We’ll hold Labour’s feet to the fire – Mick Lynch, RMT

30th June 2024Leave a Commenton We’ll hold Labour’s feet to the fire – Mick Lynch, RMT

“We need to find people that want to work with us, rather than knock us on the head — which is where we’ve been for the last 40 years under an extended period of Thatcherism.”

Mick Lynch, RMT General Secretary

RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch spoke to The Morning Star’s Elizabeth Short on holding Starmer to account over his promises to scrap anti-strike laws and renationalise rail, and for the lack of a transformative green new deal to create jobs and tackle the climate crisis.

In the countdown to the general election, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch’s message is resolute: “The main task ahead of us for anyone that’s in any way progressive — is to get the Tories out.”

The Morning Star caught up with him amid a barrage of pre-election interviews and just ahead of the union’s AGM.

RMT has not shied away from criticising Labour — as a socialist union, it’s hard not to. Yet Lynch remains practical — the only way to end the Tories’ 14-year reign is by getting Labour in.

“But that doesn’t mean we’re giving a blank cheque,” he says.

RMT has not always engaged with Labour in the same way as other trade unions and has not been affiliated with the party since 2004.

Its links were severed after several branches backed the Scottish Socialist Party, in exasperation with the direction of Blair’s New Labour.

“We’ve got a bigger Labour group of MPs that we co-ordinate in Parliament than we ever had when we were affiliated,” Lynch says.

“We will have Cabinet ministers probably in our RMT group. So we could exert influence and take part, but with a sort of uniqueness of identity.”

He vowed to hold the party’s feet to the fire on repealing the draconian Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, which requires a percentage of staff to cross their own pickets during industrial action.

The pledge is part of Labour’s New Deal for Workers, and Lynch says that RMT, along with other unions, will apply the pressure to make sure it stays “undiluted.”

Among Labour’s other pledges are plans to bring passenger rail under public ownership, something which Lynch describes as a “major step.”

Although, he points out, the plans do not extend to freight and rolling stock — the carriages and locomotives leased by private companies.

Bringing rolling stock into public ownership is complicated, Lynch admits: “One of the difficulties is that they’ve been set up confidentially with commercial firms, and they are 25 to 30-year contracts.

“So with all the priorities that Labour’s got, it wouldn’t be easy with the best will in the world to unravel those contracts.”

One striking omission from Labour’s manifesto is the absence of a green new deal, a programme to decarbonise Britain, which was initially backed by the party in 2019. And in this, transport would have had a pivotal role.

“I think it would have been transformational,” Lynch says. “Transport, carbon emissions and the new energy revolution are all one thing, they’re all knitted together.”

While green policies could have prompted a switch from car use to public transport, a transition to more high-speed rail could have resulted in a “modal shift” from aviation, Lynch says, as seen in plans in China and South Korea.

Fundamentally, though, backing away from green policies is a great loss for working-class communities.

“Council housing stock would have been updated, insulated, improved,” Lynch says.

“People’s bills would have come down, which would have been a great help, but we could also have generated thousands and thousands of jobs in our community where we re-skilled working-class people.”

Such a transition could have a profound impact on employment, creating opportunities in areas such as heating engineering, construction and insulation.

“You’ve got to have a political party that’s got the ambition and the depth of vision that says I’m going to do all of these things and we’ve got to co-ordinate them all together.

“At the moment we’re just getting a very tight fiscal settlement that’s not very ambitious.”

In a world of rampant job insecurity and the Uberisation of work, the union remains steadfast in championing campaigns that support some of the most exploited workers.

One of the RMT’s priorities has been to get better deals for subcontracted workers such as cleaners and caterers, and ultimately, to put an end to outsourcing — change which could ripple through to other industries.

“I think what’s unique about it is we still have the ability to fight on those issues because we haven’t lost so much ground as many other sectors have,” Lynch says.

“So if you take hospitality, bar work and catering work, that’s completely non-unionised — more or less — people are working casually and being super-exploited.

“But if you do that work on the railway as a catering worker — you’ve still got terms and conditions, you’ve still got a pension, you’ve still got union recognition.

“So that’s why we keep going really, because we want to bring those benefits back to everybody else if we can.”

Among their achievements, the union secured a 21.21 per cent pay increase for contracted-out caterers working on TransPennine Express services last year.

In 2022, over 40,000 RMT rail workers voted to strike in the biggest industrial action since privatisation nearly 30 years prior.

The powerful scale of industrial strength prompted hysterics from Grant Schapps, the transport secretary at the time, who branded the rail unions Luddites, in the face of legitimate concerns for safety and workers’ rights.

