Consensus Cartel

I was surprised that Scotland voted to retain the Union.  I was also very relieved because as a Labour voter in England, I knew that losing 40-50 seats in Scotland would be a monumental hindrance to overcome.  Conversely had I lived in Scotland, I would happily have voted to give independence a chance.  Apart from anything else, the prospect of having Tory rule banished forever was too big a prize to turn down.

The figures from Scotland were remarkable with some local authorities recording turnouts in excess of 90%. The unprecedented numbers led to optimism across Britain that the 2015 General Election may benefit from a re-engagement of the electorate with politicians in this country.  Could a Caledonian wind of change inspire more than 70% of the British electorate to vote for the first time since it slipped below the threshold in 2001?

It’s a romantic theory, although unfortunately a simple explanation for the exceptionally high numbers of people engaged in the Scottish Referendum comes down to two factors.  The first is that the Referendum itself was a unique opportunity, a “once in a generation” event, the result would be life-changing without the prospect of reversing the outcome in a few years’ time.  The second because the Referendum by its very nature offered a very clear choice: either for or against independence.  It was a polarising question: Yes or No.  There was no “maybe” on the ballot paper.

The trouble with the British political landscape is that it does not offer that choice.  The origins of “consensus politics” can probably be traced back to the “Limehouse Declaration” of 1981 and the subsequent repositioning of the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock in the mid-1980s.  Tony Blair may have removed clause IV, but it was the tenure of Kinnock which laid the foundations for someone like Blair to lead the party a decade later.

The result is a political debate which largely takes place on the right of the political spectrum.  It’s why issues like immigration never stray far from the heart of the national debate.  It explains how attacking the most vulnerable in society is widely perceived as acceptable, sometimes even popular with public opinion. It is also why issues like social justice and creating a fairer society has slipped so dangerously down the agenda.

So when Labour’s shadow Chancellor Ed Balls announced there would be a freeze on child benefits under an incoming Labour Government, there was frustration from grassroots Labour activists, but no real surprise.  As my boss at work described, the British electorate are not so much offered an alternative vision of how to run the country, but a question of how they wish to be harmed: death by firing squad or a thousand cuts.

It is a dramatic analogy perhaps although it does reinforce the need for an alternative vision of how to lead the country through the second half of this decade.  The obsession with pandering to the right while sacrificing ethical socialism requires an urgent re-think if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past and offer the electorate the same bland choice which has been on the table for over thirty years.

One area where there was potential for clear daylight to be placed between the parties came in the form of the recent parliamentary debate on military intervention in Iraq.  A Conservative Government took this country into the first Gulf War in 1991, a Labour Government returned the compliment in 2003 and now a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Tories have led the way to ensure that for the third time in 23 years, British forces will once again be engaged in conflict in Iraq.

Labour seized the opportunity for yet more consensus by rallying behind the Government’s case for military intervention and helped to secure an emphatic mandate for war resulting in just 43 MP’s voting against the motion.  24 of the rebels were from the Labour Party and read like a roll call of some of the finest MP’s who currently serve as Parliamentarians.

People like Jeremy Corbyn, the MP for Islington north and long-time friend of the Chagossian quest for justice.   There was Dennis Skinner, the “Beast of Bolsover”, a moral conscience and thorn in the side of a leadership which has lost its sense of navigation.  Diane Abbott, another supporter of the Chagossian cause and representative for the constituency of my birth.  And then there is Graham Allen,MP for where I live now, somebody who I’ve not always said complimentary things about previously but someone I am now looking at in a different light.

Why did they vote against British military involvement?  Well largely for the same reasons that I opposed the push for war as well.  The British record for involvement in military escapades in the middle-east has been one disaster after another since Suez.  The latest enemy is ISIS (or ISIL or IS), a group whose very existence can be directly linked to a decision by Washington to arm and train rebel fighters fighting in Syria once a coalition including the UK fell at the final hurdle just over a year ago.

The similarities with Afghanistan and the emergence of the Taliban illustrate an all too familiar picture in the middle-east, as the rise and fall of one Saddam Hussein explicitly demonstrated.  Driven from power a decade ago, he was once on very friendly terms with London and Washington who supported him during his eight year long war with Iran.  Indeed one has to question just how vociferous the British Government’s push for war in 1991 would have been had Farzad Bazoft not been so callously executed on trumped-up spying charges just under a year earlier.

If Bernie Grant had been alive, I’d like to think he would’ve voted against the intervention too.  The generation of children who (like me) were born under the Tory tyrant's eleven year Premiership are sometimes referred to as “Thatcher’s Children”, a phrase I loathe.  I take huge pride in the fact that I lived in Tottenham for every year of Bernie’s tenure as the MP.  We are “Bernie’s Children”:  a generation inspired by his brand of socialist principles, desire for social justice, providing a voice for the disenfranchised and marginalised while espousing the complete opposite of Thatcherite values.

Bernie Grant passed away fourteen years ago, but wherever he is now, I’m sure he gave a nod of approval to the 24 Labour MPs who voted against military action in Iraq.  That select band of rebel backbenchers represents the fading heartbeat of a party which has been insulted with all sorts of derogatory terms in the immediate aftermath of the Scottish Referendum.  I am always at pains to stress that while the party leadership may frustrate me endlessly, the party itself still has many good MPs and even more activists who share core Labour values.

The key that unlocks the potential to increase voter participation lies within that group of Labour MPs.  That their influence is so marginal is tragic and is the real reason there will be no noticeable spike in the number of people voting in May.  The momentum created by the example set in Scotland will fade away before the Christmas decorations are up on Oxford Street.  An opportunity for change is smothered by a cartel promoting consensus, cruelly crushing all of the new found hope and optimism.

Carnival Tax- One Year On

It’s the end of another summer and the end of another carnival season.  The majority of us who attended the Notting Hill Carnival last Monday are fighting off cold and flu in one form or another, the inevitable price to pay from participating in the wettest event in over thirty years.  Of course in hindsight it was a tiny penalty to pay when balanced against the uniqueness of the occasion.

