Girl with balloons by Bansky on the Israeli West Bank wall at the Qalandiya checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, Sunday, Dec.,2016. Mick Tsikas/Press Association. All rights reserved.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised mental health as an essential component of health since 1946. Yet, around the world, mental wellbeing is an underfunded, under-resourced and largely misunderstood area of health provision. In extreme environments such as war, the detrimental impact on civilian’s mental health is one of the most significant consequences. Following recent events in Gaza and with the Israel-Palestine conflict now in its seventieth year, Palestinian’s need for adequate mental health services is a growing imperative.

Over fifty years of occupation enforced by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has exposed Palestinians to perpetual traumatic events including humiliation, imprisonment of youth, torture, house demolitions, land confiscation, movement restrictions and unemployment. These routine human rights abuses are continual and pervasive. From apartheid road systems and checkpoints, to settlements and of course the wall, the psychological stress incurred by the occupation has left the population with one of the highest rates of mental health disorders in the Middle East.

Mental health workers across Palestine treat a variety of symptoms that have manifested as a result of the occupation. Israel has not fulfilled its international legal obligation as an occupier to implement its own mental health act, leaving protocols as the responsibility of individual psychiatrists, who are limited in number. In the West Bank, just twenty-two are trained professionals. 

Unsurprisingly, trauma and anxiety prevail as the most prominent effects of living in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), with women and children suffering disproportionately from mental health disorders. In Gaza, suicide rates have soared – grassroots NGO We Are Not Numbers (WANN) noting 80 suicides per month in January and February 2016, an increase of 160 per cent compared to previous years.

For Palestinians, trauma is not a past event – it is growing up in a continued traumatic environment with no end in sight and thus individual diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) do not fit within the Palestinian context. In fact, placing such labels on victims within this special context can do more harm than good. Individual diagnoses strip individuals of their context and in the Palestinian case vitally exclude the narratives of violation and injustice. 

Hunaida Iseed, Director of the Guidance and Training Centre for the Child and Family (GTC), believes the normalisation of Palestinians’ experience of trauma in itself has negatively impacted the mental health field. Iseed reports on the lack of commercial interest in funding trauma and PTSD research because of the extent that it has become an accepted part of everyday life in Palestine. 

Mental health professionals depict the challenges they face within the unique complex socio-political context of the occupation. The narrative of violation and injustice emerges as integral to the development of diagnosis. The clinical director of Bethlehem’s only mental hospital Dr Ivona Amleh for instance, is currently guiding a transition from a traditional medical model to one based more on recovery and empowerment – which incorporates the way power and oppression work; what she describes as ‘occupation therapy’. Dr Amleh asserts the need for mental health workers to be flexible, but shares the desire to shift towards specialising in order to provide better services. 

Public Health professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank, Rita Giacaman helpfully frames the ongoing conflict as a public health problem, which calls for an international response to work towards political conflict resolution and the realisation of human rights legislation. After all, psychological wellbeing is an intrinsic aspect of the right to health; a point that was echoed by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Health, who stated, “there can be no health without mental health and everyone is entitled to an environment that promotes health, well-being, and dignity.”

Humanitarian aid and development predominantly revolves around the basic physical needs of a vulnerable population. Societies have been slow to progress with mental health provision on a global-scale, and there is certainly a long road ahead before mental wellbeing is treated as importantly as physical. 

In Palestine, the deep US funding cuts to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has left the physical needs of Palestinians in dire short supply, but mental health services must not go unaddressed. Psychological care must be integrated into primary health care, so that professionals can specialise in the areas needed to treat psychological effects of the occupation. More international mental health professionals and institutions should partner with their Palestinian counterparts to help deliver effective care programmes. For as long as the occupation continues, Palestine’s health sector requires sustainable development support from the international community so as to ensure that vital infrastructure and services like local models of care are in place to better respond to all health challenges of the population in need. 

Mike Pompeo gives a speech on U.S. policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. on May 21, 2018. Yang Chenglin/Press Association. All rights reserved.

The world faces a substantial risk of military escalation in two regions, the Middle East and east Asia. What links the situations is the central role of an intemperate and unstable United States administration. 

The more immediate danger lies in the intermittent conflict between Israel and Iran erupting into outright war. Binyamin Netanyahu's government, with what amounts to a free hand, is already conducting frequent airstrikes in Syria against Iranian targets, underscoring the potential for a full-scale conflict involving both Iranian forces and its local allies. 

In the slightly longer term – which now counts as months, rather than weeks – the Korean peninsula represents an equivalent if at present more subdued worry. If a heightening of Israel-Iran tensions might lead to direct US military involvement, a failure of proposed US-North Korea talks could lead to American bombers being unleashed there too. In both cases, Trump and his hardliners may see themselves in the position of facing straightforward threats to which war is the natural answer. Before that precipice is reached, however, some tricky political realities are making themselves felt – and causing serious frustration – in the While House (see "Trump in a fix: North Korea and Iran", 9 September 2018).

North Korea is for the moment foremost among these realities, as reflected in the high-profile visit to New York of the senior general Kim Yong Chol in preparation for the on-off-on summit of heads of state. The South Korean government has embarked on intensive diplomatic activity to ease tensions, the aim being to move towards a condition of reasonable coexistence that benefits both states across the Korean divide. Seoul's overarching view is that for North Korea to give up its entire nuclear capability would require an extraordinary change, but Pyongyang's desire to prioritise economic growth is such that a considerable scaling down of tensions really is possible. The endgame would be far better relations, plus closer economic and social interaction – while stopping well short of a search for regime change.

The South Koreans are driving this agenda, but the prevailing view among the Trump militarists is that Pyongyang is taking Seoul for a ride. Thus the North's version of “peaceful coexistence” actually seeks to achieve a US withdrawal from the South and follow this by the forceful reunification of Korea under Pyongyang’s rule. Even if the US-North Korea summit does happen, that will make no difference to the hardliners' estimation of the North's threat – although they doubtless fear that the unpredictable Trump might just go ahead and conclude a bad deal for the glory of the moment.

Such worries among key White House personnel are compounded by the difficulty of exerting control over the Seoul government and by the attitude of China, whose broad satisfaction with Seoul's approach to Pyongyang is another indication that the US is far from in charge of events.

A fracturing order

If Trump’s militarists are irritated by trends in east Asia, they are also having problems with Iran. The speech of new US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in 21 May, following the unilateral US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, is significant for its tone and content alike. Its demands were so extensive that no government in Tehran, now or in the foreseeable future, could possibly comply with them.

Since the fall of Iran's Shah in 1978-79 and the hostage crisis of 1979-81, most US administrations have regarded Iran's theocratic system as the fundamental threat to US interests, whose only solution is the regime's termination. Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama pursued this logic, but for Ronald Reagan, George Bush senior and junior, and especially Donald Trump, Iran simply must be dealt with. Moreover, this stance also defines Israeli security policy and is welcomed by the Saudis. To cap it all for Trump, finishing with Tehran would be to demolish an Obama diplomatic success.  

The problem for Trump and the hawks is that otherwise sound allies simply do not share their view. What makes it tricky is that the trouble with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is that annoying word “Joint” – France, Germany, the UK, Russia and China are also involved, and none want regime change in Iran.

Perhaps these wayward partners can be discounted, given Washington's “make America great again” sloganeering? It is notable in this respect that neither Angela Merkel nor Emmanuel Macron could persuade Trump to stick with the treaty in spite of personal meetings. Theresa May did not even bother to make the trip to Washington, instead sending the unfortunate Boris Johnson. The United Kingdom foreign secretary's latest embarrassing spectacle was being interviewed on Fox News, a stone’s throw from the White House, in the hope that Trump might be watching.

The Trump cabal's own concerns also have a twofold economic foundation. If Trump places his main emphasis on the strongest sanctions that can be imposed, then three key countries will work hard to undermine them – Russia, China and India. Russia will increase its arms sales and China and India will increase their already considerable oil and gas links. Moreover, anything that India does, Pakistan will try and exceed, for it is wary of Indian efforts to expand its regional sway. In this, Pakistan's long common border with Iran could become an asset, while the country is well able to facilitate Iranian influence in Afghanistan.

In their different ways, North Korea and Iran each pose real challenges to the Washington hawks, and further signal the relative decline of United States's political and economic influence across the Middle East and much of Asia. Yet if the US's ability to command events is diminishing, it remains a massively strong military power. And that creates new perils at least as grave as the old (see "North Korea: a catastrophe foretold", 29 September 2017). 

After all, the condition of "strength in decline" is a dangerous one at any time – but perhaps even more so now, when to admit the very idea of a slow but inexorable retreat would strike at the heart of Washington's worldview. Trump and his hardliners can't let go of a deep sense of status anxiety about their frayed empire. In face of reality, using military firepower to assert the US's lost pre-eminence may be all too tempting. 

Credit: Pixabay/John Hain.CC0 Public Domain.

Last fall Alan Jacobs published a slim book with a bold title: How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds. Jacobs is a professor of English literature, but in this book he joins a growing chorus of social psychologists who warn that enlightenment anthropology—what Jamie Smith memorably calls the “brains-on-a-stick” model of human persons—falls woefully short of reality. Rather, as people like Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt have shown, our bodies—our senses, emotions, and intuitions—shape and direct our reasoning.

Rather than trying to suppress the embodied aspects of reasoning—an effort that Jacobs thinks is futile and, indeed, counterproductive—Jacobs argues we should learn to use our emotions and intuitions to help us think better. In particular, I found his reflections on how we should think with others to be salutary. As he points out, we can’t think for ourselves—inspirational posters to the contrary—so we should learn how to think well with others.

One of the chief dangers of thinking with others is that we find it easier to think with people who think pretty much like we do. It can be threatening to encounter people who think differently from us. Drawing on the work of anthropologist Susan Friend Harding, Jacobs relies on the term “Repugnant Cultural Other” to describe how we tend to think against certain groups that our tribe considers to be odious.

Significantly, such groups are usually comprised of people who live relatively nearby. We’re not bothered by people in distant countries who hold odd views; they are merely interesting. We’re repulsed by our weird neighbor who votes for candidates we think are objectively stupid or dangerous. Jacobs cites Scott Alexender’s reflections on this theme:

“We think of groups close to us in Near Mode, judging them on their merits as useful allies or dangerous enemies. We think of more distant groups in Far Mode—usually, we exoticize them. Sometimes it’s positive exoticization of the Noble Savage variety (understood so broadly that our treatment of Tibetans counts as an example of the trope). Other times it’s negative exoticization, treating them as cartoonish stereotypes of evil who are more funny or fascinating than repulsive. Take Genghis Khan—objectively he was one of the most evil people of all time, killing millions of victims, but since we think of him in Far Mode he becomes fascinating or even perversely admirable—“wow, that was one impressively bloodthirsty warlord.”

As Jacobs’s concludes, “The real outgroup, for us, is the person next door.”

Another phenomenon that exacerbates our tendency to view our neighbors as Repugnant Cultural Others is the disinhibition effect that communication technologies can have. Jacobs quotes some of the obscene, violent language that Thomas Moore and Martin Luther used in their vituperative exchanges. They manage to make Donald Trump’s tweets look like a model of restraint and propriety.

As Jacobs notes, these exchanges were shaped by new technologies: “The violence of the language is partly explained by the disinhibition generated by a new set of technologies, chief among them the printing press and postal delivery, which enabled people who have never met and are unlikely ever to meet to converse with—or in this case scream at—one another.”

Digital communication technologies amplify this disinhibition effect; it’s incredibly easy to mock and insult people we will never meet: “As long as someone remains to you merely ‘the other,’ the [“Repugnant Cultural Other”], accessible through technology but not truly present to you in full humanness,” then it remains easier to fling insults and take-downs at them rather than to reason thoughtfully and charitably with them.

This is where being more deliberate about thinking from a particular, physical place can be a vital corrective to our technologically-enabled modes of debate. If we are friends, or at least casual acquaintances, with particular, embodied people, it’s at least possible that we will learn to think alongside them. And if we’re deliberate about befriending people in our broader communities, we’ll get to know people who also happen to belong to sociological groups that my tribe tells me to label as repugnant.

The embodied conversations such friendships make possible bring necessary inhibitions; we’re less likely to yell at someone standing next to us than we are to type a sarcastic, all caps comment at an avatar. To be clear, embodiment does not magically guarantee congeniality; humans are certainly capable of being vicious despite the inhibitions that embodied presence imposes. But embodied relationships with particular neighbors makes it more likely that we’ll engage others as human persons rather than digital avatars.

Maybe the most important “technology” for helping us think, then, is friendship. Thinking alongside people whom we disagree with and yet still care about trains our feelings and dispositions. We learn how to reason and converse as modes of membership rather than warfare. As Jacobs puts it,

“Learning to feel as we should is enormously helpful for learning to think as we should. And this is why learning to think with the best people, and not to think with the worst, is so important. To dwell habitually with people is inevitably to adopt their way of approaching the world, which is a matter not just of ideas but also of practices.”

I’m reminded of Wendell Berry’s recent essays and stories expressing gratitude for the many friends who have been his conversation partners over the decades. While Berry certainly has local friends, he has also sustained important friendships through letters and the telephone. If we’re guided by practices and virtues cultivated via in-person friendships, we’re better formed to use communication technologies “to think with the best people,” as Jacobs puts it.

Jacobs’s book has challenged me to be more deliberate regarding whom I’m thinking with, to ask myself whether I am indeed thinking with people who have good dispositions—who want to think well—and who think from different backgrounds and perspectives.

This article was first published in Front Porch Republic, a platform dedicated to renewing American culture by fostering the ideals necessary for strong communities. 

Image: Afromusing/Flickr, CC 2.0

Controversial think tank the Legatum Institute has been strongly criticised following an investigation by charity regulators. A report from the Charity Commission released today found that Legatum’s work on Brexit “crossed a clear line”Legatum’s work on Brexit “crossed a clear line” and “failed to meet the required standards of balance and neutrality”.

Legatum, which is a registered charity, has emerged as one of the most influential think tanks in Westminster. Ministers have often cited Legatum’s work to support Brexit policies on everything from tariffs to the Irish border.

An investigation by the Charity Commission found that a Legatum report, Brexit Inflection Point, did not present “balanced, neutral evidence and analysis” and was “not consistent” with the charity’s objectives to promote education.

The report, which called for the UK to leave the single market and the customs union as soon as possible, “may be seen as promoting a political view...for the aim of a particular final outcome, and recommending specific government action that reflects this,” the regulator found.

The Charity Commission has ordered Legatum to remove the report from its website and given formal regulatory advice to its trustees about maintaining independence and neutrality.

Separately, documents seen by openDemocracy show that the regulator expressed concern about whether Legatum was “capable of becoming a charity” when the charity was registered in 2011.

Commenting on the Charity Commission findings, David Holdsworth, the regulator’s chief operating officer, said: “Our case found that the Legatum Institute Foundation breached regulation with the publication of its Brexit Inflection Point report.

“On such a highly political issue it is especially important that trustees can clearly demonstrate they are operating in line with our guidance to inform the public in a balanced and evidence-based way. 

“With this report, the trustees failed to meet the required standards of balance and neutrality.”

