Three year rolling funding is being made available to third sector equality and violence against women and girls organisations for the first time, providing security to vital services. All funding under the Scottish Government’s Equality Budget will move from one year to three years, providing vital reassurance to organisations that prevent violence against women and girls, as well as those who work to tackle hate crime and discrimination, increase representation and enhance community cohesion. Continue reading Three year Equality funding will support ‘vital work’
Tag: Westminster
Scottish Secretary flies the flag in Europe
Scottish Secretary David Mundell met with Scottish MEPs, EU academics and business representatives in Brussels on Thursday to discuss how the UK Government is representing people and business interests in Scotland. Continue reading Scottish Secretary flies the flag in Europe
Governments set on Brexit collision course
The Scottish Parliament yesterday agreed that the UK Government’s European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill should not proceed. MSPs voted by Scottish Parliament by 90 to 34 votes to condemn triggering of Article 50 with ‘no effective consultation’ of Holyrood. Continue reading Governments set on Brexit collision course
Child Poverty Bill ‘will be a crucial step forward’
The UK Government’s austerity agenda, continuing welfare cuts, and economic uncertainty caused by Brexit are the key challenges to eradicating child poverty, Equalities Secretary Angela Constance has said. Ms Constance, who will introduce a child poverty bill to Holyrood this week, said the action being taken to tackle inequalities and end child poverty in Scotland has never been more important.
Findings in a report published by the Resolution Foundation last week show that over the remainder of the UK Parliamentary term typical households will see almost no income growth and poorer households will experience a fall in income.
Ms Constance said: “No child should grow up in poverty. All of our children deserve the best opportunities in life that we can offer them, which is why tackling the issue is a key priority for this government.
“Our Child Poverty Bill to be published this week will be a crucial step forward – it will set statutory targets to reduce child poverty and establish a framework for measuring, monitoring and reporting on child poverty. It will also require long-term delivery plans to tackle the deep-rooted causes, and for Ministers to report annually on progress. Scotland will also now be the only part of the UK with statutory income targets on child poverty.
“UK Government budget cuts, austerity measures, and welfare cuts, and scrapping of income-based child poverty targets are leading to huge social harm, and the poorest and most vulnerable in society shouldering the brunt.
“Withdrawal from the EU and the single market also poses a threat to living standards, job prospects, and income levels of people and communities across Scotland.
“It is completely unacceptable that families are facing such hardship and children are growing up in poverty. I am clear that preventing the next generation of young people being born into poverty is vital and we will work tirelessly across government and with the public, private and voluntary sectors to address this.
“That is why our Fairer Scotland Action Plan includes several cross-Government measures to tackle child poverty – and we will use all options the new social security powers give us to make a difference.
“We are spending £100 million a year mitigating the worst of UK Government cuts, funding we should be able to use to lift people out of poverty.
“So it is absolutely clear that we are taking a range of actions to ensure that children in Scotland have a bright future ahead of them; but we do that in the face of a callous and uncaring UK government which has never put the needs of the people of Scotland on their to do list.”
Working together: Holyrood and Westminster committees to talk social security
The successful delivery of the devolution of social security is to be investigated by two parliamentary committees. For the first time a Holyrood Committee and a Westminster Committee will work together to look at the relationship between the Scottish and UK Governments and investigate if it is working effectively. Continue reading Working together: Holyrood and Westminster committees to talk social security
Job Centre closures ‘wrong-headed’
Scottish politicians have reacted angrily to news that more Jobcentre Plus offices are to close in Scotland. Holyrood’s Minister for Employability and Training Jamie Hepburn said the cuts are disproportionate while both Green MSP Alison Johnstone and North and Leith MP Deirdre Brock said the decision is ‘wrong-headed’.