It was whilst wrapped up in my duvet (with my hot orange juice on the sofa) that I stumbled across the BBC’s “Sunday Morning Live” earlier, and observed a discussion about fracking.  It made me smile because I was immediately transported back twelve months when I was very angry with the city I lived in and at the community who had allowed this to happen.  One of the things I suggested a year ago at the height of my fury was that if the Government wanted to introduce fracking, they should look no further than Nottingham as it was a community that would offer “no opposition” and would “roll over” and allow the intrusive activity to take place without any resistance at all.

Just over a year ago I launched a boycott against the Nottingham Caribbean Carnival following their hugely controversial decision to introduce an admission fee to the event.  It was a move I scornfully derided as the Carnival Tax.   I made alternative plans to take my seat at the Emirates Stadium and to be as far away from the city as possible.  It was a horrible day for me.

Things were compounded further when to my horror, my Monday visit to Notting Hill Carnival the following week to watch acts performing on the Mastermind stage, coincided with a performance from none other than Ms Dynamite.  This was the same Niomi who I had clashed with on Twitter decrying her decision to perform at the treacherous festival which was bastardising the name of carnival.  Having highlighted to the fellow north Londoner about what the organisers behind Nottingham Carnival had lined up with their plans for a tax, she blocked me and then spoke of her pride of being part of the sham.

So when I heard Ms Dynamite being introduced to the stage, I left the area.  I had no interest in watching someone I had labelled a “scab” for even a split second.  And I wasn’t going to allow her presence to infuriate me and spoil what is such a special weekend for me. This was quite a turnaround.  Only a few weeks earlier, a picture of Ms Dynamite took pride of place in my front room.  It was taken with my cousin in Ayia Napa who had mutual friends at the time.  We all did.  We were all roughly the same age and her secondary school was approximately 15 minutes’ walk from where mine was.

I’d always been proud of her accomplishments, someone from our corner of north London who had achieved a significant level of success.  Being mixed race from a single parent family, she was a role model for lots of us.  That all changed when she committed such an unforgivable betrayal.  This was someone who shot to fame on the back of being a break from the contemporary artists at the time.  Her track “It Takes More” contained lyrics about the exploitation of the third world back in 2002.  Eleven years later she was happy to participate in the exploitation of one of the poorest cities in the UK.

About a month ago I was contacted by some very distressed residents of Nottingham who realised that the “voluntary contribution of £1” which had been introduced to the Nottingham Carnival in 2013 had now evolved into a compulsory admission fee of £2.  More worryingly, neighbouring Leicester had also pushed ahead with its own Carnival Tax and was charging patrons £3.

It’s fair to say I did my fair share of “I told you so” and proudly reposted my piece from July 2013.  Practically everything I had warned had come to pass.  That the fee wouldn’t stay at £1, that it was compulsory in all but name and that the disgraceful idea would be copied by other events around the UK under the guise of coping in times of austerity.  But once I had savoured my moment of posturing, I knew that the most important thing was to communicate to everyone why boycotting the Leicester and Nottingham events was so important.

However shortly after recommencing the boycott campaign, I was deeply alarmed that the local radio station Kemet FM wanted to support the boycott.  I maintained last summer that the station were complicit in the implementation of the Carnival Tax because of their support for the 2013 event, despite me pleading with the station to change their stance.

This is the radio station that I had proudly supported since its creation, a broadcaster I told family and friends in London to listen to online as they were the natural successors to Choice FM.  It was a local community station who upheld the values of that original south London radio station from 1990.  I will never forgive Niomi Daley for what she did and she has forever lost my respect.  I hope whatever she was paid for sacrificing her ethics was worth it but I struggle to understand how she can sleep at night.  But her damaging actions only formed part of the problem and it would be wrong to place all of the blame at her doorstep.  Reya El Salahi, Marcia Griffiths, Kemet FM & every performing artist must share equal responsibility for the role they played in the betrayal of carnival values in 2013.

I was horrified to learn that Kemet FM now wanted to play the role of local saviours after proclaiming that they would now boycott the 2014 event.  This was what I urged them to do in 2013.  I stopped listening to the radio station on the day the 2013 Nottingham Carnival took place and vowed never to tune in again.  I felt the position they were trying to adopt in 2014 was deeply offensive, not to mention incredibly hypocritical.

Some might argue that they saw the light in the end and tried to make amends for the mistakes or error of judgement they made in 2013.  It’s an argument which also extends to the majority of the people who supported the 2014 boycott but attended the 2013 gathering.  But I think we need to make a distinction here.  Yes the local community were duped, “sold a dream” as I described at the end of July this year.  It is easier to understand why they were conned, but less so for the broadcaster, who I had been in direct contact with right up to a couple of days before the 2013 event.  I only stopped engaging with them at that late hour when it became crystal clear that there was no way they would back down from their stance to support the Nottingham Carnival and therefore the Carnival Tax.

The 2014 boycott was much more successful.  I explained to fellow campaigners straight away that it was a waste of time communicating with Renwick and the rest of the Nottingham Carnival Committee; I cited the email exchange from July 2013, the campaign I had pushed a year ago and the piece I had written.  I explained that the best course of action was to contact the local authority instead.  Nottingham Council still allocated an annual funding grant because the event was being promoted as a carnival, even though this was a festival in all but name due to the Carnival Tax policy.  It was essential that the local authority was lobbied on this basis.

About two weeks after I began actively promoting the boycott again, the alcohol licence for the 2014 event was withdrawn.  It was to be a significant act because it eventually led to Nottingham Carnival organisers altering their policy overnight.  John Holt had been advertised as being the lead act to perform at this year’s event, and was immediately pulled from the bill.  In addition the Carnival Tax was cancelled.

Nobody from Nottingham Council has ever communicated with me directly to state that the pressure I applied and helped to mobilise to its doorstep was responsible, partially or otherwise, for the alcohol licence being withdrawn.  So it will remain open to speculation as to whether or not our pressure really did achieve anything.  But I think most who followed the campaign last year and again this year will probably put two and two together and with the absence of any definitive evidence to the contrary, it is a fair conclusion to reach.

