Campaigners in fight with energy giants over 100-mile pylon route through Highlands

Herald Scotland Online
Sun, 2 April 2023 

Energy firm SSEN has put forward plans for a network of pylons to run for about 100 miles through the Highlands. (Image: PA)

Campaigners including a clan chief have vowed to fight power giants seeking to construct a “critical” new line of pylons through the Scottish Highlands.

Energy firm SSEN has put forward plans for a network of pylons to run for about 100 miles between Spittal, in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland, to Beauly, near Inverness.

The plans are seen as critical in moving renewable energy generated in the Highlands to more populated areas of central Scotland and England.


But a new campaign group has been formed in a bid to urge the power firm to reconsider parts of the route – with campaigners vowing to seek a public inquiry if the line as currently planned is “bulldozed through regardless of local feeling”.

Members of the Strathpeffer and Contin Better Cable Route Group want a third party to be brought in to work with both SSEN and local residents to plot a less disruptive route for the line.

As it stands, they fear pylons which are “Glasgow tower block size” could be “marching along the skyline, carving a swathe through the wood”.

READ MORE: 'Super pylon' plan emerges to run through Scots countryside

Group spokesman Dan Bailey said: “We’re talking as big as they get in terms of overhead pylons, through a landscape that has no built environment over a couple of storeys.”

HeraldScotland: Undated handout photo of Lower Strathconon.


Mr Bailey, from the Highland village of Strathpeffer, said the plans were for pylons between 50m and 60 in height to be placed every few hundred metres along the route – adding that the only consultation with residents had been about where in a 1km-wide strip of land these should be sited.

He said: “The line they have chosen as their preferred route, it is potentially the most damaging line they could have chosen on all sorts of measures, environmental, habitat loss, rare species, the fact that it carves through a really valuable local resource of recreational woodland that is used by walkers and mountain bikers in their thousands.

“It just damages the landscape setting of Strathpeffer, which is a historic Victorian spa village and a heritage centre. It is like nothing we will ever have seen.”

HeraldScotland: Undated handout photo of Ben Wyvis.


The Strathpeffer conservation area, the ancient Knockfarrel hill fort, Castle Leod and its woodlands, and the Loch Kinellan crannog, which is a scheduled monument, could all be impacted, campaigners say.

READ MORE: Highland road 'unsuitable for learners' named among world's most dangerous

Mr Bailey said residents of both Strathpeffer and the nearby village of Contin “feel like we are going to be collateral damage in the national drive to net zero”.

He claimed SSEN has drawn up its preferred route using desk-based computer modelling “with no on-the-ground assessments for habitat loss, rare species, the impact on landscape quality in a tourist area”.

He continued: “This will absolutely destroy the thing that brings people to the area.

“We are on the edge of the Highlands, we are a scenic, accessible location, we have got campsites, we have got hotels, mountain bike businesses, walking guides, wildlife watching, all of these things feed into the local economy and all of these things are under threat if you plough the line through the wrong part of our area.”

A different route could “substantially mitigate” the impact of the new power line, which SSEN is consulting on until April 14.

But with a lengthy public inquiry having to be held before approval was granted for the similar Beauly to Denny power line, Mr Bailey said: “We will do everything we can to try to trigger a public inquiry if the preferred route is just bulldozed through regardless of local feeling.”

He added: “Scottish ministers have a role to play in this, and the system they preside over is in danger of steamrollering local people.”

John Mackenzie, the Earl of Cromartie and the current chief of Clan Mackenzie, is among those voicing concerns.

He said that locals had been “told at short notice with limited time to assert our democratic rights, that 60m high pylons would be marching across our scenery, cutting across homes and villages as if this area was some industrial wasteland”.

He added: “This is not a wasteland, this is an area of natural beauty where people come to live because it is a good place to bring children up, to work and to appreciate just how wonderful it is.

“In Europe, power lines running across areas of outstanding scenery would be undergrounded, so why not here?”

Helen Smith of Rowan Tree Consulting, which specialises in tourism and heritage projects in the Highlands, said: “The huge threat to heritage in the Strathpeffer area is repeated right along the route from Caithness to Beauly.

“Every moor, strath and glen the pylons will cross has special sites, some dating back 6,000 years, and even if these sites do not end up with huge pylons on top of them, their surrounding landscape will be drastically affected.”

SSEN said that “in order to support the continued growth in onshore and offshore renewables across the north of Scotland, supporting the country’s drive towards net zero, further investment in network infrastructure is needed to connect this renewable power and transport it from source to areas of demand across the country”.

The company’s website added that “following extensive system studies, Spittal to Beauly has been identified as a critical corridor in establishing this required reinforcement”.

A spokesperson for SSEN Transmission said the project was “part of a GB wide programme of works that are required to meet UK and Scottish Government 2030 renewable targets”.

They added: “Whilst delivering this critical national infrastructure by 2030 requires an acceleration of the project development and delivery phases, we remain fully committed to work closely with the local community and wider stakeholders to help inform our design and it is important to note that the project remains in the early stages of development and no specific overhead line route alignments have been identified.

“We are currently seeking feedback on potential route options within approximately 1 kilometre wide areas and preferred substation locations, with this feedback helping inform more detailed overhead line route options and our proposed substation site selections, which we will further consult on later this year.”

UK

Clean energy start-up Xlinks wins Abu Dhabi backing for £18bn project

Sky News
Mon, 3 April 2023


An Abu Dhabi-listed energy company is in advanced talks to provide financial backing to Xlinks, a British-based startup hoping to build the world's longest undersea cable to help meet future UK energy needs.

Sky News has learnt that Taqa, which has operations spanning oil and gas, water and carbon capture and storage, is negotiating the purchase of a significant stake in the prospective £18bn project.

Sources said that an agreement could be struck within weeks as part of development capital fundraising which Xlinks is close to finalising.

In total, the British company is expected to raise more than £30m of new funding in its latest round.

Octopus Energy, the group which has become one of Britain's biggest residential gas and electricity suppliers, is also thought to be participating.

Xlinks wants to construct a 3,800km cable between Morocco and the UK that could transmit enough electricity to power more than seven million British homes.

It would involve a large-scale onshore wind, solar and battery electricity generation site in the north African country supplying power exclusively to the UK energy grid.

