Category: Campaigns

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We need a new Right to Roam Act

Guy Shrubsole

We are grateful to Guy Shrubsole for permission to reproduce this thread: If we’re to restore wild camping rights on Dartmoor, we need a new Right to Roam Act – and a government willing to pass it. New legislation is how we defend and extend public access to nature – anything less won’t cut it. […]

Police intimidation of activists – a lesson from Poland

Tomasz Oryński

Recently I saw a story on West Country Voices. Two women wanted to sign up for a meeting with an MP to ask him an inconvenient question. As a result, they have been paid a visit by the police officer. This story never got attention it deserves. And it should. Because this is not only […]

Hello South West Water! No more poo, please!

Sonia Rai

Having noticed the increase in sewage smells in their bay, Jovi and Sonny send a message to local water company, South West Water, to clean up their act. In 2021, South West Water intentionally discharged 680 hours of sewage into the River Lim – the equivalent to the whole month of February, 24 hours a […]

Stop Rwanda flights! Twitterstorm and demo/live share 12 July!

Editor-in-chief

Dear West Country Voices, As a matter of urgency I write to remind you of the court case challenging the Government’s policy on forced deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers and refugees to the UK. There is a live protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London TOMORROW (July 12) with a LIVE share […]

US gun and abortion laws are topsy- turvy

Jon Danzig

This is controversial, I know. I may have to take cover for posting this. However, in my view, some USA ‘rights’ are topsy-turvy.  There is the right to bear arms, under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Citizens have the right carry a gun that only has one mechanical function: to kill or maim. Consequently, […]

Ukraine rocks

Gérard Fabrice Guminski

On 24 February 2022, I saw the first footage of Putin’s invasion of a sovereign nation, Ukraine: the beginning of what will be a long journey of suffering for so many innocent civilians. I’m sure we all agree that this conflict doesn’t belong in the 21st century, whether here in Europe or anywhere else in […]

Death trap

Tom Scott

To set a death trap, careful preparation Will be repaid. You need first to make sure That no alternative accommodation Is on hand for the undeserving poor. This won’t be hard – with council homes sold off, Sit back and let the market do its work. The gratitude of landlords at their trough Will be […]

Mass trespass outside Truro celebrates 90 years of the fight to roam

Tom Scott

Members of Cornwall Green Party went for a walk on Sunday around a greenfield site on the outskirts of Truro that is threatened by destructive housing development. The 18-strong group set out from County Hall, walking along a stretch of the old railway line that forms part of the Newham Trail before branching out across […]

Never again? It is happening again

Jon Danzig

Genocide is not a thing of the past. Jon Danzig’s powerful and intensely personal account is a wake-up call for us all. After the Second World War, during which many millions were systematically, industrially, gruesomely murdered in the worst genocidal crime against humanity, the earnest, global, unison cry was, ‘Never again’. Those two words summed […]

Ramp up the action! Events/petitions diary

Editor-in-chief

DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT >>>CALENDAR WILL FOLLOW SOON What’s on! if you want to add your event, please contact campaigns@westcountryvoices.co.uk Discussion on housing crisis/housing need, 24 March, online PETITION Johnson to withdraw and apologise re Starmer/Savile lie PETITION on saving access to judicial review. Liberty PETITION to reject government plans to switch to the less democratic […]

Campaign Directory

Editor-in-chief

Want to help? Here’s where you can find organisations and campaigns to join. Let us know if we are missing yours from the list. NB: this is a work in progress! Action Network: resources, toolkit and ways to mobilise Climate Crisis/Environment Climate Outreach Extinction Rebellion Friends of the Earth Fridays for Future Green New Deal […]

Devon’s housing crisis: the champions of change

Anthea Simmons

How many of us have experienced, or can begin to really comprehend, what it is to be without a home? How many of us have known the unsettling insecurity of living in rented accommodation at the whim of a landlord who might at any moment, once the fixed term contract is up, issue a Section […]