Of course the late shifting of the position of the Nottingham Carnival organisers was incredibly amusing.  A year ago I contacted the committee and Renwick in July, a full three weeks before the event was taking place.  Among the reasons offered as an explanation as to why the Carnival Tax would stay in 2013 was because it was “too late” to change the literature for posters etc.  So imagine my laughter when Renwick and his ghastly committee members scrambled to change their stance (and literature) with barely a week to go until the staging of the 2014 event.

On the day of the carnival, once again I was 144 miles away in north London.  Although unlike the events of summer 2013, this time I was basking in the joy of an opening day victory as I commenced my fourth season as an Arsenal Season Ticket holder.  I even had a picture of Chris Hudson smiling, the fan I sit next to and whose rant after the defeat to Aston Villa twelve months ago epitomised so much of the pain that I suffered that weekend.

The 2014 event was not a success and this was down to the resolve of local campaigners who helped to ensure that the boycott was widely publicised ahead of the weekend.  As an aside, I would have been at the carnival in Nottingham under the revised plans, but not while it was being administered by Renwick and his colleagues.  I think it is time for a new committee to step forward in Nottingham.  Renwick and his fellow committee members have no credibility left and are a part of a toxic brand now, contaminating anything they organise.

I was furious with Nottingham a year ago and said some things which I now recognise were not accurate.  The people of Nottingham will stand up and resist when something very wrong is brought to their doorstep.  At the height of my distress last summer I suggested that the people of Nottingham would allow anything to be imposed upon them.  Perhaps I was partly right last summer, but I am definitely wrong this year and nothing makes me happier. The community has fought back and once again I am so proud to live in a city that has been my home for over a dozen years.  Nottingham is once again free from the Carnival Tax and that is something we should all be immensely proud of.

Lions Tax

When I was watching the World Cup, I couldn’t help noticing that England had a squad consisting entirely of players who played in the English Premier League.  When I was a kid, this was never the case.  In the 1980s there was Laurie Cunningham at Real Madrid, Luther Blissett at AC Milan, Mark Hateley at Monaco, Chris Waddle at Marseille and Gary Lineker at Barcleona.

Some attributed the late 1980s in particular as being a “talent drain” on the English top flight as players sought European football after English clubs were banned after Heysel.  Yet well into the 1990s and long after the ban on English clubs had been lifted, players continued to further their careers abroad.  Whether it was David Platt at Juventus, Paul Gascoigne at Lazio, Des Walker at Sampdoria, Paul Ince at Inter Milan or Steve McManaman at Real Madrid. All of whom were serving England internationals.

It is perhaps only following the turn of the century that the pattern was reversed with Owen Hargreaves at Bayern Munich and David Beckham & Michael Owen at Real Madrid being the notable exceptions to the rule.  Ashley Cole retired from England duty shortly before finalising a move to Italian side Roma.

Darius Vassell playing in the Turkish Premier League doesn’t really count when he hadn’t played an England game in almost five years.  Same applies for Emile Heskey in Australia.  In fact, the only times we tend to see English players moving abroad now is in order to secure one final big pay day at the end of their careers.

Money: because what this all boils down to is the fact that the top flight in England is probably the best in the world and is definitely the most lucrative.  There is a lack of financial incentive to move abroad simply because we now have a league that pays the highest wages.  A league where even the most average of players can command more money than World Cup winning midfielder Sami Khedira currently earns at Real Madrid.

We have to find a way to dramatically increase the number of English players abroad.  In an ideal world you would want them playing at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, but in reality there is no reason why that should happen anytime soon.  However that is not to say that English players cannot enhance their experience (which in turn will help the national team) by playing for less glamourous clubs, provided they were competing at a certain level.  If players can find clubs who are competing in European competitions, then that will provide a standard which would in normal circumstances benefit the player immeasurably.

When I heard Greg Dyke outlining his vision of top flight “B Teams” entering the football league pyramid, I was horrified by the breathtaking arrogance by which anyone could have believed that such proposals would ever be embraced.  Yet with each World Cup, the frustrations behind the continual poor performances of the national side will eventually lead to such dangerous visions appearing to be less deplorable.

I have a more radical solution which I believe would address the core of this problem and eventually should lead to improving performances at international tournaments.  It is potentially controversial, but if given a chance could perhaps lead to England one day winning a major global title again. 

I would like to see English players effectively having their wages capped between the ages of 23 and 27.  What it would amount to would be a form of national service, a form of “Lions Tax” which would impose a levy on the wages of all top flight English players between the ages of 23 and 27 years of age.

It would need to be a significant tax.  We are familiar with the stories of players being fined amounts of money which sound huge to you and I, but in their world barely reflects a few hours work.   I think a tax level of around 20% would be a good target to set in that even for a player earning £300,000 a week, handing over £60,000 would still be a noticeable amount.  That would see such a player paying over £3m over the course of a year, and again this money would be paid towards what could be referred to as a “Lions Abroad Fund”.

The pot or fund of tax revenues would need revenues from other sources too and this could be achieved by taking a proportion of some of the revenue accumulated from TV revenue deals.  The FA could ring-fence an agreed proportion of TV money for the purpose of securing this revenue stream to protect the long term interests of English football.

The fund would serve two purposes. It would top-up the wages of English players who play their football abroad.  It would also be used to top-up the transfer fees for players who are leaving their domestic clubs after their 23^rd birthday.

In theory it would also hopefully ensure that clubs were not discouraged from continuing to invest in their youth academies for fear of losing the players at less than their future potential worth.  It should also ensure that clubs aren’t discouraged from investing in English players in their academies or that they would instead fill them up with youngsters from abroad.

However there is still the danger with such an idea is that you run the risk of incurring the wrath of the prima donna and potentially leading to a generation of England players conveniently retiring from international duty on their 23^rd birthday.  So in order to safeguard against this, the tax would be applied to the wages of players who are eligible to play for England, even in the event where they decided to reject the invitation.

