On Thursday 5th June the Resistance Kitchen joined several community groups including Disabled Against Cuts and Croydon Trade Union Congress, to protest outside the Croydon Labour party fundraising Gala dinner at the Grand Sapphire banquet hall in Purley Way. Protest was against privatisation of the NHS, disability cuts, and Labour complicity in genocide.
Fearing a protest, the labour party had kept the location secret even from attendees until a couple of hours before, so it was a very last minute mobilisation.
The local Labour party had invited the infamous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting as their guest of honour.
NHS Privatisation
Wes Streeting has championed Starmer’s policy of privatising parts of the NHS. It was revealed that he has accepted around £175,000 from donors linked to private healthcare firms. The question that is asked is who is he actually working for?
Disability Cuts
Streeting also supports proposed Labour disability cuts, stating that mental health conditions are over diagnosed, and benefits need to be cut. He ignores the underlying reasons for the rise of mental health problems like poverty, low-paid and insecure work and systemic racism.
Our last survey of our guests at Resistance Kitchen revealed that 1 in 5 of them are dependent on disability benefits for survival. The benefits are already so inadequate that they can’t afford food and need to come to food banks like ours. Every week we see people in wheel chairs and crutches queuing 2 hours before we open, in all weathers, just for food. What will happen if those inadequate disability benefits are further cut?
Amnesty UK calls the proposed welfare cuts a violation of human rights. It says “Abandoning some of the most vulnerable in our society cannot be a solution to prop up the economy. Surely the priorities should always be to house, feed and clothe people and make sure they have what they need to survive. The government has the choice to end poverty, but today they have made the political choice to worsen it.”
Complicity In Genocide
It had been revealed by Declassified that Wes Streeting has a long history of supporting Israel going back to his days at the National Union of Students and has been rewarded handsomely for it. During genocide he has taken £20,000 from Israel lobbyists.
With Israel’s systematic targeting of hospitals, the plight of Gaza has resonated in the NHS. In an attempt to silence this support Streeting has called for disciplinary action against NHS workers over their views on Gaza.
The Labour government approved $169m worth of military equipment to Israel in the three months that followed the its so-called partial suspension of arms exports, admitting they would be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. The three-month total is more than what was approved altogether under the Tory government between 2020 and 2023!
Croydon Labour is also directly implicated in the genocide taking place in Gaza. Freedom of information requests have revealed it has invested over £120 million from the pension fund in companies complicit in genocide.
This includes Israel’s largest weapons producer Elbit systems, which boasts of being the backbone of the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza. It advertises its weapons as having been battle tested on Palestinians.
Inaction Of Our Friends
It has to be said that many of those going inside were sympathetic to the protest and came out to talk to us. Also whilst the Grand Sapphire was hosting the Labour fundraiser, they made it very clear whose side they were on. They even brought out hot cups of coffee for the protestors.
Labour culpability in genocide and austerity has made it such a toxic brand that even venues who are being paid to host them want to distance themselves in case the toxicity sticks to them.
But in the face of the genocide of our time, these overtures are really is no longer good enough. Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, in the end, we will remember not the words [ actions ] of our enemies, but the silence [ inaction ] of our friends.
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