Read and hear the speeches

The text of the speech by GJA’s Denis Fernando is presented in full here.

We are witnessing a serious rise in the far right

Trump is in power energising fascists like the rioters from the Jan 6 movement  backed by Musk, the richest man on the planet.

And across Europe the far right are gaining power, with fascist Meloni in government in Italy, Orban in power in Hungary, the AFD making advances recently in Germany and Le Pen in France.

And now, we are starting to see this global trend here:  a recent calculus poll shows that Reform is topping the polls with 25.8% of the vote, above Labour and the Tories for the first time.   The cutting edge of their advance is Islamophobia, hatred against migrants and refugees.  But where they take power, we see a broadside attack not only on these communities but also on LGBTQIA+ communities, protesters and others.

We in the environmental movement must consider this moment  our struggle.

Social justice is the same as environmental justice. And as we see in the US, what starts as an attack on the far right’s traditional targets, ends with with the dramatic reduction of essential measures to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.

The global rights monitor civicus have analysed that protest rights are shut down when the far right get into power. So why are rights being shut down under the Labour home secretary – the recent appeal for the JSO case shows the danger we all face. Colossal effort went into sentence reduction but peaceful protestors are locked up!  The unity of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Defend Our Juries in pushing back in this case is to be commended – we need more of it.

And our opposition to the far right could not be more important because when politicians fail to oppose the far right, it is up to the movement to provide this backstop.

Where is the opposition from the US democrats?

Starmer needs to learn from their failure to stop Trump. You could not stopTrump with a borders bill, you only set the terrain with draconian laws for the real draconians to take power. They failed to outdo Trump and it will fail if you try to outdo Farage.

Yet the Starmer leadership proposes its own borders bill, rounds on disabled people and welfare cuts and wants a drive to warfare. In years to come, all those who stood against racism, for people and planet, and rejected the likes of Farage and Trump, will be seen as standing on the right side of history.

We must stand for an end to the financial crisis, cost of living crisis and ecological crisis. With the ruling class using racism, such as scapeogating refugees, to divert attention from billionaires who caused these crises.  Racism diverts attention away from those who are making the working class in Britain pay for imperialist wars, when that money should be better spent repairing the planet.

And distraction from all these crises are essential to their advance. Last year, within months of Reform being elected we saw, a fascist eruption on the streets fuelled by Tommy Robinson, following the horrific Southport murders. Islamophobic and racist hate chants were commonplace, The Southport Mosque was attacked, hotels housing asylum seekers were set on fire, and no go areas for black people were set up by far right thugs.  It is only a stroke of luck that no one was killed. In the days following, the far right planned to target immigration law offices around the country. However Stand Up To Racism called demos opposing them with thousands coming out. This mass show of diversity broke the back of the far right. Yet many of these people are still active in the Free Tommy Robinson movement, and Reform placards were prominent at the most recent Free Tommy Robinson demonstration in February.

You must have the anti-racists in the lead to effectively defeat the far right – that includes in the environmental movement where the far right have their own racist narrative which rounds on the Muslim Mayor of London for implementing the ULEZ, rounds on migrants, whips up racist tropes on the movement of people and population explosion, instead of the trillion dollar fossil fuel industry.

And all our struggles intersect. Especially for young people. In 2023, 11,619 children were suspended for racist behaviour – up 25% on the previous 12 months. Thats the equivalent to almost 60 suspensions a day. This included children as young as four being sent home for racist behaviour. In response, Daniel Kebede General Secretary of the  National Education Union rightly cites years of racist stereotypes and hateful language from some politicians and sections of the media which threaten social cohesion.

This government’s must wake up and stop trying to appease the far right by impersonating it

and “Net Zero” likely being next in line on the appeasement list – as trialled in the decisions on Heathrow’s third runway.

News reports this week suggest that there is a briefing against  Ed Miliband from inside the government – whatever valid reservations people might have about the limitations of Miliband’s approach, CCUS, hydrogen, new nuclear and new runways.  It’s quite clear that reshuffling him out of the  role will be accompanied by a wholesale abandonment of any serious green ambition on Net Zero. His green strategy plays well with the Labour members who see him as the most popular member of the cabinet – Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall unsurprisingly the least popular due to their cuts agenda.  Pandering to reform will energise Reform (and the Tories)  – meanwhile, Labour votes will migrate to the Greens and Lib Dems which will enable second place Tories to come first if the vote splits.

We must stand with DPAC and all who are standing for welfare not warfare which is going to be crucial to the mass viability of the trade union year of climate action, because everything else will be sacrificed for the arms drive. The doomsday clock has edged ever closer to midnight over the last few years. This represents how close we are to catastrophes like world war 3 or irreversible climate breakdown. It is the closest it has ever been to midnight.

We need to address the counterposition that is now being made between green investment and rearmament. It goes: we can’t afford to save ourselves from climate breakdown until we’ve tooled up to fight a war that will kill us all even quicker

Its literally coming down to a choice to burn the world with fossil fuels and war, fuelled by the far right who are often funded by these forces, or repair it for a habitable future.  To do that we need to bring together climate campaigners, anti racists etc etc (diverse range of groups) to form the mass movement that can challenges  those forces.

As we come closer to COP 30 we need to focus attention on repairing the planet –  it is going to cost billions and trillions, with costs escalating in line with the temperature rise, and extreme weather impacts that accompany it.  That means we are increasingly going to be told there is no money to address the climate crises. But we know this is disengenous. Right now, our leaders are amassing a war fund which could be spent on the climate crisis.

European NATO, excluding the USA and Canada, are spending $445.7 billion on their militaries this year, Add the USA and Canada’s $936 billion.  The EU’s latest military spending pledge by Ursula Von Der Leyen is 850 billion Euros.

Trump is calling for an increase from European NATO. He wants war, not an answer to the climate crisis.  We need a resolution to the conflict which has cost thousands of lives in the war in Ukraine.  No good will come from further military spending. It is throwing petrol on a planet already on fire.

A 20-minute video with longer excerpts from all the speeches can be found here.