The project, which is expected to cost £18bn to fund, received a significant boost last week when it was named by the government as a project of interest in its energy blueprint, Powering Up Britain.

'Vital national interest'

"The UK's energy security is a vital national interest: so too, however, is the urgent need to stick to the government's 2035 net zero electricity system target and avoid short-term thinking that may derail the transition to clean, abundant sources of energy," Simon Morrish, Xlinks chief executive, said last week.

"We welcome the government's determination to work with Xlinks to implement our renewable energy venture.

"This first of its kind Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project will meet up to 8% of the UK's electricity demand with renewable energy, reducing consumer bills and adding to security of supply in the process."

'Frustratingly slow' talks with Whitehall

The government's support comes five months after Sir Dave Lewis, the former Tesco chief executive, complained of "frustratingly slow" talks with Whitehall about providing support to the project.

Xlinks' ambitious proposals to transport energy from the Sahara to Devon via a subsea cable represents a mammoth engineering assignment.

The development funding will fuel the technical aspects of Xlinks' work, with the ambition of the link running at full capacity by the end of the decade.

The company has assembled an impressive board which also includes Sir Ian Davis, the former Rolls Royce Holdings chairman, as a non-executive director.

It will need to advance plans to secure the billions of pounds of financing required to construct vast facilities in Morocco as well as UK factories that would manufacture the necessary subsea cable.

'One of the most sophisticated British energy projects ever conceived'

Manufacturing sites in Hunterston, Scotland - where a nuclear power plant is being decommissioned - on Teesside and at Port Talbot in Wales have been secured and are under development.

The cable manufacturing operations will be overseen by XLCC, which will have separate funding arrangements from Xlinks.

Xlinks intends to raise a combination of debt and equity to fund one of the most sophisticated British energy projects ever conceived.

The company was founded by Mr Morrish, a former winner of the accountancy firm EY's entrepreneur of the year award.

Xlinks believes its £18bn blueprint will be attractive to investors for a number of reasons, not least because of the scale of the clean energy it would deliver that would make a significant contribution to Britain's transition to net zero emissions.

'Low geopolitical risk'

Sir Dave has previously said that a crucial factor would be Xlinks' low geopolitical risk because of Britain's centuries-old trading relationship with Morocco and the north African country's ambitions of growing the energy sector as a share of its exports.

The company also says it will be able to deliver energy at £48-per-megawatt hour, below the government's own forecasts and therefore generating long-term savings for consumers.

It is also significantly cheaper at that level than the nuclear energy due to be generated by a new fleet of power stations being built in the UK in the coming decades.

Xlinks has not been seeking direct government funding, but is in talks with officials about settling on a predictable price that a Contract for Difference mechanism would provide.

Octopus Energy struck a financial and strategic partnership with Xlinks last year.

An Xlinks spokesman said the company did not comment on "market rumour or speculation".

In rural America, big solar projects often get a frosty welcome

Ulysse BELLIER
Sun, 2 April 2023 


From her century-old home, Susan Burns has watched the sun set over her cousin's field every day for 75 years. Now her cousin has agreed to have solar panels installed on the field, and an unhappy Burns finds herself in a fight.

Huge solar farms are being planned in this corner of Missouri, and as in other rural areas of the United States, residents sometimes are yanking the welcome mat.

Foreseeing vast expanses of solar farms replacing cropland, Burns began raising the issue with other community members at the Baptist church across the road.


She fears much may be at stake: "(I) lose my view. I lose my health. I lose my safety."

A group has formed around Fulton to fight the solar installations, as has happened in rural areas across the country. And this emerging grassroots movement is slowing the transition to low-carbon electricity in the world's largest economy.

- Land registry -

"I want to live and take care of my farmland. And the idea that my cousin, who lives across the road, would be turning his farmland into an industrial area was very disturbing to me," Burns told AFP from her country home.

With a dozen other volunteers, Burns organized a public meeting to sound an alarm. As people walked in, a petition awaited their signatures, and activists invited the curious to study a land registry map with three areas highlighted showing proposed solar farms.

"If we unite, we can stop this," said Joe Burns, Susan Burns's son, before a crowd of about 100 in Fulton, the county seat.

- Threat to identity -

The US electricity grid generates 60 percent of its power from fossil fuels. The administration of President Joe Biden is trying to turn the tide toward renewable energy.

But grassroots protests against solar projects "will significantly delay America's commitment toward getting to net zero," said Jungwoo Chun, a lecturer on climate and sustainability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Like other academics interviewed by AFP, Chun insisted that it would be an oversimplification to see the opposition as a simple matter of the NIMBY -- or "not in my backyard" -- dynamic.

"Farmers have a particular identity," said Doug Bessette, an assistant professor at Michigan State University and co-author of several studies on the matter.

"It's hard work, it's dirt under your fingernails. And now if that land is... just basically laying fallow with solar panels on it for 20 years, that's a disruption to identity."

Differing visions have pitted farmer against farmer, and even divided families.

In the southern part of Callaway County, two neighbors nearly came to blows, said one, whose house may end up surrounded by solar panels.

- Do the math -

Leaning on his tractor, cattle farmer Mike Webb pointed to one of his parcels.

"That piece of ground just across the road here," he said, "I may make 250 to 300 bucks an acre on a good year.

"And then when someone comes around and asks me, 'Hey, we're willing to give you $1,000 an acre (per year) for solar panels, and give you a 2 percent increase per year for a 40-year contract,' it gets your interest," Webb said.

So he signed on.

"It should be my right to do what I want to do with my place," he said.

At a crossroads, with grain silos looming in the distance, a sign calls for a fight against solar projects.

"It drives me crazy," Webb blurted out as he walked past, denouncing the resistance of a "minority" of the population.

Here in northern Callaway County, word is that the first shovels for one of the three solar farms could come as early as this summer, although that is not confirmed by the Ranger Power renewable energy company.

The developer of the 250-megawatt project (enough to power nearly 43,000 homes) told AFP that its $300 million investment would, among other things, allow local homeowners "to sustain existing family farms."

"It's free money," said Webb, who is thinking about his retirement and about the day when some of his four children will take over the farm.