“Technology is good if it’s in the hands of the right people,” Lynch says.

“If it’s in the hands of super-exploitative capitalists like Bezos and Elon, then they’re just going to cast people out of jobs.”

Technological advancements may lead to shorter working weeks — or fragmented shifts.

“But we can’t have people just driven into impoverishment because technology has moved forward,” Lynch says.

“People talk about productivity, but there’s no point in pushing up the retirement age if there’s not enough work for people who are already under the retirement age.”

“It’s a big conversation, and we can’t just allow the companies and the employers to be in charge of that.

Lynch says it is more of a societal question about the nature of work and how to distribute wealth to look after everyone going forward — which may mean conversations around universal basic income.

“If we can’t provide enough work for people, we can’t just cast them out into some kind of nether region of unemployment with no prospects going forward.”

He concludes: “But we need to find people that want to work with us, rather than knock us on the head — which is where we’ve been for the last 40 years under an extended period of Thatcherism.”

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• You can follow the RMT on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
• This article was originally published by The Morning Star on June 25th, 2024.

Briton who founded charity helping Ukrainian soldiers dies ‘in battlefield’

Nadeem Badshah

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, 1 July 2024 


Peter Fouché had helped build a field hospital in Kyiv before setting up Project Konstantin.Photograph: Project Konstantin/X


A British man who founded a charity providing support to Ukraine soldiers has died while fighting in the country, the organisation said.

Peter Fouché died last Thursday “in the battlefield” after getting badly injured “in combat against Russian forces”, Halyna Zhuk, commercial director and co-founder of Project Konstantin, said in a video message.

Fouché set up the charity in 2022 as a team of independent volunteers that provide essential supplies such as drones and food to Ukrainian soldiers. It also evacuates the soldiers and civilians and delivers humanitarian aid to conflict zones near the frontline.


In a statement shared on X on Sunday, Project Konstantin said: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of Pete, our beloved director and founder. There are no words that can do Pete’s life justice. No words or phrases that could ever encapsulate how much he meant to all of us.

“Pete’s unwavering dedication, endless compassion, and relentless commitment to Ukraine and her people have left an everlasting impact on the countless lives he touched.”

Fouché had previously helped to build a field hospital in Kyiv before he founded Project Konstantin and later enlisted as a contracted soldier with the armed forces of Ukraine, according to the charity’s website.

It added that his “extraordinary” actions would “for ever be etched in our hearts”, and described his loss as the “worst nightmare”.

“Pete was more than a leader; he was a beacon of hope, a true hero, and a friend to all,” the charity said. “His wisdom, compassion, and faith in God inspired us every day.”

Project Konstantin became a registered charity last year and has thus far helped to evacuate 219 Ukrainian soldiers, according to its website. A Foreign Office spokesperson said it was supporting the family of a British man who had died in Ukraine and was in contact with local authorities.

Last September, a former British army soldier who had gone to the country to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers was found dead in a body of water with his hands tied behind his back.

Jordan Chadwick, 31, who served in the Scots guards from 2011 to 2015, had travelled to Ukraine to fight in 2022.

In August 2023, Samuel Newey, from Solihull, was killed while fighting in east Ukraine, his family said. The 22-year-old had been volunteering as a fighter in Ukraine for more than a year.

Other Britons who have died in the country since the invasion by Russia in February 2022 include Simon Lingard, 38, from Blackburn, and Jordan Gatley, who died fighting Russian forces in the city of Sievierodonetsk in June 2023.

Scott Sibley, 36, died in April last year in Mykolaiv after a drone dropped mortars on his regiment and Craig Mackintosh, from Norfolk, was killed while volunteering as a medic in September 2022.

Met Police are trying to SHUT DOWN pro-Palestine demo on 6 July to ‘protect Labour’

 

by The Canary
1 July 2024

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its coalition partners have condemned attempts by the Met Police to prevent a pro-Palestine march in central London on Saturday 6 July, and called upon the police to accept the compromise route which has been suggested. Organisers say cops are doing this to ‘protect the new Labour Party government from embarrassment’.
Pro-Palestine march on 6 July

The pro-Palestine march on 6 July will be the 16th major demonstration in London since Israel began its genocidal attack on Gaza in October 2023.


However, despite following all the normal protocols in coordinating with the police, the march organisers have not been offered any central London start or end point for the demonstration, in contrast to every other occasion.

