a party that twenty years ago was “intensely relaxed” about the super-rich. We spoke to KATE OSAMOR, the shadow international development secretary.

A World for the Many, Not the Few sets out Labour’s future international development policy. How did it come about?

At a time when the government have so clearly lost their way on international development, I felt it was crucial to lay out a strong alternative vision for how Labour would manage the country’s aid programme. I wanted to show that while we disagree with the Conservative’s approach of using aid as a means of promoting the UK’s trading, security and foreign policy interests overseas, we do, passionately believe in defending UK aid spending. And with sections of the media unrelenting in their concerted attacks

on UK aid, it has become a necessity to loudly and boldly re-establish the idea of aid. Aid should be an act of solidarity that is about furthering social justice and human rights across the globe, and it is this vision I laid out in my paper.

“Aid should be an act of solidarity that is about furthering social justice and human rights across the globe.”

I am a strong believer in working closely with civil society, so this report came about from a detailed consultation process that brought together input and ideas from experts across the aid and development sector [including an advisory group featuring Global Justice Now’s director, Nick Dearden], both in the UK and from countries in the global south.

You’ve been very critical of the growing role of the private sector in UK aid. What would you do to change this?

That’s right. Too much focus has been paid to the private sector with the false belief that the sector is the panacea to the world’s problems.

In particular, I have been very concerned with the use of UK aid for the privatisation of public services overseas, as well as the related trend of outsourcing the management of aid projects to international for-profit private contractors.

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GLOBAL MOVEMENT XXX In my paper I set out the ways in which a Labour department for international development (DFID) would work with governments and civil society around the world to build and strengthen public services. I will put an end to support for public-private partnerships overseas, a model that we know all too well doesn’t work from our own experiences here in the UK. Instead, I will develop strong public health and education sectors so that people across the world can access high quality public services free of charge.

By providing basic services in this way we can directly address issues of inequality and begin to build societies for the many.

At the same time, we would increase the amount of aid that is spent through local organisations and reduce dependency on private for-profit development consultants who for too long have been allowed to profit handsomely from the aid budget.

For quite a long time the debate on international development has been narrowly focused on aid. How do we get it onto a broader set of structural issues?

out in my paper, a Labour DFID will work to ensure the UK’s own trade, tax and debt policies do not cause poverty, and we will promote greater democracy in global governance institutions so there is more equality in There are always going to be times international decision-making. where meeting people’s immediate And material needs underpinning this in the short term “It is not enough to ambition is my will be crucial, just look at poverty commitment to so aid-funded expand the scope humanitarian as something that of aid beyond responses will can be resolved with poverty reduction always remain a to also include priority. But it is quick-fixes. We would the reduction not enough to just seek to address the of inequality. look at poverty as Tackling inequality something that structural causes of alongside poverty can be resolved is an integral part poverty.” with quick-fixes. of building the That is why a fairer world we Labour DFID would seek to address want to see. More equal societies are the structural causes of poverty – we better for everyone – they have fewer want to see a fairer global economy health and social problems, are less where the rules are no longer rigged divided, and are better able to sustain in favour of a small elite. As I set economic growth.

10 HIGHLIGHTS FROM LABOUR’S VISION 1. Reducing inequality should become a legally binding priority for DFID 2. A structural approach to development 3. Stop privatising aid 4. Support public services 5. Radical reform of international institutions 6. Coordination across government so other policies don’t undermine development 7. A feminist development strategy 8. Tackling climate change by supporting energy democracy 9. Charity is not enough – and a charitable approach is often unhelpful 10. These issues are about social justice and redistribution of power – not technical fixes Read more at: globaljustice.org.uk/labourpolicy

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MIGRATION

Windrush Women To mark the 70th anniversary of the Windrush arriving in Britain, Windrush Women is a group of portraits featuring leading lights in the fields of activism, politics and social change from the African-Caribbean community. Curated by gal-dem magazine, illustrations by artist LAURA ELISE WRIGHT.

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1. Ingrid Pollard Ingrid Pollard is a photographer, artist and researcher.

Born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1952 she moved to England when she was four years old. Her Pastoral Interlude series explores the black figure within a rural landscape and won her wide acclaim. Pollard describes her work “as a social practice concerned with representation, history and landscape with reference to race, difference and the materiality of lens based media”.

