Electoral reform, wishful thinking and informed decision making

A guest post by Joan Grant, a member of KUWG expressing personal views. Internet search-term-friendly title by Dude Swheatie. Joan's original title appears below

Be careful what you wish for, or Nigel was right

I thought it was ironic that both Nigel Farage and Natalie Bennett were “pissed off” for want of a better word, by the election result. They made strange bed fellows calling for reform of the electoral system. One has to say that Farage had more to moan about than Bennett. UKIP got 4 million votes and yet just one MP. [Editor's note: The electoral system under which the UK currently operates as it has done for centuries is generally known as 'first past the post'.]

The Electoral Reform Societyⁱ have produced a very interesting report which shows how many seats each party would have got had the election been held under a proportional representation scheme.(1) There are a number of different versions of PR. The report looked at them all. Their preferred system is the Single Transferrable Vote system.

Had the election been held under this system, the result would have been the hung parliament that all the polls predicted. The Tories would still be the biggest party but with 276 seats as opposed to the 331 they have got. Labour would be about the same but it only have 40 fewer seats rather than 99, which it is now.

The Lib Dem would have got 26 seats rather than a mere 8. That would have been fairly respectable and Nick Clegg might well have stayed on as party leader. The SNP would have done well, but not as well. They would have got 34 seats.

The Greens would have got 3 seats which better reflects the overall support that they got.

But it is UKIP who would have been the biggest winners. They would have got 54 seats. Yes, you read that right. 54 seats. I think it is fair to say that would have been a quite astonishing result. That would have been the earthquake that Nigel Farage keeps harping on about.

UKIP would have held the balance of power. There would have been a coalition. Nigel Farage would now be Deputy Prime Minister. There might be two or three UKIP ministers.

 

I am really not sure which is worse: an electoral system that does not properly reflect the votes cast or the thought of Nigel Farage as Deputy Prime Minister. Whichever way you cut it, Nigel Farage was right about the level of support for UKIP. Only time will tell if their support will rise or fall over the next few years.

Note

(1) http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/publication/2015%20General%20Election%20Report%20web.pdf [accessed 25 June 2015]

i The 2015 General Election, A voting system in Crisis by jess Garland and Chris Terry. May 2015 (Electoral Reform Society)

Immigrants do not get fast-tracked social housing

From Housing Inside Housing publication's Housing Myth Buster (1)

Myth 9: Immigrants are taking social housing (2)

Busted? The notion that foreign nationals are taking up social tenancies in droves has been a pervasive message and the tabloid press often call for stronger curbs. Migrants taking up Britain’s housing stock is also a key flank of UKIP’s election campaign. ‘Currently a home has to be built every seven minutes just to cater for migrant demand,’ the party’s housing spokesperson Andrew Charalambous has said.

But are immigrants ‘jumping the queue’ and moving into social housing in their droves? The evidence would suggest no. According to CORE data (official social lettings statistics) about 90% of social lettings go to UK nationals. Six per cent are let to people inside the European Union and 4% go to those outside the UK.

Notes

(1) http://46.249.202.170/~oceanmed/housingMyths/?page_id=5
(2) http://46.249.202.170/~oceanmed/housingMyths/?p=55

5-party-welfare-debate Tuesday 5 May 2015

Tuesday May 5th Daily Politics debate BBC2 2pm BBC News 8.30pm(1)

Presenters Andrew Neil and Alison Holt 

Participants — in alphabetical order of surname

• Jonathan Bartley Green Party
• Suzanne Evans UKIP 
• Rachel Reeves Labour
• Iain Duncan Smith Conservative 
• Steve Webb LibDems

See also

Election watchdog's Easy-Read 'insult to disabled people'(2)
Election 2015: ‘Jury’ backs Greens, as Tories ignore invite(3)

.... I watched question time last week and the only person that mentioned the worry and concerns of people with disabilities and Carers was Natalie Bennett. It was brief and the subject wasn't continued!.... (Comment Posted Mon 12 April 2015)

Source: http://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-and-disability-benefits/daily-politics-show-welfare-debate-may-5th-22708?p=304562 (4)

Vote for Policies online interactive portal (5)

Notes
(1) https://carerwatch.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/daily-politics-welfare-debate-tues-5th-may/
(2) http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-watchdogs-easy-read-insult-to-disabled-people/
(3) http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-2015-jury-backs-greens-as-tories-ignore-invite/
(4) http://www.carersuk.org/forum/support-and-advice/carer-and-disability-benefits/daily-politics-show-welfare-debate-may-5th-22708?p=304562
(5)  https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

Hampstead & Kilburn UKIP candidate update

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

The Hampstaead & Kilburn hustings on Monday 20 April at UCL Academy organised by KUWG with the Somali Cultural Association and Winch Youth Project there were Conservative, Green Party, Labour and Lib Dem candidates but not UKIP candidate Magnus Nielsen. I asked about his absence and was told that he had been invited but not turned up.