No persuasive reason has been given by the police and the organisers believe it reflects a political consideration not to have a new government, which all the polls indicate will be led by Sir Keir Starmer, overshadowed by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators seeking to end UK complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Coalition behind the marches had notified the police of the intention to hold a demonstration over a month ago, and have had meetings to discuss several routes which have become well established over the last nine months.

In a meeting with the Gold Commander on 21 June, no objections were raised about the proposal to rally in Whitehall at the end of the march, and it was agreed that the police would confirm acceptance on 24 June.

Despite the coalition organisers chasing the police for confirmation that day, no communication was received until 26 June when the police indicated that they would not allow a march which ended on Whitehall or Parliament Square, citing the need for businesses, tourists, the media, and politicians to have access to that area all day.

Met Police protecting the new Labour government?

The marches have been overwhelmingly peaceful by the police’s own admission and with few arrests – just two out of 175,000 people at the last demonstration. Despite this the police have sought to reject these proposals without providing any convincing justification.

The coalition has written to the police suggesting a compromise route beginning on the Embankment, marching via Parliament Square to the Israeli Embassy. This would occupy one side of the square for a maximum of two hours as protestors marched though and leave Whitehall completely free.

The police have been asked to respond positively to this compromise to allow the march to proceed without hindrance.

Stop The War Coalition said in a statement:

We believe the [Met Police’s] aim is to ensure an incoming (Keir Starmer) Government is not confronted with the views of hundreds of thousands of people demanding an end to the genocide.

Ben Jamal, PSC director, said:

Keir Starmer is facing his first test on the willingness of his government to support the right to peaceful protest, including for protest to take place near Westminster.

The Met Police are threatening to use repressive powers under pernicious legislation passed by the Tory government to stop a protest near Parliament. It has been legitimate for nine months for hundreds of thousands of people to bring their demands for justice for Palestine to the seat of Government, but suddenly it is not.

There is no sensible or persuasive reason for this, other than the new government might be embarrassed to have pictures beamed around the world with people in Whitehall demanding justice for Palestine. This is the first big test of the incoming government – will they robustly uphold the democratic right to protest?

Featured image via the Canary

Met Police attempts to stop Palestine protest rejected – Palestine Solidarity Campaign

1st July 2024Leave a Commenton Met Police attempts to stop Palestine protest rejected – Palestine Solidarity Campaign

“The Met Police are threatening to use repressive powers under pernicious legislation passed by the Tory Government to stop a protest near Parliament.”

Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign

By the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)

Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its Coalition partners have today condemned attempts by the Met Police to prevent a pro-Palestine march in central London on Saturday 6th July, and called upon the police to accept the compromise route which has been suggested. To date the police are suggesting they will only allow a protest well away from central London.

This will be the 16th major demonstration in London since Israel began its genocidal attack on Gaza in October 2023. Despite following all the normal protocols in coordinating with the police, the march organisers have not been offered any central London start or end point for the demonstration, in contrast to every other occasion. No persuasive reason has been given by the police and the organisers believe it reflects a political consideration not to have a new Government, which all the polls indicate will be led by Sir Keir Starmer, overshadowed by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators seeking to end UK complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Coalition behind the marches had notified the police of the intention to hold a demonstration over a month ago, and have had meetings to discuss several routes which have become well established over the last 9 months. In a meeting with the Gold Commander on June 21st, no objections were raised about the proposal to rally in Whitehall at the end of the march, and it was agreed that the police would confirm acceptance on June 24th. Despite the coalition organisers chasing the police for confirmation that day, no communication was received until June 26th when the police indicated that they would not allow a march which ended on Whitehall or Parliament Square, citing the need for businesses, tourists, the media and politicians to have access to that area all day.

The marches have been overwhelmingly peaceful by the police’s own admission and with few arrests – just 2 out of 175 000 people at the last demonstration. Despite this the police have sought to reject these proposals without providing any convincing justification. The Coalition has written to the police suggesting a compromise route beginning on the Embankment, marching via Parliament Square to the Israeli Embassy. This would occupy one side of the square for a maximum of 2 hours as protestors marched though and leave Whitehall completely free. The police have been asked to respond positively to this compromise to allow the march to proceed without hindrance.

Ben Jamal, PSC Director, said:

“Keir Starmer is facing his first test on the willingness of his government to support the right to peaceful protest, including for protest to take place near Westminster. The Met Police are threatening to use repressive powers under pernicious legislation passed by the Tory Government to stop a protest near Parliament. It has been legitimate for nine months for hundreds of thousands of people to bring their demands for justice for Palestine to the seat of Government, but suddenly it is not. There is no sensible or persuasive reason for this, other than the new Government might be embarrassed to have pictures beamed around the world with people in Whitehall demanding justice for Palestine. This is the first big test of the incoming Government – will they robustly uphold the democratic right to protest?”