2. Rt Hon Diane Abbott MP

Diane Abbott was born to Jamaican parents in London.

She is the Shadow Home Secretary and the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. When she was first elected in 1987 she became the first black woman to hold a seat in the House of Commons. She is the founder of the London Schools and the Black Child initiative, which aims to raise educational achievement levels amongst black children.

3. Dr Gail Lewis

Dr Gail Lewis is a sociologist who specializes in psychosocial studies of race and gender. She was a member of ‘Brixton Black Women’s Group’ and a cofounder of the ‘Organisation for Women of African and Asian Descent’. She has contributed to the ‘European Journal of Women’s Studies’ and ‘Feminist Review’ and is a trained psychodynamic psychotherapist. Her work focuses on the black feminist and anti-racist struggle through a socialist, anti-imperialist lens.

4. Marcia Rigg

Marcia Rigg is an activist, public speaker and campaigner for criminal justice. The sister of Sean Rigg, who died in a Brixton police station in August 2008 after prolonged restraint by the police, she has continued to speak out in the British media about police accountability, particularly in the context of Black Lives Matter. Rigg is also a co-chair of the ‘United Family and Friends Campaign’, which helps other families struggling for justice.

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5. Olive Morris (1952 – 1979) Olive Morris was a Jamaican-born community leader and activist and founding member of both the ‘Brixton Black Women’s Group’ and the ‘Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent’ which campaigned on issues affecting black women. She was also part of the ‘British Black Panther Movement’. Olive graduated with a degree in economics and social sciences despite leaving school without qualifications and acted as a passionate advocate for justice and equality until her premature death at the age of 27. In 2015, Morris was chosen as the first person to go on a Brixton Pound, a local currency designed to support Brixton businesses.

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TRADE

The Pacific trade deal is another corporate power-grab If trade secretary Liam Fox gets his way, the UK will seek to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership after Brexit. DOROTHY GUERRERO explains why social movements in Asia and the Americas have long been resisting it.

While campaigners around Europe were busy resisting the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in recent years, our counterparts across the world’s biggest ocean were mobilising against a similar deal: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

TPP has been controversial from the start. Tens of thousands have joined demonstrations against it across the Pacific Rim nations, dragging the talks out for years. Trade unions called it a ‘job-killer’, and many social movements in Asia linked it with struggles to defend their sovereignty as it stops their countries’ ability to use government purchasing and state-owned enterprises to serve the public good.

When the US withdrew last January, as part of Donald Trump’s nationalistic desire to demand even better terms for the US from everyone, the 11 remaining countries – Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru and Vietnam – set about resuscitating the deal, now known as TPP-11, claiming to have removed the worst.

Yet trade campaigners in TPP-11 countries see no reason why they should support it. Most of the original TPP text, including corporate courts, remains intact, with two-thirds of the thirty ‘chapters’ being identical. As Joseph Purugganan of the regional

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© Sebastian Silva/Epa/REX/Shutte rstock

Like its Atlantic cousin, the Pacific trade deal was negotiated in secret. Corporate lobbyists were given privileged access to talks that were closed to the public and only favourable views from government were shared by the media. Covering everything from rights at work to food safety, patent law to internet data security, the text threatens to hand vast new powers to transnational corporations.

At the heart of this, as in TTIP, are provisions for investor-state dispute settlement, or ‘corporate courts’, allowing companies to sue governments for anything which threatens their profits.

organisation Focus on the Global South puts it: “The agreement retains most of the toxic elements of the TPP that people’s movements across the region have rejected. At the centre of this rebranded mega trade deal is the corporate agenda which will undermine people’s rights and sovereignty”.

a Anti-TPP protes ters in Santiago, Chile, with Chile!’ placa rd reading ‘With the TPP we lose

It comes as little surprise, then, to see notoriously pro-corporate UK trade secretary Liam Fox seeking to join this toxic agreement, even if the geography is somewhat surreal. The UK would be the second biggest economy in the bloc, and would doubtless seek to facilitate bigger roles for British transnational corporations in the economies of developing countries in both regions, at the expense of the livelihoods and living standards of ordinary people.

Just as with TTIP, there will be plenty to fight.?

