You can arrest activists, but you cannot arrest the truth.
In June 2021, three activists – Rob Callender, Daisy Pearson and Ben Wheeler, also known as the Westminster Three – were charged with criminal trespass under Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Policing Act (2005) before a London court. Seven months earlier, on a cold November morning, they had peacefully climbed up the scaffolding on the corner of the UK Houses of Parliament to hang a ten-metre tall letter written by Africans to the people of the UK. It was a courageous effort to amplify voices from the Global South.
Africans Rising, a Pan-African movement of people working for Justice, Peace and Dignity, created the letter for their #ReRightHistory campaign, which calls for honest acknowledgement of the harm and human cost of slavery and colonialism, the legacies of which continue to have negative influence on the economic and political trajectory of countries across Africa, whilst undermining its ecological sovereignty. The text also demanded reparations to the victims of slavery and colonialism and the establishment of truth and healing commissions to enable full acknowledgement of the legacies of slavery, colonialism and ongoing systemic racism.
Rob, Daisy and Ben’s action was a reminder to the British government – the largest former coloniser in Africa and across the globe and a central player in deriving profit from human enslavement – of its responsibility in the process of restorative justice. On October 6, they will be acquitted or sentenced for their part in a renewed attempt to hold the UK accountable to the truth.
Legacies of colonialism and slavery.
Today, we all agree the dark chapter of human history marked by slavery was brutal. Enslaved people were deemed the property of other human beings, incapable of comprehending dignity and rights, thus undeserving of both, and subjected to untold deprivation and suffering. It is estimated that at least 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic ocean and into slavery in the Americas and Caribbean between the 16th and 19th centuries – one of the largest enforced movement of humans recorded in history.
Conservative estimates place the number of African people who lost their lives during the trans-Atlantic crossing at 1.5 million. Many died from horrific conditions on slave ships, others threw themselves into the ocean and drowned in desperate attempts to avoid subjugation. Ships also capsized during voyages, and the ocean floor remains littered with bones that bear stories of pain, anguish and unimaginable suffering. Countless skeletons have already been eroded by the sea, disappearing from the reach of history. But every other day new records and scars of slavery are being unearthed, like the oldest known wreckage of a slave ship, discovered in 2005 on the floor of the English channel.
The abolition of slavery saw the extractive capitalist system renew plans to colonise the African continent, beginning around 1895 when European countries convened the Berlin Conference. This self-justified colonialism further augmented the economic base of Europe by allowing countries like Britain access to raw materials, cheap or forced labour, and overseas markets for processed commodities. The trade, shipping and banking empires of Europe and America owe a huge part of their development to the historical epochs of slavery and colonialism, periods of fast and sustained economic growth in European history.
The letter that Rob, Daisy and Ben now face up to six months imprisonment for attaching to the Palace of Westminster was written in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on May 25, 2020 – a killing which stemmed from deep-seated systemic racism that every day confronts African people (and people of colour) in the diaspora. His last words ‘’I can’t breathe’’ gave voice to protests and marches against present and historic injustice. In that moment, demands by #BlackLivesMatter and allied movements calling for racial, climate and gender justice and economic equality reverberated across the world.
Today, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimates that Africa loses $50-80 billion annually to illicit financial flows (Actual figures are much higher). Multinational companies, many born in Britain, Europe or the US, register to tax havens, often using British or American-made legal instruments, in order to shift profits and obfuscate where tax is due. Left in weakened financial positions, African countries have, over decades, borrowed huge sums of money under bilateral and multilateral arrangements that disproportionately serve the interest of the wealthy. More recently, African countries have been borrowing from private financial institutions. The long-term effects of this behaviour are now, again, becoming clear.
Two weeks after the Westminster Three climbed the UK parliament, Zambia defaulted on debt service payments. In the past, shocks like this have destabilised regimes and impoverished millions of people. It is a reminder that poverty in the neo-colonial economies is manufactured – it does not fall from the sky.
