"Let’s build on the brilliant Jo Cox women’s programme with leadership schemes for gay, trans and BAME activists"

Excellent article by West Ham CLPer, Rohit K Dasgupta, on LabourList today. 

"This is an exciting time to be a Labour member. The latest Survation polls puts us ahead of the Tories. Members are enthused and confident about the upcoming local elections in May 2018 and, in between all of this, Jeremy Corbyn has announced the democracy review.

The review, launched formally in November, will be a consultation to address how members can be democratically involved in the party and its structure as we prepare to form the next government.

At the very outset this is a mammoth task but its overall goals towards accountability, transparency and representation of all party members is welcome. I was recently at the launch of the BAME Labour consultation in London where I made a plea: the party has made great strides towards equality issues but we need to do much more.

As an openly gay and Asian Labour activist I have often found myself in groups where one or another part of my identity is seen as problematic. Our identities are not mutually exclusive but rather they are inextricably linked. Whilst I have faced racism in mainstream queer spaces, I have often also had to face homophobia in “safe” BAME spaces. I think the current democracy review gives the party an opportunity to shine a lens on these issues.

I propose that this can be done in four ways.

Firstly, the party already has a long established mechanism of all-women’s shortlists to address the issue of female representation in Parliament. Most recently AWS has also been used successfully in the selection of council candidates.

Positive action is useful as an affirmative action to bridging inequalities. If we are able to do this for gender, I would suggest that the party also takes into consideration race and sexuality in selections. It would be useful to point out at that this should not equate to making sure a BAME candidate is included in the longlist of parliamentary selections, as is currently done. That is simply not enough and for many CLPs it is as a tick-box exercise. I was surprised at the recent council selections for Newham in east London, where I belong, when the regional party did not even collect demographics related to sexuality.

Whilst positive action is a good thing and can open the door, the real test would be for actual training and mentorship. Trade unions have come out in support of making sure more working class voices in parliament and providing mentoring. We need similar training and mentorship for LGBT and BAME candidates. The Jo Cox women in leadership program has shown what a good training program can do. It is time for Labour to invest in similar programs. How about a Bernie Grant leadership program or a Chris Smith leadership Program?

The only way we can make our politics and political leaders truly representative is by investing. This is a good time for the party to invest in its socialist societies and liberation groups and ensure they are producing the next generation of leaders from under-represented communities. I would also suggest that this kind of training should involve bursaries and grants for working class and disabled candidates to help them participate.

The third point is to make the change at the grassroots level. The party needs to ensure that liberation groups and officers are given more power. All CLPs now have a women’s officer who is a voting member of the executive. Why are the LGBT and BAME co-ordinators not given the same status within our CLP executive and given equal voting rights?

This would increase accountability and help grow liberation groups. For many of us LGBT and/or BAME young people, we are conditioned to believe that politics is not for us. This must be challenged and it has to come from the very bottom. Socialist societies can also play an important role in this. Through affiliation with CLPs they can make sure that local parties remain progressive, inclusive and committed to equalities. Affiliation will also encourage more members of under-represented groups get involved within.

This brings me to my final point, of how to ensure grassroots engagement is beneficial for liberation groups. Let’s make it easier for people to join them when they join Labour. If members indicate they are BAME, LGBT or disabled they should automatically be made members of these groups. It took me almost five years to understand how to join BAME Labour.

This should be a turning point for us in Labour. The Tory government is in a mess, we have a very large and active membership base whose power we need to harness in the next election. For a truly democratic, progressive and transparent voice; we must embrace intersectionality and give all liberation groups that extra push to make sure our party is representative of the plurality of its membership.

Dr Rohit K Dasgupta is a lecturer at Loughborough University. He was Labour’s candidate for East Hampshire in 2017. 

https://labourlist.org/2017/12/lets-build-on-the-brilliant-jo-cox-programme-with-leadership-schemes-for-gay-trans-and-bame-activists

Paris: LGBT Newham Youth Crowdfunder

The Charity Aston-Mansfield is
seeking funding for its Newham LGBT Youth support group via a crowd funding campaign. They aim to raise £6,000 and have already donations from local football team Clapton Ultras after their Football vs Homophobia’ match. The crowd funding will last until the 11th April. See its press release.