Lessons from ‘The Long Night’: why we must all stand up to bigotry
‘To honour the dead and to warn the living’
In a speech at a reception held for the Holocaust Education Trust at Westminster last night, Sajid Javid MP reflected on the modern-day relevance of Ernst Bornstein’s memoir of life and death in the Nazi labour camps:
In Danny’s forward to The Long Night, he makes the point that with every Holocaust story you learn something new. Each time a survivor shares their memories you gain another perspective on what happened. And whenever you hear from someone who was actually there, you’re reminded once again of the human lives that lie behind the cold, hard statistics of the Shoah.
As an MP and a minister I’ve been privileged to meet with several men and women who lived through the Holocaust. I’ve had the honour of hearing their testimony first-hand.
Thanks to Karen and everyone at the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), 100,000 young people a year can say the same. And, thanks to the government-backed Lessons From Auschwitz project, thousands of schoolchildren and teachers are able to visit the most notorious of death camps every year.
I myself accompanied a group from my constituency back in 2011, soon after I first became an MP. And it was one of the most emotional, moving experiences I’ve ever had.
But it’s now more than 70 years since the camps were liberated. Time, inevitably, takes its toll on the brave, strong men and women who survived the Third Reich. That’s why it’s never been more important to listen to them and to learn from them now.
And it’s also why I’m so pleased to see this new, English edition of Ernst Bornstein’s incredible story. Not just because it’s an amazing piece of writing, which undoubtedly it is. But because The Long Night contains a number of lessons that all of us would do well to reflect on, both today and in the future.
The first is the way the full horror of the Holocaust unfolds only slowly.
It creeps up on you.
The first time Bornstein encounters Nazi soldiers they’re chatting to civilians and handing chocolates to children.
The first labour camp is relatively humane.
But as the book goes on, the situation grows gradually worse.
Conditions deteriorate.
Rations decline.
Brutality increases.
Death – initially a rare occurrence that provokes great shock – becomes routine.
And, almost before you know it, you’re reading this horrific, vivid, deeply disturbing account of the death marches.
It’s a reminder that the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. The Holocaust began when anti-Semitism was legitimised. It began when hatred and bigotry were allowed to grow without challenge. When low-level violence and discrimination against Jews was tolerated and then encouraged. And that’s a lesson that’s so important today.
Last year the Community Security Trust reported an alarming increase in anti-Semitic incidents. In the summer there was a worrying spike in levels of hate crime more generally.
It’s easy to dismiss, and say they are just some isolated cases. But the Holocaust shows the danger of letting intolerance take root. Of normalising bigotry.
Left unchecked, hatred quickly snowballs and can lead to truly horrific acts.
But it’s not enough to simply tell ourselves that we disapprove. We have to stand up and take action.
Which brings me to the second lesson I took from the Long Night.
We often look at the Holocaust through the stories of individual survivors and victims. But this book reminds us that it’s not just the victims who were people. The perpetrators were too.
Too often, they’re dismissed as some vast, faceless machine. Doing so diminishes their individual guilt. And that’s not something Bornstein allows.
He paints a vivid picture of named kapos and “block elders”. Of specific SS men and camp guards. Each with their own character, their own face, and their own story.
Then there are the bystanders. Passengers on comfortable trains who turn their faces away. The farmer who refuses to offer sanctuary, or even a scrap of food, to fleeing prisoners.
And the crowds of worshippers who file out of church on Sunday morning and studiously ignore the column of human misery that’s marching right past them. Supposedly good Christian men and women who, in Bornstein’s words: “Calmly surveyed our misery and, with hardened hearts, observed us like statisticians contemplating criminals.”
The Holocaust would not have happened were it not for a few evil individuals. But it could not have happened without millions of ordinary men and women choosing to look the other way.
Remembering the complicity of the bystander is particularly important right now. Because the blunt truth is that hate crime is not committed and permitted by some faceless “other”. It’s down to people. People just like you and me.
I’ve talked before about the insidious way anti-Semitism has made a comeback in politics and polite society. But if our only reaction is to tell ourselves how awful it is, then we’re not just failing the victims.We’re failing in a fundamental moral duty to society.