"Whether they like it or not, it's going to be an income for them. And you know, that's what matters to them."

ube/vgr/tjj/bbk/dw

Tallest solar-sided building in North America under construction in Halifax

Halifax will be home to North America's tallest solar wall

Nathan Coleman
Mon, April 3, 2023 

Tallest solar-sided building in North America under construction in Halifax

Halifax will soon be home to the tallest wall of solar panels in North America. The renewable energy source is now being installed as part of a retrofit on the side of the Loyola residence building at St. Mary's University in Halifax.

"It's not something we were aiming for, to be the biggest and the best, it just happened," said Facilities Management Senior Director Dennis Gillis in an interview with The Weather Network.

Engineers at St. Mary’s started looking at the integrity of the concrete façade of the 30-year-old building two years ago and determined it needed to be replaced. The school was hoping to integrate sustainable elements when they discovered that solar panel siding was an option.

Gillis said the concept is fairly prominent in Europe and slowly coming around in Canada.

Tallest solar wall - St Marys University - Nate Coleman
SMU electrical engineering students get a firsthand look at the innovative retrofit. (Nathan Coleman)

"It'll definitely provide power to the university and it'll lower our carbon footprint which is also very important too," Gillis added.

He explained that the panels will generate about 100,000 kilowatt hours per year with a carbon reduction in the range of 15 to 20 cars a year off the road.

Electrical engineering students at the university have also been monitoring the project firsthand as the construction progresses.

You can watch the installation process and check out the panels in the video above.

Thumbnail image: A rendering of what the panels will look like once construction is complete. (St. Mary's University)

Solar panels could be a lifesaver for public housing tenants grappling with Australia’s soaring energy costs

Benita Kolovos
Sun, 2 April 2023 


Natalie Rabey doesn’t know how much time she has left. But she knows what she wants to do with it.

“While I’m still breathing I’d like to get some action on solar panels for people in public housing because it’s just terrible at the moment,” she says.

The 73-year-old public housing resident has spent more than a decade advocating for improved living conditions for public tenants in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs. She says with the cost of living soaring, she has never seen so many people doing it so tough.

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“A lot of people around here are getting help from the Salvos and neighbourhood houses with food, especially pensioners. How are they supposed to pay their power bills, medication, groceries when it’s all going up by so much?” Rabey says.

Related: ‘I was in tears’: collapsed ceiling in family home a sign of dire state of NSW public housing

“I know some people are just not turning their heaters on in winter, while the ones who have air conditioners, they don’t use them at all in the summer because they can’t afford to. Others are just switching everything off.”

For Rabey, this is not an option. She has permanent scarring on her lungs following a viral infection that put her in hospital for nine weeks. As a result, she needs to use an oxygen machine, and run two air purifiers and a compressor 24 hours a day.

“I don’t know what it’s going cost me as we head into winter because I have to keep the heating on throughout the night, because otherwise in the morning it’s freezing and I start coughing up,” Rabey says.

She is backing a push by the Victorian Public Tenants’ Association (VPTA), to install solar panels on every public housing property in the state.

In its state budget submission, the VPTA, the peak body representing existing public housing renters and those on the waitlist, estimates 23,500 existing public housing properties are suitable for installation of rooftop solar panels.

It could save each household up to $535.49 each year in lower energy bills.

The VPTA chief executive, Katelyn Butterss, said the proposal would tackle cost-of-living pressures for low-income households, help Victoria reach its emissions reductions targets, and create more than 1,000 jobs.

“Homeowners, people who live in community housing and those in private rentals have had an opportunity to access subsidised solar panel installations, while the tenants of Victoria’s biggest landlord – the director of housing – are the only people left behind,” she said. “It’s time they also reaped the benefits.”

The VPTA’s submission also calls for a program that would see vacant property owners lease their homes to the government for temporary inclusion in the public housing stock for up to 15 years.

The government would pay participants market rent plus 1%. To encourage owners to join the program, the government could increase the vacant residential land tax or apply it to more parts of the state, the submission states.

Butterss said the idea followed the release of 2021 Census figures last year, which showed there were 1m unoccupied properties across Australia – or 10% of all housing stock – on census night.

Related: Rural housing crisis: short-stay accommodation demand in NSW towns is dire news for long-term locals | Elias Greig

“That’s really hard to reconcile when in Victoria, there are more than 100,000 individual Victorians waiting for access to safe, secure, affordable housing,” she said.

She described the proposal as a “stopgap” until the government’s $5.3bn “Big Housing Build” to construct more than 12,000 new homes eventuates. However, she warned it was likely these new properties would make only a small dent on the “very swollen waitlist”.

Rabey is keen to stress that most people in public housing don’t want to be there.

“Sometimes stuff happens to people in their lives that they can’t control,” she says. “I only ended up here because my brother’s business went down. That’s life. So we should try to make it a bit easier when we can.”

“I don’t know how long I have left but I want to see this one through.”

‘They know what’s at stake’: inside the longest-running industrial action at an Australian university

Caitlin Cassidy
Sun, 2 April 2023 

Photograph: AAP

The usually bustling University of Sydney campus is a ghost town on Friday morning, aside from a groundskeeper on his lawnmower and the occasional police car.

One hundred metres down the road, though, dozens of union members are belting out Red Flag and The Internationale to the toots of trucks and a chemistry lecturer’s french horn.

Related: Australian universities advised to avoid being ‘roped into’ multi-employer bargaining, leaked strategy reveals

Friday was the eighth day of strikes since an epic 21-month enterprise bargaining process began.

Hundreds of staff gathered to block off nine main entrances to the campus on Friday to reject management’s latest enterprise agreement proposal, representing the longest industrial action at any university in Australia.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) say management has refused to implement satisfactory controls on staff workloads, and are calling for job-security for casual and professional staff, a reduction of education-focused roles and a parity target for Indigenous employment.

Under the current agreement, management has agreed to preserve the 40-40-20 model, ensuring academic loads are split evenly between research and teaching, with 20% of time allocated to administrative work.

But it’s pushing to create 650 education-focused positions with a 70% teaching workload, while new academic roles will be increased by 10% to 330 positions.

The education positions were rejected this week with “dismay and incredulity” by emeritus professor Derrick Armstrong, who was responsible for introducing the roles and says they’ve become a way to reduce costs for the university while detaching the value of research from education.

