Today Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP spoke at the National Unity Demonstration Against Racism and Fascism, organised by Stand Up To Racism, Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism.

In total, 30,000 people attended the march in London from all over the UK. It was a powerful show of unity that vastly outnumbered any of the far-right rallies held this year.

Jean joined a line-up of powerful speakers from across the political spectrum, including representatives from Jewish, Muslim and Brazilian communities, the Justice for Grenfell campaign and UNISON.

It was an upbeat, peaceful, vibrant multi-cultural event celebrating diversity in the UK.

Date for your diaries for the next rally is 16 March 2019. To find out more details and sign up click here.

Above photo of courtesy of Unison Southend, and you can view more images from the march and rally here.

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Today Jean Lambert London’s Green MEP spoke at a conference organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) on the topic of ‘Future Wars’. The conference at Birkbeck University of London examined the impact of new technologies on warfare and the challenges we will all face as a result.  There was also robust discussion of the real alternatives to a new arms race.

Jean spoke on a panel, ‘The shape of things to come’, which provided the audience with an overview of the relationship between recent conflicts and their impact on patterns of migration.

If you’d like to find out more about the event, papers from the conference will be published in a future issue of The Spokesman, journal of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

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On average 26 million people are forced to leave their homes each year due to climate related disasters such as floods and storms. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable in these contexts – often exposed to violence, exploitation and human trafficking.

Today Jean Lambert MEP co-hosted an event in the European Parliament to explore this issue further and call for meaningful action at UN level.

Speakers included former Irish President and leading climate justice campaigner Mary Robinson, representatives of UNHCR and UNFCC, and environmental journalist Fiona Harvey.

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP and the Green Party’s migration spokesperson, said:

“It’s time to stop thinking of climate change as something that will happen in future. Climate change is here, and it’s happening now.

Some 26 million people are forced to flee their homes every year, increasingly linked to humanity’s destructive actions. Within the next thirty years, this is expected to rise exponentially with 200 million people being displaced from their homes annually. While the devastating impacts of climate change will touch all of our lives – regardless of race, ethnicity, age or gender – the sad truth is that women and girls are acutely vulnerable once displaced.

We can’t simply ignore this issue and hope it goes away. It won’t. Instead the international community needs to face up to reality, heed the warnings outlined in the IPCC’s recent report, and push world leaders to act immediately to prevent more climate catastrophes in the very near future.

This must involve developing a comprehensive global strategy to address climate displacement, with specific provisions for the protection of vulnerable groups, including women and girls.”

You can watch a recording of the full event here.

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Jean Lambert – Green MEP for London – this morning received a standing ovation at Green Party Conference following her warning that a “dangerous mix of big government, big money and bad science is putting the future of our planet on the line”.

In what may well be Ms Lambert’s final Conference speech, after nearly 20 years as London’s Green MEP, she reminded the Party how much is at stake in the next European Elections (23-26 May 2019), explaining: “Whether we are still within the EU or have committed this act of total political folly and left: we will be affected by the outcome, as will millions of others.”

As the UK prepares to lose its 73 seats in the European Parliament (of which 6 are within the Greens/EFA group), Ms Lambert encouraged the Party to support its Green colleagues in Europe in order to fight the “forces of narrow nationalism and right-wing populism” which threaten the cohesion of our societies and the very future of our planet.

She added: “I do not want to see more seats going to populist, right-wing, xenophobic parties that claim an ethno-superiority and that climate change is a hoax. I want more seats going to Greens who believe we can have a positive common future based on solidarity and respect for ourselves and the planet. I want our Party to play its role in helping that happen.”

Jean Lambert MEP’s full speech to the Green Party Conference, October 2018:

This is possibly my last speech to a Green Party Conference.

I want to thank those who work for us, worked to get us elected, and the voters who put their trust in us.

My speech usually takes place just before a European Election, which will be held next year from 23rd to 26th May. I would have loved to hand over my speaking slot today to a probable successor after my 20 wonderful years in the European Parliament.

Unfortunately, this won’t happen, thanks to a referendum held to save the Tories from UKIP. It’s thanks to a totally incompetent Government, backed by a weak Parliament, and a campaign built on lies. For example, there’s no Brexit dividend for the NHS. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn please take note: the NHS is already paying a penalty in terms of staff lost, it faces a shortage of life-saving treatments because of the Government’s failure to sign-off on a patient-first approach, and now big pharma is sniffing around future trade deals.

