When the Agriculture Bill was debated in the House of Commons in May, MPs rejected an amendment aimed at allowing the importation of only those agricultural goods that meet standards as high or higher than current UK standards for animal welfare, environmental protection, food safety, hygiene and traceability. This is despite the assurance from Tory MPs who campaigned for Brexit that there would be no lowering of animal welfare or food safety standards after the UK left the EU. E.g. Michael Gove stated in July 2017: “We are not going to dilute our high animal welfare standards, or our high environmental standards, in pursuit of any trade deal.” (1) MPs know that there are good reasons for public concern. Incidences of food poisoning in the US affect 14% of the population annually, contrasting with 1% in the UK (2). US restrictions on various aspects of food production are much less stringent than those of the UK and EU, meaning that imports will pose potential risks to the health of humans and animals in the UK. These include the overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, pesticides, food colourings and genetically modified crops that are currently banned in the UK (3, 4). Trade negotiations currently underway appear to give the lie to previous assurances. Cabinet Office minister Penny Mordaunt has refused to say that a ban would remain on chlorinated chicken, hormone-fed beef and other US imports after an upcoming trade deal with Donald Trump (5). In place of regulation, she said she believed “we should be trusting the consumer,” echoing Sonny Perdue, the US secretary of agriculture, who has said: “If the consumer doesn’t want [such food products], they won’t buy them and that will change production, both in the United States and the UK.”(6) But our choices are only real choices if we have proper information, and yet the US considers nutrition labelling a ‘barrier to trade’ (7). As individuals, we have little influence over international trade deals, but retailers have the power to protect their customers’ right to high quality produce. They need to know that we will continue to shop with them only if the food they sell is explicitly and unequivocally guaranteed to meet pre-Brexit standards for animal welfare, environmental protection, food safety, hygiene and traceability. (1) https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-05-13/debates/D4889925-5B63-498E-BC68-BFCF91691C66/AgricultureBill (2) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-40725738/michael-gove-says-no-to-chlorinated-chicken https://www.sustainweb.org/news/feb18_US_foodpoisoning/ (3, 4) Centre for International Environmental Law Lowest Common Denominator 2015; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/19/crucial-antibiotics-still-used-on-us-farms-despite-public-health-fears (5) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chlorinated-chicken-us-trade-deal-brexit-penny-mordaunt-a9556591.html (6) https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/inside-the-tory-row-over-food-standards-in-uk-trade-policy (7) Office of the United States Trade Representative Report on Foreign Trade Barriers 2019

The Department of Health in Northern Ireland are refusing to commission abortion services, despite regulations now in place which make abortion provision a legal requirement. This means that only limited abortion access has been provided and too many women and pregnant people have been refused treatment or forced to travel to receive treatment. The Minister for Health has also stated that limited access is an ‘interim’ measure, but there has been has been NO attempt by the Department to provide the abortion provisions that we need. We have the law. Now we need the access.

West India Dock facilitated the transatlantic slave trade, to store the sugar from the West Indian plantations where enslaved men, women and children worked. Our successful campaign led to the removal of slave trader Robert Milligan’s statue. This was a step forward in reconciling with the history of systemic human exploitation to amass wealth. However, this is not enough. It is equally important to install a monument to represent the movement against institutional racism by honouring a Black African abolitionist. Olaudah Equiano was born around the year 1745 in Guinea. At eleven he and his sister were kidnapped while out playing and were enslaved. In 1786 in London, he became involved in the movement to abolish slavery. He was a prominent member of the 'Sons of Africa', the first Black political organisation in Britain to campaign for abolitionism. In the spring of 1789, he published his autobiography, 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African'. It is one of the earliest books published by a black African writer which contributed hugely in setting the scene through religious and economic arguments for the abolition of slavery. Equiano’s work had the overt anti-slavery agenda and a more subtle anti-racist project to dispel some of the racist myths existed in eighteenth-century England. Equiano did not just publish the book and leave it to fend for itself. Instead, he vigorously promoted it by going on lecture tours around England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and by promoting his book he was also promoting the idea of the abolition of slavery. During the early 1790s, Equiano had not just turned his life story into a document opposing slavery but had transformed his entire life into an anti-slavery document. Equiano is a symbol of resistance to the slave trade and slavery. To honour the millions of slaves who were exploited to the benefit West India Dock, to honour all those who suffered from the transatlantic slave trade, we demand a memorial of Olaudah Equiano. You can read more about Olaudah Equiano at https://brycchancarey.com/equiano/biog.htm The short bio of Olaudah Equiano is compiled from Brycchan Carey's blog entry. He is an academic and author on slavery, emancipation, and abolition. #Black Lives Matter

