2011 progress report to the Global Alliance for
Ministries and Departments of Peace

Country: United Kingdom
Campaign: Ministry for Peace – United Kingdom
Contact Person: Diana Basterfield
Contact Email: diana.basterfield@ministryforpeace.org
Website: www.ministryforpeace.org

Progress report to the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace 2011 Summit in South Africa

To understand where mfp is now some history and context is in order. The campaign was initiated in 2003 as a response to the British government’s decision to go to war in Iraq. From the beginning we were working on two fronts – Parliament and the public – to influence and educate opinion about non-violent alternatives to war and how direct, structural and cultural violence adversely affects our own society and what to do about this. For eight years we held many meetings in the House of Commons on these themes and organised trainings with Kai Brand-Jacobsen for the public and peace building professionals.

We noticed that very few parliamentarians came to our meetings and we were advised by an MP that another structure, an All Party Parliamentary Group, might appeal to them more. In January 2006 this was set up with three MPs – one Labour, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat as Co-Chairs. We acted as the secretariat. Significantly after taking soundings from MPs it was decided that the title of the group should be the APPG on Conflict Issues (note, no mention of ‘peace’ – a very controversial word for MPs – or violence within Britain).

The APPGCI has gone from strength to strength. It has managed to get a toehold in three government ministries – Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. The meetings also attract senior members of NGOs. In fact the meetings are one of the few places where parliamentarians, NGOs and civil servants come face to face – a side effect they appreciate.

We tried to get charitable funding for the work of the APPGCI but this proved very difficult while it was seen as part of mfp (charity law does not allow funds to be given to campaigns affecting parliamentary structures). To help the APPG along the decision was taken to separate mfp and the APPGCI and two colleagues, Eddy Canfor-Dumas and Irving Rappaport, left the main committee with a third, Ruth Ludgate acting as a link between the two. Sadly Ruth died in December. We held a celebration of her life in the House of Commons in April, which was very moving.

mfp continued to hold public meetings and with the 2008 banking crisis, the substantial bank bailout and the subsequent government deficit, talk of cuts to public services began. We created a new theme – “Our Taxes, Our Lives.” Richard Wilkinson, co-author of “The Spirit Level” spoke about how societies with greater inequality disadvantage all groups, including the very rich. Through our Co-Founder, MP John McDonnell, we discovered the work of the Tax Justice Network and had them along to speak as well on tax avoidance and tax evasion. They have recently written a book “Treasure Islands – Tax havens and the men who stole the world” that I highly recommend. We made two drole YouTube films, one arguing that money spent on war should be diverted to improving Britain’s inadequate state pension and the other copying the format of a much-loved 1980s political satire “Yes Minister” showing how this time a government minister managed for the first time ever to outwit the senior civil servant and get British tax havens shut down and the money gathered in and put to use for the majority. There are links to these on our website.

That brings us to May last year and the General Election where the Labour government was thrown out and a coalition was formed between the more dominant Conservatives and the small Liberal Democrat Party. The Conservatives have always been considered to be the ‘war party.’ Their supporters make up the British officer class. John McDonnell noticed that the new intake of Conservative MPs included a number of ex military – men who had chosen to go into the armed forces – rather than older parliamentarians who had been conscripted and so were more open to persuasion about alternatives to war. He feels that as a result parliamentarians are likely to be less open to our message for a new political structure than before.

The question then arose, in this new situation what should mfp do? We decided to take a sabbatical – to watch and see how best to use our energies. We had already achieved one of our aims, through the APPGCI, to have influence in Parliament but we have been less successful in motivating the general public for change. By the way, the APPGCI continues to flourish in the new climate as Irving’s report shows. By coincidence the Liberal Democrat Co-Chair is now Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Party and so is ‘relatively’ powerful.

With the shop closed, so to speak, some of us have been active elsewhere on the peace front. Jim McCluskey has written a book about nuclear weapons, he contributes to Truth Out and frequently has his letters on nuclear issues published in The Guardian and The Independent. Ahlam Akram continues to publish articles and be interviewed on the BBC Arabic channel and elsewhere on human rights in the context of the Middle East. Eirwen Harbottle continues, despite poor health, to support Peace Child and work by Peter Chalon and others on an alternative financial system and Trish Dickenson continues her work on NonViolent Communication and Conversation Cafes. (Elizabeth and Vince Dowse are currently abroad for work and James Eckhardt has had to give priority to making a living.) As for me, I‘ve written a book “The essential family conflict toolkit – creating an oasis of peace” giving practical tips on how to reduce conflict at home, which is where it all starts, of course. I’ve had to learn a lot about publishing and have completed an online course on how to use social media – YouTube, Facebook, blogs etc to get one’s message across.

This brings me back to mfp. At a recent committee meeting we discussed how best to resume our activities. We decided to use my new skills and social media to reach out to a much wider public than those based in London and able to attend meetings in Parliament. We are resuming the campaign in the autumn in very interesting times……

Since our launch in 2003 the veil over major institutions has been lifted and the British public’s confidence in how our “democratic” country has been run has been jolted by a number of events – open knowledge about the lies leading up to the war in Iraq, the scandal over MPs expenses, the new government’s threats to the National Health Service (despite promises to maintain it) and now “hackgate.”

We have always found it hard to get media coverage and recent events have shown why with the News of the World newspaper phone hacking scandal. Insiders were already aware of this but now it has become general knowledge that for the last 30 years politicians of all parties have been terrified of offending the values of the Murdoch press and the press in general. Governments of left and right have striven to stay in line and any MPs pushing boundaries that were not aligned to the interest of News International and the ‘feral elite’ as someone has recently termed them, were likely to have their private lives torn to pieces in public and end up disgraced. Or like John McDonnell who does speak out but is squeaky clean and instead is completely sidelined and was even prevented from standing against Gordon Brown for leadership of the Labour Party in 2008. The final institution to fall from grace is the police who have now been caught illegally taking money for passing information on to N.O.W. journalists. Senior police chiefs have resigned. A public inquiry into all this has started, which is going to take years, and much more dirty linen is going to come out. What is not clear is whether, as usual with public inquiries, the outcome is going to be a whitewash and nothing will change.

All these shocks to the system raise a number of questions for mfp. Will the general public now opt out of political engagement altogether? Will cynicism and despair reign? Will there be a swing to the right and public expenditure spent on the poor (including immigrants and Moslems) be blamed for the mess we are in? (The argument about the size and role of government is also going on here but more gently than in the US.) Or is this a window of opportunity; are the general public going to be more receptive now to new ideas?

mfp is willing the forthcoming period to be an opportunity for new ideas to take hold, the alternative is too awful to contemplate. We are going to continue our focus on influencing and educating opinion, now using social media, and we hope to reach a whole new audience with short, pithy, provocative films showing how Britain could be improved, the powerful forces preventing economic, social and political peace and how to move beyond them. When we next hold a meeting in Parliament we aim to have crowds around Parliament Square clamouring to get in. Watch this space!

Diana Basterfield
Co-Founder
ministry for peace