The Charity Commission opened a compliance case into Legatum in November 2017 following reports that the charity was “promoting the views of pro-Brexiteers”. After the European Union referendum former Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott joined the think tank, along with a number of leading Eurosceptics.

A recent openDemocracy investigation found thatBrexit minister Greg Hands had arranged monthly meetings with Shanker Singham, Legatum’s chief trade advisor. Singham, who has since joined the Institute of Economic Affairs, was implicated in a letter sent by Michael Gove and Boris Johnson urging Theresa May to take a harder stance on Brexit.

Singham had multiple undeclared meetings with another Brexit minister, Steve Baker, according to reporting by Buzzfeed. On his website, Baker describes the Legatum Institute as “remarkable”. A former Legatum trade advisor, Crawford Falconer, now works at Liam Fox’s Department of International Trade, where the New Zealander holds the post of first British Chief Trade Negotiation Advisor.

Legatum’s links to Russia has also been the subject of intense media scrutiny. The charity was set up by Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born tycoon who was once a major shareholder in the Russian state energy firm Gazprom. In May, a Conservative MP used parliamentary privilege to name Chandler as “an object of interest” to French intelligence services in 2002, suspected of working for the Russian secret service.

Former Labour minister Liam Byrne said the “incredibly damning” Charity Commission report “lays bare Legatum’s abuse of charity rules to pursue a Hard Brexit agenda which its founder Mr Chandler tried to deny”.

“Here we have a New Zealander with acquired Maltese citizenship and a fortune made in Russia, creating a Mayfair think-tank that abused charity rules to help win an argument for Hard Brexit. We have got to now debate how we stop this ugly new elite soft-power driving Britain over a cliffWe have got to now debate how we stop this ugly new elite soft-power driving Britain over a cliff", Byrne said.

SNP MP Martin Doherty-Hughes, vice chair of the all-party parliamentary working group on charities and volunteering at Westminster, said:

“This is a clear infringement of well know charitable legislative framework and highlights the insidious nature of this so-called think tanks approach to the Brexit. The Charity Commission for England is well within its rights to throw the book at Legatum - I hope they do.”

Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project called for the Charity Commission to look into other charities campaigning around Brexit.

“Charities are supported by public funds. And the quid pro quo is an obligation to deliver the public good - not the ideological agenda of wealthy private donors. The Legatum case, I am afraid, is endemic of a much bigger problem.

“The Charity Commission must now turn to look at whether it is right that taxpayers are obliged to fund the activities of other pamphleteers like the Institute for Economic Affairs, the so-called Taxpayers' Alliance, and the Adam Smith Institute.”

The Charity Commission investigation is not the first time that the regulator has raised concerns about Legatum’s charitable status. Back in 2011, when Legatum was registering as a charity, the regulator wrote that it was “not clear” whether Legatum was “capable of becoming a charity”, according to emails released following Freedom of Information requests.

In an email response Legatum told the Charity Commission that its research would be “be based on neutral evidence and statistics and any conclusions made will be based on such evidence”. The regulator subsequently granted Legatum charitable status.

The Legatum Institute’s Chair of Trustees, Alan McCormick said he was “pleased” that the Charity Commission had concluded its review but “concerned” by the request to remove the Brexit report from the think tank’s website.

“Whilst we understand and will fulfil the Commission’s request to remove the Brexit Inflection Report from our website, the Legatum Institute stands by its view that free trade and free enterprise have done more to lift people out of poverty than any other system. This is not a ‘political’ position but a position informed by empirical evidence and the experience of nations over the centuries – it is supported by a huge body of evidence and research.”

Remember when the banks created the mac daddy of economic crashes? Back in 2008, you would have had plenty of company if you thought the end was neigh for the economic model producing that crisis. You would have been mistaken. In the UK, the political consensus around this model is only now beginning to be questioned, after Brexit, the tragedy of Grenfell and the Carillion and Capital scandals. How was it maintained through a decade of crisis? There are many factors, not least the grip of corporations on politics – power that intensified rather than receding after the 2008 financial collapse. The mainstream media have also played a major role, one that shouldn’t be underestimated. In particular, media have suffered from an acute amnesia about the causes of the crisis. As it morphed from a banking meltdown to a public debt crisis, blame shifted from greedy bankers and free market ‘casino capitalism’ onto public sectors, immigrants and people who didn’t have much money. This forgetting and misremembering helped make austerity, privatisation and corporate tax breaks seem like common sense responses to the problems. Understanding media amnesia is therefore vital if we are to find a way out of the neoliberal groundhog day in which it has trapped us. With that in mind, here are five factors causing media amnesia.

It probably won’t come as a shock that British media is controlled by a handful of media barons and corporations. Three firms control 71 per cent of national newspaper circulation and five companies command 81 per cent of local newspaper titles. Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is probably the most notorious, and is currently trying to take full control of Sky plc. Social media may have led to a proliferation of voices online, but the mainstream brands still dominate the online news space. And don’t forget that the new gatekeepers to news like Google and Facebook are themselves giant corporations.

With journalism in the hands of media barons, it is hardly surprising that the mainstream news landscape is skewed to the right. Whether proprietors intervene directly, whether they hire editors whose values reflect their own, or whether journalists censor themselves to fit in with the culture of their title, make no mistake: content will more than likely reflect the interests of proprietors. The right-wing press deliberately manufactured amnesia about the causes of the crisis to bash Labour and back the Tories, and to promote austerity, the shrinking of the social state and the passing of resources from the public to the private sector. The liberal sections of the press may not have manufactured media amnesia deliberately, but they often reproduced it passively. Because they backed Labour or the Lib Dems during elections, they often ‘retweeted’ the narratives of these parties, especially close to election times. It wasn’t in the interests of either of these parties to dwell on the role of financialisation or corporate capitalism in causing the problems, as no party had any intention of tackling those roots causes. Labour was in a pickle. It had no choice but to take the blame for the crisis, since it had been in power for the past decade. It could either take blame for deregulating and liberalising the economy or it could take blame for overspending. Since it was planning some level of austerity anyway and wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to take on the 1%,  Labour was unable to develop a convincing alternative narrative about the crisis.

Regardless of which party their paper backs during elections, senior editors of newspapers have close professional and personal ties with politicians. The same goes for the public service broadcasters like the BBC, which are mandated to be politically impartial. They all live in the ‘Westminster bubble’, meaning that the views and narratives of politicians will shape news content. In my media study, 51% of the sources quoted in the content were politicians and other officials. As stated above, the Tory narrative about wasteful public spending was not being successfully challenged by Labour, so the media would have had to look outside the bubble for other explanations. This they often failed to do, and when they did, they turned to people who were giving out similar messages. The second biggest group of sources in my study were financial services representatives and the fourth biggest category was business representatives (excluding financial services). Together, politicians, business and finance accounted for around 70% of all sources quoted. And so, those responsible for causing the problems were called upon to make sense of them and offer solutions. Those who might have had more accurate explanations for the crisis – for example campaigners and activists, heterodox economists, or trade unions – hardly got a look in (each accounting for less than 2.5%) . As long as the pool of sources remains confined to politicians and business representatives, the range of views will be limited and analysis will be partial.

Media scholars have long been studying the professional values and routines that shape journalism. A major news value contributing to media amnesia is an obsession with the very latest events at the expense of historical context, explanation and process. In my sample, 49% of coverage offered no explanation whatsoever for the crisis. In the vacuum created by the absence of other explanations, the inaccurate ‘public sector profligacy’ narrative was able to become dominant. This was the key justification for austerity. The social values of journalists might also play a role here. Although there are many kinds of journalists and media outlets, it remains the case that those with staff jobs at established media organisations come from among the elite. They might lean left or right but their interpretations of events and ideas about appropriate responses will likely not be too far removed from those of the politicians with whom they studied at university.

Journalist Nick Davies coined the term ‘churnalism’ to describe the state of journalism in the current era. Since the 1980s, media companies have been stepping up their cost-cutting and revenue-raising practices. They have done this to maximise profit in a context of both increased competition in the digital era and increased media privatisation, deregulation and conglomeration. This has put enormous pressure on journalists, who are having to fill an ever widening news hole with fewer resources. Unsurprisingly, this has had an effect on the quality of content, and has led to problems of inaccuracy, cannibalisation, and an unwillingness and lack of time to hold the powerful to account and seek out alternative viewpoints. Thus, the neoliberal era of corporate power and profit-seeking that produced the crisis is also partly responsible for its amnesiac media coverage.

***

To tackle the causes of media amnesia and develop media systems that are fit for purpose, we will first need to tackle the question of ownership. Media oligopolies should be broken up and non-corporate media should be supported. This goes for the social media giants as well as organisations producing media content. Secondly, if the current political system continues to fail to represent the interests of the majority of people, we should rethink whether politicians should get to have such influence on the media narratives we’re exposed to. Certainly, the pool of sources needs to be much broader than politicians and CEOs. Thirdly, diversity should be increased within journalism itself. Fourthly, we as news consumers should ask ourselves questions about what the purpose of news is and what we actually want from news. And finally, we need to understand that the struggle over media is part of the wider struggle over the control of resources at the heart of the 2008 crisis and the aftermath with which we are still living. We need to have a good think about how we want our societies to be organised and what role we want the media to play in them.

Image: Stephen Depolo/Flickr. Rights: CC 2.0.

The freedom of ordinary people to look after each other is fundamental to values of decency and fairness.

Whistleblowing is a vital part of this and whether it is hospital workers raising the alarm over unsafe care, care home staff reporting abuse of older people, financial sector staff flagging up fraud or tech workers speaking out about stolen elections, the function of whistleblowing is to uphold the common good and to protect other people’s rights.

Powerful organisations sometimes suppress whistleblowers, quite brutally. In the UK the law which is supposed to protect workers who whistleblow, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA), does not actually protect.

PIDA only allows whistleblowers to sue employers for compensation after they have been seriously harmed, for example if they are unfairly dismissed. Compensation is not guaranteed and is not usually enough to reflect loss of livelihood and blacklisting. Neither does it make up for the trauma that many whistleblowers and their families experience.

PIDA does not even ensure that whistleblowers’ concerns are properly investigated. It does not hold the individuals who cover up and victimise whistleblowers to account. PIDA cases are hard to win because of the way the law is structured and because employers usually outgun whistleblowers in court. This particularly happens in the public sector where taxpayers pick up very large legal bills for cases that are in fact fought against their interests.

Far from being protected, whistleblowers are in reality vulnerable to mistreatment by overbearing employers.

The weakness of UK whistleblowing law allows those who speak up in the public interest to be legally mobbed and robbed. Too many end up with broken health and insecure futures.

There is no meaningful deterrence against this. Professor David Lewis of Middlesex University who led the research for the Freedom To Speak Up Review on NHS whistleblowing comments:

"A major problem in relation to reprisals being taken against UK whistleblowers is that retaliators can simply pay compensation in order to get out of trouble. In some countries this matter is taken more seriously and retaliation is treated as criminal offence. While I would not anticipate that many people would be prosecuted if criminal sanctions were introduced in the UK, the possibility might deter some inappropriate behaviour and would send out a positive message about the importance of whistleblowing in a democratic society".

We and other whistleblowers across all sectors believe that PIDA should be replaced.

We have negotiated an event sponsored by the NHS National Freedom To Speak Up Guardian , to be held this coming 19 October, which will present expert legal evidence on the need to reform UK whistleblowing law reform.

Ministers and the Law Commission, which has responsibility for reviewing inefficient and flawed law, will be invited.

Eminent specialist speakers on whistleblowing law, Professor David Lewis of Middlesex University, Dr Ashley Savage of Liverpool University and Employment Law and Whistleblowing Specialist Lauren Kierans

Barrister, will discuss a range of issues, including the need for meaningful penalties for whistleblower reprisal, the need for pro-active (or ‘pre-detriment’) protection starting from the point that workers whistleblow, and the need to compel the proper investigation of whistleblowers’ concerns.

To support the case for law reform, and to inform this event, we will shortly invite whistleblowers from all sectors with experience of using PIDA to submit written evidence. All such first-hand accounts will be very valuable in driving improvements.

Any whistleblowers who want to register interest in the project and to be kept informed about the forthcoming call for evidence can contact us here.

Some outline information for whistleblowers about the project can be found here.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa speaks during a bi-monthly debate at the Portuguese parliament,Lisbon in March, 2018. NurPhoto/ Press Association. All rights reserved. Across the European continent, support for the populist radical right has increased over the last three decades. Even in countries that had seemed immune to such tendencies for decades, including Finland, Sweden and, above all, Germany, right-wing populist parties have made their way into the political arena. On the other side of the political spectrum, support for centre-left parties appears to be in free fall. Following the substantial losses suffered by social democratic parties in the Netherlands, France and Germany, the Italian centre-left Democratic Party (PD) was recently outflanked by populists by losing nearly 7 percentage points (down to 19 percent overall) in the 2018 general elections. In the light of these developments, the future looks bleak for the mainstream left.

The decline of Europe’s social democrats on the one hand, and the surge of the far right, on the other, tend to be presented as two correlated trends. However, electoral politics is not a zero-sum-game where gains made by one party can simply be explained by the losses of another. While social democratic parties have suffered major blows in numerous countries, they are not in decline everywhere. Under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour Party has crowned itself a ‘government-in-waiting’ after booking a net gain of 30 seats by winning 40 percent of the vote in the 2017 general elections – their strongest result since 2001. On the continent, the Walloon Parti Socialiste remains the largest party in francophone Belgium, despite losing support earlier this year over a series of corruption scandals. Meanwhile, the mainstream left is flourishing in Portugal. It is clearly too early to bid farewell to social democracy. 

Party systems across Europe have become more fragmented, thereby making electoral politics increasingly volatile and hence less predictable. Moreover, the decline of the mainstream left cannot simply be attributed to the rise of the radical right. Social democratic parties have lost votes to parties across the political spectrum. In sum, political fragmentation affects all parties, and the vote-swing from social democrats to the populist radical right should not be exaggerated. 

What is Left?

The causes for the electoral losses suffered by social democratic parties in recent decades are manifold, including partisan dealignment and an overall decline in their core electorate. This incentivised social democratic parties to broaden their voter base by moving to the political centre in order to appeal to the growing middle class. This, in turn, paved the way for a period of centrist politics that became widely known as the ‘Third Way’. 

Towards the end of the twentieth century, the ideological convergence between centre-left and centre-right gave rise to a number of centrist coalition governments. While these ‘grand coalitions’ (and the policies they promulgated) worked well initially, they ultimately paved the way for populist challengers. Political convergence generally forces parties to compromise their ideals by agreeing on a lowest common denominator. This is likely to frustrate voters who feel that they are being robbed of a real choice.

In the light of these developments, what does the future hold for Europe’s social democratic parties? Is the Left doomed? There are no easy answers to these questions; given the splintering of the left’s electorate, there certainly is no such thing as a silver bullet to win back voters. However, in the face of rising inequality, the faltering support for social democratic parties cannot be attributed to a lack of demand. Instead, the problem seems to be a shortage of supply – notably the absence of a credible left-wing alternative. The centrifugal forces of the past have opened up space for such an alternative. To use the words of the American critical theorist Nancy Fraser, we are facing ‘an interregnum, an open and unstable situation in which hearts and minds are up for grabs. In this situation, there is not only danger but also opportunity: the chance to build a new new left.’

