Michael Meacher - Labour's Future

From Comment is Free:

On Monday night, at the end of the Queen’s Speech debate in the Commons, a group of us tabled an amendment calling on the Government to review its current strategy on Iraq and then present it to the House for debate and vote. But the Speaker declined to call the amendment for a vote.

A rapid exit from Iraq must now be the single most pressing and overriding requirement for British policy. Some 3 ½ years ago I made the biggest error of judgement of my political life when I supported the war, on the grounds that the Prime Minister repeatedly assured us that if we only knew all the intelligence available to him, we would have no doubt about the necessity for this action. Like millions of others, I now bitterly resent that a Prime Minister could use such a farrago of lies and manipulation to deceive us and to take the nation to war so dishonestly.

But whatever the anger over that, the reality, as the horrendous daily carnage in Iraq shows no sign of subsiding and is actually still worsening, is that a clear strategy for rapid withdrawal must be put in place immediately. It is clear that the presence of American and British troops is the major cause of the insurgency which they do not have the power or perhaps even the will to quell. When the military themselves are saying that the presence of occupation troops is actually exacerbating the security situation, as Dannatt revealed, we need to pull our forces out as rapidly as is consistent with salvaging whatever minimum of stability can still be achieved.

But even that will only work if withdrawal is part of a whole Middle East peace settlement. A step by step approach is unlikely to succeed, only a wider international peace conference bringing together all the relevant actors for a joint settlement of the related Middle East issues of contention which have proved so intractable for so long and which cannot be resolved from experience one by one.

It might be best if such a conference were held under the auspices of the UN and involved the five permanent members of the Security Council as well as the relevant States and power-brokers in the Middle East. Blair has indeed already conceded the need to include Iran and Syria, and James Baker’s US Iraq Study Group is likely to propose the same thing. But Blair undermined his own proposal by adding preconditions – that Iran must first abandon its nuclear aspirations and end its support for terrorism in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. Yet it’s pure fantasy to expect Iran to agree to any such thing. If the proposed international conference could strike a grand bargain embracing all the parties, some of these demands might be realisable at the end of the process, but not as preconditions at the beginning.

What might be the elements of an overall Middle East settlement? For Iraq itself, it may have to involve a federal structure, but only on the basis of an agreed allocation of the oil revenues. A key part of the settlement also has to be the establishment of a fully independent and viable Palestinian State, broadly in accordance with the 1967 borders, as the only means to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end. It would also have to involve an international guarantee of Israel’s frontiers, together with a demilitarized zone along its borders with the Palestinian State and Lebanon patrolled by an adequate UN force for perhaps 10-15 years.

The negotiation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East would be a goal for the conference, but it may not be reachable. It would require nuclear disarmament from Israel in return for Iran abandoning its nuclear weapons programmes. Both processes would have to proceed in parallel and would have to be supervised closely by the IEA (the International Atomic Agency), and there would have to intrusive inspections to overcome profound mutual suspicions, as well as internationally backed sanctions. In the absence of all this, dangerous nuclear proliferation cannot be prevented.

Economically, there would need to be agreement to end the suspension of the customs union between Israel and Palestine, and once reactivated, to extend it to Jordan and Lebanon as a means to establish a Middle Eastern common market. It would also have be accompanied by international provision of reconstruction funds, and that again would have to be part of a wider political bargain.

This is hard, but not unrealistic. The US still retains considerable leverage over the Middle East, if only it chooses to use it, but no longer the capacity to impose its will on it. This is the moment when a genuine negotiation and wider international ownership of a real settlement is now possible. We should grasp it before it’s too late.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 11:40 AM | Permalink

I posted recently on government proposals to aggregate FoI requests and the cost implications they entailed. Worryingly true to form - for example the lack of a Green Paper on Trident replacement - the government is making these changes without a formal consultation. The Campaign for Freedom of Information have challenged the basis for the Government's proposals and are asking people to make informal responses as the Government has said these would be considered. The text of the CFoI email asking people to respond informally is below. There's also an article by CFoI director Maurice Frankel summarising the dangers of the government proposals.

Dear Friend,

As you will be aware the Government recently announced proposals to amend the fees regulations under the Freedom of Information Act. The effect of the proposals would be to severely restrict use of the Act and reduce the amount of information available under it.

It now appears that there isn't going to be any formal consultation on the proposals, though the Government has said it will consider any responses that are received. Therefore if anyone wishes to comment on the proposals, it's important to do so now. Responses should be sent to Lord Falconer at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, Selborne House, 54 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QW.

Briefly, the Government is proposing to introduce the following two changes:
(a) to allow the time spent considering FOI requests to count towards calculating the cost limit. This would mean the limit would be reached much more quickly and more requests would be refused on cost grounds.
(b) to allow authorities to aggregate FOI requests from the same person or organisation and refuse them all if the total exceeds the cost limit. In particular, this would limit the press and campaigning organisations to possibly no more than a single request to a particular authority within a three month period. All subsequent requests could automatically be refused on cost grounds.