Critics will argue that what I am proposing would probably be legally difficult to enforce, but I would counter such an argument by stating that other suggested proposals have also been fraught with legal minefields.  Like the suggestion you could enforce a rule which guarantees a minimum number of English players in any match day squad.  But such ideas would be implemented if it had the agreement from clubs who accepted that this was a solution for the wider interests of the national team.

I don’t accept that such a proposal will lead to improving the standards of the national team.  If you restrict the best players from abroad from playing in the Premier League, all you will do is allow for an overall decline in standards.  In time England’s UEFA coefficients would also fall and this would lead to a reduction in the number of places for English clubs in European competitions.  Given time, it would be English champions playing for one spot in the Champions League with a journey that begins a few days into the start of July.

No fan of English football should want to see that nor should they support plans which will enable that to happen.  We are very lucky to have such a competitive and entertaining top flight and the desire of everyone should be about how to raise the bar even higher.  We should all have a striving desire for even greater excellence, the best players from around the world playing in our league.

Apart from anything else if you have the best players from around the world playing in England, that will have a positive effect on young English players in terms of training sessions and watching the talented imports at such close quarters.  An education they can enhance further by experiencing football in different countries around Europe thus improving the standard of the national side further.

I think what I have proposed could form the basis of a wider strategy to get English players playing abroad again, but also believe it is far from the finished article.  The percentage to be collected as a tax would be open to debate, not too much so as to potentially drive players from the profession, but enough so that it will be a noticeable amount (relatively speaking) to vanish from their salaries every month.

Deciding on the age parameters would also be something that would need to be looked at, but the intention would be so that you have the player plying their trade abroad during the first part of their peak years.  They would then be free to return to England without restriction for the second half of their peak years and to wind down their careers wherever they should choose.

England deserves to have a national side which is competitive and holds its own on the national stage, and this is coming from a France fan.  It is time to get English players playing abroad again and the English FA can make that happen by making it financially attractive for the players to do so.  It is a salary cap in all but name, albeit one with a completely honourable objective.  It may not necessarily deliver another World Cup, but it should ensure there will be a more competitive national side in the future.

It has to be worth a try.  Tax the players who stay and reward the ones who move abroad.  

Goodbye UKChSA

The UK Chagos Support Association (UKChSA) is in disarray as myself and three of the nine existing senior committee members have resigned simultaneously.  It is an extraordinary turn of events, and this post deals with many of the issues that have led to this unprecedented course of action.  It is, for all concerned, an entirely tragic state of affairs, but to remain in such a discredited organisation would only serve to legitimise the Association which is not fit for purpose.

My first contact with the UKChSA (or UKCSA as it was originally known in those days before a cement company objected to the use of the acronym) came in the autumn of 2004.  It was the morning after the broadcast of John Pilger’s ground-breaking documentary “Stealing a Nation” and Celia Whittaker was the first person who ever interacted with me about the cause.  Within a couple of weeks I was emailing friends to raise awareness about the cause and my journey as an activist highlighting the plight of Chagossians was born.

It was a path which would lead to me lobbying MP’s and journalists.  Social networking was exploding as a phenomenon and it was not long before I came into contact with Peter Harris and Sabrina Jean.  In the spring of 2010 I was contacted by somebody who managed a youth news agency I was part of between 1994 and 1998.  She was now living in Canada and  wanted me to write something for a website she worked on.  I leapt at the opportunity.  The piece was well received and six months later I was invited to write again for the website following the exposure of the Wikileaks scandal.

Just over twelve months later, I was elected on to the committee of the UKChSA after being asked by Celia to replace her as editor of the monthly newsletter.  She was standing down after a decade in the role. It was something that filled me with immense pride.  I had really enjoyed writing again, but this was the opportunity to utilise that passion in the most productive way possible.

I made a few initial observations during the period when I was working closely with Celia as the handover from her capable hands to my inexperienced care started to take shape.  I noted that the UKChSA was doing a wonderful job but I feared that it played a role in contributing to a picture of a divided movement.

I highlighted the roles of the various groups and felt that in the long run the best possible solution was to have one group communicating one voice.  This was so that when some politicians who oppose our objectives seek to paint an image of the Chagossian cause being characterised by several groups, with different objectives (even when there was uniform consensus across so many critical areas), this could be avoided. A significant weapon utilised by opponents of campaigners for the cause would be removed at a stroke.

The best solution is to have one group: the Chagos Refugees Group, with one leader, who handles the negotiations with the relevant parties at that level.  When you have multiple groups with multiple leaders, even if there is a consensus in some areas, it still creates a messy picture.  And critically it is seized upon by the Foreign Office who will exploit any conflicting voices, especially if they can find ones which reinforce its own hideous agenda.  Like the old DGS (which I think Sabrina tells me is as good as gone now) who thanks to saying things that David Milliband wanted to hear, held a dubious election where Allen Vincatassin was anointed the  official honour of being the President in waiting of the Chagos Islands.  This despite the fact that he led a group whose number of supporters were spectacularly dwarfed by the numbers affiliated to the CRG and Olivier Bancoult.

Celia recognised the point and agreed in principle but always maintained that such a proposal would only work if it had consensus across the board from day one.  It had been attempted at various stages over the years without success which was why we were where we were.  Celia and I were always on the same page, it is something I appreciated early on during our contact and certainly didn't change when I took over editing the newsletter full time in June 2012.

The first year was an interesting experience for me as I spent most of the time observing and gaining a greater insight into how business was managed at that level of the Association.  Roch Evenor was the Chair of the Association and I valued his contribution as a capable pair of hands to lead the organisation.  He was a reliable individual, but not necessarily someone who could perhaps inspire passion.  He lacked the vision of someone like Sabrina for example.