What might this reincarnated Left look like? In many European countries, mainstream parties (including those of the centre-left) have sought to counter the rise of right-wing populist parties by cosying up to them – either by entering into coalitions with them, or by copying some of their policy items. For instance, in the run-up to the 2018 general elections, the ruling Social Democrats in Sweden recently announced that they want to impose stricter regulations on immigration. Following a logic of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, mainstream parties may seek to decrease the political space towards the populist radical right, in the hope that this might help them win (back) voters that may otherwise choose the far right.

While these accommodative strategies may benefit centre-right parties, they are particularly risky for the left. Firstly, voters are likely to prefer the original over the copy. Secondly, by cosying up to the populist radical right, left-wing parties will likely end up alienating some of their most loyal voters. Besides, cosying up to right-wing populist parties may even result in legitimising them. 

Another option for the left might be a rejuvenated form of centrism, such as the one proposed by Emmanuel Macron with his En Marche movement. Not unlike the leaders of the ‘Third Way’, the French President has managed to appeal to voters from both sides of the political spectrum by insisting that he is both right and left (“et droite, et gauche”), and by seeking to reconcile a socially progressive vision with a neoliberal economic agenda. His vision may become clearer in the months and years to come, as Macron seeks to transpose his ideas to the European level in the runup to the 2019 European elections. However, thus far, Macron’s movement is not meaningfully divergent from what the centre-left has been trying for the past decades. His ‘middle of the road’ strategy, trying to be everything to everyone, is unlikely to succeed in the long run, as political convergence risks satisfying nobody and may end up alienating voters on both sides of the political spectrum. 

A third and perhaps more hopeful solution for the Left is to move away from the centre and (re)turn to the traditional tenets of left-wing politics. There are different possibilities for such a leftwards turn. The Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe, for instance, has argued that left-wing populism is the only viable solution to revitalise the Left and counter the right-wing populist tide. According to Mouffe, centre-left parties cannot offer a solution to rescue progressivism because they were complicit in the creation of a neoliberal order. To put it bluntly, the centre-left is part of the problem; after all, ‘Third Way’ policies resulting from decades of consensual politics failed to give a voice to voters on the left. To Mouffe, democratic politics is a struggle between adversarial groups – that is, the people and the elites – over full control of the political terrain. Populism, she argues, is the only way to give a voice back to ‘the people’. 

However, a populist solution to salvage the future of progressive politics is risky at best because it involves polarisation by deepening the rift between ‘us’ and ‘them’. After all, populism hinges on a belief in societal division, as it pits the pure and virtuous people against a morally corrupt and evil elite. To be sure, in small doses, populism can act as a political corrective. Indeed, it can flag up public discontent and issues that may otherwise go unaddressed. However, populism tends to leave very little room for nuance and pluralism.

The future of progressive politics

Any viable, long-term solution for the challenges that left-wing parties are facing will require overcoming societal divisions by combining expertise with a deep, genuine concern for what voters actually want. It will involve finding ways to re-establish trust in politicians by bridging the gap that has emerged between representatives and voters. To do so, the left ought to start by rethinking what it actually stands for. This is likely to require a difficult combination of being able to detect problems locally whilst offering transnational answers. This, in turn, will involve addressing thorny questions, including whether to operate at a national or pan-European level. 

Above all, the left must find creative ways to promote people’s interest in democratic decision-making. It will involve overcoming factionalism and restoring coalitions between their splintered electorate, for instance by fostering alliances between working class voters, trade unions and urban, middle-class intellectuals. Lessons from Portugal and Wallonia indicate that this could bear some promise. These two polities have yet to witness the rise of a successful right-wing populist challenger party. The failure of the far right in these regions can partly be explained by the fact that social democratic parties have not moved too far to the centre, thus maintaining close ties to their core voters. This suggests that social democratic parties could act as ‘buffers’or ‘protective shields’ to the far right – but only if they manage to provide voters with a clear alternative.

Image: Yes Campaigners celebrate the Irish abortion referendum result. Rights: Niall Carson/PA Images. All rights reserved.

Ireland made international headlines last weekend as the country voted to permit the legalisation of a woman’s right to choose, overturning decades of religious and moral dogma. Meanwhile in less dramatic terms Scotland’s debate on independence and its future has been shaped by the publication of the governing SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission. The two have similarities in ways neither is aware of.

Ireland’s trust in its own people

Ireland’s debate was ostensibly about a woman’s right to choose and repealing the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution outlawing abortion. But really it was about much more. It was about the legacy of religious intolerance and authoritarianism, choice, respect, citizenship and the prospect of Ireland as a modern country embracing openness and optimism.

Ireland has been through an awful lot in the last decade. ‘The Celtic Tiger’ gave Ireland a swagger and confidence, followed by a decade of retrenchment and national re-examination. This, whilst difficult, has illustrated some of the strengths of Irish society in its adaptability and flexibility, but also its shortcomings as it has put the same flawed economic model back on the road.

With the caveat that in absolute terms more people aged over 65 years voted for repeal than those aged under 25, it is also true in relative terms that younger voters were more pro-choice (under 25s being 87.6% Yes; over 65s 58.7%). The emphatic vote (66.4% Yes; 33.6% No) articulated the hopes of the Generation of 2008 - young people whose lives have been defined and blighted by the global crash, and saddled with massive debts, restricted employment and housing choices. The campaign and its result showed the optimism and belief of this generation in the possibility that Ireland can be remade in a way that respects and understands their needs. That is what is possible when there is a deep-seated degree of trust in the democratic process: the referendum being part of a longer deliberative process, alongside a campaign where the dirty tricks of the manipulators did not prevail.

Fintan O’Toole, one of the most astute observers on Ireland as well as on the UK post-Brexit, wrote in the Irish Times the immediate aftermath of the vote:

This referendum was a collective act of letting go, the end of a very long goodbye. Three years ago, when the results of the same sex marriage referendum came in, it felt like a big Irish wedding. This time, it feels more like a wake - albeit one of those wakes where most people do not bother to hide their disdain for the deceased. For something has undoubtedly died.

This death was ‘the end of Irish exceptionalism’ – and is part of the final parts of a jigsaw that are transforming Ireland into a normal country. This may sound boring and humdrum to some. But in comparison to where Ireland has come from historically - brutal British repression, a war of independence followed by civil war, and then decades of religious authoritarianism, it is cause for celebration.

Scotland’s Growth Commission and its aftermath

Life is a little less dramatic in Scotland, but we still face big choices. On the same day as Ireland’s momentous vote the SNP’s Growth Commission, chaired by former SNP MSP and economist Andrew Wilson, was published.

Set up by Nicola Sturgeon in September 2016 in light of the Brexit vote the Commission was tasked with coming up with an economic case for independence which was robust and that answered the weaknesses of 2014. In so doing, it has taken North Sea Oil out of the equation, come up with a position on the currency which is different from four years ago and made a pro-immigration case. More fundamentally, the entire report across its 354 pages is honest in admitting that the early years of independence will be tough, involving difficult choices and fiscal challenges. Such an admission was missing four years ago.

The report has certainly sparked an intense debate about independence. Thus, a host of high profile opinion formers have applauded its clarity. Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer, commented that ‘the implications of the report are elegant, middle of the road and inclusive’. Historian Tom Devine hailed the commission as ‘convincing intellectually’ on the economy, while writer and commentator Will Hutton observed that the ‘work of the commission would have strengthened the Yes campaign in 2014.’

The left-wing case for independence felt betrayed and angry. Commentator Iain Macwhirter led the denouncements, arguing that the plan ‘made Nicola Sturgeon sound as if she is an advocate of austerity.’ Economist Katherine Trebeck noted that the report had a narrow perspective of growth, embracing the idea that ‘no stone will not be unturned in the pursuit of growth’, while ‘the way the environment is talked about … the business environment, the financial environment .... wasn’t even talking about nature and the planet.’ Author and rapper Darren McGarvey (aka Loki) concluded that the report forced him to reappraise his politics: ‘But if social justice is the objective, as well as a rejection of austerity as an ideology, then this report, which largely accepts the precepts that gives rise to it, forces me to consider my priorities as a citizen – not just as a member of a political movement.’

The honesty within parts of the Growth Commission has to be welcomed. The economic illiteracy and belief that everything would just turn Scotland’s way aided by chutzpah and North Sea Oil found in the Salmond White Paper of 2013 is now thankfully nowhere to be found.

The report takes aim at the illusions in certain circles, which were nurtured in the indyref, that somehow Scotland could financially and politically challenge the entire global capitalist system, finance capital and the forces of neo-liberalism. It also drives a horse and carriage through the belief that austerity can be opposed just by assertion and resisting Westminster Tory or Labour policies.

It isn’t then surprising that the left populist case for independence – from the likes of the Radical Independence Campaign and Common Weal - are disillusioned by this SNP prospectus for independence. But this report isn’t aimed at convincing them. In fact it is aimed at them only in as much as it is happy to challenge their delusions and invite their opposition, in part offering differentiation to the independence cause.

Instead, Wilson’s plan is focused on floating voters, as well as business and institutional opinion. It recognises that the sovereigntists, leftists and those who want a complete break with the British state, do not produce a pathway to a majority. It is aimed at ‘middle Scotland’ – those in the middle and working classes with secure employment, incomes and prospects who have yet to be convinced by independence.

There are questions which the commission hasn’t managed to answer convincingly. The idea that an independent Scotland would retain sterling as its currency for at least a decade brings with it a downside. It means that an independent Scotland would abdicate having its own monetary policy and would instead give it over to the Bank of England and Treasury. Thus, Scotland couldn’t set its own interest rates and would be constrained in its fiscal autonomy by the decisions of another country. Andrew Wilson has made great play of the fact that the UK is the most unequal country regionally in the OECD – but a significant part of the reason for this has been the economic orthodoxies of the Treasury and Bank of England, which the commission wishes to retain.

The commission may be an improvement on the 2013 White Paper on currency, but only marginally. Paradoxically, then and now the SNP version of independence proposes to forego real independence for the foreseeable future in the pursuit of stability and reassurance. One day in the years ahead the SNP will eventually come round to a version of economic and monetary independence - while others such as the Scottish Greens and Common Weal have already arrived. There is also nothing on redistribution, no ideas from the labour and trade union movement, and no addressing of EU membership and Brexit. There isn’t even any connection to areas where the Scottish Government is trying to be innovative such as a National Investment Bank.

There is another related issue. Many independence supporters want a referendum as soon as possible even if that risks losing it: an argument put by the likes of Kevin McKenna and Pat Kane. The SNP leadership has not openly communicated its intentions, or dared to stand down such impatient, counter-productive politics.

Nicola Sturgeon is promising to ‘restate’ the independence argument over the coming months and in the autumn come back with thoughts on another indyref as the Brexit endgame becomes clearer. The weakness with this is that Sturgeon knows that the UK Government will not allow an official, legal vote now, and she will not sanction an unofficial Scottish vote after the previous Westminster approved one, noting that there is no independence majority at the moment.

Therefore, there is an argument that leading the independence troops up the hill to march them down again is bluff. Sturgeon is talking about another indyref, knowing one will not happen and not fully believing in it herself. The only motivations in such manoeuvres are to keep the base happy and to try, when Westminster blocks any move, to make the argument about democracy and Scotland’s right to choose, laying the groundwork for the 2021 elections. This does not exactly seem like straightforward politics or leadership.

Yet despite its limitations the Growth Commission feels like a significant report. Scotland isn’t exactly awash with internationally referenced economic analysis and this has supplied it in spades. It has embraced conventional economics to make the case for independence, shown the unrealistic nature of many left-wing arguments for independence, and by its fiscal conservatism and maintenance of the pound, vacated a political space which could be inhabited by a more honest, bold and radical independence, which could come from the likes of the Scottish Greens and others. The report just does not feel like it is about Scotland’s future; whereas Ireland’s democratic spirit feels like it is very much of the future.

Becoming a normal country and living in colour

What the Growth Commission has in common with Ireland’s historic vote is the desire of many independence supporters for Scotland to be a normal country - self-governing, modern, democratic and outward looking. Ireland has managed to progress to this by a circuitous route and Scotland may get there soon. However, while this may appear a revolutionary politics in contrast to the self-harm and faith-based delusion of Brexit, on its own Scotland becoming a normal country doesn’t quite seem enough or seal the deal. Unlike Ireland, Scotland doesn’t come from the shadows of oppression or experience of inhumane colonialism, and so while there has been a maturing by the commission publication, we still need to ask: independence for what? What kind of Scotland do we want to be? Here the commission’s acceptance of the world as it currently is, is a problem.

Ireland’s debate and vote ended decades of having to be careful what you said and what you wished for in public. The Irish broke with decades of silence and acknowledged those silences and hurt. Scotland doesn’t have any issue as totemic and defining as abortion and the weight of religious authority, but there are some commonalities. Fintan O’Toole concluded his essay the day after the vote stating:

We have decided not to think in black and white anymore. Now we have to decide whether to subside into greyness or to replace that old monochrome with new colours of justice, decency and inclusion.

That is a big change. It is walking into a different future and nation. And that, in less dramatic terms, is what Scotland also has to do. We have to learn not to be defined by our differences, and what tribe we belong to, and to work out what beyond independence we agree on - even when we disagree on the constitutional way to it. We too have to decide whether we want to live in colour.

Image: Yes campaigners react to the Republic's abortion referendum result. Credit: Brian Lawless/PA Images, all rights reserved.

Like the distant, unruly uncle you only hear about when he’s gotten drunk and made an arse of himself again, Northern Ireland is back in the news. This time it’s because of the referendum in the Republic of Ireland to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

Since the result on the 26th May, much attention has been drawn to the fact that by autumn, as well as having the strictest abortion laws in the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland will have the strictest laws on the island of Ireland.

Activists have called for Westminster to legislate and are putting pressure on Theresa May. The Government and its Ministers have responded in recent days with statements so predictable and so rehearsed that they sound robotic. Abortion is a devolved matter.

Image: Twitter/Fair Use

A few MPs and commentators have even called for Northern Ireland to hold our own referendum, not just on abortion but on equal marriage as well.

It has always been controversial for the British Government to get involved in our affairs. There are political sensitivities and we should be mindful of that. At the same time, it’s hard not to feel angry about the Government’s stance on abortion and equal marriage.

Our abortion laws have been described as being ‘cruel and inhumane.’ and the LGBT community deserves to have the same rights afforded to couples in Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

It’s one thing to acknowledge the constitutional and political difficulties that come with getting involved in Northern Ireland. It’s another thing to disengage from the conversation and neglect your responsibilities. History should teach us to be wary every time the Government brings out the devolution argument. The response is, unfortunately, same old, same old.

If the constitutional landscape on the issue of abortion and devolution is tricky, it is all the more difficult to navigate given our current political crisis. We are not (yet) under direct rule but the Assembly is not functioning either.

Abortion is a devolved matter because it falls under Policing and Justice. Human Rights are not specified as being a reserved or excepted matter in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Section 4(2) of the Act seems to suggest, therefore, that Human Rights are a “transferred matter” i.e. devolved.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, under section 69, has the task of advising the Assembly on “legislative and other measures which ought to be taken to protect human rights.” The Assembly has to observe and comply with the European Convention of Human Rights.