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• This article was originally published as a Palestine Solidarity Campaign on July 1st, 2024.
• You can follow the PSC on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.

UK

“We need a new political voice for the working class”, says TUSC/Collective candidate Dave Nellist

#CanaryCandidates meets Dave Nellist

 by Ed Sykes
1 July 2024
in Analysis

In the twentieth of our video interview series #CanaryCandidates, we meet Dave Nellist – standing in Coventry against Labour’s Mary Creagh

Dave Nellist is the TUSC candidate for Coventry East in the general election, and is backed by Collective – which is bringing together voices on the left to build a “mass movement that will eventually transform into a new political party”. Nellist told the Canary that he’s standing as a candidate partly because of that drift to the right of Labour. It’s more authoritarian. It’s… driven out about a third of its members. And almost everything that was worthwhile in Jeremy’s two manifestos has now been ditched

Nellist quoted a recent article by Andy Haldane, CEO of the Royal Society of Arts and formerly the Bank of England’s chief economist, in which Haldane said:


Labour’s proposed additional spending is about one-tenth and one-fifteenth respectively of proposals in their 2017 and 2019 manifestos

This drastic reduction in spending proposals, Haldane asserted, was a result of both Tories and Starmer’s Labour having “self-imposed constraints” which saw them “committing to near-identical fiscal rules”.

Labour will have increasing tensions with trade unions

Because of Labour’s current absence of any meaningful proposal for ordinary people, Dave Nellist said, it is likely to have more and more problems with the trade union movement in coming months and years, assuming it wins the election as polls predict.

 He asked:
What do unions with members in public services, that are going to continue their decline after the election, say when their members hoped that the new government was gonna be different from the last and are disappointed that it isn’t?

How do they then say at the next council elections ‘vote Labour, even though they’re not gonna give you a pay rise that meets the rising prices, even though they’re not gonna secure or replace the lost jobs in the services that you’re trying hard to provide’? So there will be tensions.

But he also pointed out that for the most people “what changes their view is experience”. So there won’t be a truly massive shift away from Starmer’s Labour Party until ordinary people actually see the results of its awful political positions with their own eyes.

Nellist wants the trade union movement to play a bigger role in left politics going forwards, and reminded us that:

This country was at its most equal at the point when trade union membership was at its highest and when its influence was the greatest, which was the mid-1970s.

In terms of his own electoral promises, he insisted he would continue his commitment to only taking a reduced salary:

As it was my Labour Party’s policy in the early 1980s, only taking the wage of a local skilled factory worker for the nine years I was in parliament or the 14 years I was in the local authority.

And he stressed that his current campaign is largely about trying to:

find the people who think the same way as we do: domestically on poverty and inequality, or internationally on Israel’s war on Gaza. You need anti-austerity, anti-war candidates.

We’re back to square one. And we need a new mass movement urgently.

Dave Nellist is also a firm believer that we desperately need a new mass movement on the left now that Keir Starmer has set in motion the terminal decay of the Labour Party.

 He argued:

We’re roughly where we were a century and a quarter ago when the trade union movement at the back end of the 19th century was looking at the Tories and Liberals and saying ‘I can’t really see a difference there, we need a Labour Party’.

We’re now looking at the Labour Party and the Tories and the Liberal Democrats and saying ‘well I can’t see much difference in that overlapping agenda, we need a new political voice for the working class’.

And he pointed out that the left is already sowing seeds in this general election for the creation of the mass movement that the country sorely needs right now:

After the election, I think there will be discussions taking place, both within the trade unions but also across the trade union movement and the left campaigns that exist. I suspect… Jeremy’s Peace and Justice Project will be part of if not central to the bringing together of those discussions.

Again, what we’re doing in this general election: we’re sowing seeds in all our local areas trying to build up networks, hoping that there can be a better collective discussion and approach that brings forward a new party. Exactly what form it will be, exactly what it’s programme will be, will take negotiations and discussions and so on.

What it can’t be, by the way, is one individual at the top and it being a top-down organisation. It has to have democracy, it has to have accountability. And in my view, it has to fight and win a battle amongst the rank and file of the trade union movement to move trade unionists in there and if possible trade unions into that new structure. Because in my view, that’s what will give it weight and longevity

His message of hope and urgency, meanwhile, is that this movement must be democratic, and it must come into being as soon as possible:

We have to get together in large numbers. The new party we need has got to have millions of votes eventually. It’s got to have hundreds of thousands of people actively supporting, at least tens of thousands of people… putting their main effort into supporting it. And I think that is possible.