There was what some might describe as a negligent ignorance when it came to things like the potential of social media.  But I think this would be unfair to single out Roch on this.  It is something that I found was universal across the committee, Sabrina aside, a fact perhaps reflected by the age of the individuals.  Even the person who was tasked with managing the official UKChSA Twitter account, Robert Bain, was somebody who lacked the dedication to ensure that such a vital apparatus was being utilised to its maximum capacity.  This was the flagship Twitter account, the focal point for supporters on that particular platform.  There were times when supporters would even ask my why they should follow the account as it was so rarely updated anyway.  Not just when there was a quiet time for news related to the cause, but often at times when the cause was prominently in the media because of a significant development.

It was something which I believed was hurting the Association, so following discussions with Sabrina, we approached Robert suggesting that the role of supervising such a vital tool was perhaps too much for one person.  We offered to help, to share the load as it were.

Our polite offers of assistance were repeatedly rebuffed.

Eventually enough was enough.  Sabrina and I were very frustrated at the way in which the Association was almost sleepwalking at times, particularly during periods when we should be more active than ever in response to specific developments, courts cases or the publication of significant articles.  As an interim measure, a brand new Twitter account was born.  Within two months, it was the largest and most active account supporting the cause.

We decided that in order to ensure that the Association was best equipped to move forward, progressively, and to ensure that all tools were being utilised as effectively as possible, new leadership was urgently required.  This would need to come in the form of annual elections which would take place at the AGM.

In April 2013 the AGM was held and Sabrina became the new chair after Roch had been voted off the committee.  The AGM also included the development that the joint-patron, Philippa Gregory, had stood down in her capacity as the Press Officer on the committee.  

A couple of months later, something very unusual happened.  With no election or extraordinary AGM, Philippa Gregory became the co-Vice Chair of the Association, with the other co-Vice Chair being Marcus Booth who had been voted into his role at the AGM in April 2013.  This had followed an even more bizarre sequence of events in which it had initially been suggested for Philippa to be the vice-Chair!

Sabrina rightly rejected the proposal out of hand, but collectively as an Association we should have scrutinised this unusual course of events.  However, Philippa’s explanation that she had only wanted a “title to speak to the press” was taken at face value, although why she could not re-assume her previous role as the Press Officer is again something of a mystery.

Around the same time a new organisation was set up, which was being spearheaded by the same Philippa Gregory.  This new group was called “The Alliance”, but unfortunately the group was claiming to be something that it wasn't.  It was projecting itself as the unified voice of the Chagossian community, when it lacked the endorsement of the leader of the biggest group of Chagossians in the world: the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG) led by Olivier Bancoult.  In short, this was a faction making bogus claims which were unfounded and claimed to speak on behalf of everyone despite lacking the fundamental cross-group consensus to proclaim such bold boasts.

“The Alliance” had credible objectives, but the way it had been established amounted to something that was being imposed upon the will of the CRG as opposed to seeking their engagement and consensus from day one.  As I pointed out earlier: the principle of having a unified voice, speaking as one and communicating or negotiating with Foreign Office officials, is a fantastic concept.  It is something that all supporters should be working towards.  However it can only work if you have that crucial consensus from the very beginning.  Without consensus you do not have the authority to claim to speak on behalf of the community as a whole and in doing so you are essentially making bogus assertions.  I would actually go even further and suggest that the boasts deriving from the leadership of the new group amounted to conduct that would be described as fraudulent.

Sabrina and I took the view early on that we would not support the work of this new faction.  The sole purpose of this organisation was to drive a wedge between Chagossians in the UK and Chagossians based elsewhere, mainly in Mauritius and Seychelles.  The logic being that if you undermine the influence of Olivier, you effectively weaken his position.

Sabrina and I did not like what was going on, there were occasions when the Alliance were requesting funds from the UKChSA and we always made the point of voting against the proposal.  This came to a head at the turn of the year when Hengride Permal (by now a key member of the fledgling breakaway “Alliance” faction) the UKChSA assistant secretary, engaged in some entirely unsavoury and unacceptable behaviour during a series of abusive emails, beginning with an attack on my predecessor Celia. When I made it clear that such language was unacceptable, especially when referring to somebody who had dedicated so much time to the cause, Hengride redirected her anger towards me.

It is true that Sabrina and I did consider carefully whether the best course of action would be to stand down from the Association in protest at the appalling conduct of not just Hengride, but the silent endorsement of other committee members like Philippa, Marcus and Bernadette Dugasse.  However we decided that we would stay on, a new AGM was on the horizon and the opportunity would be available to air such issues and conduct elections to see if such senior committee members should remain in their roles.

In January 2014, emails were sent out suggesting dates for the 2014 staging of the AGM.  As with normal protocol, the information was circulated and committee members voted on the relevant dates offered.  Five of the nine committee members indicated that Sunday 6^th April would be a suitable date for the hosting of the AGM. In accordance with all normal UKChSA committee business, the decision was noted and the date was subsequently communicated to all supporters in the January edition of the newsletter.  This notice was then reposted in the February and March editions of the newsletter, the latter being just a week before the AGM date.

24 hours before the AGM, by which time many supporters had already committed travel plans to be in London the following day including one who was travelling down from Durham, Marcus and Philippa took objection to the staging of the AGM.  They alleged that protocol had not been observed, that the AGM had never been properly consulted nor called.  They decreed that the AGM taking place the following day amounted to an illegal gathering and Marcus even went as far as to suggest that legal challenges would ensue.

Following lengthy conversations, and checking over emails and newsletters, Sabrina and I were confident that we had adhered to the correct procedures and that the AGM would take place on the 6^th April as advertised.  We were confident that we had followed the correct procedures, that the required number of votes had been cast to validate the announcement and that sufficient notice had been communicated.  At one stage Marcus even went as far as to suggest that the notification of the AGM in the newsletter was “irrelevant”, which as I highlighted at the time, almost brought into question the purpose of the newsletter altogether.  Why was a newsletter being produced if senior members of the committee (the vice-Chair no less!) were not even bothering to keep up to date with the news?

On Sunday 6th April we hosted our AGM, a meeting which was attended by five of the nine members of the existing committee. This included the Chair, the Treasurer and the Secretary.  The meeting agreed that the re-election of the new committee would take place by email and that the April edition of the newsletter would confirm all of this along with the report from the AGM which was circulated shortly after the meeting.  