So when the Government says abortion is a devolved matter, that isn’t untrue. We have to keep the Sewel Convention in mind. Westminster will not normally legislate on devolved matters in Northern Ireland without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

It is important to stress this: Parliament has the power to legislate for Northern Ireland on devolved matters. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 specifies this in section 5(6). Section 26(2) also specifies that the Secretary of State can direct a Minister to carry out an action to give effect to international obligations.

In reality, the problems Westminster faces by legislating for abortion are political, not legal. Both Sinn Fein and the DUP are against Westminster legislating for abortion. Theresa May is certainly wary of causing a rift with her “confidence and supply” partners in the DUP.

Let’s also acknowledge that the Supreme Court has yet to give its verdict on Northern Ireland’s abortion laws. The Government might be reluctant to weigh in until we get a judgment.

Since devolution, Britain has had to walk a fine line when it comes to Northern Ireland. The mantra of repeating “this is a devolved matter” is still hard to stomach, however. Since the foundation of the state, the British Government has shirked its responsibilities to people in Northern Ireland.

We are always treated differently. We are always apart from everyone else. What would be unacceptable in Britain is shoved on us as normal.

In her new book, The Good Friday Agreement, Siobhan Fenton relates how the British government was informed about the treatment of Catholics in Northern Ireland in 1928. A delegation appealed directly to the Home Secretary about voter suppression, who said it was a matter for the Northern Irish Parliament. Writing to James Craig, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, the British Home Secretary wrote, ‘I don’t know whether you would care at any time to discuss the matter with me; of course I am always at your disposal. But beyond that, “I know my place,” and don’t propose to interfere.’

Sound familiar?

Government ministers like to restate the constitutional and legal position on devolution without involving themselves in the conversation. Nobody ever acknowledges that, even if it’s problematic, the Government could still do something. Every time Theresa May or her cabinet ministers repeat the phrase, ‘that’s a devolved matter’ they are kicking the can down the road.

The only reason why MPs are keen for Northern Ireland to have a referendum on abortion is that it gets them off the hook. They want us to make the decision on abortion and equal marriage so they don’t have to think or act. They do all this while claiming to act in our best interests.

It’s easy to understand why activists are so fed up. We could have abortion reform and equal marriage but, oh dear, the government’s hands are tied, sorry. All of it is a tease. People are having their rights dangled in front of them like a prize to be won.

Nobody in Britain would put up with it. You can debate the politics and legalities all you want, but the attitude is infuriating. I agree with the activists: somebody needs to do something.

The British Government is undoubtedly in a difficult position. It’s hard not to be bitter when that stance is layered with apathy and indifference. We should acknowledge the irony. Siobhan Fenton explains it so well in her book: after everything that’s happened here the British have actually withdrawn from Northern Ireland. Not physically or legally, but mentally.

ScreenShot. Video source. YouTube. Woman trucker calls on fellow truckers to remain united.As the truckers’ strike in Iran enters its tenth consecutive day, despite concerted efforts by authorities to break and suppress it, and the many sacrifices that strikers and protesters are making, there is a sense of change and people power in the air.

The ongoing protests since the tail end of 2017, of which the strikes are a continuation, have led the Iranian people to again believe in their own power to confront a highly oppressive regime on their own terms.

The strike is unprecedented in its scope and strength of unity. Though this is not the first trucker strike in recent years – the largest was limited to just four cities in March of 2016 – none have reached the extensive and broad reach of this one. The current strike has spread to over 249 cities in all of Iran’s 31 provinces. Footage of striking truckers resisting security forces, encouraging unity, admonishing strikebreakers, parading empty loads on the nation’s highways, has spiked on social media networks such as Twitter, Telegram, and other platforms.

In a video posted on social media, a woman trucker calls on fellow drivers to remain united in the face of the authorities half-hearted attempts to win over segments of the truckers and says she and scores of other truckers are moving their trucks along the road to Qazvin with empty loads in protest, and calls on others to join them. Iran’s parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, signaled on Wednesday that Iran’s National Security Council is looking at the truckers’ strike, indicating that they view the issue as one of national security, a harbinger for more suppression. However, strikers have thwarted all attempts at forcing them back onto the roads until now. The government’s only recourse to addressing the strikers’ grievances is to meet their demands for higher wages, something it cannot do at the same time as it is funnelling billions of dollars into influencing outcomes in the Syrian war, the Iraqi political process, Yemen’s civil war, and incitement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord (JCPOA) and the kicking in of US sanctions will further force Iran to face up to its internal contradictions, expediting the socio-political process of change in Iran. Lacking the slush fund provided to it by the JCPOA and foreign business investments, Iran will have to make hard choices. Protesters earlier this year chanted: “Leave Syria alone, think about us” as they admonished the regime for wasting resources for domestic development on warmongering adventurism in the region. The slogan pits ordinary Iranians against a government that is increasingly isolated. So much so that recent sanctions on the regime garnered “Way to go Trump!” graffiti in Tehran, however surprising that may seem.

The strike has also gained significant international attention. The US based International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) issued a tweet in its official account declaring, “Teamsters Stand in Solidarity with Iran Truck Drivers Strike.”

A prominent Iranian blogger, Heshmat Alavi, has reported taxi drivers striking in solidarity in Urmia, Qaemiyeh, Sanandaj, and posted video of the striking taxis. Footage from Tehran’s main loading terminal on Tuesday shows workers there protesting during a complete work stoppage. Video from the normally bustling Persian Gulf port of Bushehr on day 9 of the strike show the port totally deserted and rows of trucks parked idly on strike.

The truth about Iran is that it is a rigid theocracy nurturing a crony capitalist system where the IRGC and supreme leader’s favourites rule the economy. The vast youthful population languishes with college degrees and no jobs. Women are systematically suppressed as second-class citizens, though they fight back in all ways possible. The government’s interference extends to people’s private lives, homes, whom they associate with on the streets, what they wear, the music they prefer, political ideas they espouse, and their way of life. There is no “freedom” in Iran and Iranians know it. Until recently, they have resisted the regime’s encroachments in little ways, but now they sense its weakness, and an unprecedented opening.

For things to change in Iran, the stars need to align properly: domestic factors and international factors need to favorably affect change. The staying power of Iran’s theocratic regime in the past 40 years has not been for lack of popular opposition to the theocracy, but for lack of a favorable alignment of domestic and international factors affecting Iran. When the people of Qazvin or Mashhad rose in the 1990’s, or when the uprising of 1999, and then 2009 took place, the regime’s brutal suppression was met with international complacency.

World governments from Europe, UK, to the US showed an impatience with the masses who were making things difficult for better relations with Iran, and for foreign corporations wanting to do business in Iran, and an Obama administration that wanted a nuclear deal with them. The uprising of 2018 however, is unfolding against a different international political landscape. Regional Arab countries have set aside their conservative stance to challenge Iran’s adventurism and interventions in the region, and most importantly, a new US administration has taken a completely new line with Iran, distinguishing between the ruling regime and the Iranian people.

Video source: YouTube, The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

The triangle of domestic uprising, regional readiness to confront an expansionist regime, and a growing international willingness to exact a price on Tehran for its malign behavior, at least by the United States, is creating conducive circumstances for change in Iran.

The truckers, workers, taxi and bus drivers, youth, and women in Iran, all sense change in the air. Forty-two years ago, when Jimmy Carter toasted the Shah of Iran and said “Iran is an island of stability in a troubled region of the world,” no one foresaw the implosion of the Shah’s regime about a year later. Now too, we should be aware that Iran is in the throes of yet another convulsion. This one is set to upend the Middle East. Perhaps this time for the better. There are many reasons for optimism, but most significant is Iran’s own people, who have been inoculated against one of the most virulent strains of intolerance and fanaticism, forming one of the most outwardly friendly nations to progressive change in the region today.

German Chancellor Merkel presents biography of her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, 2015. Kay Nietfeld/ Press Association. All rights reserved.

Because it embodies timeless values of equality, fairness, and respectful debate, social democracy bears a dual promise: domestic social justice and European unity. The postwar struggles of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) illustrate the difficulty in translating these admirable values into political practice. In a bid to keep itself electorally relevant, the SPD adopted policies that left many Germans behind. And once the euro was introduced, the SPD pursued a narrow national interest. Germany’s dominance in eurozone governance induced other European social democratic parties to follow the SPD’s lead. Inevitably, Europe’s social democrats lost domestic support and European solidarity eroded.

In the closing years of the nineteenth century, the SPD’s Eduard Bernstein was in the vanguard of defining social democracy as a political movement that sought to achieve both material progress and social justice. The ground for such a political philosophy became particularly fertile after the upheavals of the Great Depression and World War II. But while other European social democratic parties, notably in Sweden, created national alliances and acquired political authority, after the war the SPD struggled for nearly a quarter century to gain the German chancellorship. Briefly, between 1969 and 1982, the SPD’s Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt were chancellors.

But buffeted by two oil price shocks, in 1973 and 1981-82, and unable to stem the rapid rise in unemployment, the SPD lost electoral favor. For 16 years, from 1982 to 1998, the SPD was consigned to the political wilderness while Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the rival Christian Democratic Union (CDU) reigned supreme. Kohl also lured SPD supporters by adopting some of the social justice agenda: more generous unemployment benefits and new a child-rearing allowance.

In 1998, the SPD experienced a modest revival under Gerhard Schröder as chancellor. In his second term, between 2002 and 2005, Schröder changed course. With little new to offer to promote social justice, he sought to attract the winners of rapidly spreading globalization, believing that traditional working-class supporters would never desert his party. Schröder announced this die neue Mitte (the new center) approach with British prime minister Tony Blair (who called it the Third Way). Together, they promised to “modernize” their economies by allowing more room for the operation of market forces.

Germany's “Hartz reforms”

Schröder’s major initiative was the so-called Hartz reforms, which reduced benefits for unemployed workers and so pushed them harder to look for new jobs. As a result, workers who could not retain their privileged positions in Germany’s best-performing firms accepted low-wage temporary and part-time “mini” jobs in the low-productivity services sector. Such workers fell into a trap of low earnings and increasing economic insecurity. Unsurprisingly, they steadily transferred their allegiance from the SPD to other parties, including what now is called the Left Party, which promised to work harder for workers’ protections and rights.

By creating divisions among different categories of workers, the SPD fractured the sense of “social solidarity and sense of shared national purpose,” crucial for the political success of social democracy, as the political theorist Sheri Berman has pointed out. By creating divisions among different categories of workers, the SPD fractured the sense of “social solidarity and sense of shared national purpose”.

The Hartz reforms, nevertheless, acquired a crucial narrative strength, and its variants spread throughout Europe. Such reforms, German and other European leaders asserted, helped Germany strengthen its export competitiveness. Nothing, however, was farther from the truth, as I explain in my book, EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts.German manufacturing companies remained internationally competitive because they deployed time-honored methods of innovation while outsourcing parts of their production to Eastern Europe. But the mythology of the Hartz reforms’ magic took hold. Social democrats throughout Europe felt obliged to pursue the same politically divisive strategy and, inevitably, their own sense of collective national purpose steadily frayed.

The “neue Mitte/Third Way”declaration also made a bold claim to pursue European solidarity (“We share a common destiny within the European Union”). Schröder, for his part, chanted a fuzzy mantra of European “political union” to lay claim to European credentials. Schröder’s vice chancellor, Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, called for a bold but completely unrealistic European vision. European nations, he proposed, should sign a constitutional treaty to create a European federation.

But Schröder aggressively promoted a narrow German national interest in European affairs. He fought for national voting rights in the Council of Ministers. To protect the German automaker Volkswagen, he blocked a European Union proposal for the reform of corporate takeover legislation. Schröder’s parochial interest was motivated by his allegiance to Volkswagen, on whose supervisory board he had sat as governor of the state of Lower Saxony.  And while Schröder rightly opposed the European Central Bank’s excessively tight monetary policy and the European Commission’s mindless pursuit of fiscal austerity, he sought only a German exemption rather than a constructive change in rules. To protect the German automaker Volkswagen, he blocked a European Union proposal for the reform of corporate takeover legislation.

Having alienated its domestic base, the SPD lost electoral ground in the 2005 election, and returned as the CDU’s junior partner in a grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel. When the global financial crisis erupted in 2007, nations of the Eurozone ­– those sharing Europe’s single currency, the euro – were faced with a crucial test of European solidarity. Tied together by the single currency, would the strong nations support the weak?

The SPD’s Peer Steinbrück, as German finance minister, nixed proposals to create European financial firewalls to limit the spread of financial crises. Moreover, by then, Germans had overcome their temporary turn-of-the-millennium economic funk, and Steinbrück returned to the traditional German insistence on fiscal austerity. At the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, he mocked British prime minister Gordon Brown’s impassioned plea for globally coordinated fiscal stimulus. So poor was Steinbrück’s judgment that Merkel overruled him and joined the essential stimulus effort.

In the 2009 election, with nothing to offer by way of either national or European ideas, the SPD’s vote share plummeted to a historic low of 23 percent. With nothing to offer by way of either national or European ideas, the SPD’s vote share plummeted to a historic low of 23 percent.

Austerity across Europe

As the eurozone’s never-ending crisis dragged on, weary citizens in member nations looked again to social democratic parties to jump-start an equitable growth process. Thus, the 2012-2013 election cycle gave Europe’s social democrats an opportunity for political revival. In a wave that started in France and then continued into Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, social democratic parties either gained government leadership or emerged as important coalition partners. Besides promising domestic economic relief, social democratic leaders – French president François Hollande, Italian prime minister Enrico Letta, and German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel – stirred the hope that they would help reinvigorate an agenda of European unity.

But notwithstanding their rhetoric, the social democrats did not deliver. The SPD’s failure is noteworthy. At home, in coalition with the CDU, the SPD did little to bring back its former supporters, many of whom, feeling abandoned, had stayed away from the polls. Although the German economy performed much better than other eurozone economies, real wages stagnated for too many Germans and economic inequality increased inexorably.

On European matters, the CDU-SPD coalition remained an unrelenting advocate for fiscal austerity. French president Hollande and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi did put up a brave fight against the grinding austerity, but they fought for minor concessions rather than challenging German orthodoxy. With the European Central Bank offering only grudging monetary policy relief, the overall policy squeeze delayed economic recovery, which severely hurt Europe’s most vulnerable citizens.

The SPD’s intellectual influence was particularly insidious in the area of “labor market reforms.” In October 2014, Renzi announced what was to be his singular achievement: the Jobs Act. Much like the Hartz reforms, the act weakened workers’ rights and, despite claims of protective provisions, reinforced the tendency toward jobs with insecure tenures. Italian governments before Renzi’s had implemented similar reforms, which indeed increased employment. But the evidence from the past reforms was that they dulled the incentives for employers and employees to increase productivity and, hence, contributed to the steady decline in Italian productivity growth. Renzi’s Jobs Act seems destined to prolong Italy’s near-zero productivity growth.Renzi’s Jobs Act seems destined to prolong Italy’s near-zero productivity growth.

Social democrats thus threw away the opportunity presented to them in the 2012-2013 electoral cycle. They failed to promote a domestic agenda that brought hope to globalization’s losers, especially those who lacked necessary education and skills. Unsurprisingly, social democratic parties were clobbered at the polls in 2017-2018. They lost to protest parties that spoke more directly to voters’ economic and cultural anxieties.

