Birmingham COP26 demo, is one of hundreds
Report by Maureen Wade, Sutton Coldfield CLP member.
All over the world last Saturday, millions of people took part in demonstrations against climate change. There must have been scores of demonstrations in this country alone, with hundreds of thousands, overwhelmingly young people, demanding real action to deal with climate change. Huge demonstrations took place in London and Glasgow especially.
Here in Birmingham, we saw our biggest demonstration of any kind for years, with several thousand marchers taking part in the protest, again predominately young people. The mood was enthusiastic but determined, with many taking up the chant of “no to climate change, yes to system change”.
Indeed, many of the platform speakers called for an end to capitalism – although very few spelt out what that alternative to capitalism should be. The nearest to outline what a socialist alternative could look like, was Dom Smith-Jones, the BAME Officer for Sutton Coldfield CLP. He spoke about the threatened closure of GKN Automotive in Erdington and the madness of capitalism in destroying an asset that could play a great role the electrification of motor vehicles. Rather than putting the onus on individuals to ‘go green’ to solve the problem, he correctly referred to a need to plan society for need and not the bosses’ profits.
“If I could live a 70-year-long carbon-free footprint for life”, he said, “the amount of carbon I would personally save would be emitted by industry in a single second. We need to understand that using canvas bags, swapping the Range Rover for a Tesla and fitting solar panels to our roofs is a drop in the ocean compared to what industry could and should be doing to repair the damage it is doing to all of us.” He also added that the trade unions were looking to Labour to deliver on its New Green Deal.
He was good, but only one Labour speaker
But there were two main surprises for those of us from the labour movement on the demonstration – where were the local Labour leaders, and where was UNITE? Of all the many speakers, Dom was the only Labour Party one, good though he was. There was no sign of our many Labour MPs or City Councillors.
We hear much from them about the need to engage with the community and win over people to vote Labour – and this had been exactly such an ideal opportunity. It is as though, under Keir Starmer’s leadership, they are getting frightened of their own shadows, terrified of making any policy commitments that, heaven forbid, they would be held to account for.
It was particularly disappointing that there was no intervention from UNITE. While PCS and UNISON were prominent with their banners in the trade union block, we lost count of the individual UNITE members who came up to us asking had we seen the UNITE banner. We hadn’t because it wasn’t there. It would have been a perfect opportunity to publicise the case for GKN Automotive, precisely within the climate emergency context.
With thousands on the streets all over the country, fiercely anti-Tory, overwhelmingly young people and looking for an alternative, for the Labour and trade union leaders in the West Midlands, this was a badly missed opportunity.