We have to call out bigotry and racism whenever we see it and wherever we see it.
We have to object when a line is crossed from legitimate debate to smears and abuse.
We have to push back when people lazily reach for glib comparisons that belittle what happened, calling those we disagree with “Nazis” or claiming someone’s actions are “just like the Holocaust”.
Ultimately, we must be prepared to do that most un-British of things – we have to make a scene.
Maybe that’ll be in private.
Maybe in the media.
Maybe on Twitter.
In fact it could be anywhere: the top deck of a bus or right here in Parliament.
What’s certain is that if we don’t speak out against hatred and anti-Semitism it will become normalised.
It will become part of everyday life.
And once that happens, the consequences once again will be tragic.
But I’m hopeful. I look around this room and I see people who are willing and able to take a stand. I see organisations like the Holocaust Educational Trust spreading the word. I see the HET’s ambassadors, amazing young people who have volunteered to make sure survivors’ stories are shared with their peers.
It reminds me that most people are fundamentally good at heart, even if they need a little nudge now and then.
That’s why the third message I took from Bornstein’s testimony is a message of hope.
First, in the fact that throughout his time in the camps and in years that followed, Bornstein simply refused to be beaten. He was determined to fight on. To see justice done. To ensure that the crimes committed against his family were not forgotten.
That, in itself, I find very inspiring. But I’m also struck by the many acts of kindness he describes.
The nameless farm girl who offers a starving Bornstein some bread.
Meister Hermann, the electrician who takes Bornstein under his wing.
The fellow inmate at Flossenberg who risks his own life to save the author from certain death.
Together, they show that even in the darkest, longest of nights, light can shine through – but only if we choose to let it.
There’s a small Holocaust memorial established by Ernst Bornstein, I think it’s in Dachau. The inscription simply reads: “To honour the dead and to warn the living.”
The Long Night does exactly that.
Noemie, I can’t thank you enough for bringing your father’s words to a new audience and to a new generation.
I know it wasn’t easy.
But as first-hand memories of the Holocaust begin to fade, his painful testimony becomes more important than ever.
And it’s more important than ever that we heed his warning and learn from it.
That’s why I’m so proud to be overseeing work on the new national Holocaust memorial and learning centre, to be built just a short walk from where we are right now.
It will help ensure that the people of this country never forget the horrors of the past, and remind us all of the need to resist bigotry in all its forms.
Dr Enrst Israel Bornstein was strong enough to survive years of abuse at the hands of racists and anti-Semites. Surely, in 2017, we can be strong enough to stand up and speak out in the face of such hatred?
Holocaust Memorial Day is marked each year on 27th January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The theme for 2017 is How can life go on?
A better Britain? Theresa May’s Brexit speech in full
“So that when future generations look back at this time, they will judge us not only by the decision that we made, but by what we made of that decision. They will see that we shaped them a brighter future. They will know that we built them a better Britain.” – Prime Minister Theresa May
Yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May set out the Plan for Britain, including the 12 priorities that the UK government will use to negotiate Brexit: Continue reading A better Britain? Theresa May’s Brexit speech in full
Plea to save ideals of Green Investment Bank
Two Green MSPs are lobbying the Scotland Office to intervene in the potential sale of the Green Investment Bank. Alison Johnstone and Andy Wightman are urging the UK government’s office in Scotland to ensure that the bank maintains its commitment to environmental causes and that it safeguards the 55 jobs it has in Edinburgh, the city the MSPs represent at Holyrood. Continue reading Plea to save ideals of Green Investment Bank
Move over, Big Society: it’s time for Mrs May’s Shared Society
The Prime Minister is to give a speech to the Charity Commission setting out how the government will tackle ‘everyday injustices’.
In a speech to the Charity Commission tomorrow morning, Prime Minister Theresa May will set out the Westminster government’s determination to build a ‘shared society’ based on the values of citizenship, responsibility and fairness. Continue reading Move over, Big Society: it’s time for Mrs May’s Shared Society