At the picket at the Ross Street entrance, music blares all day, and students join staff armed with banners, flags and instruments. If the stakes weren’t so high, it might almost feel like a party.

Alma Torlakovic, member of the NTEU branch committee, is running the Ross Street picket. “We’re teaching a new generation of students how to fight,” she says.

“We’ve just had two unprecedented meetings in a row … it’s boosted people’s energy and spirit.

“Most staff would agree … people with any kind of job security have the best wages and conditions [nationally]. That’s what’s inspiring people to come out and lose pay – they know what’s at stake.”

A record 700 members attended the NTEU’s latest meeting to vote broadly in favour of a further eight and nine days of industrial action.

It came after management’s latest offer, which outlined a 17.1% pay increase over three years and a $2000 sign-on bonus.

A spokesperson for the University of Sydney says the pay increases are the best in the sector and it’s “disappointing” the union voted to continue with industrial action.

“Throughout the protracted negotiation process, we have never once modified our position due to industrial action, but only in response to good-faith negotiation at the bargaining table,” they say.

“The unions put forward more than 100 claims in this negotiation, more than any other university in Australia has had during similar negotiations.”

For classes going ahead in person, “roaming” strikers use interference tactics to “Zoom picket” tutorials and disrupt lessons. Where classes are running, normal attendance policies apply, while cancelled classes don’t rack up absences.

Yasmine Johnson is one of about 200 students at the university who’ve come out in support of academics.

“The things staff are facing, actually affects students too … they’ve [management] been trying for years to make classes bigger, meaning that tutors don’t have time to really mark students’ work,” she says.

“Student definitely understand. Lots of them stay at home for the strike days [and] students have been going around to classes before the strike and getting them to vote in support.”

Members of the NTEU at the University of Sydney on Friday, the eighth day of strikes since the 21-month enterprise bargaining process began. Photograph: AAP

Senior coordinator at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Dr Jason Todd is at the Carillon Avenue picket, dressed in the union’s purple. He’s running a clinical trial on prostate cancer and says his department is struggling to retain staff.

“Workloads are getting out of control … it’s hard to hire people when you can get much better offers in the private sector,” he says. “People are burnt out.”

Related: Australian university sector makes record $5.3bn surplus while cutting costs for Covid

Nick Riemer, NTEU branch president at the university, tours the picket lines on his pushbike.

He says some university cohorts, including the business school and law faculty, which were not previously active in industrial matters, have been radicalised during this campaign.

“We can’t go on striking forever, but we have to until we meet our minimum objectives … and we haven’t got that yet.”

This story was amended on 3 April, 2023 to correct that the University of Sydney’s pay increase offer is over three, not four, years.

Super tax breaks costing $45bn a year are ‘inheritance schemes’ for Australia’s rich, new report says


Peter Hannam Economics correspondent

Guardian Australia
Sun, 2 April 2023 

Photograph: Flashpop/Getty Images

The Albanese government could save the budget billions of dollars by winding back generous superannuation benefits that effectively produce “taxpayer-funded inheritance schemes” for the wealthy, a new Grattan Institute report argues.

The “super savings” report says such tax breaks now cost $45bn a year, or 2% of GDP, and will soon exceed the age pension costs. Two-thirds of the breaks go to the top 20% of income earners who typically are already saving enough for retirement.

“Much of the boost to super balances from tax breaks is never spent,” it said. “By 2060, one-third of all withdrawals from super will be via bequests – up from one-fifth today.”

Brendan Coates, one of the report’s authors, said the projected huge federal budget deficits and mounting demands for more spending on the NDIS, defence and other programs gave urgency to reining-in “unfair and unsustainable” super benefits.

“Our super tax breaks have been too generous for a long time,” Coates said.

The biggest changes were introduced by then treasurer Peter Costello in 2006 and “both sides of politics have been gradually chipping away at the tax breaks ever since,” he said.

Related: Coalition’s super changes will affect three times as many people as Labor’s plan, modelling shows

The 10 recommended changes include raising the so-called division 293 tax on super contributions from high earners from 30% to 35%, and cutting the annual income threshold at which this tax applies from $250,000 to $220,000. The budget would reap $1.1bn a year from the change.

To make the scheme more equitable, the low-income superannuation tax offset should be extended to those earning as much as $45,000 a year, up from $37,000 now. That change could cost $530m annually.

The Albanese government drew the ire of some investor groups and media pundits in February when it announced earnings on super balances above $3m would be taxed at a rate of 30%, up from the current 15%, starting in July 2025. Shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, criticised the move as an “attack on middle Australia”, while the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has promised to repeal it if the Coalition wins office.

The public’s response to that move – which is expected to affect about 80,000 people initially – was “actually heartening” and should encourage the government to go further, Coates said. “Polling of that change shows it has been wildly popular despite intense media commentary.”

Related: Young Australians are struggling, but improving their lives doesn’t come at the expense of older generations | Alison Pennington

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is busy preparing his second budget –– to be released on 9 May. At the end of last year, the underlying cash deficit for the 2022-23 year was expected to be almost $37bn with the annual shortfall rising to about $50bn in 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Treasury officials are understood to have listened respectfully to the proposals but for now are sticking to the tax changes already planned for the $3m-plus super accounts.

Other changes proposed by the Grattan report include reducing the pre-tax contributions cap to $20,000 a year, from $27,500.

The move would save the budget $1.6bn a year by trimming voluntary contributions typically made by older people with already-high balances. Men also typically benefit much more than women.

Provisions that allow co-contributions and carry-forward provisions, intended to encourage catch-up payments, instead “facilitate tax minimisation and should be abolished” it said. Savings to the budget would be about $1.1bn a year.

The report said all super earnings in retirement should be taxed at 15%, as they are before people retire. Such a change would save the budget $5.3bn annually.

Coates said warnings that changing super conditions would alter people’s retirement plans were exaggerated.

“We change tax rates on personal income all the time,” he said, adding that the proposed changes would bring superannuation back in line with its original purpose. “This isn’t about blowing up the system.”