The ongoing legacy of colonialism and empire is today made even more visible through the WTO “TRIPS agreement” which needlessly and callously denies impoverished countries in the Global South waivers on intellectual property rights that would enable them to develop vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Humanity, territory, resources and movement
Throughout history, our species has moved towards and settled around resources. Early humans settled on lands that were capable of producing and sustaining life. Later, changing patterns of land ownership, economic conditions and the search for sustenance herded many of us into cities which had a higher concentration of industry and financial resources and more opportunities for work.
It, therefore, isn’t surprising that more than a century after the abolition of slavery, thousands of African lives are still being lost at sea. Every day African youth risk their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean and search for better prospects in Europe, victims of forces both internal and external to Africa.
Countless more now flee hardship and deprivation caused by the changing climate that has rendered rich farmland into dry and unproductive soil. In certain parts of Africa, environmental changes have forced whole villages to relocate into cities where conditions are even direr.
The young Africans risking or losing their lives crossing the Mediterranean are literally running away from the legacies of colonialism and imperialism that inform their wretched conditions in hopes of accessing Europe’s concentration of wealth and opportunities. How many more lives does Africa have to lose? Is the ocean floor not tired of African skeletons?
You can arrest activists, but you cannot arrest the truth
A few weeks after the Westminster Three were arrested, the UK parliament debated the Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts Bill, in a hall not far from where the Africans Rising letter had been. If passed, this legislation will curtail freedoms of expression and protest and other rights and is so draconian that Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently made the disgusting comment that his Conservative home secretary in charge of policing, Priti Patel, was turning the UK into “the Saudi Arabia of penal policy”. Outrage over the Bill immediately sparked a campaign to stop it: #KillTheBill.
The Westminster Three put their lives and freedom on the line in a defiant show of solidarity with the oppressed people of Africa. They posed no danger, and harmed no one. They simply spoke truth to power. They are on the right side of history. That they are being tried at all reminds us that what is legal and what is right are not always the same.
We applaud their courage and comradeship in our collective pursuit for justice, peace and dignity.
A deep dive on the special circumstances that led to the Victorian author’s last moments.
When Charles Dickens died, he had spectacular fame, great wealth and an adoring public. But his personal life was complicated. Separated from his wife and living in a huge country mansion in Kent, the novelist was in the thrall of his young mistress, Ellen Ternan. This is the untold story of Charles Dickens’s final hours and the furore that followed, as the great writer’s family and friends fought over his final wishes.
My new research has uncovered the never-before-explored areas of the great author’s sudden death, and his subsequent burial. While details such as the presence of Ternan at the author’s funeral have already been discovered by Dickensian sleuths, what is new and fresh here is the degree of manoeuvring and negotiations involved in establishing Dickens’s ultimate resting place.
Dickens’s death created an early predicament for his family. Where was he to be buried? Near his home (as he would have wished) or in that great public pantheon, Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey (which was clearly against his wishes)?
“The Inimitable” (as he sometimes referred to himself) was one of the most famous celebrities of his time. No other writer is as closely associated with the Victorian period. As the author of such immortal classics as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol, he was constantly in the public eye. Because of the vivid stories he told, and the causes he championed (including poverty, education, workers’ rights, and the plight of prostitutes), there was great demand for him to represent charities, and appear at public events and visit institutions up and down the country (as well as abroad – particularly in the United States). He moved in the best circles and counted among his friends the top writers, actors, artists and politicians of his day.
Dickens was proud of what he achieved as an author and valued his close association with his public. In 1858 he embarked on a career as a professional reader of his own work and thrilled audiences of thousands with his animated performances. This boost to his career occurred at a time when his marital problems came to a head: he fell in love with Ternan, an 18-year-old actress, and separated from his wife Catherine, with whom he had ten children.
Ellen Ternan, the young actress who became Charles Dickens’s mistress. Wikimedia
Dickens was careful to keep his love affair private. Documentary evidence of his relationship with Ternan is very scarce indeed. He had wanted to take her with him on a reading tour to America in 1868, and even developed a telegraphic code to communicate to her whether or not she should come. She didn’t, because Dickens felt that he could not protect their privacy.