European “solidarity”?

The social democrats’ European promise also continued to prove false. In a particularly jarring instance, in March 2017, the Dutch Labor Party’s Jeroen Dijsselbloem gave voice to a growing north-south divide in the eurozone. He reprimanded governments and citizens in southern eurozone countries for their profligacy: “You cannot,” he told them, “spend all the money on women and drinks and then ask for help.” In the ensuing outrage over the words he had used, Dijsselbloem defended himself. European “solidarity,” he insisted, required adherence to budget rules on debt and deficit limits.

March, 2017. Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos talking with Pierre Moscovici and the Dutch Minister of Finance, President of the Council Jeroen Dijsselbloem before a Eurogroup meeting. Thierry Monasse/ Press Association. All rights reserved.In Germany, the SPD leader Martin Schulz flaunted an eccentric pro-Europeanism. In December 2017, he pledged that, as a key member of a prospective Merkel-led coalition government, he would enforce adoption of a European constitution by all member states. Not only was Schulz’s idea absurdly unrealistic, he misunderstood his domestic constituents, whose priorities lay in actions at home. When, at a party gathering, Schulz spoke of his conversation with French president Emmanuel Macron to promote a grand European strategy, the members groaned. Schulz’s plans and political fortunes nosedived.

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz, the new German finance minister in the latest CDU-SPD coalition, has repeatedly reaffirmed his party’s commitment to unify Europe. But he has acted in the mould of the previous SPD finance minister, Peer Steinbrück. Domestically, Scholz has doubled down on the need for continued budget surpluses, negating any hope that government investment and social spending will spur a broadly inclusive domestic growth process. On the call for a eurozone budget by French president Emmanuel Macron, Scholz has bluntly stated that a German finance minister – no matter the party affiliation – must protect German taxpayer money from fiscally irresponsible eurozone member country governments.

Throughout Europe, social democrats are gripped by an intellectual laziness that risks turning into a terminal stupor. They can have little hope of retrieving lost support in new domestic alliances without an energetic agenda for national revival that creates more opportunities and fosters a sense of fairness. They need new ideas to raise taxes to pay for extending the reach and quality of education and health care to economically vulnerable citizens.

This history also makes it clear that social democracy cannot be a unifying European force. Social democrats across Europe do share common values of fairness, justice, and an open society. But today, such values are subordinated to the requirements of economic policy coordination in support of the euro. And given Germany’s economic dominance, the de facto focal point of European policy coordination is German policy preferences. As such, the euro’s guiding ideology requires weaker workers’ rights and protections alongside a commitment to fiscal rectitude. This history also makes it clear that social democracy cannot be a unifying European force.

The euro

The euro has proved to be fundamentally at odds with social democracy. In its most successful Swedish version, social democracy has been a nationally legitimate social contract to redistribute resources among those who share historical and cultural ties. The straitjacket of the euro ideology, however, places the burden of national competitiveness on lower workers’ wages; and it enforces ill-timed and excessive fiscal austerity measures that limit options in domestic economic policymaking. The euro, therefore, prevents the formation of domestic alliances that could create “a sense of national purpose.” The policy straitjacket is reinforced by the presumption that each national ship must face the risk of sinking to its own bottom, a presumption that undermines the Blair-Schröder call for a “common destiny within the European Union.”

April, 2018, Wiesbaden: Andrea Nahles, the new SPD party leader, presents former party leader Martin Schulz with a picture. Bernd von Jutrczenka/ Press Association. All rights reserved.European social democrats have continued to haemorrhage support. The conclusion seems sadly inescapable. On its current course, unable to generate a domestic consensus and powerless to counter the narratives and priorities dictated by the euro, the political practice of social democracy will continue to fail at home while divisions among member nation states deepen.

As part of our Looking at Lexit series, we’ll be asking left-wing Brexit voters about their reasons for voting Leave. Our first “Everyday Lexiter” is Aisha, a 25-year-old journalist.

(Image: Wikimedia)

Describe your political outlook/background/loyalties.

Born in the early 1990s, I never used to vote in general elections because after Tony Blair it felt like a legitimisation of the electoral system, which is rigged to actively remove subsistence wealth, life and happiness from hundreds of millions of people. Growing up after the financial crisis you realise elections are privatised. I’d never witnessed democracy create anything worth voting for except in Greece, where people’s wishes were immediately overturned. But when friends convinced me that, as a young person, it was important to vote since the baby boomers weren’t going to change anything, I voted Green in 2015; later that year, I joined the Labour party, newly liberated from the centrist insurgency.

I believe all things should be equal for all people regardless of skills, race, age, intelligence, religion, species, disability, gender, sexuality, personality, work ethic, behavioural tendencies, access and citizenship. I believe wealth should be taken from the wealthy and transferred directly to the bank accounts of the poor until no one has more than anyone else. I believe reparations should be paid by the western world to all the peoples they have exploited and oppressed for centuries. I believe social equality is not possible without economic equality and “equality of opportunity” is a sham that protects the interests of people with power and access. Identity and identification have been calcified and weaponised by exclusion and oppression.

Describe, in two or three sentences, your political utopia: what your ideal community would look like, and how would it function?

It’s not possible to describe the right life from a wrong world, because we start from a position of such entangled evil that it would be very hard to disentangle without more evil, which I would not condone. But in my ideal community there would be equality of shelter, food and water for all. The world’s $107.5tn GDP would be at work freeing children from poverty, people from night shifts, animals from cages, homeless people from the street, while the surplus would remove carbon from the atmosphere and plastic from the sea. There would be no nation states. I do not know who would implement equality or what would happen to those who attempted to ruin everything.

More immediately, however, I can't see how leaving the customs union would bring us closer to these aims. Free trade agreements in general bolster calcified ideologies but a customs union in particular might be more limited and more practical. It would also lessen the blow for many small businesses and businesspeople who might otherwise be at the sharper edge of Brexit, and reduce pain for people in northern Ireland, which is a significant consideration. The divorce settlement as I see it is going well. Let the EU not relent in upholding the rights of citizens here but there should never be multiple courts exercising law in one country.

What was your main reason for voting for Brexit?

I have three reasons for voting for Brexit. The first is because I travelled extensively during the 2015 election campaign to constituencies where many people supported Ukip and held focus groups with voters. Many talked about the impact immigration has on jobs and wages but I never felt white supremacy was the first cause. Many were not white British.

My second reason is because the European Union was established during a period of terrible conflict to make politics more difficult through shared economic interests. “A laboratory atop a graveyard,” is what Czech politician Thomas Masaryk called it. However, politics (the possibility of changing things) is not inherently bad - in fact, I would argue it is crucial for self-governance and freedom. Instead shared economic interests have spawned a monster where free trade enables big international companies to benefit from tariff free zones, the predictability of stasis and easy replication.

My final reason is because Europe has a long and bloody history of imperialism that is more important than the EU. Colonialism is unacknowledged in the West - one has only to see the depiction of Winston Churchill on the new £5 note, widely reviled as a murderer and eugenicist around the world. Or the white-dominated curriculums of schools and universities despite the millions of imperial subjects that died on the bloody road to Britain’s modern prosperity. Why should Italian students have any more right to economic migration to France than North Africans? The European Union is a racist project that relegates people of colour to die in oceans while white Christians enjoy the fruits of one another’s exploitation. It is no coincidence that China has not been given status as a market economy and Turkey’s membership has been consistently stonewalled.

Were you influenced by any politicians? Friends, family, colleagues?

Everyone I know voted Remain except for my partner who believes in politics and hates the EU for killing choice in favour of technocracy. I wouldn't say he particularly influenced me in my view but it was great talking to him about it. I always knew that the European Union was a racist organisation in service of an evil status quo.

How would a Labour-led Brexit differ from a Tory one?

Vastly. Brexit happened because austerity has cauterised everyone but the most wealthy (in the world, not just the UK). The single market is the worst part of the EU. Let’s ditch the free movement of goods, services and capital and keep the freest movement of labour possible. We need hard Brexit with soft immigration, not the other way around! We need to write environmental targets, labour laws, human rights, privacy rules and product market regulation into our own laws as soon as possible. This means a Labour government - or anyone, really, who isn’t spending all their time reassuring Deutsche Bank.

How do you see the UK in five years’ time? How do you see Europe?

I imagine both to be pretty much the same except hopefully with Labour in charge there’ll be more discussion about how to redistribute wealth and remove people from poverty. Jeremy Corbyn has brought the word and ideals of socialism back into public conversation, and the Brexit vote has already made bankers and investment managers begin to talk about structural inequality. Perhaps soon we’ll start talking about what we need to destroy in order to rebuild a better society.

What would have to change about the EU, or the UK’s relationship with the EU, for you to support continued or renewed membership?

I never would. The European Union is inherently racist, unchanging, technocratic and oppressive. Nothing makes any of those things okay, not even a nice conversation, or falling in love with a French girl.

Screen shot: From Íñigo Errejón’s tweet: Goodbye Rajoy. Goodbye PP.Although the emotionally vertiginous nature of Spain’s sudden change of government can lead to hyperbole, today’s motion of no-confidence that has resulted in the immediate change of government in Spain is historic, and its impact potentially game changing.

In terms of Spanish politics it is only the fourth motion of no-confidence that has been put to a vote in democracy, and the first to prosper. It is also the first time that the person taking on the presidency of the government, Pedro Sánchez of the PSOE, is not currently a member of Parliament.

Sánchez’s path to the presidency has been remarkable, worthy in fact of a film treatment in itself. Faced with the possibility (some would say impossibility) of forming a government in 2016, Sanchez missed his historic moment then, and his fortunes declined rapidly afterward. Ousted from the leadership of his party by an internal coup, he abandoned his seat in parliament and took to the road, traversing the towns of Spain, building a grassroots base of support and connecting with his electorate.

His endeavors paid off when the PSOE militants defied the party leadership to vote him in as party leader in May 2017. Yet no poll would have predicted an electoral path to the presidency of the Spanish government. Instead it was the right-wing Spanish nationalist party Ciudadanos that held the top spot in the Gabinet d’Estudis Socials i Opinió Pública (GESOP)’s April 2018 survey, with 28.7% of the vote, followed by the PP, who would drop to 21%, the PSOE with 20,5% and finally coalition Unidos Podemos with 18. But his fortunes changed radically in the past week, when a sudden motion of no-confidence was presented with lightning speed by the PSOE without consulting beforehand with any other parties, catapulting Sánchez into the presidency.

Corruption, corruption, corruption

The trigger? The “Gürtel sentence” which is just the first ruling in a much wider political corruption scheme that is one of the most important in Spain’s democratic history, and which sentenced 29 of the 37 accused to a total of 351 years in prison.

The ruling condemned the Popular Party for benefiting from systematic institutional corruption and confirmed judicially for the first time the existence of the party’s “B fund”, through which the party made illegal pay offs to party members.

The evidence was detailed in the infamous “Bárcenas papers,” documentation provided by the Popular Party’s former treasurer who has been sentenced to 33 years in prison, and which details the names and payouts of the funds, including a certain “M.Rajoy”. The almost 1700 page ruling describes a complex and vast system of institutional corruption, illicit enrichment and influence trafficking.

The ruling is the most severe of the many cases that have been brought forward, some of which have yet to be ruled upon, including the Púnica case and the Lezo case. When the case was opened by Judge Baltasar Garzón in 2009, Mariano Rajoy declared, “This is not a plot of the PP, it is a plot against the PP”, a position he has maintained until the present. At the time of his declaration he was surrounded by leading lights in the party such as Francisco Camps (ex-President of Valencia), ex-Minister of Health Ana Mato, and ex-Mayor of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre, all either directly or indirectly implicated in corruption. The Gürtel ruling contested the PP’s narrative that these were isolated cases that had nothing to do with the party as whole.

Yet the Popular Party has been seemingly indestructible, weathering scandal after scandal, and still garnering the most votes in recent elections. Corruption alone, therefore, did not bring them down. Corruption alone, therefore, did not bring them down.

While the exact calculations that led the PSOE to present the motion so suddenly now are unknown, the shift in position of the PNV, the conservative Basque nationalist party whose crucial 5 votes swung the motion in Sánchez’ favour, and the support of the remaining parties that made up the 180 votes in favour, owes much to the work of social movements and progressive political parties who have prepared the terrain and worked toward a shift in the zeitgeist from an apathetic acceptance of corruption as politics as usual to a “Sí se puede, hay que echarlos!” (Yes we can! We must throw them out!) standpoint.

The long afterlife of social movements

Sánchez’ discourse during the motion of no-confidence debate drew heavily on narratives and tropes that Podemos, and other parties and coalitions such as Ahora Madrid, Barcelona en Comú and Compromís have been articulating ceaselessly over the past several years.

The discourses in turn reflect the key demands of the Indignados 15-M movement that took to the squares and streets and Spain in 2011 to demand “Real Democracy Now!” and an end to austerity politics. Those movements in turn made possible the emergence of the above mentioned parties and electoral coalitions, and would have been impossible without the support and collaboration of the movements, not only in terms of the programmatic messages and demands they articulated but in terms of the organizational forms that structured them. The emergence of the above mentioned parties and electoral coalitions… would have been impossible without the support and collaboration of the movements.

While Podemos adopted a relatively more classical party form, the “municipalist movements for change” as they are known in Spain maintained a closer commitment to the grassroots autonomous traditions from which they emerged, and in their ability to actually govern some of Spain’s largest cities including Madrid and Barcelona, have been able to prove that they can govern effectively.

Podemos for their part have played a crucial role in keeping the pressure on the PP government and the parties that have maintained them in power until now by expressing the outrage felt by millions of Spaniards in light of the seemingly endless corruption scandals that have emerged and continue to unfold, and which have implicated not just individual members of the Popular Party, but, in the judicial ruling of the Gürtel trial that triggered the motion of no-confidence, the Popular Party itself.  

In the wake of this ruling, Podemos and political leaders such as Ada Colau Bollano, Mayor of Barcelona, have called for a defence of the dignity of the institution of democracy as a core motivator for parties of different ideological orientations to join together:

“Corruption weakens our institutions. It isn’t just serious because public funds are robbed, which are needed for healthcare, education […] for pensions which is an urgent topic of debate right now, […] if we allow corruption to be met with impunity , for corruption to become embedded in our institutions, we are devaluing them, we are delegitimizing them, we are sending a message to the public that this is just business as usual, […] that democratic institutions can be used for a political party to enrich itself with what belongs to everyone. We cannot allow that from a democratic point of view. All of the corruption scandals of the PP would be enough in other consolidated European democracies for everyone to resign, and for there to be serious consequences. We cannot allow this permanent state of corruption to be normalized and therefore this motion of no -confidence is very important. Political parties must set aside [electoral considerations] and join in this motion.”

Screenshot: From Ada Colau's twitter feed.

This narrative was largely adopted by Sánchez in his discourse, along with the promise of a progressive agenda that also echoes the key challenges or crises that Podemos’ Pablo Iglesias and other representatives of Unidos Podemos articulated during the debate (and has been articulating since its inception).