As usual I carried on as normal, so on the 18th April I started preparing the April edition of the newsletter as was my monthly routine.  And just like any other month I finished my draft and sent it over to the same people who checked the monthly editions of the newsletter.  So it went to Celia, George Beckham, David Snoxell- all fine and all approved.

Just before it was about to go to Sabrina for the final check, I got an email from Celia.

Celia said she had concerns over the future of the treasurer of the UKChSA and was worried that the role may go to a Chagossian (potentially limited by literacy/numeracy skills) or someone else who was under-equipped to manage the role.  I explained to Celia that Sabrina and I had spoken about this ahead of April 6th and agreed with the point because we shared a similar view.  Such an important role needed someone of a level of experience.  This is why Sabrina and  I agreed that we would support and actively encourage supporters to vote for Perri to return as Treasurer.  Perri of course was one of the committee members who also attended the AGM on the 6th April.  I duly confirmed all of this to Celia in an email

Despite this email, later that day Celia then wrote effectively the same email she had written to me earlier, repeating exactly the same concerns, only this time she copied in everyone on the existing committee.  In addition she made the completely irresponsible suggestion that the agreed proposal from the AGM to host the elections for the new committee via email should be abandoned.  This would be replaced by a new proposal which was that the existing committee be retained for a further twelve months.  With no elections.

Celia had known about the tensions leading up to the AGM- that we needed a new committee, that the existing committee had broken down, that procedures weren't being followed, that some committee members were openly abusing other committee members in a completely discourteous and inappropriate manner.  She knew that Sabrina, Gianny, Paul and myself would not stay on the existing committee without new elections.

Needless to say Celia's proposal for retaining the existing committee was endorsed and supported by five of the nine members of the existing committee.  Sabrina, Gianny, Paul and I were outvoted and could basically stay, or go.

That was the end of April.  I had a full and frank exchange with Celia by email in which I outlined everything, right back to the fact that the only reason Hengride and I fell out in the first place back in January this year was because she had been insulting Celia in the emails.  My view at the time was that there was no way I would let anybody question Celia's commitment or the amount of time she has dedicated to the cause over the years.  Celia did say that she wished she could turn the clock back, but to be honest, this was empty rhetoric.  Celia is someone I kept completely in the loop- always.  If I had kept Celia in the dark ahead of the AGM in terms of how Sabrina and I felt, our frustrations, the fact we wanted to see changes, then of course her response and ignorance would have been understandable.  But in this instance it simply didn't wash.  She knew why Sabrina and I couldn't work with the existing committee, and she knew that the four of us would walk away.

Following a number of discussions with Sabrina, it was decided that I would not publish the April edition which now had this new adopted proposal about retaining the existing committee for another year.  I wanted to resign immediately but Sabrina wanted me to wait as she had been in contact with Olivier, and he was coming to the UK soon (initially predicted to be in mid-May) and we would have an opportunity to plan our next move.  Unfortunately Olivier's mum was suddenly taken ill, I understand Sabrina also mentioned that his uncle passed away too, so naturally he won't be coming to the UK anytime in the near future.

We was just hanging on, hoping something would change and that Olivier would arrive, but as you all saw last month that all changed and the newsletter was published, despite the fact that I had never officially tendered my resignation.  In fact my intentions had only been communicated to Sabrina and Celia.   But in reality it was all a technicality, there was no possibility that we could stay after what had happened.  Another interesting development was that the newsletter was then published without being sent to Sabrina prior to release.  It was always the convention that the Chair of the Association would be the last person to view the newsletter before it was sent to supporters and campaigners.

Sabrina protested at the fact that newsletter was now being published by Steffan Donelly before she had an opportunity to approve its contents.  These concerns were apparently acknowledged when Steffan replied to Sabrina, however another edition was released again recently and again Sabrina had not been consulted prior to publication.  When Sabrina communicated these concerns to Celia, Celia proceeded to spout the most baseless lies. She claimed that the procedure had always been to send the newsletter to David Snoxell prior to publication and that it was never sent to anyone else as part of the preview process.

Sabrina knew immediately that this was untrue.  Indeed I still have the proof in my emails that during my tenure as newsletter Editor, the draft was always sent to the same individuals prior to publication.   The newsletter would go to Celia first, then to George Beckham, it would then be reviewed by David Snoxell before the Chair of the Association would have an opportunity to review its contents prior to being released to all of the supporters. Celia’s suggestion that this was not the case made Sabrina and I furious.  This was not simply a mistake, or an error or an oversight- this was a downright lie!  Celia knew this was a lie too and this was the final and definitive proof if ever was needed that people who we were once thought were decent and honourable individuals were now having their integrity rightly questioned.

When Sabrina showed me the latest emails with Celia last night, she agreed that the time had come for us to tell everyone about what was happening.  We realised that by going down this route, we were absolutely crossing the point of no return.  But as Sabrina explicitly stated to me last night: our time at the UKChSA was now at an end.  The time had come for supporters to know exactly what has been going on, which is why this post has been circulated to as many supporters as possible.

While our time with the Association has come to an end, there are still big questions that must be asked.  And it is no exaggeration to say that if the UKChSA was an official charity, I would be submitting these questions to the Charities Commission as my belief is that the UKChSA as an organisation is not fit for purpose.

Questions such as what did happen to the money that was given to Hengride Permal?  This money was given to her on the basis that it was for a football team.  But Sabrina helped to set up a football team, which she attained funds for, which she presented receipts for, and a team which was subsequently officially registered with the global umbrella body for non-FIFA affiliated nations, CONIFA.  They have played matches, they have a campaign being championed by David Vine which many of you would have seen already on the social networks.  This is all legitimate.

So what happened to the team that Hengride set up?  So far there has never been one receipt, not one football match, not even a kick about with jumpers for goalposts.  The only thing that happened is that the money was sent to Hengride.  Where it went afterwards, is anyone's guess.  And I have the emails myself from Perri asking again: where are the receipts?

