Weekly Update – Friday 18 June 2021

Justice for Grenfell is a long way off

This week marked 4 years since the Grenfell tower fire killed 72 people in 2017. As more and more time passes it becomes even more important that we remember the people of Grenfell didn’t die in a tragic accident. They were killed by Kensington & Chelsea Council and a number of their private contractors who made the decision to risk the lives of their tenants in pursuit of profits and savings. They were given the freedom to make that decision as a result of decades in which central government cut housing safety regulations and tore apart social housing provision.

The Government has since made the decision not to take action to prevent another Grenfell. The underlying factors that left Kensington & Chelsea Council with blood on their hands remain in place. Thousands of tenants live in buildings wrapped in flammable material. Meanwhile, social housing tenants, those in temporary accommodation, and those renting privately continue to be treated with contempt, their concerns ignored. Perhaps most importantly, Local Authorities have not been given the funding or powers to rebuild social housing and ensure that nobody has to live in unsafe or unsuitable accommodation.

Justice for the 72 who were killed 4 years ago doesn’t just mean people in jail for their murder, it means tackling the underlying factors which led to their deaths. It’s clear this Government has no intention of doing that.

The UK must speak out on Nigeria twitter ban

Earlier this week I wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to express my concern at the decision of President Buhari to ban Twitter in Nigeria. The excuse used by President Buhari was twitter’s decision to take down one of his tweets which appeared to incite violence. In reality, however, the move is part of a wider attempt to clamp down on dissent and stifle growing opposition to his rule.

The UK has a troubling history of having trained and funded security services in Nigeria, who have then gone on to commit awful crimes against Nigerian citizens. This makes it even more important that we take a firm stand for Human Rights in the country. There is a large diaspora of Nigerians in the UK who deserve a UK Government that defends the rights of ordinary Nigerians to free speech. The UK Government must do so now.

Australian Trade Deal is the start of a race to the bottom

On Thursday in Parliament, I asked the Secretary of State for International Trade if she would publish an impact assessment on farming communities if deals like the Australian one reached this week are to be made with the United States, Brazil, and others. In answer, she refused to do so and made an outlandish claim that trade deals which the Government has struck cannot inform future policy in trade deals.

The fact is that the Australian Trade deal dilutes protections for farmers, animals, and consumers, and if similar deals are struck with other countries, then the Australian deal will be seen as the starting gun of a race to the bottom in which both farmers and consumers lose out.

The Met Commissioner must go

In 1987, Private Investigator Daniel Morgan was murdered in Sydenham. At the time Daniel was in the process of uncovering police corruption. Nobody was ever prosecuted for his murder and this week an independent review into that police investigation found that the Met Police was ‘institutionally corrupt’ and that it had concealed and then covered up failings in the case.

The very proof that the Met police remains institutionally corrupt is that the current Met Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick remains in her position despite it now being known that she played a direct role in the cover-up around the Daniel Morgan case. The Met needs to be trusted by the people it serves. The only way that can happen is for Commissioner Dick to be relieved of her duties and for root and branch reform of the Met to then begin.

Osime Brown deportation stopped

This week we heard the fantastic news that the Home Office had successfully been stopped in its attempts to deport Osime Brown to Jamaica. Osime is a 22-year-old man with severe autism and who has grown up in the UK. He can remember no other country and has no support network or family in Jamaica.

Osime’s case shows that the Home Office continues to inflict the pain of the Windrush scandal on many other people who have grown up in the UK and call this country their home. But it also shows that by working together, through action on the streets and in the courts, we can put a dent in the Home Office’s Hostile Environment. When thousands come together to reject the Government’s racist policies we have the power to make a difference to people’s lives.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my latest update, if you have any issues that you would like to raise directly with me then please do email  edmontonconstituency@parliament.uk. I’m always happy to help whenever possible.

Kind regards,

Kate Osamor MP