I concluded that he wanted nothing to do with the Somali Cultural Association and clearly wanted to conserve his energies. And having heard him speak at one or two hustings, I had thought that before some audiences at hustings in Brent, the Conservative and the UKIP candidates gave themselves 'enough rope to hang themselves' electorally once they took up an invitation to speak. Eg, the Tory candidate for Brent Central had said that if zero hours contracts were abolished, gone would be one of the avenues of Conservative job-creation.

Now, Magnus Nielsen has clearly exposed Isalmophobic tendencies in an 'incendiary' writing comparing Islam to carbon monoxide poisoning, as outlined on Martin Francis' Wembly Matters blog with assistance of the Camden New Journal. Martin had already encountered a full frontal attack from the UKIP agent for Brent Central constituency, describing Martin as a 'dangerous left wing extremist' and Brent Central Green Party candidate Shahrar Ali as an 'anti-Semite'.

See

Hampstead & Kilburn UKIP candidate attacks Islam and admires former EDL leader (1)

UKIP candidate circulates incendiary election 'address' comparing growth of Islam in UK to carbon monoxide poisoning (2)

http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/cease-and-desist-ukip-threat-against.html(3)

'Cease and Desist' UKIP threat against Wembley Mat

Notes

(1) Hampstead & Kilburn UKIP candidate attacks Islam and admires former EDL leader  http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hampstead-kilburn-ukip-candidate.html accessed 3 May 2015

(2) UKIP candidate circulates incendiary election 'address' comparing growth of Islam in UK to carbon monoxide poisoning http://www.camdennewjournal.com/ukip#.VUUCpz_vQcF.twitter accessed 3 May 2015

(3) 'Cease and Desist' UKIP threat against Wembley Matters http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/cease-and-desist-ukip-threat-against.html accessed 3 May 2015

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GE2015 manifestos round-up

Uploaded by Dude Swheatie of Kwug

You do not have to vote uninformed.

Conservative & Unionist (Tory Party)
    https://www.conservatives.com/yourmanifesto.aspx 

Green Party of England & Wales
    https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html


Labour Party
    http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto

Liberal Democrats
    http://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto

Left Unity
    http://leftunity.org/manifesto-2015-the-economy/

TUSC (Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition)
     http://tusc2015.com/
(Dude Swheatie is not sure from looking at their site that they have a manifesto with internal democracy agreed policies as much as they have candidates and campaigns)

UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party)
    http://www.ukip.org/manifesto2015 

See also

BBC Policy Guide: Where the Parties stand
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/manifesto-guide#tab=issue!issue=priorities!party=con!nation=uk

Benefits & Work Publishing Ltd General Election Guide: who can you vote for to prevent “life-changing” benefits cuts?
    http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3074-election-special-who-can-you-vote-for-to-prevent-life-changing-benefits-cuts
    
Vote for Policies, not personalities: Compare policies from each party in their own words, and make an informed decision about who to vote for at the 2015 General Election
    https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

Votematch (an Unlock Democracy project): Votematch is the UK's biggest voter advice app, helping you find the party that best matches your views
    http://www.votematch.org/

When marriage is slavery — and UK laws perpetuate inhumanity

By Swheatie of the KUWG

After posting a Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group blog piece this afternoon about the need for people to write their MPs about the Modern Slavery Bill, I recalled a Community Care magazine article from 2006 about 'No Recourse to Public Funds' — known to social workers as 'NRPF'. (Community Care is a trade magazine for social care, and now exclusively online.) While the major UK political parties are saying that they will take the views of UKIP voters on board — and they conveniently ignore the question of why so few voted in the recent parliamentary by-elections — it is high time that someone helps make the public aware of how UK laws are already much too inhumane and why this blogger says, "Stuff UKIP's xenophobic and bigoted 'mission'. It is high time for UK voters and trade unions to get together to promote social justice rather than isolated self-interest. Unite Community is making a good start there, and so I'm glad to be part of it.