If this money cannot be accounted for then surely is that not a matter for the police?  This is money which has been donated from supporters, supporters who think they are supporting the plight of Chagossians.  

There are further questions which must be answered about the nature of the relationship between the unelected Patron Philippa Gregory (who somehow ended up back on the committee with no election) and Mark Gonzalez, who has to date been the subject of payments of thousands of pounds for some kind of workshop which as yet nobody can yet quantify why such a large outlay was made for an organisation with such limited funding.  Funding which then is subsequently denied to completely deserving applications like people wanting to return to Mauritius to attend the funeral of a Chagossian relative for example.   During the financial year of 2013/14, Mark Gonzales was the recipient of a total of £2380 from an organisation (UKChSA) that in the same year only banked £3056. Almost 80% of the UKChSA’s budget was given to Gonzales, £2000 for workshops and £380 for expenses.  This must be investigated as it is completely unacceptable that such a vast outlay can be committed to an individual project when other, and possibly more worthy, applications were turned down as a result.

We now have decisions to make in terms of how we move forward. Clearly the most obvious choice would be to bolster up the UKCRG, turn it into a UKChSA and take it from there.  And let me be clear that I don't doubt for a moment we could make it absolutely fantastic and do a lot of good work through that structure.

But I do have grave concerns about that proposal and this is mainly because it undermines that fundamental principle for me personally about not wanting to add to the problem.  Starting a new group is not great when it all it does is add another element to the mix which in turn becomes another opportunity for the Foreign Office to exploit.

I am absolutely gutted on a personal level how this has all turned out.  UKChSA was such a special organisation for me, it’s heartbreaking to see what is happening now.  I would not know a single one of you at all if it was not for Celia, so this has completely knocked me for six.  But we had to communicate this post to every single supporter possible, and allow themselves as individuals to decide if they would continue to support an organisation which has such huge questions over the way in which it is being managed.

Save Us From Cyclone Yashika

It’s almost a decade since I started helping the Chagossians in their quest for justice.  It is a cause I plough many hours into with very little in the way of reward in terms of progress.  It’s a cause that touches upon the sensitivities of issues like national security so is therefore under-reported in the domestic media, and we find ourselves forever fighting against the tide. 

We keep going because it’s the right thing to do and we all care passionately enough to dedicate so much of our time to securing a fair resolution.  I once started a petition which was exclusive to UK citizens and achieved just over a thousand signatures in a year.  A White House petition which was open to citizens all over the world racked up 25,000 pledges of support in a year.

Last week a very unusual campaign managed to rack up that many signatures in a single day.  I regard it to be a very misguided crusade, which is strange when usually I’d be someone who would naturally be drawn to support such a movement.  I am the complete polar opposite of someone who is traditionally right-wing and by nature anti-immigration.

I absolutely love immigration.

I’ve always been very bitter about the restrictions which are placed on the movement of migrants wishing to settle in the UK who have originated from a country that was once a colonial outpost.  My view is that the UK should indeed be operating an “open door” policy when it comes to migrants from countries whose ancestors contributed so much to the prosperity of this country.

It’s not a popular view, but I have always maintained that the UK owes an enormous debt to parts of the world which were once part of the British Empire.  And when right-wingers revert to type with arguments like “we’re full”, I just bat them away on the basis that Britain raided these countries dry of their natural resources.  I think it is terribly unfair to deny a right of residency to descendants of people born into the British Empire.  They should have the right to share in the success which was built on the blood, sweat and tears of their ancestors.

So when I become aware of anyone from the Commonwealth struggling to attain residency in the UK, my instant reaction is to support their efforts.  If I hear of Mauritians wanting to stay in the UK, that desire to support their efforts is magnified even more because I immediately think of my late Grandparents who made the journey to the UK with my dad, aunts and uncles in tow almost half a century ago.

Unfortunately if you insinuate that Mauritius is effectively a glorified banana republic with no concept of law and order, well then I’m afraid you will quickly alienate any goodwill from someone like me.  Because it is just not true: Mauritius is not in a state of war or under martial law.  It is a normal, stable and modern democracy.  Mauritius, like Britain, does have a legal system, a judicial process, a respect for the rule of law and a police force which serves to uphold these principles. 

Yashika Bageerathi has been ordered to leave the UK after her application for asylum was rejected.  The application was based on an incident of sexual assault which is understood to have taken place in Mauritius around five years ago.  The family have stated that they are frightened to return to the island as relatives of the assailants will be waiting at the airport upon their return.  Yashika, now nineteen years of age, is in the final stages of her A Levels at a school in north London.

It is quite a story, but there are critical questions which need to be answered.

Why did the Bageerathi family travel over six thousand miles?  Reunion Island is around an hour away and is part of the French Republic and therefore part of the EU.  Their claim could have been assessed there.  Or if they were seeking more space between themselves and the perpetrators, it would have been possible to stay within the Mauritian Republic and reside on Rodrigues Island which is four hours away.

Furthermore Yashika’s mother arrived in the UK in 2009 but her children did not arrive until 2011.  If Mauritius was such a dangerous environment for the family to reside in, then why on earth would any rational thinking mother leave her children at such risk for two years?  Surely even two weeks would be too long.

This case is an insult to every individual who genuinely flees persecution, wars or humanitarian disasters in their homeland.  I don’t recall hearing about snipers on the rooftops of Pointe Aux Sables or tanks proceeding down the streets of Rose Hill.  Yashika is a Hindu-Mauritian which by definition means she cannot be a persecuted minority on the island as she is actually part of a majority who make up two-thirds of the population.

This is textbook propaganda for every anti-immigration right-leaning voter in the UK and a trophy for little Englanders: the fabled bogus asylum seeker.  It’s such an obvious case of an application that should never have been submitted in the first place.

This episode has the potential to be hugely damaging for Mauritius and will possibly tarnish its global reputation.  Mud has a tendency to stick so Mauritius will be depicted as an island where atrocities against women are rife.  This is unfair when the statistics simply do not support this claim at all.  Alarmingly the reverse is closer to the truth.