Remove Clause 9 from the hideous Nationality and Borders Bill

Anthea Simmons

It is savagely ironic that dozens of Conservative MPs are spitting out their dummies over the ‘outrageous’ curtailment to freedom that results from being obliged to wear a mask and to produce a Covid passport to gain entry to various venues and amenities and yet they happily wave through legislation that includes some of the […]

If protest changed anything, they’d make it illegal…

Tom Scott

… and that’s exactly what Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill aims to do. Tom Scott explains why this is yet another assault on freedom and democracy and must be opposed. In St Stephen’s Hall in the Houses of Parliament, a stained-glass window commemorates the women who fought for voting rights in the […]

Will our MPs stand up for the lifeboats?

Mick Fletcher

If any organisation embodies the best of British values it is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).   It is funded by donations and almost entirely staffed by volunteers.  It is a charity independent of government, wholly dedicated to saving lives at sea.  Its volunteers are ready to risk their own life to help others, 24 […]

Greenham Common Women – 40 years on

Conor Niall O'Luby
Badge worn by Grennham Common Women's protest

A train trip back in time “Going anywhere nice today?” Taking the drink from the young woman at the station kiosk, I replied: “We’re off to Newbury, to Greenham Common. It’s the 40-year anniversary of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. My mum was one of the Greenham Women. We’re going to see the events […]

Lack of action on active travel in Somerset

Mick Fletcher

Somerset County Council (SCC) have contacted us over our article on cycle paths in Somerset. They asked us to add three points giving the perspective of the County Highways Department on some of the key issues raised. We are pleased to set out their comments here in the interests of balance and to quote in […]

“Why I was arrested blockading Rupert Murdoch’s printing press”

Caspar Hughes

On 5 September last year I was part of the Extinction Rebellion group that blockaded Rupert Murdoch’s printing press. We knew we were going up against a powerful group of men who own the Sun, The Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, all of which are printed at Rupert Murdoch’s printing press in Hertfordshire. […]

Peaceful protest in action

Rachel Marshall

After a year of signing online petitions the government will simply ignore, this Saturday feeling a mixture of anxiety and compulsion, I went back to the streets to protest – while I still can – against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill at one of the 25 protests that took place across the UK. […]

The unstoppable march of the masts

Mick Fletcher

Most of us want it both ways.  We are keen, often desperate, to get improved mobile coverage. At the same time, we don’t want our precious landscapes scarred by ugly and alien structures. Reconciling the two will always be tricky. However, a little-known piece of legislation called the Electronic Communications Code (EC code) tips the […]

Racism is a pandemic and we are not handling it well.

Anthea Simmons

I was in two minds as to whether to put out the article below in the light of the publication of the Sewell Report. We will cover the report in full very shortly…urgently. Its message, if the extract below is anything to go by, must not get a hold on the popular consciousness. This is […]

Listen to our debate on the future of the NHS and healthcare

Anthea Simmons

On 24 March, WCB ran the second of a series of Zoom Q&A events on hot political and socio-economic topics. In the wake of the publication of the Government’s white paper on the future of health and social care, the sale of GP practices to a US healthcare provider, privatisation of test and trace, the […]

From mines to vines: exchanging the seeds of destruction for the fruits of hope.

Editor-in-chief

In the ever-expanding desert of negative news come these joyous oases of compassion and positivity. Women in War and International Politics (WIWIP) at King’s College, London and Roots of Peace have collaborated to bring an exciting panel event to discuss the role of women in de-mining and post-conflict reconstruction through sustainable agriculture in Afghanistan, and […]

Time to call out the hate that dare not speak its name

Rosemary Schonfeld and Simon Chater

Politicians and opinion leaders must speak out on the benefits of immigration if Britain is to have any chance of regaining its rightful place at the heart of Europe. Elephant in the room As James Carville didn’t quite say during Bill Clinton’s 1992 US presidential campaign, “It’s immigration, stupid”. That’s the issue that drove the […]