This site is very important to Scottish history many if our ancestors fought and died for Scotland and its people its major tourist attraction from many people across the world

Pauline was the first black actress on British TV, the first black woman on the BBC world service radio and the first black female justice of the peace. She was also awarded an OBE in 1969 for her extensive work with the National Council for the Unmarried mother and her child, then later with the Brook Advisory Centres. Emigrating from Jamacia with her family in 1919 she lived in the UK until her death in 1998. She was my great grandmother and she was strong in all the right ways. She lived and died with dignity, intelligence and with an undeniable presence for anyone who met her. When I think of Granny Paul (who died when I was 13) I think of a woman who commanded respect, she knew who she was, she knew what she'd been through but didn't let that stop her breaking barriers. The lessons I carry from my Jamaican heritage are to act with intelligence, don't be afraid to change authority and the status quo, and to be a positive member of your community. I am incredibly proud to have a mixed heritage, it reminds me that I am a citizen of the world and that this is represented by the diversity here in Britain.

I realise that during Covid 19 it is only fair to accept that to a certain degree a governments focus can only be on the one thing. but it feels to me, that while this has been happening, the Scottish Oil Industry has crashed with very little news coverage or government intervention. 1000's of people have lost their jobs, 1000's of people are now in the position of having to sell their homes. the stamp duty must be reduced to encourage buyers which in turn assists the many in dire situations to sell their homes quicker before facing repossession or bankruptcy.

Evidence has been produced that the Post Office engaged in a mass cover up which led to the wrongful prosecution of 550 Post Office Staff many of whom were subsequently jailed, bankrupted and in some cases, sadly took their own lives. The initial Post Office investigation in 2012 failed to find any issues and as a result in 2012, Second Sight, an independent investigative firm were brought in to investigate complaints that the Horizon system used in post offices was inaccurate, buggy and could 'lose money'. Despite pledging full co-operation initially, Post Office subsequently withheld documents from the investigation and Paula Vennells later failed to answer a select committee when challenged on why this documents had not been produced as requested. The damning report, marked as 'confidential' stated that the Horizon system was 'not fit for purpose' and among their discoveries were 12,000 communication failures every year, software defects at 76 branches and that the system was failing to track money from lottery terminal, tax disc sales and cash machines properly. It concluded that rather than investigate the cause of such errors, Post Office instead accused sub-postmasters of theft. The Post Office dismissed the report which was subsequently leaked to the BBC in 2014. Despite Paula Vennells assertion that Post Office "have been working with Second Sight over the last few weeks on what we agreed at the outset. We have been provided the information" to Parliament at her select committee appearance in 2015, the lead investigator for Second Sight, Adrian Bailey, when asked if this was the case said categorically, "No, it is not" which meant that he could not access files to back up his suspicions that Post Office Ltd had brought cases against sub-postmasters with 'inadequate investigation and inadequate evidence'. The requested files had still not been handed over to Second Sight 18 months later. In March 2015, on the eve of the Second Sight report publication, Private Eye reported that the Post Office had instructed Second Sight to end their investigation, destroy all paperwork and scrapped the independent committee that had been convened. In 2019, a class action case, Bates & Ors v Post Office Ltd, was settled by the Post Office in favour of the 550 sub-postmasters for over £58 million. Mr Justice Fraser, the judge in the case concluded that the approach of the Post Office: "amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat." Mr Justice Fraser, so concerned by what he had seen in the case, has passed a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions. In the Lords, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom said in November 2019: "My own suggestion is that the government should clear out the entirety of the board and senior management of the Post Office and start again, perhaps with the assistance of consultancy services from Second Sight, who know where the bodies are buried.". Having been handed a CBE for services to the Post Office, and moved out into other senior positions in government and healthcare, it is only right that this award is now withdrawn through the process of forfeiture. Paula Vennells has subsequently refused to answer questions from these staff as well as the media and has refused to apologise for the cover-up, misery and trauma caused which has brought not only herself but the Post Office, the honours system and government into disrepute.