This institutional political activism has been an echo of the continuous mass mobilization on the streets of Spain, which has included in recent months alone, sustained protests by tens of thousands of pensioners in hundreds of protests across Spain for decent pensions; the mass outrage against patriarchal justice over the judicial sentence that did not consider a brutal gang rape of a young woman (which was planned, video recorded and then celebrated by the perpetrators) to be rape, a ruling that led Judge Baltasar Garzón to write publicly about why he felt the judge’s ruling was not the kind of justice “we need for democracy”; mass feminist mobilizations and occupations against gendered violence; and the marches against precarity, among many others.

Sánchez’ recognition of the need to overturn the most problematic aspects of the notorious Ley Mordaza also reflects a key demand by human rights and pro-Democracy activists in Spain, which has recently seen a rapper sentenced to 3 years in prison for his lyrics, and a punk singer fined for yelling the Spanish equivalent of “Fuck the police!” at a concert. The fact that he has been shouting the same kinds of things at his concerts over the past several decades but is only now being fined for it, is also an indicator of the increasingly restrictive environment in which critique is silenced but the judicial penalties for fraud and corruption have been systematically softened.

The presentation of the motion of no-confidence came in the fifth week of protest by public radio and television employees demanding the democratic regeneration of the RTVE executive. The protest consists of all reporters on air dressing in black each Friday, in mourning for the lack of democratic freedom of press.

Complex afterlives and a possible dialogue

Despite the declaration of “failure” of the movements of the squares, in the face of the many reversals of fortune experienced by these movements following the emptying of the squares, what today’s events show is that the effects of movements cannot be measured in straight lines or binaries: their afterlives are complex and multi-directional, unexpected and sometimes unintentional.

Their effects are not just short-term political gains or losses but include more widespread cultural and political shifts that can take many years to bear fruit. Even then, their gains can be reversed and are never fixed or final.

The road ahead for Sánchez in any event is extremely challenging. With only 84 PSOE seats in parliament he will need to negotiate alliances with a range of political forces in order to govern. His biggest challenge, undoubtedly, will be the management of the situation in Cataluña, where another government has just been formed under the presidency of Quim Torra, and where the period of national rule over the autonomous parliament of Cataluña invoked under the never before applied Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which allows for the assumption of control over the autonomous parliaments by the national government in cases where a clear threat to the general interests of Spain exists, will soon end.

Despite the challenges, the feeling is that “at least now there is the possibility to engage in a dialogue, if no guarantee people will actually listen to each other” as Esquerra República de Catalunya (ERC) congressman Joan Tardá put it.

One year ago Podemos also brought forth a motion of no-confidence, arguing forcefully that “another government was possible” and that the proven corruption of the Popular Party was reason enough for them to be ousted from government. At that time, they failed to gain the support of enough members of parliament for that motion to prosper, but their words were prophetic. What would have been unimaginable just a few years ago has today become a reality. What would have been unimaginable just a few years ago has today become a reality.

Today, when the president of the parliament read the results of the vote in favour of the ousting of the Popular Party and the immediate assumption of power by the PSOE’S Pedro Sánchez, applause rang out along with the chants of Sí se puede! (Yes we can) from the ranks of Unidos Podemos. When Ada Colau, who was witnessing the vote from the gallery, left the parliament building, she was met by the crowd outside with chants of “Sí Se Puede!”, a spontaneous recognition of the role that she and others have played in arriving at this historic moment.

If Sánchez is the miraculous victor today, a politician “who has died and been resurrected more times than Jesus” (as the pundits say), this historic moment would not have been possible without the social movements and progressive parties that have prepared the way.

Time to walk

In the short term many issues are unresolved, such as who will form government with the PSOE and which political priorities the PSOE will be able to get through parliament with a minority of seats. The PSOE, a party that was imploding, is now in government, and the PP will be a hostile and tough opposition.

As for Ciudadanos, as a party who has campaigned strongly on an anti-corruption agenda the fact they were the only major party to vote against the motion leaves their political future uncertain. They may be able to “devour their father” by presenting themselves as the less tainted inheritors of the PP, or else their failure to make good on their commitment against corruption in the motion of no-confidence based entirely on the corruption of the PP may cost them dearly.

Podemos’ future is also unclear, although the current scenario favours them somewhat. They may be able to participate in the passage of the 40 odd measures that have been blocked by the PP in this legislature, while still acting as an opposition party in cases where they disagree or seek to differentiate themselves from the PSOE.

Electoral considerations aside, for now, many of those who fought so hard for this day to come will take comfort from being able to oust the PP from power, a sentiment captured by Podemos’ Íñigo Errejón’s  tweet: Goodbye Rajoy. Goodbye PP. Your disdain, your impunity, your arrogance, your ransacking, your patrimonial use of the institutions, your policies that favour the privileged and are cruel to working people. Now it’s time to walk.  

Screenshot: Íñigo Errejón’s tweet: Goodbye Rajoy. Goodbye PP.

George Osborne, editor of the Evening Standard. Image, YouTube, fair use.

George Osborne’s London Evening Standard has denied it has ever put a price on independent news and comment. But Green Party leader Caroline Lucas says the Standard’s claim never to have “crossed the line” dividing editorial from advertising does “not stack up” after she examined coverage from a paid-for news deal with Swiss agri-chem giant, Syngenta.

Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer who took over as editor of the London free-sheet last year, is facing calls to resign, and for the paper to be banned from valued distribution points outside London’s huge underground tube network. 

The widespread criticism of Osborne and his editorship follows an openDemocracy investigation which revealed details of a £3 million deal between ESI Media – the commercial division of the Standard and Independent online – and six major companies each paying £500,000 to secure, among other advertorial promises, “money-can’t-buy” positive news and “favourable” comment pieces.

The international taxi-app firm, Uber, and the global tech giant, Google, are two of the companies who signed up to a project called London 2020. Due to be launched on June 5, 2020 has a highly political social agenda involving clean air, a reduction in plastic pollution, a schools and work-tech programme and improvements in housing.

Syngenta deal

Although the Standard and ESI Media this week claimed “independence” was at the heart of “everything we do”, in 2017 the in-house ‘ESI Live’ events team concluded a “partnership” worth upwards of £100,000 with Syngenta.

openDemocracy investigated the Syngenta deal earlier this year. A series of effectively one-sided public “debates” on the “Future of Food” was chaired by the then editor. Staff news reporters covered the debates for the paper, which heavily pushed Syngenta’s food technology credentials as a producer of genetically modified (GM) crop seeds.

More PR than debate

Although the one-sided debate coverage was branded with the Syngenta logo, other articles published in the news section carried no branding. In one piece, headlined “Hungry for solutions: scientists trying to satisfy London’s soaring demand for food” the Standard’s news and technology correspondent praised Syngenta, its laboratories, its net income, and the benefits of GM. It stated that those who fear GM have a “suspicion of technology.” It reads like a PR hand-out - with readers never explicitly told this was paid-for news.

Another article in September 2017, published after Osborne had become editor, was headlined “Global food challenge has obvious solution, says boss of leading Italy manufacturer.” Although appearing to be a story about a farmer with links to Italy’s pasta industry, it is, according to one communications analyst contacted by openDemocracy, “little more than dressed up PR.”

Throughout the entire period of the deal with Syngenta, the Standard carried no details of a multi-billion law suit the company was facing in the United States, and no reference to the large scale lobbying being conducted by the firm over the potential changes in food laws likely to follow the UK’s exit from the EU.

Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said “If the Standard wants to be trusted as a source of news it needs to be crystal clear about always letting readers know whether there’s any financial incentives lurking behind content that they print.”

Call to ‘come clean’

Caroline Lucas. Image, Greens2017.org

Examining the Evening Standard’s Syngenta coverage, Lucas observed: “I am not convinced that their claim to have never crossed the line that divides editorial from advertising, stacks up on scrutiny.” She added: “They have to come clean about news stories advocating the perspective of a sponsor or the promotion of a commercial agenda.”

Earlier this year at a festival of international journalism in Perugia, Italy, a senior executive from Syngenta, Luigi Radaelli, the company’s head of strategy and business sustainability, took part in a debate on “fake news”. Syngenta said it had chosen to take part in the debate to “promote proper scientific information at all levels.” No mention was made of its commercial deal with the Standard for positive news and comment during the public debates and in the pages of the London paper.

The Evening Standard and Independent online are owned by Moscow-based oligarch, Alexander Lebedev, and run in London by his son Evgeny.   

The “partnerships” for London 2020 are expected, according to a company source, to follow a similar pattern.

‘Money-can’t-buy’ offer

openDemocracy obtained the full presentation given to potential corporate partners which stated there would be a “bespoke commercial” package alongside the “money-can’t buy” offer of news, comment and “high profile backers.”

The coffee giant, Starbucks, confirmed to openDemocracy that it had “met with ESI but had opted not to move forward with the project.” A senior executive called the idea of “buying” a reputation “PR death”.

No response from either Uber or Google has been received by openDemocracy at the time of publishing.

Reaction: Anger, shock and calls for resignation

The response to openDemocracy’s investigation of London 2020 has ranged from anger to astonishment. Many focused on Osborne crossing an established ethical line. 

Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, tweeted: “This is cash for column inches and amounts to a corporate fake news factory on a grand scale. If even vaguely true, George Osborne’s position as a credible editor is under serious question today."

Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister under Tony Blair, also called the details behind the 2020 project “cash for column inches.”

George Monbiot, the Guardian’s environment columnist, simply said “There is a word for this – corruption.”

The Times columnist, Jenni Russell, said that Osborne “should resign”. She called the commercial details of the 2020 deal “unbelievable”.

Paul Mason, the former Newsnight political journalist and activist, said in his 25-plus years in media he had worked with “some real editorial sharks, but none were prepared to blur the ad/ed [advertising and independent editorial] line. “

Natalie Bennett, a former journalist and former leader of the Green Party, said “If Osborne is allowed to stay as in his job, it is the end of mainstream journalism.”

The former newspaper executive and media consultant, Grant Feller, writing in the Guardian, said Osborne’s multiple business interests had left him “compromised” as an editor and someone no longer worthy of being trusted.

Geoff Mulgan, Tony Blair’s director of policy in 10 Downing Street, now chief executive of Nesta (National Endowment for the Science, Technology and the Arts) said : “A very serious ethical line has been crossed here – a test for public norms whether George Osborne feels impelled to back down.”

Tom Copley, Labour’s housing spokesman on the London Assembly, said he would be asking London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, whether it was appropriate for the Evening Standard to continue to be distributed at tube stations.

Sex workers protest in front of the Western Cape High Court during the trial of Zwelethu Mthethwa case for the murder of sex worker Nokuphila Kumalo. Date: 16 March 2017. Photo taken by: Lesego Tlhwale. Used with permission, all rights reserved.

In February 2018 the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) published our new report ‘Sex workers organising for change: self-representation, community mobilisation, and working conditions’. The report documents how organising has enabled sex workers to deal with the on-going stigma and discrimination they face from society and the authorities, and to prevent and address the violence, coercion, and exploitation occurring in the sex industry.

The report presents the findings of a feminist participatory action research project conducted in seven countries. At least one sex worker organisation in each country took part: Stella and Butterfly (Canada), Brigada Callejera (Mexico), Hetaira and Genera (Spain), SWEAT and Sisonke (South Africa), SANGRAM and VAMP (India), Empower (Thailand) and New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (New Zealand). These countries were chosen because they represent different world regions and cultures, span both the global north and global south, and are considered as both countries of origin and destination for migration and trafficking.

Download the full report Sex Workers Organising for Change: Self-representation, community mobilisation, and working conditions as a PDF.

The precise research methodology varied somewhat across the different countries but generally involved individual interviews and focus group discussions with three types of respondents: representatives of the organisations; current or former sex workers; and representatives of other organisations or individuals who have cooperated with the sex worker organisations. Between nine and 32 respondents were interviewed in each country. In some countries, additional information was provided to the researchers by email. The interview questions related to the benefits of organising, to their understanding of human trafficking, and to the challenges for sex workers in the country. We further asked how the organisations respond to these challenges, and requested specific examples of mobilisation of sex workers.

Below are some of the main findings.

Sex work as a livelihood strategy

Our findings confirmed those of previous research that show sex work is first and foremost a livelihood strategy. For many women, sex work is not the only, or primary, work they do. For instance, one of the women interviewed in Mexico is a waitress in a bar who, after her shift ends, sometimes has sex with customers to supplement her income. In India, it was reported that a street vendor may search for customers while selling vegetables, and a dancer at marriages may also take clients. In Spain, one of the research participants works as a freelance shipping courier but earns extra money during the weekends as a sex worker.

Participants pointed out that for most women sex work is not the only option for making a living. It is, however, preferable to the generally lower-paid jobs available to them, such as domestic work, factory work or farming. In Thailand, sex workers’ incomes are generally two to 10 times the national minimum wage. In South Africa, women earn on average six times more from sex work than domestic work – often the default occupation for poor black women without a formal education.

Abolitionists’ incessant claims that sex workers have no other options infuriates sex workers. One of the Spanish sex workers shared her frustration:

When you say that you are a sex worker, people have to find a reason, an excuse: ‘Because she is trans, she was sexually abused as a child, is a single mother’. When I was working in Mercadona [a supermarket chain] as a single mother, nobody said, ‘Poor girl, she is being exploited here because she is a single mother’. But when you are a sex worker, people wonder, ‘Why is she a sex worker?’ It sucks to have to explain my life. Nobody questions why I’ve worked in other jobs.

Furthermore, several women reported that while they were initially forced into selling sex, they chose to continue to do so after leaving the exploitative situation. During a focus group discussion in South Africa, after the researcher explained the definition of trafficking, several of the women realised that they had been trafficked into sex work. For example, someone had promised them a different job, helped them come from Zimbabwe to South Africa, and made them provide sexual services for money as a way to repay their travel debt. They told the researcher that the experience had been painful. But, once they were working independently and earning enough to provide for their children and families they opted to continue with selling sex. One of them describes herself now as a “proud migrant sex worker”.

In India, VAMP related the case of a young Bangladeshi woman who was brought to India by a friend who had promised her a job in a garment factory, but who then sold her to a madam in a brothel instead. She was initially shocked that she was expected to sell sex, but later decided that it was the only way she could make a decent living and send money back home. After a while, she also got married to a man and they moved in together, but she continued selling sex.

Stigma and criminalisation

When asked about the main challenges that sex workers face, stigma and criminalisation were the most commonly mentioned issues. Stigma leads to criminalisation, which in turn perpetuates further stigma. As one of the interviewees in Thailand said, “the real problem is that our work is illegal, so it makes people pity us… People look down on us and think we must be trafficked”.

Sex workers clearly see the links between stigma, criminalisation, and the range of problems they experience, including: harassment and abuse from police, clients, intimate partners, acquaintances and community members; exclusion from health and other services; social marginalisation and stress, and psychological pressure. Stigma also extends to sex workers’ children, leading to low self-esteem, poor academic performance and fewer life opportunities. In Mexico, the research documented how sex workers’ family members extort them for money by keeping their children away from them. In Spain, sex workers are threatened by family or acquaintances with outing and similarly extorted for money. In Canada, one respondent noted that “when you work in such a stigmatised way, you can’t have a resume, you can’t necessarily have access to banking, you can’t have access to housing because you can get turned away”.