Dorothy Guerrero is Global Justice Now’s head of policy.

REVIEWS

Reviews 120BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) Robin Campillo Memento Films, 2017 (140 mins)

DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS: SEVEN WAYS TO THINK LIKE A 21ST-CENTURY ECONOMIST Kate Raworth Random House, 2017 What has a doughnut got to do with economics? The essence of Kate Raworth’s theory, put forward in a way that’s easy for the noneconomist to grasp, is that there should be a social foundation ‘floor’ that no one should fall below, and an ecological ‘ceiling’ of planetary pressure that we can’t exceed.

Between these inner and outer rings is a safe and just space for all: the ‘doughnut’.

The film opens in a lecture hall where a fractious meeting of young activists is taking place, personal and political differences being angrily fought out between cigarette breaks. It’s a situation lots of us have been in many times, but as the film unwinds we understand one crucial difference for these activists: their lives depend upon it.

These are the members of ACT UP Paris, a direct action network started in the US to fight for research and treatment into HIV/AIDS, to educate people about how HIV is contracted and to demand dignity in a society which saw this disease as irrelevant, or more often righteous judgment on gay people, sex workers and drug users.

As the story of these activists’ lives unfolds, we develop a more personal understanding of the impact of a pharmaceutical industry run for profit without concern for the health of the marginalised, than I have ever seen on screen. It is a very powerful film.

Nick Dearden

It is a call, in other words, for everyone’s human needs to be met while not destroying our shared habitat.

Raworth shuns the usual mechanical

economic models and their focus on GDP, instead seeing the economy as more like a living organism. Through examples from around the world, she shows what is possible if we change our current economic mindset. It’s a wide-ranging and optimistic book, emphasising that we really do have a choice of futures. But there is not much time left to make that choice!

Paul de Hoest

BACK TO BLACK: RETELLING BLACK RADICALISM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY Kehinde Andrews Zed Books, 2018 Back to Black navigates some misunderstandings about the ideology of black radicalism and what it really means today.

From arguing about the colonial depths of Pan-Africanism to the eurocentricity of black Marxism, Andrews interrogates notable figures within the intellectual tradition and connects the dots of a complex history. At the core of his argument is that black radicalism is often misunderstood as ‘liberal radicalism’, where fitting into the system surpasses overhauling it.

Andrews’ book is certainly not for the faint-hearted. It ends with an

epilogue entitled ‘It’s already too late’.

And you may not entirely agree with Andrews’ thesis either. But his analysis is important.

It’s an unflinching reminder to question the roots of our political movements, to understand their context, and to reclaim black radicalism at a time when we so desperately need it.

Radhika Patel

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YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOMORROW Leave the future to a voice you can trust to shout loudly for what you believe in Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Alongside people like you, we’re standing up to injustice and fighting for a more just world. Where we all have access to the food, healthcare and education we deserve. Where people’s lives count for more than corporate profits.

Here at Global Justice Now we are unafraid to demand what you believe in and hold the powerful to account. For decades we’ve done hard-hitting research to expose injustice, and pushed for change with communities around the world. And we promise to keep doing so long after you’re gone. You can make this possible.

In 1970 a vibrant net wor k of activist groups tackling inequality came togethe set up Global Justice Now r to (then called the World Dev elopment Movement).

Around two thirds of our income comes from people like you, keeping our campaigns fierce and our voice unrestrained. By leaving a gift in your Will to Global Justice Now you can make sure we’ll continue to fight for your values after you’re gone. A gift from you can make the difference of winning a campaign for generations to come.

“ fight are continuing to e Now supporters later Global Justic march in 2016. me lco We s ee Almost fift y years at the Refug rld, pictured here for a more just wo

I am leaving Global Justice Now a gift in my Will because the work they do is of the greatest importance. It is a long, hard battle we are embarked on – not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.

”

M Chamberlain, Global Justice Now member and legacy pledger

For more information about including Global Justice Now in your Will email Eleanor at eleanor.williams@globaljustice.org.uk or Freephone her using 0800 328 2153. Alternatively go to globaljustice.org.uk/leave-gift-your-will Global Justice Now: company no 2098198, Global Justice Now Trust: registered charity no 1064066, company no 3188734.