On Wednesday June 8 1870, the author was working on his novel Edwin Drood in the garden of his country home, Gad’s Hill Place, near Rochester, in Kent. He came inside to have dinner with his sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and suffered a stroke. The local doctor was summoned and remedies were applied without effect. A telegram was sent to London, to summon John Russell Reynolds, one of the top neurologists in the land. By the following day the author’s condition hadn’t changed and he died at 6.10pm, on June 9.
Accepted wisdom concerning Dickens’s death and burial is drawn from an authorised biography published by John Forster: The Life of Charles Dickens. Forster was the author’s closest friend and confidant. He was privy to the most intimate areas of his life, including the time he spent in a blacking (boot polish) warehouse as a young boy (which was a secret, until disclosed by Forster in his book), as well as details of his relationship with Ternan (which were not revealed by Forster, and which remained largely hidden well into the 20th century). Forster sought to protect Dickens’s reputation with the public at all costs.
Last Will and Testament
In his will (reproduced in Forster’s biography), Dickens had left instructions that he should be:
Buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting absurdity.
Forster added that Dickens’s preferred place of burial – his Plan A – was “in the small graveyard under Rochester Castle wall, or in the little churches of Cobham or Shorne”, which were all near his country home. However, Forster added: “All these were found to be closed”, by which he meant unavailable.
Forster claims in the biography that the media led the way in agitating for burial in the abbey. He singles out The Times, which, in an article of January 13 1870, “took the lead in suggesting that the only fit resting place for the remains of a man so dear to England was the abbey in which the most illustrious Englishmen are laid”. He added that when the Dean of Westminster, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, asked Forster and members of the Dickens family to initiate what was now Plan C, and bury him in the abbey, it became their “grateful duty to accept that offer”.Plan B was then put into action. Dickens was set to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, at the direction of the Dean and Chapter (the ecclesiastical governing body). They had even dug a grave for the great man. But this plan too was scuppered, in favour of interment in Poets’ Corner, in Westminster Abbey – the resting place of Geoffrey Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, and other literary greats.
The private funeral occurred early in the morning of Tuesday June 14 1870, and was attended by 14 mourners. The grave was then left open for three days so that the public could pay their respects to one of the most famous figures of the age. Details of the authorised version of Dickens’s death and burial were carried by all the major and minor newspapers in the English-speaking world and beyond. Dickens’s estranged wife Catherine received a message of condolence from Queen Victoria, expressing “her deepest regret at the sad news of Charles Dickens’s death”.
The effect that Dickens’s death had on ordinary people may be appreciated from the reaction of a barrow girl who sold fruits and vegetables in Covent Garden Market. When she heard the news, she is reported to have said: “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”
The funeral directors
My investigation has revealed, however, how Dickens’s burial in Poets’ Corner was engineered by Forster and Stanley to satisfy their personal aims, rather than the author’s own. While the official story was that it was the “will of the people” to have Dickens buried in the Abbey (and there were articles in The Times to this effect), the reality was that this alteration suited both the biographer and the churchman.
Forster could conclude the volume he was contemplating in a fitting manner, by having Dickens interred in the national pantheon where so many famous literary figures were buried. He thus ensured that a stream of visitors would make a pilgrimage to Dickens’s grave and spread his reputation far and wide, for posterity.
Stanley could add Dickens to his roll of famous people whose burials he conducted. They included Lord Palmerston, the former UK prime minister, mathematician and astronomer Sir John Herschel, missionary and explorer David Livingstone, and Sir Rowland Hill, the postal reformer and originator of the penny post.
The efforts of Forster and Stanley to get Dickens buried exactly where they wanted enhanced the reputations of both men. For each of them, the interment of Dickens in the abbey might be considered the highlight of their careers.
‘Mr Dickens very ill, most urgent’
The new evidence I have found was gathered from libraries, archives and cathedral vaults and prove beyond a doubt that any claims about the Westminster burial being the will of the people are false.