As an outcome of that referendum result, Keith, Molly and I recently found ourselves voting on the proposals as to how to distribute the UK’s 73 seats in the European Parliament after we are due to leave on March 29th next year. It was one of the saddest votes I’ve ever taken part in.

This poses difficulties for the Greens/EFA Group, which will also lose 6 of its 52 members in the European Parliament – the 3 of us, plus Plaid and SNP.

It also poses challenges for The Green Party of England and Wales. We will need to do some serious thinking as to how we replace the political weight and profile we have had through being in the European Parliament.

The Green Party will want to support our Green colleagues in those next European Parliament elections. One way we could help is by engaging with the many EU27 citizens living in the UK, who will be able to vote in their former home countries next year. We can persuade them to vote Green.

The Party will also need to work on keeping and developing the strong links we have with Green parties across the EU and beyond. After all, we did help found the European Green Party. We will rely on the International Committee and the Association of Green Councillors, amongst others, to continue developing these strong international connections. We should remember that Andy Cooper will also have to step down from his role on the EU’s Committee of the Regions.

Greens are really needed now, when you look at what is happening within the EU and across the world.

As a truly international movement, we know that tackling many of today’s challenges requires co-operation and action across borders: climate change;
protecting our environment from waste and pollution; safeguarding the global commons; promoting and upholding human rights; tackling transnational corporations and international finance; promoting democracy, good governance and the rule-of-law; protecting those affected by war or natural disasters; fighting organised crime, including human trafficking; and closing the gaps between rich and poor, within and between different countries.

This does not mean Governments bear no individual responsibility. After all, if the UK Government wanted to make the world a safer place and find millions to invest in the NHS or in improving public health, unilateral nuclear disarmament would be a good place to start.

We have only to look at the Sustainable Development Goals, which are our national goals – whether in the EU or not – and ask how many of them will be met by unilateral action alone.

Yet Greens are under attack by forces of narrow nationalism and right-wing populism who consider that our views on inclusive, open societies threaten national culture and identity.

One of the clearest examples of this is taking place in Hungary right now, in the Hungarian Government’s 20 million euro press campaign against Guy Verhofstadt, George Soros and Judith Sargentini – the brilliant Dutch Green MEP who drafted the European Parliament’s critical report on the failure of the Hungarian Government under Viktor Orban to uphold key democratic rights and freedoms. The vast majority of the European Parliament voted in favour of this report, and taking meaningful action against Orban’s Government. It’s shameful that most Tory MEPs chose to support his repressive, autocratic regime.

What Orban and others like him fail to admit is that culture is not static, nor is it frozen in time and power relationships. As I reminded a Swedish Democrat recently (who now sits with the Tories in the European Parliament!) if culture didn’t change, no women – including her – would be sitting in any Parliament in Europe.

These right-wing populists tell us that migration contaminates national identity. They accuse the Greens of welcoming refugees. This is true, we’re proud of it. We should welcome people who need to flee oppression and violence. But we certainly don’t welcome the circumstances that force them to move. Greens passionately believe that we should be creating a world where no one is forced to leave their home.

Yes, we are pro-migration as a genuine choice: because we need to see people treated with dignity and on an equal basis. Free movement in the EU (and similar developments in other parts of the world) makes this an option and marks a real shift in the power relationship between migrants and the state. People choose to move, people choose their employer, people choose to change their employer, people choose to bring (or start) a family, and they don’t have to meet a salary threshold to do it. This is a reciprocal right. Millions from the UK exercise those rights elsewhere in the European Union because they choose to.

That’s not to say everything works perfectly – it’s certainly not helped by a Government who didn’t recognise early enough that free movement needs management, and who choose not to protect low-paid workers, who slash local authority resources and deliberately create a hostile environment that poisons people’s lives and our communities. We’re now seeing deliberate efforts to splinter our societies and split groups apart.

It’s a populist tactic. You try and split off those who are seen as different in some way – whether that’s migrants, homeless people, minorities in general – and attack the organisations that defend them. Then you politicise the organs of the state that should be impartial and stifle the independence of the press. It’s a checklist to bear in mind.

As Greens, we should also be concerned about those alt-right, populist movements who portray climate change as contested science and a conspiracy of the liberal elite – that’s us. Trump’s decisions to take the USA out of the Paris agreement, strangle the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and let big fossil fools (sorry, fuels) rip been described as a potential crime against humanity (I will not start a chant of ‘lock him up’).