"Paris: The only support for Newham’s LGBT young people. East London based charity Aston-Mansfield is launching a Crowdfunder campaign on 14th March to ensure the survival of ‘Paris’, its LGBTQ youth group which offers peer support and mentoring to vulnerable young people.

It is the only group of its kind in Newham. The campaign, which hopes to raise £6,000, will secure the future of this essential project helps young people as young as 13 to overcome harmful behaviour and make better decisions. Through our support, we equip them to be proud of who they are. Many have come from situations where they are isolated and confused, failing or not attending school, and engaging in a variety of damaging behaviours.

“Because it’s the only LGBT group in Newham, this really needs to survive. I know for a fact that if it weren’t for Paris, I’d be a bit lost, before I didn’t know anyone transgender, gay, lesbian at all…it was so isolating. Knowing that there are groups where people can be themselves, it’s amazing and it’s a privilege to be a part of “

Evidence from Stonewall suggests that 55% of LGBTQ young people experience homophobic bullying at school and 49% of gay pupils who do experience homophobic bullying have symptoms consistent with depression. There is a higher prevalence among LGBTQ young people of depression, damaging behaviours, and most worryingly of all of suicide, with NCSS estimating that 1 in 4 will attempt to take their own life. Over the last 2.5 years, ‘Paris’ (named by the attendees themselves) has worked with 35 LGBTQ young people, 14 of whom now attend our regular weekly session.

“Paris is important as it helps people accept themselves, and in times when they’re not necessarily at their best, like when I came I was in the mind-set that it’s so wrong to be gay but I just couldn’t change it. Two years on I’m now saying it’s okay to be gay, it’s great”

We have seen the project support these young people to grow in confidence, become more resilient to the world around them and learn to deal with conflict better. We have helped young people in crisis move away from harmful behaviours, to make better decisions and to equip themselves with knowledge and understanding both about their own sexuality and about safe sex and conduct. 4 of our young people have moved from being in damaging situations and struggling at school to being accepted to university where they will start the next stage of their journey later this year

“Currently Paris has very little funding and there is a real possibility that we will have to shut this service which provides vital support to extremely vulnerable young people. We don’t want this to happen, we know that Paris changes the lives of these LGBTQ young people, and we’re asking you to help us fight to protect this essential service.” – Claire Helman, Chief Executive – Aston-Mansfield

Please help us keep supporting Newham’s LGBT community and donate here: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/parisyouth"

UNISON London LGBT "Equality at Work" Labour Link event at House of Commons

This great picture is from last weeks London UNISON LGBT "Equality at Work" mobilisation event at Portcullis House. I chaired the meeting on behalf of London Labour Link. Margret Hodge MP and Stephen Twigg MP were the guest speakers and reminded us that the Labour Party was the first political party to take LGBT equality at all seriously. While LGBT Chair, Deirdre Costigan, (next to Margaret) gave a fantastic speech about how no one should take these rights for granted if there is a future right wing government.

We are going to arrange for UNISON London LGBT activists to join West Ham CLP canvassing sessions for Labour in Ilford North. 2pm on the 2nd Saturday and 4th Saturday at Fairlop Underground station entrance. If you can let me know you are coming do so or just turn up at this time and place.

UNISON Labour Link LGBT Mobilisation Event House of Commons

Guest post by Gerard McGrath Unison London Region LGBT Committee rep on London Region Labour Link Committee

"To the blast of heavenly trumpets, the long awaited London Region LGBT Committees finally had its event in the Jubilee Room of The House of Commons last Wednesday 14th of May.

We had over 90 people register which also included members from PCS and Unite but it was mostly Unison members in attendance. This event was aimed at encouraging all LGBT Unison/Labour people to get out and help us on the doorstep in local wards or help out in key wards around London and get the Labour message out and challenge the nonsense being peddled by UKIP in particular.

We were all extremely encouraged by Sadiq Khan MP who kindly hosted this event for us and gave a very encouraging speech reminding us to help out as much as possible. We were also very fortunate to have Amy Lame as a speaker who talked about, in particular, the lack of Lesbians in public office reminding us that there are only two out Lesbians returned at the last election. We all wish Amy the best of luck in her efforts to find a parliamentary seat and of course we will all do our best to ensure her success.