What emerges is an atmosphere of urgency in the Dickens household after the author collapsed. Dickens’s son Charley sent the telegram to the author’s staff in London, requesting urgent medical assistance from the eminent neurologist, John Russell Reynolds:
Go without losing a moment to Russell Reynolds thirty eight Grosvenor St Grosvenor Sqr tell him to come by next train to Higham or Rochester to meet… Beard (Dickens’s physician), at Gadshill … Mr Dickens very ill most urgent.
Dickens’s sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, who ran his household and cared for his children after the separation from Catherine, was clearly disappointed that the specialist could do nothing for her much-adored brother-in-law. She sent a note to her solicitor with the doctor’s fee: “I enclose Dr Reynolds’ demand (of £20) for his fruitless visit.”
Dean Stanley had met Dickens in 1870, after being introduced by the churchman’s brother-in-law, Frederick Locker, who was a friend of the novelist. Stanley confided to his private journal (now housed in the archives of Westminster Abbey) that he was “much struck” by his conversation with Dickens and appreciated the few opportunities he had to meet the author before he died.
Luke Fildes, Dickens’s grave in Westminster Abbey (1873). Charles Dickens Museum, CC BY
When the end came, Locker conveyed the news to his brother-in-law on that very day – June 9. The Dean wrote to Locker to say:Locker’s memoir also records an interesting conversation he had with Stanley before this 1870 meeting, which sheds light on the Dean’s attitude towards the novelist, his death and funeral. Locker writes about talking to Stanley “of the burials in the abbey” and they discussed the names of some “distinguished people”. Stanley told him there were “certain people” he would be “obliged to refuse” burial, on account of personal antipathies. But his attitude changed when the name of the author “came up” and he said he “should like to meet Dickens”. Then, to “gratify” Stanley’s “pious wish”, Locker asked Dickens and his daughter to dine. Thus even while Dickens was still alive, Stanley privately expressed a desire to bury him.
Alas! – how soon we have been overtaken by the event which we were anticipating as so distant. I cannot amply thank you for having given me the opportunity of having met Charles Dickens while there was yet time. You will gather from what I have already said that I am quite prepared to raise any proposals about the burial that may be made to me.
Letter from A.P. Stanley to Frederick Locker, June 9 1870. Locker wrote in pencil towards the top: ‘Dickens’ Death’. By kind permission of the Armstrong Browning Library., Author provided
The letter is fascinating. On the very day of the famous author’s death, the Dean was already thinking about burial in the Abbey. But there was a catch: Stanley could only entertain such a proposal if it came from the family and executors. He could not act unilaterally.
Locker quickly seized the opportunity hinted at in Stanley’s letter and sent a copy of it to Charley Dickens (the author’s son) on June 10. He wrote in his covering note: “I wish to send you a copy of a letter that I have just received from Dean Stanley and I think it will explain itself. If I can be of any use pray tell me.”
False claims and ambition
Meanwhile, the idea of getting Dickens to Poets’ Corner was growing in Stanley’s imagination. He wrote to his cousin Louisa on Saturday June 11 to say “I never met (Dickens) till this year… And now he is gone … and it is not improbable that I may bury him”. It’s interesting how quickly the plan crystallised in the Dean’s mind. Within the space of 48 hours, he went from hypothetical proposals from the family for burial, to foreseeing a key role for himself in the proceedings.
However, an answer from Charley Dickens wasn’t forthcoming. Stanley waited until the morning of Monday June 13, before seeking another way of making his wishes known to the family. He got in touch with his friend Lord Houghton (formerly Rickard Monckton Milnes – a poet, politician and friend of Dickens), reiterating his preparedness “to receive any proposal for (Dickens’s) burial in the Abbey” and asking Houghton to “act as you think best”.
It was at this point in the proceedings that Forster took charge of the planning. He had been away in Cornwall when Dickens died and it took him two days to reach Gad’s Hill. When he reached Dickens’s country home on Saturday June 11 he was overcome with grief at the death of his friend and clearly unprepared for the suddenness with which the blow was struck. His first thoughts, and those of the immediate family, were to accede to Dickens’s wishes and have him buried close to home. While the official account, in his Life of Dickens, claims that the graveyards in the vicinity of his home were “closed”, an examination of the records of the churches in Cobham and Shorne demonstrate this to be false.
