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. work – and our social media channels, which receive millions of engagements This month we have launched our Slack per month, work closely with Jeremy’s network to enable supporters to share channels on campaigns. The impact of the skills they told us about when first lockdown has made spreading digital signing up with our campaigns and will messages, particularly on causes like be offering this resource - the the police bill and Palestine, even more knowledge and skills our incredible essential. supporters have to the wider movement and organisations working in the We have completed a brand and design community - from foodbanks to housing exercise and signed off an exciting and campaigns to BLM groups. varied set of brand guidelines. Building the project Fundraising and governance

We have come a long way since a small Our main achievements are: core team was put together in the • Acquiring thousands of small donors autumn of 2020. We started with providing an average monthly ambitious plans to advocate for donation of £7.20, developing a solutions to some of the most important merchandise line to increase our questions of our time, like tackling funding, and acquiring high numbers climate change, supporting communities of one-off donations during key hit by the pandemic, and taking on the events like our launch. billionaire-owned media. Between our pre-launch announcement and our • Developing our governance launch, we spent time giving shape and structures to ensure a wide range of structure to these plans, working out experts and activists are represented, how to align our resources and and working on securing a team of capabilities with our ambitions. We are patrons which include Rob Delaney, pleased to be able to rely on the support Evo Morales, Michelle Stanistreet of a large base of small donors to fund with more to be announed. our work, keeping us independent and • Creating an integrated and close-knit connected to a movement. Over the core working team and building past six months we have worked hard to systems from scratch to cover HR, establish good financial and governance volunteer management, staff trade arrangements to undergird our projects. union relations, and other key We are now in a position to employ functions. fourteen staff covering a wide range of roles and flexible working patterns.

New Peace and Justice Project merchandise Building the project Unions and stakeholders

Our primary focus has been engaging with senior staff of the major trade unions to work on projects of joint interest. We have had introductory meetings with the general secretaries or their representatives of Unite, CWU, ASLEF, TSSA, BFAWU, UCU, FBU, RMT, and the NUJ, and follow-up engagement with the executive committees of four of these unions. We have also engaged with international unions including the ITF, Workers The future Uniting, and USW. We have also attended the conferences of ASLEF and TSSA via video link. The Peace and Justice Project has made big, bold steps since its launch – We have developed structures for trade punching above its weight and union branches and CLPs to affiliate intervening in some of the most critical with the Project, as well as involved struggles of our time. Now we want to trade unionists in our economic security scale up our work, with: campaign, and used our channels to promote and support industrial issues. • Increasing our network of partner We have engaged directly with organisations and allies at home branches as well; including 25 meetings and overseas. with grassroots union branches. • Developing a strategy to Our key achievements are: streamline and maximise the impact of our work. • Developing a partnership with the • Scale up our organising initiatives, International Transport Workers’ increasing our ground-level work Federation (ITF) and collaborating as lockdowns ease. on a range of issues including our refugee protection and advocacy • Develop an increased and work, broader international justice regularised funding base to work, and campaigning toolkits. support our work.

• Bringing together senior trade There are challenging, but also exciting, union figures in the UK, US, and times ahead. As they unfold we will Canada to our policy and project continue our mission to bring people roundtables. together for social and economic justice, • Securing our first CLP and trade peace, and human rights, in Britain and union branch affiliations. across the world. “A dozen years ago, the financial crisis began to expose the weaknesses of the few. Now it is us, the many, who are assembling the ideas and movements to change the world.”

“The Peace and Justice Project is part of that effort alongside so many others. Because it isn’t just about one organisation, one movement, one group of people.

Our greatest strength is that we are many, but we come together in unity, in hope, in love, to demand peace and justice for all.”

- Jeremy Corbyn