Stigma, while still present, was the lowest in New Zealand where sex work is decriminalised. Our research confirmed what other studies have found, namely that decriminalisation had improved the attitudes of police, health and social services, as well as the community.

“Our work is illegal, so it makes people pity us.”

A range of exploitative conditions: ‘at least I’m not in Taken’

Sex workers and sex worker organisations didn’t gloss over the industry or deny that exploitation exists. They identified a range of exploitative conditions imposed by managers and brothel owners, such as: long working hours; wage deductions or fines for not adhering to rules; being cheated out of the earnings due to them; high rents; and insufficient physical protection. These were largely attributed to the stigmatised and criminalised nature of the industry. In New Zealand, participants shared that exploitative conditions were more likely to affect migrant sex workers, who are not allowed to work legally.

In all the countries studied exploitative practices were described as relatively common. However, many of our participants pointed out that the government and media’s obsession with human trafficking and ‘sexual slavery’ obscures more mundane but more pervasive forms of exploitation. As one sex worker from New Zealand said:

The kind of exploitation that most of us are facing is the exploitation of working long hours, the uncertain pay, of management trying every trick they can to scam every dollar out of you that they can. … It’s not the exploitation of being chained to a bed and raped for twelve hours straight … and in saying that that’s what we’re experiencing just invalidates when something bad does happen to you. It makes it hard to recognise when bad things are happening when you’re always thinking, “well at least I’m not, you know, at least I’m not in ‘Taken’”.

Talking about us without us

Many of our respondents expressed frustration with their exclusion from political participation and representation, especially when it comes to policies that concern them. Some prostitution prohibitionists claim that sex workers can’t or don’t speak on their own behalf. Sex workers who have become involved in the business side of the industry, including the management of safer and less exploitative working conditions for sex workers, are treated with derision. The constant struggle to be recognised and accepted as a human being with dignity and reason who can speak for herself is exhausting. “When we are simply asked to contest or justify our existence”, a Canadian sex worker said, “it’s fucking tiring”.

On trafficking: “It’s just an excuse to arrest us”

Most sex workers had at least a basic understanding of what trafficking is, and could explain that it entails movement, through deception or control, for exploitation. Respondents from several countries, however, noted that it is not a concept that came from within the industry. Trafficking, as they saw it, is something that has been introduced by outsiders and propelled along by a moralistic western agenda. Sex worker organisations have thus found themselves obliged to understand it, above all in order to counter the harmful impact of anti-trafficking interventions. In India, for example, VAMP was dealing internally and collectively with perceived injustices, informed by a shared sense of ethics. The arrival of foreign-initiated anti-trafficking interventions required them to change their approach if they were to effectively engage with this confusing new legal paradigm, and as a consequence they have made a concerted effort to understand the law.

In the experience of the sex workers and sex worker organisations, the anti-trafficking machinery has not been helpful to them. On the contrary, it has resulted in multiple violations. For example, a Honduran migrant in Mexico described how she worked in a bar that was raided by the police. There were only two women there, so the police decided to brand one the victim of trafficking and the other the perpetrator, despite the fact that neither had been involved in trafficking. The so-called perpetrator was ordered to sign a confession. The so-called victim was committed to a shelter, and ordered to testify against her friend. The wrongly accused ‘perpetrator’ was sentenced to three years in prison. Now released, she is unable to find work because of her criminal record.

The kind of exploitation that most of us are facing is the exploitation of working long hours, the uncertain pay, of management trying every trick they can to scam every dollar out of you that they can.

In Spain, a sex worker who earned extra money by driving sex workers to work was prosecuted for human trafficking (she was later acquitted because of lack of evidence); in another case, a former client who sold snacks to street-based sex workers was questioned by the police and dubbed an exploiter by the media.

Some of the organisations shared that they have tried to engage with other anti-trafficking stakeholders but success varied. In India, VAMP’s contribution to preventing trafficking is recognised by some police officers. In Spain and South Africa, however, the organisations had tried to join their national anti-trafficking networks but were either not accepted or later had to leave due to hostilities.

Raid and rescue

The chapters on Thailand and India document in detail two ‘raid and rescue’ operations led by western anti-trafficking NGOs. The raiders were accompanied by the media, who published sensationalist articles along with dramatic pictures of sex workers, thus exposing their identities publicly. The fact that representatives from the foreign NGOs had posed as clients adds another layer of prurience to the cases. In both cases, only a few underage women were found (who are classified as victims of trafficking, even if they were not coerced), and attempts were made after the fact to ‘manufacture’ victims to justify the raid. In both cases, the raids were stressful and traumatising to the ‘rescued’ women. They were detained like criminals and placed in government facilities without the ability to contact their families or without access to life-saving medication.

Sex worker organising: by, with, and for sex workers

While the sex worker organisations in the seven countries operate in different contexts, they fundamentally have the same approach to supporting sex workers. All provide a space which serves as a low-threshold, drop-in centre. This is a safe, discreet and free space where community members can hang out, eat, drink, and establish friendships. They can also access a range of services, from language classes to support groups, counselling, legal advice, and health services. All the organisations conduct outreach to where sex workers work, during which they listen, advise, intervene and refer, as dictated by the individual’s needs.

Importantly, the sex workers interviewed indicated that they would approach these organisations for assistance with a range of concerns, including exploitative or coercive working conditions, and problems with brothel-owners, managers or madams. There was also a strong sense among sex workers that being connected to each other, even in an informal way, was protective and supportive. Stories emerged of how sex workers look out for each other in their workplaces, be it the parks of Madrid, the brothels of Sangli, or the bars of Chiang Mai.

Independent sex workers march on 1 May 2017, International Labour Day, in La Merced, Mexico City. Photo credit: Brigada Callejera. Used with permission, all rights reserved.

Sex workers’ contributions to anti-trafficking

The report documented several cases where sex worker organisations came into contact with potential victims of trafficking and took the necessary action to help them. In South Africa, SWEAT peer educators learnt that a local gangster had abducted the teenage daughters of two sex workers and drugged them, with the intention of exploiting them. After the police refused to take the case, the peer educators sought help from another local gangster who strong-armed the first one to release the two girls.

In India, the VAMP conflict redress committee (TMS) was approached by the madam of a brothel, who suspected that a girl brought to her by a pimp was a minor. When TMS members came to the brothel to investigate, the pimp took the girl and ran away to another brothel area. They alerted the TMS in that area, who made the taxi driver tell them where the pimp took the girl. TMS members found her, verified that she was indeed a minor, contacted her parents, provided counselling to them and the girl, and referred them to the police. The pimp never returned to that community again.

What these cases and others documented in the country chapters have in common is that the solutions are not always obvious or conventional; in some cases, sex workers have to get creative in order to find the best solution to the concrete situation.

The power of many: organising for change

The report also documented cases where sex worker organisations mobilised sex workers to stand up for their rights and oppose injustice and oppression. In Canada, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform was formed in 2012 by a small group of activists following the legal challenge against several criminal code provisions regarding sex work. After the Supreme Court struck down these provisions, and the conservative government proposed a bill to criminalise clients, the alliance organised a number of protests, published information sheets for policy makers, and three guides for sex workers to help them understand the legislative process and take an active part in it. Although the conservatives managed to push through their agenda, the alliance continues its active work with the new liberal government and in the meantime has grown to 28 organisations and continues to grow. In Mexico, Brigada Callejera and the Mexican Network of Sex Work organised a number of protests to demand the recognition of sex workers as non-salaried workers, which was finally achieved in 2014.

Conclusion

Ultimately, our report demonstrates that sex worker organisations are worker rights organisations whose primary mandate is to ensure that the human, economic, social, political, and labour rights of their constituents are recognised and respected by state and non-state actors. In this sense, the agendas of sex worker organisations, anti-trafficking organisations and labour rights organisations are not contradictory if one takes care not to conflate sex work with trafficking. The conceptual conflation of sex work with trafficking prevents many anti-trafficking and labour rights organisations and unions from seeing the similarities between their work and that of the sex worker rights organisation.

It is our hope that this report is a small step towards bringing together these different organisations in order to ensure rights and justice for all women workers.

The complete report and the separate country chapters can be downloaded from the GAATW website.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella addresses a press conference in Rome on May 31, 2018. Alberto Lingria/ Press Asociation. All rights reserved.

Mamma Mia, here we go again.

Having taken the controversial step of nominating an unelected administrator - Carlo Cottarelli to run the country, Italy's President has sparked outrage from the populists who claim he's overridden democracy. Yesterday, they finally got their coveted share of government; with virtually unknown law Professor Giuseppe Conte sworn in as the new Prime Minister on Friday.

Drumming a hard line towards immigrants, they've threatened to make the next vote a de facto referendum on leaving the EU. Thus, many are worried that Italy will be the next to follow the UK into European autonomy, sparking a domino effect in an already vulnerable post-Brexit Europe. 

The meltdown of attempts to form an Italian government last week sent world markets into a spin. Grappling with its own version of the populist backlashes we’ve seen throughout the US and UK, Italian government bonds spiked sharply above 3 per cent. In the following days, Wall Street slumped more than 1 per cent, while Italy’s stock index plunged 2.7% overnight.

So the EU (and the rest of the world) are definitely worried. But it’s the uncertainty of what’s coming next more than anything that is bothering financial markets. Will Italy follow Britain into its own European exit, dubbed “Quitaly”? Who knows, but we must remember that Italian politics are always volatile and politicians everywhere are prone to hyperbole.

If the Italian populists, Lega (League) and the Five Star movement succeed in their mission to leave the Eurozone, there would be nothing stopping a tide of withdrawals from other countries, tired of constant dragooning by Brussels and Germany. 

This is certainly coming from the far-right. The leader of Lega, Matteo Salvini, told the press last week: Italy wasn’t a “colony”, and that “we won’t have Germany tell us what to do”. Parties of Salvini’s kind are not uncommon across the rest of Europe — increasing the potential for fragmentation and leading to what some – including the former chief of Britain’s defence staff Lord Bramall – see as a real risk of the structure unravelling. Indeed, a study published this week by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed public support for the EU had fallen sharply across its largest member states over the past year.

The New York Times Economic Observer Neil Finn has warned us not to be too expectant of change. In an article following the crash he expressed his own doubts about the "contagious effect" of the Italian political crisis; reminding his readers that Italy is "the third-largest economy in the Eurozone (and fourth largest in Europe, after Germany, Britain and France), with one of the biggest piles of public debt in the world," predicting that "a crisis there could endanger banks and investment portfolios everywhere." What he was really saying was, Italy’s fate is already far too invested in Europe to leave.

Rome potentially dropping the euro as the state currency would devalue all Italian government bonds in European banks, inflicting huge damage on the European finance sector. According to some estimates, even if the EU economic institutions manage to sell off a large portion of the Italian national debt, their losses would amount to billions of euros – a precondition for a second global financial crisis.

Il capo

So opinions vary. But we must not disregard the President. Sergio Mattarella's vetoing of an Eurosceptic economist as the proposed finance minister was a big call. His move shows that Italy's head of state, while predominately a governor-general figure rather than a president in the American sense, is willing to have a go at riding the populists out. 

Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star front-runner, and Salvini of the League, have brought the President under intense scrutiny, accusing him of acting too politically when his role is supposed to be neutral.

But if Europe is to retain one of its founding members, after all – the initial European Treaty was signed in Rome, he will have to let his views be known.

At a press conference following Giuseppe Conte's (the populist’s pick for premier and an Eurosceptic) initial resignation, Mattarella declared that the two parties wanted to bring Italy out of the Eurozone and that as the guarantor of the Italian Constitution and the country's interest and stability, he could not allow Conte to take the lead.

A self-proclaimed liberal, he has an important part to play in deciding Italy's future within the EU. And he is turning out to be more influential than perhaps the failed coalition hoped. For those in Brussels, this may prove essential. 

So while chaos is the norm in Italian politics, it may be that centrist Italian voters, unsettled by yet more turmoil, will head back to more traditional parties — contrary to what the latest polling suggests.

We are expecting to see fresh elections as early as August or as late as early next year. The Five Star Movement took the largest proportion of the vote in the last election, not the least because of their anti-establishment outlook. So despite his desire to remain within the Eurozone, and the EU, Sergio Mattarella cannot fight the Italian people.

Consequently, the reply from most liberals to the turmoil in Europe is the same as to most politics at the moment: we’ll just have to wait and see.

From a protest in Brussels to memorialize those killed in Gaza. Picture by Monasse Thierry/ANDBZ/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Recent disturbing images from the Gaza border have created a terrible anguish in the public’s imagination, as Palestinian men and women, young and old, headed to the Israeli border. The protest campaign, ‘The Great March of Return’, declared the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the land they were forced to flee in 1948. At least 118 protestors were killed, as Israeli soldiers fired on the crowds using live ammunition, tear gas and rubber bullets. The question now is not only how to respond to recent conflict on the border, but to address the underlying causes that produced these disturbing events. 

The head of the Israeli military had warned that conditions in Gaza were so severe they were likely to implode. Little attention was paid, and decisions made in air-conditioned offices in Jerusalem were totally disconnected from the desperation of Palestinian lives. Politicians at the top echelons of power chose to keep their heads in the sand. 

Palestinians face ecological and humanitarian disaster. A special UN report issued in September 2015 warned that by 2020, the Gaza Strip could become uninhabitable, stemming from a decade siege by Israel and Egypt. Unemployment is at 44%, the water is undrinkable and raw sewage pours into the sea. More recently, President Abbas has imposed sanctions on Gaza halting the shipment of medicines and cutting payment for electricity. Many parties are implicated, and the resistant politics of the Hamas government prevents easy solutions.

When we rob people of hope, we rob them of their humanity

The young Gazan people protesting have been exposed to three wars in less than a decade and have become desperate enough to risk their lives because they believe they have no chance for something better. There is a danger of nihilism pervading the culture, as the young people become more and more disillusioned with their leadership. Everybody needs to be able to dream of a better future. When we rob people of hope, we rob them of their humanity. The real challenge now is how to incentivize the people of Gaza, so they have something to invest in for their future.

The Gaza Strip measures 140 square miles: driving its full length takes approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, and the walk from the sea to the border fence is around two hours. It is a very small, overcrowded piece of land with a population of 2 million people. The basic dynamics for Gaza's long-suffering inhabitants have remained unchanged for years.

Israel’s policy towards Gaza has historically been one of punishing the population for electing a Hamas government, hoping their suffering would force people to overthrow Hamas. This is not how it works psychologically; this approach has held Hamas in power not weakened it - a decade later Hamas remains in charge. Investing in Gaza and improving the conditions is more likely to weaken extreme political movements. 

Several weeks ago, Hamas conveyed a proposal calling for a long-term truce with Israel through Egyptian and Qatari channels, but Israel paid scant attention. Hamas wanted to avoid another round of war, but felt it was in its strategic interest to escalate the non-violent protests on Israel’s border. The aim was to focus the attention of the media and politicians, in a bid to force Israel to the negotiating table. 

Recently the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said his party had reached an agreement with Egypt on preventing an escalation of the violence into an all-out military clash with Israel. Israel controls all access to Gaza by sea and air and it continues to place severe restrictions on goods and persons entering and exiting Gaza through the land crossings. It has now been reported that the Israeli prime minister has made a strategic decision to achieve a stable cease-fire in Gaza, and that Israel has given Egyptian and Qatari mediators the green light to deliver the goods.