But Trump is not alone in looking after the interests of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries (we also have our problems in the EU). My Hungarian Green colleague Benedek Javor, has pointed out that: “We see a pattern of populist governments clearly opposing ambitious climate and energy regulations, which is in line with the primary Russian economic interest: exporting fossil fuel and nuclear technology.”

Sounds melodramatic, doesn’t it?

But this dangerous mix of big government, big money and bad science, is really putting the future of our planet on the line. Our populist colleagues cooperate across borders, and so must Greens in our work for the common good.

We can do this in a number of ways, some of which I’ve already mentioned: but we need to really use the information and expertise we have between us – not just in publicising our successes as the European Green Party’s excellent latest short film does, but in terms of our policies and how we express our ideas.

We need to win the arguments for renewables, energy and water conservation, and “green” towns and cities. We need to show that we care about decent jobs and “a just transition” in our workplaces, as advocated by the UN. We need to show that inclusive societies are the way forward, and that means cooperation not division. And we have to do this locally and internationally.

Because it’s not a choice, Prime Minister. We must act local, think global – and vice versa. As Greens, we see how these connect. I consider myself a citizen of the world – a citizen of everywhere.

So, I say again, the next European Parliament elections really matter. Whether we are still within the EU or have committed this act of total political folly and left: we will be affected by the outcome, as will millions of others.

I do not want to see more seats going to populist, right-wing, xenophobic parties that claim an ethno-superiority and that climate change is a hoax. I want more seats going to Greens who believe we can have a positive common future based on solidarity and respect for ourselves and the planet. I want our Party to play its role in helping that happen.

We have an old slogan worth re-using – Join together: Make a future.

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Yesterday, Jean Lambert – London’s Green MEP and the Green Party’s migration spokesperson – visited the Sea-Watch search and rescue team in Malta. Their vessel should be at sea preventing people from drowning in the Mediterranean. Instead, it’s being unlawfully detained in Malta, while the Government decides whether to allow the team to get back to work.

Jean signed a joint letter to the Prime Minister of Malta, Dr. Joseph Muscat, alongside cross-party MEPs Martina Anderson (GUE/NDL) and Pieter Niedermuller (S&D). Together they urged the Prime Minister to end the unlawful detention in Malta of search and rescue boats, and give them clearance to leave the harbour. A humanitarian act such as rescue at sea is not a crime and should never be criminalised.

Read the full letter below, or in PDF format here.

Dear Prime Minister,

We, the undersigned MEPs, met last night with the crew of Seawatch and Lifeline to get an insight into the current situation of Search and Rescue (SAR) NGOs boats and aircraft that are being impounded in Malta.

It is with great concern that we call on you, as Prime Minister, to end the unlawful detention in Malta of SAR boats and the Moonbird aircraft and give them clearance to leave the harbour. A humanitarian act such as rescue at sea is not a crime and should never be criminalised. While we are witnessing an increased number of deaths at sea and a deteriorating security situation in Libya, saving lives at sea should remain the priority.

As members of the European Parliament who supported the European Parliament Position for a reform of the Dublin regulation that has at its core solidarity and responsibility-sharing, we will continue to stand with you for a fair distribution between EU Member States of the people rescued at sea. You can be assured that in the meantime, while we wait on the Council to adopt its position, we will use all the means at our disposal to convince Member States to relocate people that will be disembarked in Malta.

Yours sincerely,

Jean Lambert, MEP, Greens/EFA

Martina Anderson, MEP, GUE/NGL

Peter Niedermüller, MEP, S&D

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The statement follows yesterday’s High Court ruling that the Home Office did not act unlawfully in its shambolic implementation of the programme, intended to help vulnerable young refugees already inside Europe. [1]

As a result of the court’s decision, the scheme will remain closed – capped at resettling a total of just 480 unaccompanied refugee children in the UK.

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP and the Green Party’s migration spokesperson, said:

“This is an incredibly disappointing result. It’s clear that, from start to finish, the Government’s implementation of the Dubs Scheme was littered with errors.