In 2012 there were 418 reported (p.47) acts of sexual offences in the Republic of Mauritius.  In the same year, England & Wales recorded 53,700 cases of the same categories of crime.  Given that Mauritius has a population of around 1.3 million compared to England & Wales which has around 56.6 million residents, the numbers can be adjusted to provide an accurate comparison.

Mauritius is broadly 44 times smaller than England & Wales in terms of population size.  Applying this rule, Mauritius would have recorded 18,392 incidents of sexual offences if it had a population in proportion to England & Wales.  Thus the number of sexual offences recorded in England & Wales is 291% higher than Mauritius per 1000 people according to the year of comparable data from 2012.

Of course such comparisons must be treated with caution and are only used as an indicator as opposed to reflecting the entire picture.  Sexual attacks against women are still amongst the most under-reported of indictable offences.  That is aside from the disgracefully low conviction rates.  However that is a global issue which shames us all from Mahebourg to Middlesbrough.  It is certainly not a problem exclusive to Mauritius.

I think it’s incredibly sad that a teenager is being detained behind barbed-wire fencing at a high-security immigration detention facility in Bedfordshire.  I also think it is tragic that a young lady can’t continue her studies and finish her education.  Yet I don’t want to pledge my support to such a campaign which has spread lies and inaccurate myths about Mauritius.

The Mauritian Government, having liaised with the local authorities, have no record of any crime being reported on the island.  This is why the Mauritian High Commissioner to Britain attempted to meet with Yashika during her detention at Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire in order to discuss her concerns of being returned to a country that was her home until three years ago.

When supporters of the Chagosssian cause strive to raise awareness, we do so by sticking to the facts and the truth.  We don’t spread any lies; we don’t feel we need to.  Anyone familiar with the tragedy will know that the horrors speak for themselves.  I suppose in doing so, we ensure that we maintain the moral high-ground.  I resent the “Save Yashika” campaign because it is littered with inaccuracies bordering on fiction.

The Chagossian quest for justice may not be as trendy as the latest fashionable cause, but it is a force for good and upholds the facts.  “Save Yashika” is just an ill-advised crusade which became a force of nature with a destructive and reckless power.  It resembles a cyclone flattening everything in its path, especially the inconvenient truth.

The Legacy of Kaya

I first came across Joseph Reginald Topize’s music towards the end of the Sega Club era in the early 1990s.  The name was quite a mouthful so everyone referred to him by his nickname: Kaya.  My dad was quite scornful of the sound being produced by this new wave of Mauritian artists.  This was a concoction of the traditional Mauritian music of Sega combined with a strong influence of Reggae. 

This pioneering breakthrough was called Seggae and my dad couldn’t stand it!  Almost overnight Kaya was feted as le Roi du Seggae (the King of Seggae).

15 years ago last week, Kaya was found dead in a police cell at the maximum security Line Barracks prison in Port Louis, Mauritius.  Witnesses recalled the sight four days earlier of police officers arriving to take into custody the slight but highly influential musician.

He had been arrested for smoking cannabis at a festival calling for the decriminalisation of the drug.  He had challenged the Mauritian Government’s authority publicly and was the only one of eight taken into custody who did not deny the charge when arrested.

Immediate evidence pointed to a cover-up.  Dried blood ran from his nose to his ear and had accumulated on his neck inside his hair.  As opposed to being discovered facing upwards as the trail of blood would have suggested, he was found face down.  His body had clearly been moved as it was impossible for the blood to have travelled upwards towards his neck, thus defying every accepted principle when it came to the laws of gravity.

An initial autopsy revealed he had suffered a blow to his forehead resulting in a fracture of the skull.  A dreadlock had been torn from his head.  His tongue had been trapped between his teeth in a posture that supported the theory that he had suffered a sudden (and almost certainly violent) trauma to the brain.

The uprising that followed engulfed the island and led to violence not seen for over thirty years.  Five people died and over a hundred were injured during four days of social unrest.  A Seggae artist who had joined the protests against the death in custody of Kaya, Berger Agathe, was shot dead by police.

I have heard accounts over the last few days which are still harrowing after all these years.  One was four years old at the time and on holiday in Mauritius, and remembers the sight of his mother struggling with the effects of tear gas which had entered the house where they were staying.  Another told me how her cousin was shot by police. Miraculously he survived albeit living with a stark reminder of what some referred to as the “Mauritian Revolution”.  To this day he has a bullet lodged within his head, an extraction impossible due to its precarious location.

When the roadblocks were removed, the businesses reopened and Mauritius returned back to normality, the islanders undertook a long period of soul-searching.  Once the navel gazing ended, wide reaching reforms were implemented which dragged Mauritius kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. 

It is almost impossible to comprehend that just fifteen years ago, complaints about the misconduct of police officers in Mauritius were dealt with at the front desk of the local police station.  Eight months after Kaya was killed, the Complaint Investigation Bureau was established.

It is equally difficult to remember that fifteen years ago there was no public holiday that marked the abolition of slavery, a day so closely entwined with the history and heritage of around 30% of Mauritians.  Creoles, the descendants of African slaves, were being supressed on a cultural and social level.  The social mobility of Creoles has increased faster in the last fifteen years than it had done in the proceeding thirty years.

Just six years later publications like the UK-based Mauritius News were even suggesting that communalism on the island was declining.  I think it was a slightly premature act of self-congratulation.  But to deny there had been progress would be uncharitable in the extreme.  Non-Hindu police officers were almost unheard of prior to 1999.  The island had only known Hindu Prime Ministers during its first three decades as an independent nation.  

The project is far from complete as my last post outlined and there is still so much to do.  However Mauritius is a much brighter place than it was fifteen years ago.  Kaya changed the musical landscape of Mauritius by introducing a new sound which broke new ground.  Fifteen years after his untimely passing, his influence continues, reaching far wider than probably he ever imagined would be possible.