So that’s my message of hope, if we can get the organisation, the conferences, the meetings and so on… If we don’t do that, then we do face that problem – having to confront the far more confident and authoritarian far-right populists like Farage and others. It is an urgent job… Labour will begin to disappoint certainly within one or two years, possibly within months of taking office.

For more on Nellist’s comments see the full interview on our YouTube channel:

 

UK

Starmer says he will work with fascist Le Pen against refugees

BySKWAWKBOX (SW)01/07/2024

on Starmer says he will work with fascist Le Pen against refugees

Red Tory plumbs new racist depths hot on heels of offending Bangladeshis with unfounded comments

Keir Starmer, not satisfied with appalling Bangladeshis and all anti-racists with his deportation comments this week, has plumbed new racist depths by saying he would work with fascist Marine Le Pen’s ‘National Rally’ (formerly National Front) party against the small boats used by desperate refugees to reach the UK, according to the Telegraph:

Every day, Labour becomes more and more a racist endeavour. In his eagerness to appeal to the racist right, Starmer is embracing, and opening the door wider for, outright fascism in the UK – while supporting the fascist, genocidal Israeli regime.

Scottish Greens: Nuclear will ‘leave legacy of debt and radioactive waste’

1st July, 2024

By Lucy Jackson@LucyAJackson_Multimedia Journalist

he Scottish Greens have reiterated their opposition to nuclear energy

NUCLEAR power would “leave a legacy of debt and radioactive waste for generations to come”, the Scottish Greens have said.

The party has reiterated its opposition to nuclear, claiming its greater inclusion in the energy mix could hamper the move to 100% renewable energy.

Co-leader Lorna Slater also hit out at comments from Labour leader Keir Starmer, who said the sector will be a “critical part” of his energy plan.

“More nuclear power would leave a legacy of debt and radioactive waste for generations to come,” Slater said.

“Backing it is not just a distraction, it undermines our journey to 100% renewable energy. The Scottish Greens will oppose any attempts to expand or impose it.”

The Green co-leader also hit out at the management of the construction of Hinkley Point C on the south coast of England, where delays and cost overruns have spiralled.

“The disastrous mismanagement of Hinkley Point C tells us everything we need to know about how unreliable and expensive nuclear has become,” Slater (below) said.

(Image: PA)

“It is now running 14 years behind schedule and costs have inflated to £46 billion – seven times Scotland’s entire annual capital budget.

“Even though Hinkley is on the south coast of England, Scottish households will be paying for this travesty for decades.

“It’s outrageous that instead of learning from this catastrophic mismanagement the Tories and Labour are committing to pouring even more of our money into new nuclear power. ”

The UK Government said earlier this year the UK taxpayer will not be on the hook for the cost increases faced by the EDF-run facility in Somerset.

“The Tory and Labour nuclear fantasies will do nothing for our climate and will leave future generations with a costly and dangerous legacy to clean up,” Slater added.

(Image: Gordon Terris)

“Scotland and the UK has a vast potential for renewable energy, but we need to invest in it.

“The huge sums of money being wasted on nuclear energy could be far better spent on rapidly expanding our green industries, delivering 100% renewable energy and investing in the jobs of the future.”

Douglas Lumsden, Scottish Conservative shadow secretary for net zero, energy and transport, said: “The dogmatic opposition of the Greens – and the SNP – to nuclear energy shows that neither party have a clue when it comes to energy policy.

“The SNP and the Greens also oppose new oil and gas production in the North Sea – which would cost tens of thousands of North East jobs – when they know full well that renewable sources alone can’t yet meet our energy needs.

“Nuclear is clean, green and should be a key part of our energy mix – which is why countries around the world are embracing it.”

UK Greens pledge to abolish Ofsted and SATs testing

The party is also proposing to scrap tuition fees, provide free school meals for all children, and have a qualified counsellor in every school.


THE PARTY IS ALSO PROPOSING TO PROVIDE FREE SCHOOL MEALS

 FOR ALL CHILDREN (DANNY LAWSON/PA)
PA ARCHIVE

RHIANNON JAMES

The Green Party has pledged to abolish Ofsted and bring in continuous assessments to replace SATs testing, as part of an £8 billion education package.
The party is also proposing to scrap tuition fees, provide free school meals for all children, and have a qualified counsellor in every school and college.

Co-leader Carla Denyer said the Greens are providing an “A-star offering” which is “fully inclusive and costed”.