The proposals are contained in the Government's response to the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee - published on 16 October 2006. The Select Committee itself said "We see no need to change the fees regulations." The Committee's report 'Freedom of Information - one year on' is available here.

The views of the Campaign are on our website. See in particular our press release of 16th October 2006 and Maurice Frankel's article for The Telegraph online.

We'd be interested to see copies of any responses you make.

Best wishes,

Katherine Gundersen
Research Officer
*************************************
Campaign for Freedom of Information
Suite 102
16 Baldwins Gardens
London
EC1N 7RJ

Website: http://www.cfoi.org.uk
Email: admin@cfoi.demon.co.uk

Posted by Michael Meacher at 01:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

What's the greatest problem facing the world today? It's not the war on terror, nor is it law enforcement. Yet the Queen's speech has just one sentence on climate change. The bill will anyway probably not include annual targets which is the one thing that would make the government's climate change programme much more effective - while terror and law enforcement have eight separate bills or projects.

Of course the government must give absolute priority to protecting the security of the nations against terrorist or any other threats. But endlessly ratcheting up the controls over every aspect of our national life, in the process undermining the very civil liberties and freedoms that the whole policy is supposed to be protecting, will never deliver real security unless we address the underlying motives. If we are tough on security, equally we need to be tough on the causes that generate our insecurity. And there is no doubt that the rage that drives terrorist activity is prompted by the horrendous daily carnage in Iraq, the refusal to condemn the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon and the widespread perception among Muslims of a grossly imbalanced policy favouring Israel to the neglect of the Palestinians.

Dealing with these causes that jeopardise our security will be difficult, but there is no other way. We need to commit to withdrawing our troops, or at least the great majority, as soon as possible and within a year. We've got to give the highest priority, through our influence with the EU and US, to achieving a viable, sustainable Palestinian state - probably the only way to stop al-Qaida recruitment. We need to demonstrate a much more even-handed policy between Arab states and Israel in the Middle East. And we need to do much more to promote positively the integration of Muslim citizens in this country in terms of employment, housing and education, and to promote a positive culture that doesn't allow Islam to be equated with all that is vicious, wicked and dangerous.

Doing all those things would achieve more than anything else in diminishing the terrorist threat - certainly much more than the continuous and relentless authoritarian crackdowns which undermine the values we all want to uphold.

(Originally published on Guardian Unlimited Thursday 16 November 2006.)

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So Gordon Brown wants to extend the 28 day limit for holding terrorist suspects without charge - presumably to 90 days which Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner of Jean Charles de Menezes & Forest Gate fame has been asking for.

Why? There hasn't been even a single case where the police have been required to release someone after 28 days, when they have indicated they wanted to hold someone for longer but were legally unable to do so.

So why now all this concerted pressure to extend imprisonment to 90 days? Is that why Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, is choosing at this moment to tell us they know of 1600 supposed terrorist suspects, 200 cells and 30 plots? Is that why Sir Ian Blair tells us the "sky is dark" across Europe? And now Gordon Brown jumps on the bandwagon, showing the same kind of reflex authoritarianism we have got used to from Tony Blair.

Of course we have to take all reasonable actions to protect national security. But locking someone up for 3 months without charge is destroying the very goal of a free society that our security policy is supposed to be safeguarding and we certainly shouldn't do that unless there are over-riding and compelling reasons, in a national emergency situation. And when the police have given no convincing reasons, we should not do so.

This is not the way to fight any threat of terror. We should be looking to the causes of such activities and addressing those, not cracking down indiscriminately in a way that destroys Habeas Corpus, which has been the cornerstone of liberty in our country for 800 years. Yes we should be tough on security. We should also be tough on the causes of insecurity.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 10:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Blogging has had to wait for the past few days as I've been preparing for the launch of Labour's Big Change, which took place yesterday. You can see the full text of the launch statement here and you can also see who else is backing the campaign, get involved and offer your own support, which seeks to put Climate Change front and centre in a way that has not been done before. It should inform every single aspect of government policy, not just be an add on to parts of transport and energy.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 06:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If Labour is going to win the next general election, we need a fundamentally new direction of travel for the new Government after the election of a new Leader and Deputy Leader. We have lost 4 million votes since 1997 and more than half our membership. This is not just because of the Iraq War, it is also because we are widely perceived, both in the Party and the electorate, to be going down the wrong track over a range of policies. We are losing support too because the style of government – spin, manipulation, centralising power at the top and not listening to the people – is unacceptable. We need radical change on both counts.

We need more than corrections of where we have clearly gone badly wrong – over Iraq, Lebanon and subservience to Bush, over the centralisation and unaccountability of Government today, over the growing and unacceptable inequality between rich and poor, over the privatisation of our public services, over the decline of manufacturing
and the weakness of workplace rights, and over the continuing erosion of civil liberties. What we need above all is a vision of a new direction which can fire the imagination of today’s generation.