"But for far too long and under Labour Governments, trade unions have neglected to support the unwaged including disabled workers, and much of the exploitation that exists in 'work for your benefits' regimes in the UK started under Labour. And now the TUC has colluded with the Confederation of British Industry to promote a 'traineeships scheme' that, it has been argued, is really a form of workfare and could lead to the unpaid 'trainees' being sanctioned — especially given the names of the companies backing it."

Swheatie not backing UKIP in Clacton-on-Sea or anywhere else

Enough of that for a preface, time now to unveil the Community Care magazine I read back in 2006, now shared via the Community Care archives.

No recourse to public funds: the plight of refugees fleeing domestic violence.

November 22, 2006 in Children

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Hundreds of women arrive in the UK each year only to be trapped in violent relationships. They have two choices: stay put and remain at the mercy of their assailants, or escape and risk destitution. Mark Gould reports

Simran Kaur, a small gentle woman with a tiny, almost imperceptible, handshake, puts her hands to her face and sobs slow, silent tears. She is almost mute with trauma – unable to find words to describe the nine months of abuse and virtual solitary confinement she faced at the hands of an indifferent husband and his domineering mother from the day she arrived in Bristol from Delhi in December 2003.

Fragments of her story emerge in short sentences translated by her caseworker, Meena Patel. “I was kept in the dark in my room with the curtains closed. When I tried to open them my mother-in-law slapped me. I was vegetarian and she told me to eat meat. I lived on bread and water. When my mother or sister rang I was told I could not speak to them.”

She was even under pressure when she was left alone. On one occasion she was locked in the house and managed to set off security alarms by leaving her bedroom. Every year about 600 women who arrive in the UK as immigrants and asylum seekers are trapped in violent relationships.

Most are married to or have relationships with UK citizens or men who have indefinite leave to remain in the UK. A minority have come here as fiancées or dependants of students and workers or are here temporarily in their own right. Many of them have children who are British citizens. Their official status is NRPF – no recourse to public funds – which excludes them from benefits and housing entitlement. It also prevents them fleeing to a refuge as the rent is usually funded by housing benefit.

While abusive families are at fault for women such as Simran ending up in these situations, campaigners say their actions are compounded and encouraged by “inhuman and discriminatory” failings in the benefits  and immigration system which leaves them with no recourse to public funds. Due to a nightmarish catch-22, women – and some men – are left with the choice of leaving an abusive home and becoming destitute or staying and risking their lives.

Without the help of campaign group Southall Black Sisters, Simran, 26, would have had nowhere to turn; her insecure immigration status labels her NRPF, but she is unable to return to her family in India who see women as in some way culpable for an abusive relationship.

Pragna Patel, of the Southall Black Sisters management committee, says Simran’s story is a familiar one: “Women are  imprisoned as domestic or sexual slaves – by strangers or by their husbands and families who have absolute power over them.

They have the ultimate weapon – they say, ‘disobey and we can send you back’.”

In 2002, after an intense campaign led by Southall Black Sisters, the Home Office introduced the Domestic Violence Immigration Rule. This allows women who enter the UK as spouses or long-term partners of a British national or someone settled in this country – and who are subject to a two-year probationary period – to apply for residency if they can prove that domestic violence caused the relationship to break down. However, they still have no recourse to public funds.

Pragna Patel says the rule is an important step. But she says confused and frightened women like Simran cannot make use of it while trapped in an abusive relationship.

“The rule is too restrictive in terms of the evidence needed and in relation to the category of people who can use it. But the main reason why people do not use it is because they have no recourse to public funds. This means they don’t have the benefit money to pay for accommodation, food or other essentials and that means they are less likely to escape an abusive situation and less  likely to make a complaint about the abuse to the police. And that means perpetrators get away with it.”

Southall Black Sisters says the only solution is to abolish NRPF and has launched a campaign to that effect which has support from a range of women’s groups....

Continue reading this article on the Community Care website.....

See also:

Residence test on legal aid could cost councils millions | Community ... Sep 19, 2013 ... The No Recourse to Public Funds Network (NRPF) is part of the joint Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (DASS) and Association ... Sunday, 10 August 2014 More on TUC backing for workfare 'Ivy' of the KUWG has added a post script to the blog piece TUC backing for workfare. Perhaps that post script is worthy of a blog piece in its own right rather than an appendage position? "This cosy TUC and CBI backrub comes right after Ed Milliband’s announcement to cut benefits for 18 - 21 year olds, as revealed in The Guardian," she writes.....