Greens also believe that a more holistic education, where arts and vocational subjects are treated equally within the curriculum, will help more students thrive

CARLA DENYER

She said: “To help relieve the stresses in our education system and improve wellbeing, for both teachers and pupils, Greens want to replace high-stakes formal SATs testing in primary and secondary schools with a system of continuous assessment, and abolish Ofsted.


“We also want to see a massive boost in funding for special needs provision in mainstream schools, and for a qualified counsellor in every state school and college.

“No child must be left behind by poverty. Opportunities must be available to all.

“Alongside scrapping the two-child benefit cap and uplifting Universal Credit by £40 a week, Green MPs will push for all children to be provided with a healthy school meal every day – free of charge.

“Greens also believe that a more holistic education, where arts and vocational subjects are treated equally within the curriculum, will help more students thrive.

“We also want children to learn about the climate and nature crises to equip them for the challenges ahead and so they can be part of the solution.”

Ms Denyer, who recently received an endorsement from the Love Actually star Hugh Grant, added: “We don’t pretend there’s a magic money tree lurking in the playground. We are being honest.

“Generating the billions needed to invest in our education system – including giving hard-working teachers a much-needed pay uplift – requires reforming our tax system to make it fairer and greener.

“Our A* offering is fully inclusive and costed. We know it gets top marks.

“Green MPs will push a Labour government to take some lessons from our manifesto and offer better funded support for both students and teachers.”

Under the party’s proposals, £2.5 billion will go to repairing schools with Raac concrete, £5 billion for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and £12 billion to “skills and lifelong learning for further education”.

Ms Denyer said: “Post-16 education and training opportunities must be better designed to support lifelong learning.

“Greens will seek to restore the education maintenance allowance to financially support young people to extend their studies.

“Marketisation has been disastrous for higher education, pushing universities into financial crisis and burdening a whole generation of students with debts.


“So elected Green MPs will push to end tuition fees and restore maintenance grants.”

 

UK universities urged to end drugs zero tolerance and focus on harm reduction

Sally Weale Education correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Mon, 1 July 2024


Jeni Larmour, 18, who died on her first day at Newcastle University in 2020, after consuming a lethal combination of alcohol and ketamine

UK universities are being urged to ditch a zero-tolerance approach to drug use and focus instead on public health and harm reduction, with drug testing and non-judgmental support for students seeking help.

The warning came as new research found students are less likely to use drugs than those of the same age group in the general population. Of the minority that do, more than two out of five would like to reduce their use.

Experts remain concerned that a zero-tolerance approach still deployed on some campuses, including fines, suspensions and expulsions, does little to reduce drug use and could deter students from coming forward for help.

Almost one in five (18%) out of 4,000 students who took part in a poll for Universities UK (UUK) – the organisation that represents 142 higher education providers – told researchers they had used drugs in the past, while one in eight (12%) had used drugs in the past year.

Of those who had ever taken drugs, the most commonly used in the past year were cannabis (53%), cocaine (8%), prescription drugs (7%), ketamine (6%) and ecstasy (4%).

Among non-students, almost 18% of 16- to 24-year-olds in England and Wales reported drug use in the year up to March 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics, while in Scotland, 23.5% of the same age group had used drugs in the year prior to being surveyed.

According to UUK, only one in five students who have used drugs in the past 12 months have asked for support from their institution. Of those students who did seek support, nearly half (46%) said their university’s drug policy was a barrier, while more than a third (37%) feared the consequences of coming forward.

Jeni Larmour, 18, of Newtownhamilton in Northern Ireland, died in October 2020 on her first day at Newcastle University after consuming a lethal combination of alcohol and ketamine given to her “by another”, according to a coroner.

Her mother, Sandra Larmour, welcomed the report and said her own views on drug policy had changed. Where once she might have backed zero tolerance, she now favours educating and supporting students, though she said universities should never condone drug use.

“If you tell a bunch of teenagers ‘don’t do something’, you’re on a hiding to nothing. Anybody that’s got children knows that – they’re going to go out and do it,” Larmour said.

“But if you’re doing something in an open and informed manner, that can only help. If you’ve got people there with insight, knowledge and professional experience that can give them guidance on it, and they feel they can come forward, that’s a very positive step.”

The SafeCourse charity, which was set up to promote harm reduction policies on UK campuses, welcomed UUK’s new framework for action. Its founder, Hilton Mervis, whose son Daniel died of an accidental overdose, said a zero-tolerance approach may have discouraged him from seeking help because of fear of expulsion.