This is a path that allows residents to commute and walk or cycle to Maidstone, it is used by hundreds of residents every week and provides a safe route away from the main roads used by HGV lorries.

Since its foundation in 1934, the British Council has worked effectively to develop cultural relations with other countries and to support international mobility. The British Council now works with more than 100 countries worldwide, creating benefits that have fundamentally changed the lives of millions of people. This work is of enormous significance in the way we are able to understand and appreciate other cultures in often turbulent times and of course, in the ways that we are able to promote understanding of our own. The British Council has been a major disseminator of knowledge about the United Kingdom and the English language through its work in Education, Society, Arts and development projects, which benefit the partner countries and the UK. Although it is a public body under the auspices of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the government response to the British Council’s financial situation has been slow, and the British Council’s future is now significantly under threat. Unlike most public bodies, the majority of the British Council’s income, 85% of it, comes from commercial activity in teaching English and delivering UK examinations abroad, along with other projects. There are over 11,000 British Council employees worldwide who promote a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language; encouraging cultural, scientific, technological and educational co-operation with the United Kingdom. Approximately 203 of 221 British Council teaching centres and schools abroad were closed and 26 out of 41 test centres were also closed due to Coronavirus pandemic measures. This cut off the major source of income. Some teaching and exams services have moved online, where possible, and there is limited activity in some countries where the pandemic restrictions are easing. However, this is not enough to generate the income required. These closures are having a devastating impact on the cash flow and financial reserves of the organisation with money likely to run out in the coming weeks unless vital and urgent additional government funds are secured So far, there has been a small amount of additional money allocated to the British Council. The FCO are reviewing the operations of the British Council, and if emergency funding is offered it is likely to come with conditions which could be detrimental to the future of the organisation. British Council employees could face wage reductions and redundancies. The organisation could be cut back or brought back under a tighter control by government ministers, losing its arm’s length and independent status which is an important factor in its global success. Any government review of this valuable national asset should not be behind closed doors, any recommendations should be public and open to scrutiny. We need to act now, to ensure the UK government provides the financial support to save and preserve the British Council, before it is too late.

Robert Milligan (1746-1809) was a leading figure in building the east London docks, in part, to trade in slave-harvested goods from the Caribbean. Milligan owned 526 slaves who worked at his sugar plantation and much of his wealth was acquired through the trade and exploitation of slaves. While we as East Enders and Londoners express our solidarity chanting Black Lives Matter, it is painful to walk past a proud statue of Robert Milligan which was erected to commemorate and celebrate his life. Milligan has no place in London, and he does not deserve the honour of a statue. This should be reserved for those who have fought for equality and social justice this world is desperately crying for. Following the events in Bristol and to express our solidarity to our black brothers and sisters throughout the world it is only right that we remove the proud statue of Robert Milligan from West India Quay in Canary Wharf, Tower Hamlets. As much as we appreciate the value of history, we should not glorify the enslavement of individuals by displaying a statue of a slave trader. The East End has a proud history of fighting against injustice and inequality. Today it is our duty to remove this symbol which only resonates pain, suffering and inhuman treatments of fellow human beings for profit. https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/public38/images/councillor.gif

Some street names glorify the people who profited from slavery. These same people were paid to give up their slaves and made a vast profit from this vile industry. Henry Dundas who was a powerful politician in the 1790s who delayed the abolition of the slave trade by fifteen years. His family were slave owners. In the fifteen year delay, some 63000 slaves were not given their freedom. Also, there should be a review of all streets in Scotland bearing the names of known slavers. Change the name so that we do not to glorify the name of any known slaver. Any statue plaques should have a modern interpretation and a full history detailed to educate the public.

Edward Colston does not deserve to be associated with Bristols Music and Arts scene. Thankfully the venue acknowledges that and has decided to change the name. "We want to look to the future and ensure the whole city is proud of its transformed Hall. The name Colston, and its associations with the slave trade, does not reflect our values as a progressive, forward-thinking and open arts organisation. We want everyone to feel like they can come to the Hall and enjoy amazing music.” I believe we should honour local legend 'Big Jeff' and name the venue after him, he's the heart of the local music scene and a true Bristol icon.