The proposed burial in Rochester Cathedral was not only advanced, but in fact finalised, costed, and invoiced. The Chapter archives demonstrate that a grave was in fact dug in St Mary’s Chapel by the building firm Foord & Sons. The records also show that the Cathedral authorities “believed, as they still believe (after Dickens was buried in the Abbey), that no more fitting or honourable spot for his sepulture could be found than amidst scenes to which he was fondly attached, and amongst those by whom he was personally known as a neighbour and held in such honour”.
Extract from the minute book of the Chapter of Rochester Cathedral, June 23 1870, confirming the payment made to John Foord & Sons for preparing Dickens’s grave in St Mary’s chapel. Medway Archives & Local Studies., Author provided
These views are reinforced by the claims of Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law, in a letter to a friend:
We should have preferred Rochester Cathedral, and it was a great disappointment to the people there that we had to give way to the larger demand.
Let (Dickens) lie in the Abbey. Where Englishmen gather to review the memorials of the great masters and teachers of their nation, the ashes and the name of the greatest instructor of the nineteenth century should not be absent.
Despite this appeal appearing in the press, Stanley’s private journal records that he still “had received no application from any person in authority”, and so “took no steps” to advance his burial plan.
Stanley’s prayers must have seemed answered, then, when Forster and Charley Dickens appeared at the door of the Deanery on that same day. According to the Dean, after they sat down, Forster said to Stanley: “I imagine the article in the ‘Times’ must have been written with your concurrence?” Stanley replied: “No, I had no concern with it, but at the same time I had given it privately to be understood that I would consent to the interment if it was demanded.” By this Stanley meant the letter he had sent to Locker, which the latter had forwarded to Charley. Stanley of course agreed to the request from Dickens’s representatives for burial in Poets’ Corner. What he refrains from saying is how much he personally was looking forward to officiating at an event of such national significance.
While it’s clear, from the private correspondence I have examined, that Stanley agitated for Dickens’s burial in the abbey, the actions of Forster are harder to trace. He left fewer clues about his intentions and he destroyed all of his working notes for his monumental three volume biography of Dickens. These documents included many letters from the author. Forster used Dickens’s correspondence liberally in his account. In fact, the only source we have for most of the letters from Dickens to Forster are the passages that appear in the biography.
But as well as showing how Forster falsely claimed in his biography that the graveyards near his home were “closed”, my research also reveals how he altered the words of Stanley’s (published) funeral sermon to suit his own version of events. Forster quoted Stanley as saying that Dickens’s grave “would thenceforward be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of the literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue”. This, however, is a mis-quotation of the sermon, in which Stanley actually said:
Many, many are the feet which have trodden and will tread the consecrated ground around that narrow grave; many, many are the hearts which both in the Old and in the New World are drawn towards it, as towards the resting-place of a dear personal friend; many are the flowers that have been strewed, many the tears shed, by the grateful affection of ‘the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and those that had none to help them’.
Stanley worked with Forster to achieve their common aim. In 1872, when Forster sent Stanley a copy of the first volume of his Life of Dickens, the Dean wrote:
You are very good to speak so warmly of any assistance I may have rendered in carrying out your wishes and the desire of the country on the occasion of the funeral. The recollection of it will always be treasured amongst the most interesting of the various experiences which I have traversed in my official life.
‘The Grave of Charles Dickens in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey Illustrated London News, June 1870. Leon Litvack
For the ages
My research demonstrates that the official, authorised accounts of the lives and deaths of the rich and famous are open to question and forensic investigation – even long after their histories have been written and accepted as canonical. Celebrity is a manufactured commodity, that depends for its effect on the degree to which the fan (which comes from the word “fanatic”) can be manipulated into believing a particular story about the person whom he or she adores.