Mikhail Bakunin

Report of the Committee on the Question of Inheritance

FIRST INTERNATIONAL WORKINGMENS ASSOC. 1877

The Committee proposes the following resolutions:

Whereas the right of inheritance is one of the principal causes of the economic, social, and political inequality which governs,the world; Whereas, so long as there is no equality, there can be neither freedom nor justice but only oppression and exploitation—slavery and the labor of the people; Therefore, the Congress recognizes the need to abolish fully and completely the right of inheritance.

Citizens,

This question, which will be discussed at the Basle Congress, is divided into two parts, the first being the principle, and the second being the practical application of the principle.

The question of the principle itself should be considered from two standpoints: expedience and justice.

From the standpoint of the emancipation of labor, is it expedient, is it necessary, to abolish the right of inheritance? In our opinion, to ask this question is to answer it. What can the emancipation of labor mean, if not its' deliverance from the yoke of property and capital? And how can property and capital be prevented from dominating labor and exploiting it so long as they are divorced from labor, monopolized by the members of a class who need not work in order to live because of their exclusive enjoyment of the fruits of that monopoly, who will continue to exist and to keep labor down by levying on it land's rent and capital's interest, who are made strong by this state of affairs, and who thus secure for themselves all the profits of industrial and commercial enterprises as is the case now everywhere, leaving to the workers, who are themselves crushed by the mutual competition into which they are forced, only what is absolutely necessary to keep them from starving to death?

No political or juridical law, however severe, will be able to prevent this domination and exploitation, no law can prevail against the force of circumstances, no law can prevent a given situation from producing all of its natural results: From this it clearly follows that, so long as property and capital remain on one side and labor remains on the other, the former constituting the bourgeois class and the latter the proletariat, the workers will be the slaves and the members of the bourgeoisie will be the masters.

But what separates property and capital from labor? What distinguishes the classes economically and politically from one another, what destroys equality and perpetuates inequality, the privilege of the few and the slavery of the many? It is the right of inheritance.

Need we demonstrate how the right of inheritance gives rise to every economic, political, and social privilege? Plainly, it alone maintains class differences. Through the right of inheritance, both natural and passing differences among individuals, of fortune or prosperity, differences that should not outlive the individuals themselves, are eternalized, one may say petrified. Becoming traditional differences, they create privileges of birth, they establish classes, they become a permanent source of the exploitation of millions of workers by mere thousands of the well-born.

So long as the right of inheritance is in effect, there can be no economic, social, and political equality in the world; and so long as inequality exists, there will be oppression and exploitation. In principle, then, from the standpoint of the all-round emancipation of labor and laborers, we must desire the abolition of the right of inheritance.

It is understood that we do not intend to abolish physiological heredity, that is, the natural transmission of physical and intellectual abilities, or to be more precise, that of muscular and neural abilities from parents to their children. This transmission is often unfortunate, for it causes the physical and moral maladies of past generations to be passed on to present generations. But the disastrous effects of this transmission may be fought only by applications of science to individual and collective social hygiene, and by a rational and egalitarian organization of society.

What we want to abolish, what we must abolish, is the right of inheritance, which was established by jurisprudence and which constitutes the very basis of the juridical family and the State.

It is also understood that we do not intend to abolish sentimental inheritance. By this we mean the passing on, to children or friends, of objects of slight value which belonged to their friends or deceased parents, and which, because of their long use, have personal meaning. Substantial inheritance is what guarantees to heirs, either in full or in part, the possibility of living without working, by levying upon collective labor either land's rent or capital's interest.

We intend that both capital and land—in a word all the raw materials of labor—should cease being transferable through the right of inheritance, becoming forever the collective property of all productive associations.

Equality, and hence the emancipation of labor and of the workers, can be obtained only at this price.

Few are the workers who do not realize that the abolition of the right of inheritance will in the future be the ultimate condition of equality. But some fear that if it is abolished now, before a new social organization has guaranteed the lot of all children regardless of the conditions under which they are born, then their children will find themselves in financial difficulties after their death.

"What!" they say. “From the sweat of my brow and through great privation, I have amassed two or three or four hundred francs, and my children will be denied them!" Yes, these will be denied them, but in return they will be cared for by society, without prejudice to the natural rights of the mother and father, and they will receive an upbringing and an education which you could not guarantee them even with thirty or forty thousand francs. For it is clear that as soon as the right of inheritance is abolished, society will have to take responsibility for all costs of the physical, moral, and intellectual development of all children of both sexes born in its midst. It will become their supreme guardian.

We shall stop here, because at this point the question joins that of all-round education, on which another committee should report to you.* But there is another point we should clarify.

Many persons hold that if the right of inheritance is abolished, then the greatest stimulus that impels them to work will be destroyed. Those who so believe still consider labor a necessary evil or, to speak theologically, the result of Jehovah's curse, which he angrily hurled at the unhappy human race and in which, by a singular caprice, he included the whole of creation.

Rather than enter into this solemn theological discussion, we shall base ourselves on the simple study of human nature, answering those who disparage labor, by saying that for every person who possesses human capabilities, labor, far from being an evil or a painful necessity, is a need.

To be convinced of this, you may conduct a simple experiment on yourself: force yourself to be absolutely inactive for only a few days, or to do sterile, unproductive, and stupid work, and see whether at the end you do not feel most unhappy and degraded! Man's very nature compels him to work, just as it compels him to eat, drink, think, and speak.

If labor is hated today, this is because it is excessive, brutalizing, and forced, because it is the death of leisure, because it deprives one of the possibility of enjoying life fully, and because nearly everyone is compelled to apply his productive energy to that type of labor which least fits his natural inclinations. Labor is hated, finally, because in this society, which is founded on theology and jurisprudence, the possibility of living without working is considered an honor and a privilege, and the need to work for a living is regarded as a sign of degradation, a punishment and a disgrace.

When the labor of body and mind, manual and intellectual together, is considered the greatest honor, the sign of virility and humanity, then society will be saved. But that day will never arrive so long as inequality reigns, so long as the right of inheritance has not been abolished.

[Examining the principle of the abolition of inheritance from the second standpoint, we ask:] Will this abolition be just? But if it is in everyone's interest, in the interest of humanity, how could it be unjust? We must distinguish historical, political, and juridical justice from rational or simply human justice. The first has ruled the world until now, making it a repository of bloody oppressions and injustices. The second will emancipate us. Therefore let us examine the right of inheritance from the standpoint of human justice.