What is the biggest threat facing the world today? It isn’t the so-called war on terror, whatever Bush may think. It isn’t the risk of nuclear war, now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union disbanded. The overriding political issue today, the danger that could overwhelm much of the planet, much of the human race, if not in our lifetime but certainly in that of our children or grandchildren, is climate change.

It’s not just the dramatically increasing frequency and ferocity of hurricanes, unprecedented flooding, rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, or melting permafrost. Nor is it just the inextinguishable forest fires, the drying out of millions of hectares of croplands which will no longer produce food, or the mega-dustbowls from Northern China to the American mid-West. What is really frightening is that climate change is not a linear process, but a dynamic and unstable one. Scientists say there are tipping points where a gradual process suddenly explodes out of all proportion, where positive feedback effects abruptly accelerate climate change in unpredictable and overpowering ways – like the dieback of the Amazon, the release of billions of tonnes of methane hydrates from the ocean floor, or the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets. If any of those happened in the next 50-100 years, the impact on human civilisation would be incalculable. There is no precedent – we are entering uncharted territory.

Now some may say: but that won’t affect us here in the UK, or at least not in our lifetime. Both assumptions are wrong. The UN predicts 50 million environmental refugees by the end of this decade, and where will they come to if not the richer, more settled, northern regions like the UK? The WHO estimates that 9 out of the world’s 10 most dangerous vector-borne disease will increase their coverage worldwide. If the ocean pump fails, the Gulf Stream will collapse and the UK temperature will plummet to that of Siberia. And as to not in our lifetime, Jim Hansen, George Bush’s leading climate modeller – no less – said recently we have “at most 10 years” to make the drastic cuts in emissions that might head off climate catastrophe.

So what should be done? Labour has to become the Party that will lead the world in a fundamental change of direction. It requires a change in how we think about our economics, energy, water management, food security, transportation, international policies, and the nature of civilisation itself. We have to move from the peripheral and tinkering to the profound and visionary.

Tackling climate change is the overarching policy which should permeate every other policy in government – not just energy, but transport, industry, building, agriculture, public expenditure and taxation, and foreign policy. Put bluntly, we will never have food security, water security, or energy security in this country (or anywhere else) unless we give absolute priority to combating climate change.

So what specifically should a new Government do?

We should be shifting away from massive old-fashioned power stations to decentralised energy systems (wind and solar power, and micro-generation plants in people’s homes), together with much more ambitious investment in large-scale offshore wind farms.

We should require the airline industry (like every other industry) to reduce year by year their emissions which are the fastest growing source of global warming.

We should increase VED massively for gas-guzzling cars and use the proceeds to subsidise bus and rail, plus give a rebate to smaller-engine car owners.

We should require industry to measure and make public their environmental and climate change impacts, not only greenhouse gas emissions, but their energy efficiency, waste generation, water consumption, and transport impacts, and reduce them year by year.

We should incentivise local food production which would regenerate British agriculture, dramatically cut air miles, and protect security of supply.

We should tighten building standards so that all new construction at least meets the most energy efficient standards already met in Europe and Scandinavia.

We should give each family, according to its size, a carbon entitlement which then has to be reduced each year in such a way so as to reward the conscientious and penalise the wasteful.

And in order to meet the target set by scientists of at least 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with 1990, Government should set a target of 3% annual reduction in overall UK emissions, set out the new mechanisms to achieve this, publish the results each year, and make whatever changes are necessary year by year to keep the UK on track.

Underpinned by this comprehensive policy, Britain should gain the moral and political authority to lead the way internationally in pressing all other countries, especially the US, China and India, to commit to an enhanced and extended new Climate Change Protocol beyond 2010.

Above all, we should eliminate the biggest political threat to world security today by leading the world out of dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, the struggle for the dwindling supplies of which lies at the heart of the incessant murderous carnage in the Middle East. We do that by huge new investment in renewable sources of energy, in which Britain is unusually well endowed, and by a massive targeted programme in energy conservation. Britain, because of its offshore location, has more wind-power capacity than the rest of Europe put together, but we are using only a tiny fraction of it. At present only 4% of our electricity generation comes from renewables. In Germany, France, Italy and Spain it is 15-25%, and in Scandinavia 25-35% or more. And our waste of energy – in transport, construction, industry, agriculture, and private households – is prodigious.

This is a win-win-win-win scenario. It will bring about a huge step-change in the efficient use of energy, it will save very considerable sums of money both for industry and some of our poorest households, it will protect our society against sudden destabilising external shocks, and it will safeguard the environment from the apocalyptic nightmare of climate change. It is not a utopian vision. It is highly practical and resolutely necessary if the world is to survive in a sustainable form. It will excite the imagination and galvanise our Party by restoring our commitment to a greater and deeper collective cause which has always been our inspiration.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)