In the case of Dickens, two people who had intimate involvement in preserving his reputation for posterity were not doing so for altruistic reasons: there was something in it for each of them. Stanley interred the mortal remains of Dickens in the principal shrine of British artistic greatness. This ensured that his tomb became a site of pilgrimage, where the great and the good would come to pay their respects – including the Prince of Wales, who laid a wreath on Dickens’s grave in 2012, to mark the bicentenary of his birth.
Such public commemorations of this Victorian superstar carry special meaning and mystique for his many fans. This year, on February 7 (the anniversary of his birth), Armando Iannucci (director of the new film adaptation The Personal History of David Copperfield) is scheduled give the toast to “the immortal memory” at a special dinner hosted by the Dickens Fellowship – a worldwide association of admirers. The 150th anniversary of his death will be observed at Westminster Abbey on June 8 2020.
Whether it’s the remembrance of the author’s death or his birth, these public acts symbolise how essential Dickens is to Britain’s national culture. None of this would have been possible, however, had it not been for the involvement of Dickens’s best friend and executor, John Forster. Forster organised the private funeral in Westminster Abbey in accordance with Dickens’s wishes, and ensured that his lover Ellen Ternan could discreetly attend, and that his estranged wife would not. But he is also the man who overruled the expectations of the author for a local burial. Instead, through an act of institutionally sanctioned bodysnatching, the grave in Poets’ Corner bound Dickens forever in the public mind with the ideals of national life and art and provided a fitting conclusion to Forster’s carefully considered, strategically constructed biography. It ends with these words:
Facing the grave, and on its left and right, are the monuments of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dryden, the three immortals who did most to create and settle the language to which Charles Dickens has given another undying name.
Leon Litvack is associate professor, Queen’s University Belfast.
The MPs were concerned about the possibility of ‘mass disenfranchisement’ in India.
London: Labour MPs in the United Kingdom promised to soon table an Early Day Motion in Parliament that will discuss the concerns about India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that has seen widespread protests across India and also in cities across the world including in the United Kingdom.
On Monday afternoon, the committee room 6 in the Palace of Westminster saw Stephen Timms, MP from East Ham along with his colleagues Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Claudia Webbe, MP for Leicester East and Pat McFadden, MP for Wolverhampton South East intently listen to the concerns expressed by the South Asia Solidarity Group, Catch Watch UK and Gautam Bhatia, a legal expert who helped draft a petition challenging the CAA in the Supreme Court of India.
The British parliamentarians were concerned with the possibility of mass disenfranchisement of the minorities in India. Bhatia also took queries from the MPs.
Huq was concerned with how the rights of British citizens holding Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) status would be affected. Bhatia’s response showed that with the passage of CAA and NRC, the Indian government would also be able to cancel the OCI status should they be displeased with criticism from the diaspora. There are fears that the CAA has very wide provisions that can lead to cancellation of OCI card, he said.
Impressed by the solidarity in protests
Timms, who hosted the event, was impressed by the solidarity he observed in the mass protests in India which have brought together people from all walks of life and with various religious and political views. The participation of women in large numbers across India has also generated a lot of interest in the movement against CAA and NRC. Timms said that the diversity among the protestors was also seen in his own constituency. “Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are all coming together,” noted Timms, whose constituency has a large number of Indian-origin families.
Timms has already written to the Foreign Office urging them to make a statement on the issue and also to the High Commission of India in the UK. Claudia Webbe, concerned with possible human rights violations, pledged to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revoke the draconian legislation. The UK media too has given a lot of space to the anti-CAA protests in India, including the violence in Uttar Pradesh.
The meeting organised by South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG) and Ambedkar International Mission (UK) also marked the release of a jury report from the People’s Tribunal on State Action in Uttar Pradesh. The report highlighted the gross violence committed against Muslims by the police and their accomplice- the right wing Hindutva groups- taking orders directly from the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government of Yogi Adityanath.