However, this issue is also one of basic human decency. If the Home Office had an ounce of compassion, it would have celebrated offers from local authorities to welcome up to 1,600 desperate refugee children. Instead, it began a vetting process to identify children eligible for resettlement, before disappearing without a trace and leaving them to languish in squalid Greek camps. [2]

These children could be sleeping in safe, warm homes tonight. Yet as a direct result of Home Office actions, they’ll be bedding down with strangers in leaky tents and on freezing pavements. As winter begins to bite, they’ll face further exploitation and abuse.

Despite today’s sad result, this case has highlighted that the UK has the capacity and the will to help many of these children. I urge the Government to work with local authorities to take up these offers and transform vulnerable children’s lives.”

Notes:

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/dubs-amendment-child-refugees-danger-help-government-refusal-take-more-home-office-court-ruling-a8032986.html

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/20/dubs-scheme-refugee-children-left-on-hold-for-a-year-in-greece

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Jean’s latest e-news is out now.

It outlines some of the issues she’s been working on in September – from meeting volunteers at Doctors of the World’s London clinic, to urging a strong response on the Rohingya crisis in the European Parliament, and speaking at the People’s March for Europe.

The newsletter also explain how, until 27th October, employers have a chance to tell the Migration Advisory Committee about their views on Brexit. Make sure your voice is heard!

Read the newsletter in full here.

To receive monthly updates about Jean’s work as London’s Green MEP please sign up here.

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Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, has written for the New Statesman about the crisis in access to NHS healthcare for migrants.

Read the article below, or find it on the New Statesman website here.

Charities forced to charge – how the government is depriving the most vulnerable of healthcare

This is all part of the “hostile environment” for undocumented migrants created by Theresa May.

Since 2006, Doctors of the World has run a small clinic in East London which provides advice and medical care to people who are excluded from mainstream health services. There shouldn’t be a need for this service in the UK today – but nonetheless, it struggles to keep up with demand.

When I visited the clinic last week, I was told that most people who walk through its doors are homeless, have experienced trauma and violence, or are victims of trafficking or modern day slavery. These aren’t so-called “health tourists”. They have been in the UK for an average of six years, and almost all are working in low-paid, exploitative jobs. They have developed health issues, and they’re frightened – scared of being landed with huge healthcare bills, or of a knock on the door from immigration enforcement leading to detention or deportation.

It’s long been the case that people classed as “overseas visitors” must pay for hospital care from the NHS. The category includes those who are on short-term visits to the UK, some who have been refused asylum, and others who are completely off the radar of the Home Office.

However, on 21 August 2017, this scheme was extended. These individuals are now not only expected to pay for hospital care but for community services received outside of hospitals – things like district nursing and community midwifery. On 23 October, it will be expanded further still to encompass non-NHS providers of NHS-funded care. That will touch on thousands of third sector organisations, such as Marie Stopes, which provides free sexual health and abortion services, and Mind which provides therapeutic intervention services to improve the wellbeing of those who refuse help.

All of these organisations will be lumbered with the bureaucratic nightmare of having to identify which patients can be treated for free, and who will be billed. They will be required to charge upfront, asking patients to pay before treatment at 150 per cent the cost of the service or procedure. Those who can’t pay will be turned away – unless the doctor deems the situation to be an emergency, in which case they’ll be charged shortly afterwards. Given that some of these organisations also have a charitable dimension, this is a very difficult thing to ask of them.

Meanwhile, the government has another scheme up its sleeve to deter “overseas visitors” from accessing the NHS. When a patient is billed for a service, details including their name and address are shared with the Home Office. This relationship has become more entrenched thanks to a recent agreement between the Home Office and NHS Digital. This enables government officials to access the non-medical details of anyone who registers for primary care – GPs, community pharmacies, dental care, and opticians. The Home Office can then pursue anyone whose details it considers irregular.

We don’t usually consider it a luxury to be able to prioritise our physical and mental wellbeing above other aspects of our lives. Yet, as the clinic manager told me, most patients who find themselves at Doctors of the World believe that avoiding deportation is more important than their health.

This is all part of the “hostile environment” for undocumented migrants created by Theresa May during her years running the Home Office. As we know – all too well – while she may claim to want to help the victims of terrible crimes such as modern slavery, nothing takes precedence over her obsession with reducing the UK’s net migration figure to a bare minimum.

It’s now reached the point where victims of trafficking and exploitation are deterred from registering with a GP, as they fear detention and deportation. Women, such as sex workers, are denied access to contraception, safe abortions, and maternal care. Meanwhile, their children may never see a GP or a dentist, putting their own health at risk. This runs counter to the government’s own policies of improving maternal and new-born health.