“Drugs left a hole in my family’s life because Daniel was failed by zero-tolerance policies,” he said, adding that the college now has a “clear harm reduction policy which puts the safety and wellbeing of their students first.

“Yet many universities continue to declare zero tolerance on drugs. In practice, this means zero action. This puts students at risk. The time has come for universities to adopt active, student-led harm reduction approaches.”

The UUK report, Enabling student health and success: tackling supply and demand for drugs and improving harm reduction, published on Tuesday, also calls on universities to promote and inform students of drug checking services. “Students often do not know the contents and strength of illicit drugs at the point of purchase,” it says.

“The consequences of this can be fatal. Drug checking provides an independent service which encourages students to have any substances of concern tested by chemists, and the results discussed during a consultation with a health professional.”

It also suggests a sliding scale of warnings of increasing severity for repeat incidents over an agreed timeframe to ensure a university is not perceived as permissive about the use of drugs.

Larmour urged parents whose children are preparing to go off to university in the autumn to talk to their child. “Make sure that you’re open and honest with them.” To youngsters about to leave home, she said: “Be aware of your surroundings. Be aware of who your friends are. Think before you do anything.

“I miss Jeni every day of my life. I think about her all the time. Everything I do, I do it for one reason. That’s to keep her name alive, to keep her name on people’s lips, to keep her memory alive.”

CAPITAL STRIKE

Energy giant boss warns investing in Britain is 'uneconomical' as they plan to move expansion abroad to the US and Denmark

By JESSICA CLARK

PUBLISHED: 1 July 2024 


An energy boss has warned that his firm will prioritise expansion in the US and Denmark as Britain's political parties 'put pain' into the oil and gas industry.

David Bucknall, chief executive of Ineos Energy, said investing in the UK could become 'uneconomic' under Labour's tax plans.

His comments came ahead of the election where energy policy has become a key battleground.
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Mr Bucknall, who runs the energy arm of Sir Jim Ratcliffe's petrochemicals group, said there was greater stability overseas.

His warning comes days after the head of Serica Energy, one of the UK's top independent oil and gas producers, said Britain was 'second only to a war zone' for planning future investment.

Labour has pledged to raise the windfall tax on energy firm profits from 75 per cent to 78 per cent and axe investment allowances.


David Bucknall (pictured), chief executive of Ineos Energy, said investing in the UK could become 'uneconomic' under Labour's tax plans

Mr Bucknall, who runs the energy arm of Sir Jim Ratcliffe 's petrochemicals group, said there was greater stability overseas. Pictured: An offshore oil platform in the North sea

Sir Keir Starmer's party has also said it will not issue new licences for exploration and drilling in the North Sea.

Hundreds of businesses led by the Unite union signed an open letter opposing the policy amid concerns about job losses.

Experts play down fears of further fuel bill hikes as Britain prepares to import a record amount of energy from Europe 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak introduced the energy profits levy when he was chancellor in 2022, and the tax has since been increased and extended.

Mr Bucknall said UK political parties have attempted to outdo 'each other in how much pain you can put into the industry'.

He added: 'If you take away investment allowances and pile on windfall taxes, it's very easy to make things uneconomic'.

His firm will push ahead with expansion in America and Denmark, where it is 'much easier to invest', he said.

Last year Ineos Energy entered the US market for the first time after buying some of Chesapeake Energy's assets in Texas for around £1billion.

Despite political uncertainty in the States ahead of the presidential election in November, Mr Bucknall said the country's energy policy was more stable.

Sir Keir Starmer's party has also said it will not issue new licences for exploration and drilling in the North Sea

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak introduced the energy profits levy when he was chancellor in 2022, and the tax has since been increased and extended

There has not been 'very much change at the operational level in the US, regardless of who the president is', he told The Times.

Last week Ineos Energy was awarded the first onshore carbon capture and storage licence in Denmark.

In the UK, however, the company will focus on developing existing licences rather than launching new projects.

The move comes after David Latin, chairman of Serica Energy, said it was looking abroad for 'acquisition opportunities' due to the windfall levy. Such policies 'are going to drive oil and gas investment overseas, and it will take with it jobs, tax revenues and energy security', he added.

He has previously accused politicians of a 'race to the bottom' to extract more money short-term, despite risking long-term damage to production and making Britain more dependent on imports.

Election backlash looms for UK Indian diaspora’s ex-poster boy Rishi Sunak

Story by Biman Mukherji • 

 South China Morning Post

July 1,2024

Dissatisfaction with rising living costs and economic stagnation could see the PM lose his seat, as Indian diaspora joins anti-Tory wave

Rishi Sunak, once a poster boy for Britain's Indian diaspora, now faces their growing dissatisfaction amid rising living costs and economic stagnation - further hurting his prospects in the country's general election on Thursday.

