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Global Justice Post Brexit Public Meeting – report

At a packed meeting in Kendal Nick Dearden, National Director of Global Justice Now  and Tim Farron spoke out to emphasise the need for the right post-Brexit deal to be struck.

Nick outlined GJN’s position on seven Brexit “Red Line” issues covering protecting workers and human rights, tax justice, safe and sustainable food, preserving the UK’s sovereignty against corporate power in trade deals, and on climate change and the environment. He said “we need to overcome the hatred and xenophobia in the national debate by creating an economy that responds to people’s needs, that values equality and that is sustainable”.

Farron responded by congratulating GJN on coming up with these red lines and replied that he supported “all or most” of them. He said “if, for example, we really were to pull out of the European Human Rights Convention, we would be left within Europe in a category with perhaps only Belarus. We wouldn’t be able to speak with dignity about human rights or civil liberties anywhere in the world.

Both speakers emphasised the need for the government to respond to the climate change crisis by switching financial incentives to favour renewable energy technologies such as those supplied by Kendal firm Gilkes rather than fossil fuels.

The speakers agreed passionately about the need to reinforce Britain’s responsibility towards refugees as a key to ensuring the country remains outward looking and internationalist in the Brexit negotiations.

Nick Dearden closed the meeting by saying “We have shown by the defeat of the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP that ordinary people can change things for the better. To all those who want things to be better there’s one message – get active and make it so.”

After the meeting Tim Farron thanked Global Justice South Lakes for organising the debate.

CETA action. Handover of petition to Tim Farron – our local MP and leader of the LIB DEMS

We released a Press Release – see below. However, we wait to see if our local paper will print it!!

Over a thousand local residents sign petition against more legal powers for big corporations Last Friday, local residents including supporters of Global Justice Now and South Lakes Action on Climate Change presented a petition to Tim Farron MP signed by over a thousand of his constituents. The petition demands that provisions for a separate court system for multinational and foreign companies be removed from trade and investment agreements between the EU and Canada (CETA) and the EU and the US (TTIP), because they bypass national court systems and would enable multinational companies to sue governments for millions or billions of pounds for potential loss of future profits if decisions by governments appear to threaten their interests. There is ample evidence already of misuse of similar clauses in existing trade and investment agreements, including by US oil and tobacco companies, and by Canadian mining and fracking companies, and also evidence that government decisions have been watered down or even reversed in consequence. The provisions in CETA would open the UK to challenges from the powerful US multinationals as well as Canadian companies, because over 80% of US companies operating in the EU also have offices in Canada. We cannot risk any new climate legislation being undermined by powerful US oil companies, or any threats by big multinationals to our legislation to protect our food standards, health and safety, environment, and employment rights. These provisions are called ISDS – Investor State Dispute Settlement, or ICS – Investment Court System, and the briefing document www.bit.ly/ICSISDS provides links to useful references. 

http://groups.globaljustice.org.uk/southlakeland/2017/01/21/300/

In April 2016  Mayors and elected local representatives, participated in the first Pan-European Meeting of Local Authorities” on TTIP, CETA and TiSA. This  will hopefully help increase the number of “TTIP Free Zones” and increase “solidarity” and effectiveness in combating the constraints and loss of local democratic power that these agreements would impose on local authorities and democratically elected councils throughout Europe.

1500 councils across Europe signed the The Barcelona Declaration.  41 Uk councils have signed, including Birmingham City council.

Sue Walley of GJN-SouthLakes visited the event on day 2 as part of a GJN contingent led by GJN’s James O’Nions and gave us an excellent slide presentation on 9 May, followed by a workshop on how we can progress this with our own local councillors. Please use our Upcoming Actions tab to access action links.

Film night: This Changes Everything – Naomi Klein – 

On Friday 22nd of January we held a public showing of the film “This Changes Everything” at the Shakespeare Centre in Kendal. A full house of nearly 60 people enjoyed this film version of the book of the same name by Naomi Klein.

The film showed a number of examples of communities throughout the rich and poorer worlds who are fighting actions by large corporations, notably oil and coal companies, which threaten their homelands as well as posing a direct threat to the world generally in the form of Climate Change.

Just over half of the audience then stayed behind after the showing and held a discussion on aspects of the film and some wider subjects. The main discussion focused on what is our “front line” in the fight to protect the world from both corporate power and global climate change. The main response from the audience to this question was to focus on how we can campaign locally to make connections e.g. between local flooding and climate change and to challenging TTIP & CETA.

On 22nd August, GJN South Lakes members, along with local 38 degrees and Stop TTIP members held a very successful action at the birdcage in Kendal. Over 300 people signed the European Stop TTIP petition.

A good day!

South Lakeland WDM group have booked the Birdcage in Kendal main street for a morning of action and information relating to the new WDM campaign – Stop the Corporate Takeover of African Food.

Saturday May 24th   9.30-1.30

For more information on this campaign, click the link below;

https://www.wdm.org.uk/blog/g8%E2%80%99s-new-alliance-food-security-and-nutrition-instrument-control-african-agriculture.

Watch this space for more details regarding this action.

S Lakes WDM group picketed the Kendal branch of HSBC on 2 November about the banks investment and support for dirty energy projects around the world. 4 members of the group went into the bank and presented a cheque for 7p to the branch manager to represent the “compensation” for “renting” about 14 square metres of pavement outside the branch office. We  explained that 7p is the equivalent amount paid to Indonesian villagers who have lost their homes and land to huge open cast coal mines, which also permanently destroyed the virgin rain forest which was the villager’s main source of food and livelihood, as well as polluting their water, and causing flooding. The bank manager and a colleague of hers were friendly and politely listened to our concerns, whilst not expressing any view in either way. (except a small acknowledgment that it would be awful if it were the Lake District National Park that was being destroyed.). Interestingly HSBC staff had clearly been warned that campaigners may turn up, and were content that we give them leaflets and booklets, and have our say, as long as we didn’t obstruct customers or take photos inside the bank.

In spite of heavy rain and a few thunderstorms, local WDM activists spent 4 hours in the centre of Kendal talking to shoppers,  53 of whom signed cards to be sent to Stuart Gulliver, the CEO of HSBC. WDM will deliver a piece of coal to HSBC for each card signed, so if you haven’t signed yet, get hold of a card.

Earlier in the week 31 local people attended a talk in Kendal given by an Indonesian campaigner who explained the shocking impacts of spiralling levels of unregulated open cast coal mining on the Indonesian environment and on both rural and city peoples. The impacts and scale of these Indonesian dirty energy projects, heavily financed through the London Stock Exchange, are not as well known as those of the Canadian Tar Sands, or Niger delta oil extraction, and have an even worse effect on climate change because of the loss of rain forest.

WDM’s aim is to get transparency about the sources of finance for dirty energy projects, and this should inform the current movement for “disinvestment” from fossil fuels. See also http://gofossilfree.org/europe/  and http://www.operationnoah.org/fossilfreetour.”