At Global Justice Brighton & Hove we’ve a lot of experience in challenging the power of corporations through actions and campaigns.

When we first heard about TTIP we went out onto the streets and started raising awareness through street theatre, stalls, linking up with other groups and just generally shouting (articulately) rather a lot.

It worked. Yay! TTIP is now dead in the water. However the fight never stops.

We’re now focusing on what a post-Brexit Britain will look like. Under May’s Conservatives, cosy trade deals with U.S. corporations look likely – with all the lack of welfare regulations and care for the environment they’ll drive in as part of the deal.

Worst of all, the deals will be locked in for life so no future governments will be able to get out of them.

But fear not: together we are stronger than divided, and if the powers that be think they can drive through trade deals that benefit big business at our expense without anyone noticing, they’ll soon be thinking again.

So here’s what you can do.

If you live in Brighton or Hove: get along to one of our local group meetings. Second Tuesday of the month at the Old Ship Hotel on the seafront (get more info here). We can’t do anything without people like you getting involved. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much or little you know. All are welcome, and we’re all very friendly, honest 😉

Join our facebook group and sign up to our email list.

Join national Global Justice Now if you haven’t already. We can all send off a signed postcard, at least. Many drops make an ocean. Let’s stop the corporate bully boys in their tracks.

Much love

Global Justice Brighton & Hove

It’s a busy Saturday afternoon, and I’m sneaking around the aisles and clothing rails in the Brighton branch of Marks & Spencer with a pack of small cards featuring a particularly toxic Daily Mail cover story.

The putrid little slogans that I’m slotting into swimwear hangers and sweetie packs are actually the action cards for Global Justice Now’s latest campaign.

Our aim is ultimately to ask Marks & Spencer, a company founded by a Jewish refugee, and proud of its ethical policies, to help us call out and hold to account the Daily Mail for their divisive and derogatory reporting of migrants. We’re asking the company to cease their advertising deals with the Daily Mail – a key source of the paper’s revenue – and take a stand against the spread of anti-migrant hate.

Watch this space for more news on the campaign, and if you like take the time to email Steve Rowe, the CEO of Marks & Spencer, asking him to pull their advertising from the paper.

Global Justice Now and HOPE not hate are running a workshop for activists around the sensitive issue of communicating about migration. The training will be held on 8 April 2017.

Interested activists should book tickets on Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/having-difficult-conversations-about-migration-tickets-32511191850

Our ‘CETA snake’ made an appearance in Brighton on Sunday 6 November #CETA #StopCETA

The Comprehensive Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU was recently signed by EU officials and the Canadian prime minister. Now the deal is scheduled for a vote in the European Parliament in early 2017. Then it has to be ratified by the 28 EU member states. However, there is a high chance that CETA is up for preliminary application, i.e. its implementation before full ratification by all member states.

Like TTIP this so called trade deal is more about the protection of investments. It is a tool by big business to secure high profits, while workers and the environment will pay the price as the experience with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) shows. CETA will also give sweeping new powers to big corporations including a mechanism to sue local and national governments if they see their profits threatened by new legislation passed in the public interest to protect workers’ rights and wellbeing and the environment. As all big US corporations have subsidiaries in Canada, they will be able to sue European and Canadian governments for compensation.  Find out more about CETA in the Global Justice Now briefing.

What can you do? Demand a parliamentary debate in the House of Commons. And write to your MP or MEP to tell them why it’s a bad deal and demand that they reject it.

Global Justice Brighton & Hove are proud to present an OurScreen showing of the acclaimed documentary This Changes Everything, based on the best-selling book by Naomi Klein. 

We’re hoping to screen the film at 9pm on Monday 22nd February 2016. But we need to sell 55 advance tickets to make it happen before we’ll be able to show the film at the Duke’s at Komedia cinema on Gardner Street in the North Laine.

Tickets are available from the OurScreen website at £10 each so please do buy in advance and then tell your friends.

Once our screening’s confirmed, come along early on the night to grab a drink and some food, meet like-minded people, and – if you’re interested – find out more about how to get involved in the Brighton campaigning scene. Then stay for the film and leave fired up and ready for change!

You can also tell us you’re coming and ask questions via our Facebook event page here.

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What if confronting the climate crisis is the best chance we’ll ever get to build a better world?

Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.

Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.

Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.

On the latest international day of action against the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership – which saw 250,000 people marching in Berlin – Global Justice Brighton & Hove dropped a banner outside Brighton’s iconic Royal Pavilion to protest at the highly controversial trade negotiations between the European Union and the USA.

The banner with the legend “#STOPTTIP” remained in place for several minutes before the protestors were ejected by the Pavilion’s security team.

“We came here today to alert our fellow Brighton residents of the dangers posed by the potentially devastating Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP,” said Anna Cartwright, one of the campaigners.

She continued, “Over three million European citizens have signed a self-organised petition against this secretive trade deal, which will benefit huge corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens, and yet the juggernaut of trade negotiations still continues.”

Under the terms of the trade deal, currently-banned food products will be allowed to enter the market, the National Health Service could be opened up to private tender, and legislation intended to protect the environment will be quashed.

Also coming under fire from protesters is CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement), which will allow further privatisation of public services, and will pave the way for multinational corporations to sue governments in private courts over policy changes that will affect their profits.

Anna said, “Both deals are a direct attack on democracy, as they will give corporations massively increased influence over government policy in areas such as healthcare, food safety and the environment.”

“However, many individuals, groups and organisations have been working tirelessly across Europe and the United States to ensure that the trade deal and its contents are brought into the public eye, such as today’s international action and our banner drop this afternoon.”

“We had a great response from passers-by, many of whom were unaware until today of the many trade negotiations taking place in the European Union without consultation of its citizens.”

Here we are on 25th July on Brighton beach before we started our game of giant monopoly where the Hat (big business) gets to privatise our basic services and take money away from the Boot (the rest of us). Now UK aid money’s being used to support electricity privatisation in Nigeria – find out more & give corporate-controlled energy the boot! http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/campaigns/climate-and-energy

… Don’t be!

Come to our next monthly meeting – get inspired, get organised and get ready to fight for a fairer world.

We CAN succeed, but we CAN’T do it alone. Join Brighton & Hove’s campaign for global justice. It’s time for a change.

Here are some photos from the excellent #noTTIP banner drop on Brighton beach & pier in November. Earlier in the day, a stall on London Road attracted tons of attention from Brightonians eager to sign the European petition and find out more about the trade treaty that will put yet more power in to the hands of big corporations