A man, we are told, has acquired through his labor several tens or hundreds of thousands of francs, a million, and he will not have the right to leave them as an inheritance to his children! Is this not an attack on natural right, is this not unjust plunder?

First, it has been proven a thousand times that an isolated worker cannot produce very much more than what he consumes. We challenge any real worker, any worker who does not enjoy a single privilege, to amass tens or hundreds of thousands of francs, or millions! That would be quite impossible. Therefore, if some individuals in present-day society do acquire such great sums, it is not by their labor that they do so but by their privilege, that is, by a juridically legalized injustice. And since a person inevitably takes from the labor of others whatever he does not gain from his own, we have the right to say that all such profits are thefts of collective labor, committed by a few privileged individuals with the sanction of the State and under its protection.

Let us proceed.

The thief who is protected by law dies. With or without a testament, he leaves his land or his capital to his children or to his parents. This, we are told, is a necessary result of his individual freedom and his right; his desires must be respected. But a dead man is dead for good. Outside of the altogether moral and sentimental existence created either by the pious memories of his children, parents, or friends (if he deserved such memories) or by public recognition (if he rendered some real service to the public), he no longer exists at all: He therefore can have neither freedom nor right nor personal will. Ghosts should not rule and oppress this world, which belongs only to the living.

So that he may continue to will and to act after his death, a juridical fiction or political lie is necessary, and as he is henceforth incapable of acting by himself, some power—the State—must take responsibility for acting in his name and for him. The State must execute the'will of a man who can have no will because he no longer exists.

And what is the influence of the State, if it ts not everyone's influence organized to everyone's disadvantage and to the advantage of the privileged classes. Before all else, it is the production and the collective strength of the workers. So do the masses of workers have to guarantee the principal source of their poverty, the transfer of inheritances, to the privileged classes? Must they forge with their own hands the chains that shackle them?

For the right of inheritance, which is exclusively political and juridical and hence contrary to human right, to collapse by itself, the proletariat need only declare that it no longer wishes to support the State, which sanctions its slavery. The abolition of the right of inheritance is enough to abolish the juridical family and the State.

Moreover, all social progress has proceeded from successive abolitions of rights of inheritance. First, the right of divine inheritance was abolished, the traditional privileges or punishments which were long considered the result of either diving benediction or divine malediction.

Then the right of political inheritance was abolished, resulting in the recognition of the sovereignty of the people and the equality of citizens before the law. At present, in order to emancipate the worker, the human being, and to establish the reign of justice on the ruins of all the political and theological injustices of the present and the past, we must abolish economic inheritance.

The last question to be resolved addresses the practical measures we must take to abolish the right of inheritance. The right of inheritance may be abolished in two ways: either by successive reforms or by social revolution.

It can be abolished by reforms in those fortunate countries, which are very few in number if they exist at all, where the class of property owners and capitalists, the members of the bourgeoisie, inspired by a spirit and a wisdom that they now lack, finally realize the imminence of social revolution and earnestly desire to come to terms with the world of the workers. In this case, but only in this case, the path of peaceful reforms will be possible. By a series of successive, prudently planned modifications, mutually agreed between the workers and the members of the bourgeoisie, the law of inheritance could be abolished completely in twenty or thirty years, replacing the present customs of property, labor, and education with collective labor, collective property and-all-round upbringing and education. It is impossible for us to determine further, the character of these reforms, for they must necessarily be adapted to the particular situation in each country. But in all countries the goal remains the same: the establishment of collective property, collective labor, and individual freedom, through universal equality.

The way of revolution will naturally be shorter and simpler. Revolutions are never made either by individuals or by associations. They are brought on by the force of circumstances. The International by no means has as its goal the making of the revolution, but it ought to take advantage of [the spirit of R]evolution, organizing it as soon as it appears as the result of the increasingly clear injustice and ineptitude of the privileged classes. We must understand ,that on the first day of the revolution the right of the inheritance will simply be abolished, along with the State and juridical law, so,that on the ruins of these injustices the new international world may then appear, the world of labor, science, freedom, and equality, organizing from itself the bottom up, by the free association of all productive associations, across all political and national frontiers.

The Committee proposes the following resolutions:

Whereas the right of inheritance is one of the principal causes of the economic, social, and political inequality which governs,the world; Whereas, so long as there is no equality, there can be neither freedom nor justice but only oppression and exploitation—slavery and the labor of the people; Therefore, the Congress recognizes the need to abolish fully and completely the right of inheritance.

This abolition will be accomplished as. events require, either by reforms or by revolution.

*No such committee was formed; but see "All-Round Education" in this volume:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/action/text/edit/mikhail-bakunin-on-the-question-of-the-right-of-inheritance/m-b-mikhail-bakunin-on-the-question-of-the-right-o-1.pdf

UK Passport Office strike: 'Huge delays' for renewals as staff begin five-week walkout

James Cheng-Morris
·Freelance news writer, Yahoo UK
Mon, 3 April 2023

Queues at passport offices are expected as staff are set to go on strike for five weeks. (Getty Images)

A five-week strike by Passport Office workers will cause “huge delays” for people looking to renew their passport, a union has warned.

British holidaymakers are bracing for severe disruption as more than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union began more than a month of industrial action.

The staff in passport offices in England, Scotland and Wales will take part in walkouts, which are scheduled to run until 5 May.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, warned: “In my opinion there will be huge delays in the already 10 weeks that people are supposed to apply for passports, and there will be huge disruption on the fast-track service that people can use when they want to get a passport quicker.

Read more: Who is on strike today in the UK?

“The Government says it has got contingency measures in place so we’ll see how that works out over the next few days and weeks, but I would expect there to be delays.”

The PCS union has warned of possible delays that could impact holidaymakers.

 (Getty Images)

He said there has been “radio silence” from the Government without even “one minute” of negotiations since strikes began.

Civil servants are to strike throughout April, culminating with another walkout by 133,000 workers at the end of the month, the PCS announced.

It said the huge stoppage will take place on 28 April in an escalation of the long-running dispute over pay, jobs, pensions and conditions.

With the summer holidays only a few months away, Yahoo News UK explains why some Passport Office staff are striking and when people should renew their passports if they are going abroad.