The opposition Labour Party has been more than 20 points ahead in surveys for over 18 months as Britons tire of Conservative Party rule. Polls last month forecast that Sunak could even lose his own seat in the general election.

The Indian diaspora makes up about 2.5 per cent of Britain's population, meaning their disenchantment with Sunak and his Tories could prove significant.

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"A lot of pain points are coming out in the open and the larger diaspora is going with the sentiment of an anti-Tory wave. People are saying that maybe it's time to bring a new government," said Ashwin Krishnaswamy, a UK-based technology investor and a trustee of the Bridge India charity.



A man makes his way through a food aisle in a supermarket in west London last month. Rising living costs have added to anti-Conservative sentiment. Photo: AFP© Provided by South China Morning Post

Rising living costs and disappointing economic growth have contributed to this perception, said Krishnaswamy, adding that the Conservatives are "getting squeezed from both sides because they have not increased wealth creation".

The downbeat sentiment contributed to a drubbing for Sunak's Conservatives in local elections held in May. The Tories lost control of 10 councils and more than 470 council seats, besides ceding 10 police and crime commissioners to Labour.

Since announcing snap elections about a month ago, Sunak's election campaign, which has heavily focused on promises to fix the economy and public services such as the National Health Service (NHS), has not gained much traction.

"Sunak's campaign has been about looking to the future. But in the past you [Conservative Party] have had so many leadership changes, [people are thinking] what is the guarantee that you will remain," said Priyajit Debsarkar, a London-based Indian author.

Sunak, the first British Asian prime minister, has served in the position and as leader of the Conservative Party since 2022. He previously held two cabinet positions under Boris Johnson from 2020 to 2022.

"The diaspora had lots to celebrate when Rishi took charge of 10 Downing Street. The euphoria has fizzled out due to a failure to keep fundamental promises like tackling the cost of living and the National Health Service crisis," Debsarkar said.

Since late 2021, prices for many essential goods in Britain have been increasing faster than household incomes, resulting in a fall in real incomes. The phenomenon has been termed a cost-of-living crisis.



Sunak meets the public at an event in London on Saturday. 

Photo: Pool via AP© Provided by South China Morning Post

Economic riddle

Born to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s, Sunak earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University and worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a partner at hedge fund firms the Children's Investment Fund and Theleme Partners.

He was elected to the House of Commons for Richmond in North Yorkshire at the 2015 general election, and supported the Brexit campaign in the country's 2016 European Union membership referendum.

Sunak was expected to help fix Britain's economic woes since the nation's withdrawal from the EU in January 2020. But gross domestic product was estimated to have increased by only 0.1 per cent last year, following growth of 4.3 per cent in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Public sentiment has also soured over the state of facilities such as health services, which have suffered from chronic under-investment, spurring frequent protests by doctors over pay disputes since last year.

"The NHS is a big disaster. There is a huge pay disparity in the NHS between different sections of doctors," Krishnaswamy said, on the reasons for the loss of confidence.

Labour traditionally enjoyed a stronger support base among British Indians, but it has weakened over the years with a new breed of richer and well-educated diaspora identifying more with the Conservatives, a trend which was only expected to accelerate under Sunak.

"However, a lot of water has now flowed between the Thames and the English Channel, so even the Indian diaspora has had second thoughts," Debsarkar said.



Labour leader Keir Starmer at a rally in central London on Saturday, during campaigning for the July 4 general election.

 Photo: PA via AP© Provided by South China Morning Post

Labour leader Keir Starmer has been able to project the party as a stable government-in-waiting, which has resonated with voters struggling with rising costs of living.

"House rents are 100 per cent higher than six to seven years back," said Supriyo Chaudhuri, CEO of e1133 Ltd, a firm specialising in higher education, noting that it was tough for new immigrants to Britain to buy a house. "If you are a new immigrant, you can't [afford to] buy a house."


Chaudhuri, who has been living in the UK for a decade, said Sunak "does not talk about public services and the cost of living crisis", nor had he succeeded in creating business dynamism.

If Labour toppled the Conservatives, they too "will need to find a new play book" to resolve the issues, he said.

Cedomir Nestorovic, a professor of geopolitics at the ESSEC Business School Asia-Pacific in Singapore, said the key to enticing voters would be solving the economic riddle.

Companies needed to be provided with opportunities to create a ripple effect of jobs and salaries, which had not come through strongly under Sunak, he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.