Amrit Wilson of the SASG spoke about the police violence unleashed on protests led by mostly students and women of minority communities like Muslims and Dalits. She also highlighted that the nationwide protests include almost everyone from rural workers to urban professionals. A protest march from 10 Downing Street to India House has been organised on Saturday, by a host of UK-based organisations in solidarity with the protestors in India to mark the National Demonstration Against Fascism in India on the eve of the Republic Day.
Concerns about how the Tory party had backed off from a law against caste discrimination in the UK under pressure from upper-caste Hindu groups were raised by Pat McFadden. Satpal Muman of Caste Watch UK, which has been at the forefront to outlaw caste discrimination by including it in the Equalities Act, spoke how overseas Hindutva groups lobbied extensively to block the inclusion. “B.R. Ambedkar had warned that that ‘Hindu Raj’ would be a calamity for India,” he said, adding that more work needs to be done to create awareness that caste discrimination is real.
There are 15 Indian-origin MPs in UK Parliament, with the highest-ranking, cabinet minister Priti Patel, holding the position of secretary of state. While Indian-origin MPs have raised concerns with the Indian ambassador in private, the silence of the Tory MPs is almost deafening. This divisive politics was also evident during the general elections in December 2019 when Indian-origin voters got WhatsApp messages to not vote for Labour because of the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn raising concerns with the communication blockage in Kashmir. Webbe confessed that she faced an ‘unprecedented hate campaign’ during the recent elections and Timms said that some of his constituents confided in him that they were “told by the (Hindu) temple authorities not to vote Labour”.
Despite this, all Indian-origin Labour MPs and Labour candidates from constituencies with a high Indian vote won their seats. These Labour candidates are now emerging as the torchbearers of protests against CAA and NRC in the British parliament.
Note: The article was updated to remove a line which inadvertently misquoted lawyer Gautam Bhatia.
May won backing for her policy programme with a slender parliamentary majority.
Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May leaves Downing Street in London, Britain June 28, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth
London: British Prime Minister Theresa May won backing for her policy programme with a slender parliamentary majority on Thursday in the first test of her authority after an election setback and growing pressure on her Brexit and austerity agenda.
May cut short a visit to Berlin and her defence minister, Michael Fallon, left Brussels to dash back to Britain for the vote, underlining her precarious position after she lost her Conservative Party’s parliamentary majority in an election on June 8 that she did not need to call.
On Wednesday, she saw off an attempt by the opposition Labour Party to defeat her in a vote on public sector pay, thanks partly to the support of a small Northern Irish party which she secured under a deal to help her pass legislation.
It was that backing that helped her squeeze enough votes to pass her policy programme, set out to parliament by Queen Elizabeth last week, winning with 323 votes to 309.
“This is … the way we intend to govern. Living within our means, creating good jobs, paying people well, investing in the future by working with business … implementing the will of the British people to leave the EU in a way that is orderly and sensible,” business minister Greg Clark said before the vote.
“We vote tonight not just on a programme of legislation but on a fundamental approach to the future of this country.”
The vote was not without difficulties. Opposition parties proposed amendments which tested the discipline of May’s supporters and the government had to make a concession on abortion rights, making funds available in England for women arriving from Northern Ireland for abortions, to avoid defeat.
Other amendments challenged her stance on Britain’s departure from the European Union, demanding that the country stay in the bloc’s single market, and on austerity, criticising her for not investing in the economy.
Both were rejected.
But the vote shows how difficult it will be for May to push through legislation needed to ease Britain’s departure from the European Union and underlines how little room for manoeuvre she has as Conservative lawmakers jockey for position to replace her.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Conservative programme was “in tatters” and should bend to the will of voters who wanted an end to public sector cuts, which some have blamed for a fire that killed at least 80 in west London and for straining a police service battling militant attacks.
“Theresa May does not have a mandate for continued cuts to our schools, hospitals, police and other vital public services or for a race-to-the-bottom Brexit. Labour will fight these policies every step of the way,” he said in a statement.
“Labour won support in every region and nation of Britain for our jobs-first Brexit approach and our policies that would transfer wealth, power and opportunity to the many from the few.”