When and why are Passport Office workers striking?

More than 1,000 PCS members working in Durham, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newport, Peterborough and Southport will walk out from 3 April to 5 May. Members in Northern Ireland's Passport Office are currently being balloted.

It’s an escalation of a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.

General secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Our members are not backing down in this dispute.

“Ministers need to take notice that we’re escalating our action and they need to resolve the dispute by putting money on the table.

“We know our strikes have already caused serious disruption. The new strikes and another national day of action will pile the pressure on a government that refuses to listen.”

When do I need to renew my passport by?

Ultimately, the Passport Office says it can take “up to 10 weeks” for the renewal process to be completed, though a recent National Audit Office report said the processing time for “straightforward applications” was just 12 days in September last year.

Even so, if we go by the Passport Office’s guidance, 10 weeks is getting well into summer holiday territory.

Also, consider a quarter of the Passport Office’s 4,000-strong workforce will be striking for half of this time.

And the fact the office processes six million passport applications a year. This averages 115,000 a week, meaning about 600,000 applications could be received during the five-week strike period where there will be a depleted workforce.

Given you have no chance of going abroad with an out-of-date passport, it’s best not to leave anything to chance.

Strike or no strike, it’s safest to apply as soon as possible if your current passport is expiring (also note that if you're visiting an EU country from the UK, your passport will need to be valid for at least three months after the date you intend to leave, and be less than 10 years old).

Could it affect my summer holidays?

The PCS, as mentioned above, warned the strike will have a “significant impact” on the delivery of passports. But the government, responding to the union's announcement, has said there are no plans to change the 10-week guidance.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “There are no current plans to change the guidance that people should allow up to 10 weeks to get a passport.

"The Home Office will work hard to manage the impact of this strike action to ensure they can still provide the vital service to the British public as you would expect ahead of ahead of the summer where we fully acknowledge that many people will want to get away and enjoy the summer with their family.

“So we will do everything we can to mitigate the impact of the strikes.”

Read more: 'People used to clap': Why striking junior doctors are so fed-up
How much do passport workers earn?

The average figure is not available on the government's website, but current vacancies at the Passport Office show salaries of £22,400 for a document controller, up to £27,650 for a counter fraud officer and up to £27,650 for a customer service team leader.

Serwotka said the government is treating its "own workforce [including Passport Office staff] worse than anyone else".

"They’ve had six months to resolve this dispute but for six months have refused to improve their 2% imposed pay rise, and failed to address our members’ other issues of concern."

Passport Office staff paid less than supermarket workers, claims union


Emma Lawson
Mon, 3 April 2023 

Passport Office staff in Scotland could make more money “working in a cafe or supermarket”, a union representative has said as workers begin a five-week strike in a row over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.

More than 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) at eight sites are walking out in an escalation of the long-running row.

Workers are picketing outside eight Passport Office sites across the UK, including in Glasgow, and calling for a 10% pay rise.

PCS Scotland branch secretary Andrew Bain told PA news agency: “We’ve actually had two pay rises this year, because our lowest grade would have fallen under the National Minimum wage. That’s just how close we are to the breadline at the moment.

“We think 10% is perfectly fair, we have half of our members spending 50% of their wages on housing. It’s not a great situation for us to be facing.

“We’ve got members who are having to rely on Government benefits and foodbanks just to get through the month. It’s a shocking situation for workers of the Government to be in. They could find better wages working in the cafes and shops in Glasgow.”

He added: “We’ve got examiners doing complex case work on nationality and things like that and it seems like they would be better off to work for the likes of supermarkets, where there are higher wages and far less stress, being told you’re only worth 2% has a massive impact on your morale and mental health.

“We’re only in this position because the Government refuses to engage with us. We are at a crisis point.”

PCS members are striking over pay and conditions (Jane Barlow/PA)

Mr Bain said the Government was approached six months ago when the issue of a pay rise was brought up, but since then there has been no more conversation with them.

When asked about possible disruption facing those renewing passports, he added: “The Government is still adamant that the 10-week policy will remain in place.

“Before the strike action was happening, we received a turnaround of about 14 days of renewal, so in all likelihood it might still be a 10-week period for passport applications.

“At the end of the five weeks, we’ll be back in the office processing these applications and if the Government was actually to come to the table and talk to us about this, and offer a decent pay rise, we would be back in work tomorrow to process the applications.

“We will be able to get most passports out the door once we’re back in the office, but there will be a knock-on effect, there always is.

“There was one last year when we were working at full capacity and we still had a backlog. A lot of it is panic. I would say if you don’t need to renew your passport just yet, don’t renew your passport.”

Picket lines are also being mounted outside offices in England at Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough and London; plus Belfast in Northern Ireland and Newport, Wales.

The union is stepping up strikes, with a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for April 28.

The Home Office said the Passport Office has already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year, and added that more than 99.7% of standard applications are being processed within 10 weeks, with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.

There are currently no plans to change official guidance which states that it takes up to 10 weeks to get a passport.

UK

Risk of cancelled appointments and long waits during junior doctor strikes


Abigail Beaney
Mon, 3 April 2023 

NHS junior doctors on the picket line outside the Maidstone Hospital in Maidstone, Kent. (Image: PA)

Appointments may be cancelled and patients may be waiting longer than normal as junior doctors will be striking for 96 hours in East Lancashire next week.

East Lancashire Hospital Trust has warned patients that they may experience disruption to services next week during planned industrial action by the British Medical Association and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association.

Junior doctors are set to strike from 7am on Tuesday, April 11 until 7am on Saturday, April 15 in a dispute with the government over pay.


East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, which provides services across a range of settings including Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital, Burnley General Teaching Hospital, Clitheroe Community Hospital, Pendle Community Hospital and Accrington Victoria Community Hospital, is trying to minimise disruption and will continue to provide essential services.

Despite this, the trust has warned that some planned appointments and procedures may be cancelled and that cancellations could be at late notice.

Lancashire Telegraph: Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital

Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital

The trust has also said there may be longer waits to be seen than usual.

Executive director of Integrated Care, Partnerships and Resilience, Tony McDonald said: "Our number one priority is to ensure that those in greatest need continue to have access to high quality care during the industrial action.