Deirdre Costigan, co-chair of Unison National LGBT Committee was the final speaker and urged people to sign up to commit in helping Labour win as many seats as possible in the local government elections and also ensuring that Labour continues to have strong representation in Europe. Deirdre continued to remind us all of the potential damage UKIP could inflict on the country with any gains and also of their many well documented racism and homophobia incidents by their candidates.

Sadiq Khan is indeed a great example of how key muslim leaders are encouraging and facilitating LGBT visibility in public office which dismisses the right wing Islamaphobic propaganda that all Muslims are homophobes, Sadiq is certainly not homophobic.

 I want to thank Karen Westwood, who is one of Unison regional officers and John Gray, chair of the London Region Labour Link committee for helping us in finally getting this up and running.

Given the success of this event we will want to repeat this, hopefully next year as we approach the general election". Gerard McGrath (picture left)

#Uint11 UNISON International Seminar 2011: Haneen Maikey "Al Qaws"

Friday evening saw the start of the 2011 UNISON International Seminar at the UNISON centre in Euston, London.  There are about 80 registered BIROS (jargin for Branch International Officers which use to puzzle me before I found out what it meant), Regional and National International Committee delegates.

First Speaker was UNISON Head of Pensions, Glyn Jenkins, who used the opportunity to gave everyone an update on the dispute.

The keynote speaker was Haneen Maikey, Director of Al Qaws, the Palestinian NGO for LGBT rights.  This report is based on tweets that I did during her speech and the Q&A. See #unisonint11 (UNISON Young member @Graham_NEC suggests that I should use #Uint11 instead - so from now on I will use this one).

Usual warning about the complete accuracy of my hurried notes especially via fumbled tweeting - on such a sensitive subject. 

"Sexuality in Palestinian context is very complicated. What makes Queer Politics relevant to the Palestinian struggle? Pinkwashing is used by Israel to try and divide us.There is a taboo in Palestine about all forms of sexuality both in public and in private spaces.  Her father would prefer for her to marry a man and express her lesbianism in another way. 

In West Bank homosexuality is legal. Al Qaws does not operate in Gaza (for reasons unclear) The price of "coming out" is very high. It must be a personal decision.  80% of their funding comes from America and Europe.  They were able to persuade a Western based LGBT group not to open a gesture office in Beirut which would have caused conflict.  The 1948 Nakba 'Catastrophe' is the real issue. 711,000 Palestine refugees in 1949 there are now 4.7 million 2010. 20% of Israeli are Palestinian.  Israel tries to divert attention from colonialism, war crimes and occupation.

Resist pinkwashing and the attempt by Israel to promote its policy of victimisation by using pictures of Palestine gays being beaten up. They use these image to try and rebrand Israel.  They attempt to show Palestine as primitive.  Not just the government but well funded privates groups who are Islamophobic.  There is little solidarity with Israeli Queer groups since we are concerned with struggle while they are about equality.  While the main Israeli gay youth society promotes militarism and support the IDF.  They support gay individuals in Gaza but cannot enter.  Most human right groups cannot enter Gaza either. There are some links with Palestine trade unions but they are not close and this is an aspect to explore in the future".  Finally Haneen urged us to look at and support their new web site http://www.pinkwashingisrael.com/

LGBT History Month Film Night: Thursday 25 Feb

SERTUC LGBT NETWORK Presents: LGBT History Month Film Night

Thursday 25 February 2010, Congress House - FREE ADMISSION

Limited Spaces available (registration essential - please book early)

Registration: sertuceventsATtucDOTorgDOTuk or 020 7467 1220

Screening four new shorts, showcasing the diversity and creativity of LGBT communities in the Region:

• 'Sanstitre 22' - by Raphael Duplay

• 'Fearful of Bubbles' - by Meerak Meinohg

• 'Drum Heart' - by Stoo Ireson

• 'Pictures of Zain' - by Faryal (support from UNITE)

Please note some of the films contain scenes of nudity and material of an adult nature