Our hospitals, already over-burdened and under-resourced, are under pressure to find a way to effectively implement these changes. Such a task could easily fall into the trap of racial profiling. In the process, doctors and nurses are also being required to take on the responsibilities of immigration officers, making critical decisions about access to healthcare.

Yet it is quite likely that this strategy will fail in its stated aim of saving money for the NHS. The government has – true to form – failed to conduct a full assessment of the cost of the new charging regime, estimating that it will save the NHS (a relatively insignificant) £200,000 each year. However, in the long run we can expect that the scheme will have huge associated costs. Rather than seeing a doctor at the onset of a health problem, people will instead hold off seeking care until it’s a medical emergency and they need to be admitted to A&E – filling beds, using more resources, and requiring complex procedures.

Despite these major flaws, we can expect to see many more invasive data-sharing agreements in future. A recent paper leaked by the Home Office boasted of how the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system will be “as digital, flexible and frictionless as possible” – featuring improved data-sharing capabilities between the Home Office, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Department of Work and Pensions. It looks as if doctors aren’t alone – workers across a range of public and private services, from the NHS to banks and building societies, will be called upon to be immigration officers in Theresa May’s new “global Britain”.

If you’re affected by these issues, click here to learn more about how Doctors of the World can help. Join groups including Docs Not Cops and Migrants Organise, who are protesting at various locations around the UK on 30th September to demand “Patients Not Passports”.

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14th September 2017

Today Members of the European Parliament debated the humanitarian crisis faced by Rohingya Muslims, who are being forced to flee a military insurgency in Myanmar.

Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP and Chair of the European Parliament’s South Asia delegation, told the Parliament that the crisis is “not just about Aung San Suu Kyi”. Myanmar’s generals also bear responsibility for these atrocities, and must be held accountable.

Read Jean’s speech in full below:

“Thank you President, and I also speak in my capacity as Chair of the Delegation for South Asia which covers Bangladesh as one of our countries, and where in the past we visited the Rohingya camps down at Cox’s Bazar. So we know this is something which has been going on for a very long time and where the European Union has been a key funder in terms of supporting the Rohingya people in Bangladesh – the refugees there.

We gather that the EU has currently put in €3m from ECHO funding in light of the current situation and we’d ask how that is actually being spent given that it’s also apparently covering Myanmar. And we know as we’ve just heard, there’s no access for the UN and INGOs in north Rakhine State which is something we need to push to reinstate.

We need a UNHCR-led body down in Bangladesh. But we also need a strong response from the European Union and all its governments, and active diplomacy in the region – not least with the two big powers. Because this is something, as we say, that’s ongoing. People need to be able to return home in dignity with their rights restored. And this is not something which is not just about Aung San Suu Kyi. It’s about the generals and their military power too. Don’t let them off the hook.”

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A Green Party MEP is calling for greater clarity around how refugees are chosen for relocation to the UK under the Government’s flagship Vulnerable Persons Relocation Programme.

New figures, published by the Independent today, show that only 5.2% of the refugees resettled under the scheme between January 2014 and April 2017 were registered as disabled – despite an estimated 22% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan having serious impairments. [1]

This is partly thought to be a result of councils selecting the types of families they want to resettle, and excluding the most at-risk groups.

​​Jean Lambert, London’s Green MEP, says:

​​“The British Government has repeatedly insisted that it is helping the ‘most vulnerable’ Syrian refugees. However, this new data shows that isn’t always the case.​​ While its flagship scheme, the Syrian Vulnerable Persons​ ​Relocation Programme will throw a crucial lifeline to 20,000 refugees, we urgently need greater transparency on how individuals are selected for relocation to the UK. Who decides which refugees get onto the programme, and what role do local authorities play in this process?

As a result of the Government’s crippling spending cuts, local authorities are on their knees. They are struggling to provide the funds or resources desperately needed to support existing residents with disabilities, let alone welcome resettled refugees with serious impairments. If the Government does not provide clear guidance and generous financial support, the resettlement scheme will fail to achieve its stated goal – once again allowing those who most desperately need its help to slip through the net.”

Notes:

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-syria-disabled-refugee-vulnerable-resettle-home-office-world-bank-councils-5-per-cent-human-a7865671.html​

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