Meeting held on Monday 18th February 2019
Thirteen of us welcomed one new member to the group. Four people had sent their apologies.
Brexit has so overshadowed other issues, particularly climate change (environmental degradation), which we felt was much more important. We therefore spent some time on this. The impending crisis is in the news for a day or two and is then gone. We welcomed protest, in particular the recent strikes by school children. 300 had taken strike action last week, but school responses varied. While some appeared to support the children Silverdale School, for example, even called upon the police to enforce school attendance. What can we actually do? Everything seems to require government intervention. But there are other possibilities: acting upon the interests of corporations directly, for example though disinvestment, can be effective. Investment decision taken by corporations are influenced by public opinion as well as by government. Extinction Rebellion seemed to be having success in influencing public opinion through direct non-violent action.
Labour should adopt more policies associated with the Green Party. But in general we felt that public opinion was ahead of government on environmental issues.
This was partly because of the ineffectiveness of our first past the post parliamentary system. We considered further how Citizens Assemblies might be more effective. But a question was raised as to whether they would necessarily be progressive. For example, if capital punishment were addressed by citizens assemblies would this lead to the restoration of the death penalty?
Returning to Brexit, it was suggested that a No Deal was becoming increasingly likely and indeed a preferred outcome by many, perhaps out of widespread ignorance(?). Perhaps because the Brexiter ‘voice’ is louder that the Remain ‘voice’.
The recent resignation of 7 Labour MPs seems to have more to do with dislike of Corbyn, rather than questions of EU. This led to a discussion of antisemitism in the LP. Had the LP leadership dealt badly with unacceptable antisemitism or had the issue been deliberately exacerbated by underhand pressure being applied through the Israeli Embassy? Or did the IHRC definition of anti-Semitism make it difficult to articulate critical responses to Israeli policy without risking being cast as antisemitic? Or did social media, of its nature, make aggressive communication more likely?