"We are doing everything we can to minimise disruption but there is no doubt that some services will be impacted and the industrial action is set to take place immediately after the Easter bank holiday, which is always a very busy time for the Trust.

"If you have an appointment at any of our hospitals, please assume this is going ahead - if we need to rearrange any appointments or procedures, we will contact you directly to let you know.

"Regardless of any strike action taking place, it is really important that patients who need urgent medical care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and life-threatening cases, when someone is seriously ill or injured, or their life is at risk.

"Please help us by thinking about the most appropriate service for your need - if it is not life threatening or an emergency, use NHS 111 online or call 111 and a clinician will be able to advise what to do."

Dr David Levy, medical director of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, said: “We ask people to continue to use services wisely during industrial action and take simple steps to help ensure care is available to those who need it most.

"If you need health advice on a day of strike action, but it is not an emergency, try NHS 111 Online and a clinician will call you back if needed. Please continue to only use 999 or A&E in emergency and life-threatening cases - when someone is seriously ill or injured, or their life is at risk.

“During strike action we will prioritise resources to protect emergency treatment, critical care, neonatal care, maternity and trauma, and ensure we prioritise patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery.

"We will only cancel appointments and procedures where it is necessary and will reschedule immediately, where possible. The NHS will contact you if your appointment needs to be rescheduled. If you have not been contacted, please attend your appointment as planned.

“The public’s support during previous periods of industrial action has been invaluable and we are immensely grateful to them for continuing to use NHS services appropriately during these times of pressure.”

Communities are being encouraged to think ahead to the Easter weekend and industrial action to ensure that should they order repeat prescriptions, that they do this in plenty of time and that should a friend or relative need picking up after a hospital discharge, that this is done as early as possible to free up beds.

More information can be found on the Trust's website elht.nhs.uk or through their social media profiles on Facebook and Twitter.

UK teachers reject government pay offer amid labor unrest


Mon, April 3, 2023 

LONDON (AP) — Teachers in England rejected the government’s latest pay offer on Monday, raising the specter of more strikes and further disruptions for parents and children as double-digit inflation sparks labor unrest across the country.

News that teachers had voted to reject the offer came as U.K. passport workers kicked off a five-week strike that threatens to cause headaches for travelers ahead of the summer holiday season.

Immediately after announcing the results of the ballot, the National Education Union scheduled one-day strikes for April 27 and May 2.

The walkouts are the latest in a wave of strikes that has disrupted Britons’ lives for months. Public-sector workers including doctors, train and bus drivers, airport baggage handlers, border officers and postal workers are demanding pay increases to keep pace with inflation, which stands at 10.4%.

A cost-of-living crisis fueled by sharp rises in food and energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left many struggling to pay their bills. Unions say wages, especially in the public sector, have fallen in real terms over the past decade.

The government had offered teachers an average 4.5% pay increase, plus a one-time payment of 1,000 pounds ($1,233), which it described as “fair and reasonable.”

But the offer was rejected by 98% of the teachers who took part in a ballot on the proposal.

The offer was unacceptable and did nothing to address the shortage of teachers in England, NEU Joint General Secretaries Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney said at the union’s annual conference.

“The offer shows an astounding lack of judgment and understanding of the desperate situation in the education system,'' they said in a statement.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan countered that the government had negotiated in good faith and that the union's decision was extremely disappointing. She said pay would now be decided by the independent pay review body.

“After costing children almost a week of time in the classroom and with exams fast approaching, it is extremely disappointing that the NEU have called more strike action,'' she said.

Earlier Monday, 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union at the Passport Office walked off the job as they too demand higher pay. The strike is taking place as Britons seek to renew travel documents in preparation for their summer vacations.

Despite fears of delays, the government hasn’t changed its estimate that it will take up to 10 weeks to get a passport.

Danica Kirka, The Associated Press

Teachers in England and Wales facing ‘unmanageable’ workload, survey finds

Richard Adams Education editor

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, 2 April 2023 

Photograph: Chris Bull/Alamy

Teachers have said they are facing “unmanageable” levels of stress and workload, before the result of a crucial vote that could trigger further strikes and school closures in England in the coming weeks.

Some teachers surveyed by the National Education Union (NEU) reported turning to antidepressants to cope, while 48% said their workload was unmanageable all or most of the time. In contrast, just 1% of teachers said their workload was always manageable.

The findings come as the NEU’s annual conference on Monday will learn if its members have voted to reject the government’s pay offer, which would lead to strikes on Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 2 May.

NEU members in England have been balloted on whether to accept the government’s offer last month of a one-off £1,000 payment for this year and a 4.3% pay rise for most teachers from September, with the government also offering a new taskforce to explore cutting teachers’ workloads.

Members of the NASUWT teaching union as well as the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of School and College Leaders are also being consulted on the offer.

The almost 18,000 teachers and support staff in England and Wales who responded to the NEU’s survey said workload and stress were major issues that appeared to be getting worse compared with previous surveys.

Nearly two-thirds of teachers in England said they “very often” worried about their wellbeing, a significant rise compared with the results of a similar NEU survey two years ago when fewer than half said they were very often worried.

The NEU joint general secretary Mary Bousted said: “We have known for a number of years that workload is the number one reason teachers decide to leave the profession, and it remains a major concern for support staff also. It is a key driver of the recruitment and retention crisis, where talented graduates suffer burnout within just a few years of qualifying.”

The NEU’s results echo the findings of an unpublished survey for the Department for Education (DfE), revealed by Schools Week. The DfE’s survey found that one in four teachers in England were considering leaving the state sector in the next year, with almost all blaming high workload. The pressure of Ofsted inspections and government policy changes were also blamed by large numbers, followed by pay.

The DfE’s survey also found that more than one in five teachers were working 60 hours or more each week during term time. Three-quarters of the 11,000 teachers and school leaders surveyed said they had “unacceptable” workloads and spent too much time on administration.

Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said the results would “alarm parents across this country and could be disastrous for children’s education”.

The NEU’s delegates to the annual conference in Harrogate will also meet the union’s new general secretary, Daniel Kebede, after his victory in the members’ ballot.

Kebede, a primary school teacher, won in a landslide among the 9% of members who voted in the first leadership contest since the NEU was formed in 2017, after the merger of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.