Israel harbours intense anxieties about the regeneration of Gaza and what it could mean for Israeli security. It is concerned that improving conditions in Gaza, particularly economic, would open up opportunities for Hamas to gain strength. No longer forestalled by rigid blockades and the costs of war, Israel perceives the risk that Hamas could become as strong as Hezbollah, increase its weapons cache and continue to build tunnels into Israeli territory.

The Egyptian military leadership is actively trying to promote reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, expand the Palestinian Authority’s role in the Gaza Strip, and initiate economic relief. Unity is a prerequisite for developing a new national platform and strategy, the divide between Fatah and Hamas debilitates their ability to advance their political aspirations.

Amongst Palestinians there is much cynicism about the prospects of reconciliation

President Abbas is not in good health and has told Egyptian mediators that the Palestinian authority will only return to rule Gaza, if Hamas hands over all powers, including control of weapons. A unified Palestine would strengthen its negotiating hand, allowing the government to speak for all Palestinians and would give them more leverage to push for an independent state. Amongst Palestinians there is much cynicism about the prospects of reconciliation given the history of false dawns and six failed reconciliation attempts.

Whilst reconciliation is a political imperative, improving the conditions in Gaza is also a necessary prerequisite for any serious peace making. There are immediate and more long-term considerations, in the immediate the banking system is collapsing. This has been recently exacerbated by the Palestinian authority no longer paying the salaries to 100,000 Gazan civil servants which affects the livelihood of over 800,000 Gazan families. This withdrawal of money out of the economy requires cash injection immediately, and historically this has beed done by Qatar.

There have been discussions about the possibility of allowing the transfer of raw materials, food and goods, and materials for road and house building, and more long-term projects such as the the construction of a dedicated Gaza port facility. There have been some voices in Israel who recognize that the regeneration of Gaza is essential, but up until now , none of this has been given serious consideration. There is little support in the Knesset or in the current Israeli government, international pressure will therefore be required if anything sustainable is to be implemented.

In 1998 Gaza’s Yasser Arafat International Airport was opened, only to be bombed by Israel four years later. A comprehensive regeneration strategy could consider rebuilding this airport. Gas has been discovered in Gaza’s coastal shelf and partnerships could be established to tap into these reserves. Desalination and sewage recycling equipment would also be an essential part of any development offered. This economic regeneration can only be meaningfully explored in the light of a long-term ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that makes this investment in Gaza sustainable. A trusted ‘third-party’ is needed, who can work directly with the parties to try and enhance the conditions for constructive negotiations.

If the people of Gaza are to believe in a future, preventing them from being drawn into nihilistic violence, will require serious political engagement. It is not only the responsibility of Israel; the international community turns its back on Gaza once fighting subsides. In the aftermath of the 2014 Gaza war, despite 2,000 Palestinian deaths, there was no lasting international engagement or strategy. The attention deficit on Gaza will needs to be addressed and will require the implementation of a serious plan. If the UK could move beyond its Brexit preoccupations, it could put serious time and energy and take a leading role in working with others, to create and implement a comprehensive plan. It cannot be beyond our imagination to make this possible. 

The aim of openDemocracy’s ‘New Thinking for the British Economy’ project is to present a debate on how to build a more just, sustainable, and resilient economy. In the project so far we’ve debated policy areas ranging from trade policy and universal basic income, to childcare policy and housing . But across Britain, hundreds of people are working tirelessly to build a new economy on a daily basis, putting new economic ideas into practice from the ground up.The aim of openDemocracy’s ‘New Thinking for the British Economy’ project is to present a debate on how to build a more just, sustainable, and resilient economy. In the project so far we’ve debated policy areas ranging from trade policy and universal basic income, to childcare policy and housing . But across Britain, hundreds of people are working tirelessly to build a new economy on a daily basis, putting new economic ideas into practice from the ground up. In a new video series, we will be showcasing some of the most exciting initiatives that are already working to replace different aspects of our failing systems with fairer and more resilient alternatives — from housing and finance to food and energy. This week, Rhea Stevens and Shea Buckland-Jones from the Institute of Welsh Affairs discuss their work creating a practical plan for Wales to move to 100% renewable energy by 2035. Watch the full video below: [embed]https://youtu.be/20EgjyQGZoY[/embed]

Save the Children/Curiosity, Bushmills, Northern Ireland. CC-BY-SA 2.0 © Kenneth Allen - geograph.org.uk/p/3977257

In the first part of this article I explored the roots of the recent crisis at Save the Children UK (SCF-UK). That the principal characters involved have all now resigned their posts in the wake of this crisis becoming public is testament to the power of staff and supporters who demand so much better from an organisation of Save the Children’s stature.

They did some good things, of course, and they left behind an organisation that in the right hands could make a huge difference for children. But no-one can work to their best ability with confused ethics at the top. It becomes a constant talking point and distraction.

But from every crisis an opportunity arises, and this is a golden opportunity to do things differently. What might that mean in practice?

First, the organisation needs to complete the painful process of investigating the handling of allegations of sexual harassment, which is still the most vivid example of what went wrong. We had at least one investigation when I was there, which obviously didn’t do its job properly because two more are underway. To show that it has changed, the organisation should take the initiative by setting out its own version of what happened in detail, rather than waiting for investigative journalists, parliamentary committees or the Charity Commission to do so.

You can’t have change on the cheap, and you can’t build a new future while the past is left unresolved. Talking with present-day staff, I am confident that changes are already underway that will stamp out the likelihood of sexual harassment or any other type of bullying once and for all.

But it can’t end there. The alleged sexual harassment was only the most obvious example of what was going wrong, an outward sign of a deeper problem. So it’s time to critique the whole framework in which previous leaders seemed to operate, including their version of success in an international charity and their understanding of what it means to work for children’s rights and international solidarity in the 21st century.

Lessons for the aid sector.

What happened at SCF-UK is an extreme case of what is happening in many charities, where long-held values and beliefs about how societies and organisations should work seem increasingly in tension with the context and incentive frameworks in which they operate.

The funding context is complex and difficult, as increasingly charities are encouraged to bid against each other for limited funds, and to compete on the doorstep. The struggle to survive and demonstrate impact tends to harm rather than help attempts to act in the interests of staff and beneficiaries. The temptation to focus on superficial gloss rather than profound challenges is one to which no charity is immune, and most have, on occasion, fallen.

Once a bulwark of values, the aid sector is in danger of becoming just another arm of politics and business—so long as a quiet but bold insistence on doing things differently continues to give way to a feeble attempt to copy and follow, to make endless compromises on the altar of growth.

The news that SCF-UK is suspending new proposals for UK Government projects is the final ironic nail in the coffin of the previous era at the top of the organisation. Leaders obsessed with growth at all costs must now realise that even that vacuous objective is undermined when care is not taken of organisational culture and values.

That’s why what happened at SCF-UK should stand as a cautionary tale; no longer a model to emulate, it is a case study to be reflected on at length. It is hard to distil such a complicated story into simple lessons for the sector, but let me suggest five maxims for a new generation of international NGO leaders:

1. Put values first. The ‘what’ matters—of course it does; large and powerful international charities really can make a countervailing difference against a trend to look inwards at national interests. But the costs have to be weighed too, so the ‘how’ matters just as much. The previous leadership may have been talented, but the real talent, as a wise friend in another INGO pointed out to me, is having success and impact without losing touch with your values and sense of solidarity. The charity sector should be proudly different, rather than chasing the coat-tails of other sectors that are wrongly perceived to be more efficient or effective.

2. Diversify your influences and relationships. Save the Children got the balance wrong between cultivating relationships with the powerful in the North and standing first and foremost with the underdog. What matters. How matters. And Who matters too. Voices from the South need to come to the fore to influence strategy. It’s not that you can’t partner with the private sector or work closely with governments—risks are often worth taking in these areas. But you have to do it thoughtfully, cognisant of the risks involved, and with a clear plan to achieve genuine impact and not just noise, handshakes and big-sounding numbers. A deeper analysis of politics and structures is required if charities are going to regain the trust of serious development professionals and the public at large. That means a concern for systems change and attacking all forms of inequality, and it means building relationships in a humble, listening way.

3. Growth is not a strategy. Being big and powerful is not enough. There needs to be a re-evaluation of the centrality of financial targets in the organisation’s culture. It is possible to grow fast and maintain a focus on impact, staff wellbeing and values, but this is hard. A really bold leader would consider non-growth or even shrinkage as seriously as growth. Leaving behind a smaller but better organisation is a sign of success, not failure. Be ambitious for impact, values and relationships, not growth.

4. Collaborate, don’t just compete and compromise. Development is a marathon as well as a sprint. Long-term relationships are more important than short-term ‘wins;’ solidarity is more important than fleeting results. The sector matters more than particular organisations. Every part of it should be trying to build up all the other parts, not to do them down. This used to be obvious; it should soon be so again. Moving away from the pressure to grow endlessly will help rebuild a spirit of collaboration.

5. Trust your staff. The ways of working that became dominant at SCF-UK were increasingly at odds with the instincts and preferences of those who made up the majority of the workforce: top-down directive leadership and too much compromise, too much cosying up to power. That is neither wise nor sustainable. Staff and supporters expect things in charities to be done in a certain way. They understand the need to compromise, but they have a good sense of when and where. And they expect to be listened to. Leaders are foolish when they ignore the wisdom of their colleagues. That is not to say that leaders can’t be bold and visionary; it means that they have to respect their colleagues, the wider movement and the evidence, and not just their own desire to do things differently.

Personal agency.

None of these things are easy to get right. All depend on the wisdom of ethical leaders to strike a balance between different tensions and incentives, and to retain a real sense of humility—and I mean leaders at all levels. Experience is important, but one lesson from this crisis is that junior staff can sometimes see things more clearly than old-hands, and can make the difference if they are brave enough to speak out.

In the world of work, of politics and campaigning, we often feel that we are part of someone else's created system. But that is only partly true. We are the system too. We are creating it every day with our decisions and through our words and actions. It took me too long to learn this fact. It’s time to do things differently.

I believe the staff, and to some extent volunteers and supporters, are the key to SCF-UK’s future. Now that the media has outed the issues, staff and supporters have found their voice. More than ever they must keep pushing to ensure that a renewed and dignified Save the Children emerges, powerful in its support for children’s rights but always reflecting the values it publicly espouses in the way in which it operates: kindness, fairness and respect.

If we have learned one thing from this appalling mess, it is that people who care for an organisation cannot just leave it in the hands of trustees and senior leadership. We all need to take responsibility and, if necessary, take a stand.

Statement from openDemocracy.

In relation to the handling of allegations of sexual harassment at Save the Children UK, Save the Children-UK’s lawyers have asked us to point out that their client did not act to cover up or ‘silence’ complaints against Justin Forsyth and/or Brendan Cox; has policies in place to protect its workforce; and did not seek to discourage people from speaking out. Furthermore, that when the Justin Forsyth matters were raised with the Chair, he instructed HR to manage the process overseen by a Trustee. The complaints made in relation to Mr Forsyth were resolved at the time on a confidential and informal basis, with the approval of the complainants; and that when management became aware of an alleged incident involving Mr Cox at a Summer party in 2015 SCF-UK took immediate action to investigate the matter, and as part of the investigation Mr Cox was suspended and not allowed back into our client’s office.

Spain's new Prime Minister and Socialist party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez during swearing in ceremony in Madrid. PPE/Press Association. All rights reserved.

The Spanish Parliament has ousted prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who will be replaced by socialist Pedro Sánchez after the success of his no confidence motion. This dramatic turn in Spanish politics seemed impossible only a week ago, when Rajoy’s conservative minority government obtained the parliamentary approval of its 2018 budget with the support of centre-right Ciudadanos and the Basque Nationalist Party.

However, a decision by the National Audience last May 25 changed everything. The court found several Popular Party (PP) officials and the party itself guilty for a setting up a wide corruption scheme since 1989, which led the Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sánchez to present a no confidence motion. After a vertiginous week of negotiations among parties, on June 1 the majority of the Parliament supported the motion, ousting Rajoy from the prime minister office and electing Sánchez. The rise of PSOE to government does not guarantee a deep political change in Spain but it opens a new political period in which Unidos Podemos will be a central actor, for Sánchez needs its support.

Pedro Sánchez

Pedro Sánchez has gone through surprising political transformations throughout the last years. After the 2016 general elections, when PP lost its previous majority, Sánchez refused to support Rajoy’s investiture, but a rebellion of the Socialist Party apparatus overthrew Sánchez and the provisional direction of PSOE decided to allow Rajoy’s second term as prime minister – instead of forming a progressive government with Unidos Podemos and the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties.

In 2017, the distressed PSOE experienced another dramatic upheaval: Pedro Sánchez surprisingly won the primaries and was re-elected as secretary general, despite the opposition of the party apparatus and mass media. Sánchez seduced the socialist militants with an unequivocally anti-austerity discourse and the recognition that Spain is a plurinational state. However, Sánchez’s left turn did not last long. He refused to promote a no confidence motion against Rajoy and he supported the conservative government’s hard line against the Catalan pro-independence movement.

The decision of the National Audience on the illegal funding of the Popular Party has triggered a new turn in Sánchez’s strategy. Short after the publication of the judicial decision, the socialist leader registered a no-confidence motion, which immediately received the support of Pablo Iglesias’ party, Unidos Podemos (Iglesias himself had previously tried to oust Rajoy through another no-confidence motion, which had not been supported by PSOE). However, the Unidos Podemos MPs did not succeed in procuring a majority. They also needed the Catalan and Basque nationalists.

Catalan and Basque nationalist parties

Catalan nationalists decided to support Sánchez as a lesser evil than Rajoy, who has responded to the Catalan pro-independence movement with heavy repression and the suspension of the region’s self-rule for months. The case of the Basque nationalists was more complex: they supported Rajoy’s budget less than two weeks ago, in exchange for large investments in the Basque Country, but they did not want to appear as the saviours of a corrupt Rajoy. In addition, the Basque Nationalist Party was afraid of an immediate general election, for polls suggested a possible victory for the Spanish centralist party Ciudadanos, which threatens Basque financial autonomy. These two considerations led the Basques to support the no confidence motion, condemning Mariano Rajoy to parliamentary destitution.

The new political situation in Spain is uncertain but hopeful. The margin of manoeuver for Pedro Sánchez’s socialist government will be limited until the end of the year, for it will apply the budget elaborated by Rajoy’s government.

However, the new government could reverse the most harmful policies of the PP when it comes to job precarisation, the repression of social mobilizations, the weakening of public services and introduction of obstacles for renewable energies.

The PSOE government depends on the support of Unidos Podemos and Catalan and Basque nationalists, which at least to some extent will force Sánchez to address the most urgent social needs of Spanish society and begin a dialogue with the Catalan pro-independence government.

Both will represent a leap forward in comparison with Mariano Rajoy’s disdain for the suffering of large swathes of the population and his choice of repression to address the Catalan crisis. Pedro Sánchez will not lead a radical government that will end austerity overnight, but it represents a rare source of hope in today’s Europe, growingly dominated by renewed neoliberalism and a rising far-right.