Biannual Report June 2021 Foreword
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Biannual Report June 2021 Foreword The Peace and Justice Project celebrates our half-year anniversary this month. Despite the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on organising and activism, our organisation has grown and expanded, taking on new projects, developing new ideas, and building new coalitions of campaigners. Our founder, Jeremy Corbyn, has continued to be at the forefront of campaigns for peace and justice as new In our first six months, we have: issues have emerged, from resisting Boris Johnson’s authoritarian protest ❑ Reached tens of thousands through ban to demonstrating in solidarity with our events and discussions, on issues Palestine following Israel’s escalation of including the climate movement, new violence in May. economics, and refugee protection – connecting people and bringing them Our staff team has grown and we have into a strong network for solidarity. appointed leads within our four main campaign areas – international justice, ❑ Signed up tens of thousands of economic security, climate justice, and a supporters, raised hundreds of democratic society. These leads are thousands in small donations from our working on projects from improving movement, and reached millions online independent media infrastructure to through our own updates and being researching the impacts of Britain’s new covered in both the independent and Defence Review, to mobilising people to mainstream national and international support food banks. media, building a powerful force for campaigning and change. The Peace and Justice Project is a small organisation but with deep ties to ❑ Made a practical difference to the labour movement in the UK and tackling injustices at home and across overseas as well as social movements the world – including supporting clothing and progressive activists. When we charities, helping Leicester trade launched we drew on the energy, ideals, unionists organise for a living wage, and and people involved in Jeremy Corbyn’s fundraising for Myanmar workers leadership of the UK Labour Party to striking against a military coup. grow and develop. We are now forging a path forward, and engaging new people and organisations. We continue to be shaped both by the crises and injustices of our current moment - from the pandemic to inequality to environmental breakdown – and our burning desire to end them. Campaigns and projects Economic security – pandemic solidarity The PJP pandemic solidarity campaign We have appointed Maia Thomas to supports communities hit by the triple coordinate the campaign, who has whammy of years of austerity, a founded Feed Our Community in Exeter, pandemic and a looming recession. It is which has delivered over 6,000 food our priority campaign and being rolled packages. Our South West programme out regionally across the UK. of work also involves helping local campaigners to establish a community In Leicester we are working with the emergencies hub in Exeter, a mental Bakers Union (BFAWU) to support health and arts space to support their unionising campaign at Samworth children and young people, and Brothers, Leicester’s largest employer. assisting local food banks in Exeter and Samworth continues to deny a living Bournemouth. wage, union recognition and proper sick pay for workers. In London and the East Nationally – and principally in Midlands we are supporting the Birmingham and Liverpool – we are FareShare Clothing Programme with working with the Right to Food fundraising, transport, and networking. campaign alongside founder Ian Byrne We are also starting a programme of MP and Unite the Union, which supporting for call centre workers in demands that access to food is Scotland in collaboration with the protected in law. Communication Workers Union and Call Centre Collective Campaigns and projects International justice We have organised a range of We organised an Early Day Motion in international justice campaigns over the Parliament on refugee protection, and past few months. are working with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) on Often we have had to react swiftly to migrant rights, and on resisting the events. We fundraised for, and made criminalisation of search and rescue campaign videos and interviews with, crews in the Mediterranean. the Garment Workers Union in Myanmar who were striking for democracy after Our main achievements are: February’s military coup. We undertook a range of campaigning and media work • Seeing 10,000 in attendance at on Palestine after the Sheikh Jarrah our global refugee voices evictions and renewed bombing of conference, held in partnership Gaza. And we commissioned research with the ITF. on the global and domestic implications of Boris Johnson’s new defence and • Supporting Palestine security review, alongside other work on demonstrations which mobilised arms control. up to 200,000 people and increased international pressure We have had two continuous strands of on the Israeli government. work. The first is vaccine equality, in the wake of nationalism and profiteering • Gained thousands of signatures on preventing an effective global vaccine our vaccine internationalism rollout. We have organised a petition, petition and brought together given a number of campaigning leading figures in health interviews on the issue, and supported campaigning across the world at Progressive International’s vaccine our roundtable on the issue. internationalism summit. The second is refugee rights. We held an international refugee conference, allowing the voices of refugees in camps and settings across the world to lead our discussion. Campaigns and projects Democratic society – media reform Our democratic society work spansa • Fighting to change the media range of issues, including our work on that exists. We have already the Policing, Crime and Security Bill and supported Media Reform Coalition, its implications for protest, and the Hacked Off, Extinction Rebellion People’s Assembly national demo to and the National Union of demand a fairer future. However our Journalists in many campaigns - democratic society priority campaign is including the successful effort to focussed on reforming the UK media. stop Murdoch getting a TV news station in the UK - but soon we will We launched with a campaign to stop be launching our own campaigns, Rupert Murdoch’s power grab for a new Bin the Billionaires and TV channel, challenging the monopoly #ShareIndy. And setting up News of billionaires over both print and Clubs (book clubs for news) all broadcast interests. Murdoch has over the UK - get in touch to get subsequently withdrawn his TV bid, and involved. so we have developed new work on challenging corporate media and • Supporting large scale events to supporting independent public interest put media front and journalism. Our key areas of work centre. During the Tory Party have been: Conference in Manchester we will be running a special event with • Building support hubs to create Rob Delaney, Jeremy Corbyn and the media of tomorrow. We others to talk about how the media have already built a Funding Hub. needs to change and what we can We are now focused on building a do about it. The night before Black Comms Hub to coordinate efforts Friday/Buy Nothing Day we will for the movement to set the support the first ever Independent agenda, rather than react to it, and Media Awards ceremony in the Resources Hub to people all the UK. people, trainings and support we need to succeed in one place. Campaigns and projects Climate justice – Green New Deal Our climate justice campaign aims to develop the work accomplished by the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn to build a serious programme with mass support for a Green New Deal that can transform Britain and the world. We have recently appointed Stuart Melvin to coordinate the campaign, who brings two decades of experience building unions and campaigns across the workers’ and climate movements and we have big plans for how the Peace & Justice Project can help build the fight for a Green New Deal. We have begun organising a national campaign which includes: • Mobilising our supporters behind the most urgent fights through the COP26 global climate summit in November. • Jeremy and the team visiting towns across the UK to talk with employed and unemployed workers about the changes needed in each area, to map out the opportunities for good, green jobs in our communities. • Organising round tables of the worker and climate movements. Our aim will be to mobilise a young-worker led movement. Building the project Communications and campaigning Communications We are developing a more detailed Since our launch in January, which was content strategy, and reviewing our viewed by tens of thousands and digital work. engaged with by over half a million people, we have continued to raise the profile of our work. We have sought interviews in a range of foreign media, including Norwegian daily Klassekampen, a US podcast hosted by former Bernie Sanders speechwriter Richard Eskow, and Spanish and Italian left outlets in order to broaden our international reach. We have engaged with both the mainstream and left media, with several longform broadcast interviews (including with ITV and al- Supporters and mobilisation Jazeera) and op-eds. We hope to We have over 47,000 subscribers on expand our media work as restrictions our mailing list and this is growing day list and we are able to undertake more by day. We’re excited to mobilise our social events. growing database of supporters - a third of whom have indicated their preferred We have focussed on supporter campaign out of our four key areas - to communications, to ensure people amplify and get them involved in involved with our project are being kept campaigns both locally and nationally. informed and given ways to participate We supported the Right to Food in our work. Jeremy Corbyn’s regular campaign and will continue to support video updates are a key part of this – local groups pushing for their town or and we are looking to expand our AV city to be a right to food council.