Jeremy Corbyn’s win today marks a revolutionary, seismic change in British politics. But it is also so much more than that.

It’s not just the fact that he won, but that he won so decisively in the first round, with almost 60% of the vote, victorious in each of the three Labour Party ‘chapters’ – party members, affiliated supporters, and £3 registered supporters.

With so clear and strong a mandate from the Party, trades unions and cooperatives, and wider society including supposedly ‘disengaged’ young people, even his strongest detractors among Labour MPs have little choice but to go along with the euphoric tide that swept him to the leadership – no matter how little they share in that euphoria themselves.

And it is testament to Corbyn’s political integrity that his first act as Labour Leader and Leader of the Opposition was to take to the streets in today’s ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ march in London, which begins at Park Lane and ends, symbolically, at Downing Street.

Corbyn’s campaign and its resounding success have destroyed the New Labour project for good. Tony Blair and his entire legacy are reduced to rubble in an democratic earthquake of overwhelming power.

Blair himself is looking more likely than ever to end up in a court of law charged with the ultimate war crime – that of unprovoked military aggression against another nation. Others that colluded in the lies that took Britain to war in Iraq must also be fearing for the future.

But it’s the Tories who will really be quaking at the knees

But the deeper angst is on the Government side. David Cameron has good reason to fear the coming of Corbyn. His Bullingdon Club arrogance and Oxford Union debating skills will cut little ice against Corbyn, who will provide the serious, penetrating, analytical, humane opposition we so desperately need.

Any attempt by Cameron to stick with the old ‘yah boo’ style of Prime Minister’s Questions will look trivial, inept, condescending and utterly inappropriate.

For many years now he and his party have faced a Labour opposition that essentially shares their world view, so the debate has been focused on small but symbolic issues of detail. Both parties have colluded, for example, in

• economic ‘austerity’ – the imposition of deep public sector spending cuts that overwhelmingly impact on the poor, while flooding banks with cheap money to maintain booms in asset values for the exclusive benefit of the rich;
• the dismantling and privatization of the National Health Service and other essential public services;
• the idea that unaccountable corporations acting in pursuit of profit are preferable to public service, cooperative, state and community provision;
• the broad neoliberal agenda of supporting the power of international capital against people and the environment, as manifest in ‘free trade’, ‘investor protection’ and other provisions of TTIP, CETA and so on;
• nuclear power – no matter how high the cost;
• maintaining a ‘two track’ approach on climate change – giving diplomatic support to strong international agreements, while supporting fossil fuel industries with friendly policies and tax breaks;
• the desire to maintain nuclear weapons, at enormous expense, whose exclusive purpose is the mass murder of millions of people;
• membership of NATO, the world’s most powerful and aggressive military alliance;
• Britain’s role as a lackey to US power, unfailingly lending military and diplomatic support to both covert and overt US aggression whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere;
• unquestioning support for key military allies of the US, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia, no matter how egregious their crimes and disregard for international law including the Geneva Conventions.

The remarkable thing about Corbyn is that he is not merely luke-warm on some of these issues in the manner of his predecessor Ed Miliband, but that he rejects the entire package outright.

That 90% of ‘common ground’ that once existed between the two parties has now entirely evaporated. From now on Labour’s opposition will be real, serious, profound and principled.

This political earthquake still has a long way to run …

Corbyn’s opposition role will of course have huge environmental implications. Uniquely among the candidates for the Labour leadership, he advanced a powerful ‘green’ manifesto which set out a series of important policies on everything from fracking and nuclear power (against) to community energy and renewables (for) and conserving the integrity of our ecosystems on land and in sea.

And now he and his shadow ministers will be vigorously advancing those policies which promise – in line with opinion polls of renewable energy and other issues – to be overwhelmingly popular.

He will also be vociferous in his opposition to the viciously anti-environmental policies of the Conservative government – for which they have so far escaped serious political consequences. No longer will Cameron, Rudd and others be allowed to get away with talking green while attacking the environment by every means available to them.

That opposition will, moreover, be reflected in the media. Often in the most unflattering terms of course – what else would you expect in the Mail, Express, Sun, Times, Star and Telegraph? But bit by bit, the truth will shine through.

Perhaps the biggest change will be reflected in the BBC, which is constitutionally required to maintain political ‘balance’ between government and opposition and which, moreover, is itself under attack from a Government determined to ‘cut it down to size’ by limiting its services and reducing its funding base.

We can therefore expect the entire ‘centre ground’ of British political thought to shift markedly to the left – in the process exposing the current government as the exteme right-wing ideologues they are.

A green and socialist alliance across the Atlantic?

But the repercussions will also be international. Corbyn’s success both reflects and will in turn inspire left wing, anti-austerity parties and movements like Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.

And it will echo across the Atlantic where the polls show the avowedly socialist and environmentally committed Bernie Sanders looking ever more likely to defeat the neoconservative Hillary Clinton and become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

The story of Clinton’s decline from well above 50% to below 40% has been almost precisely mirrored by Sanders’s rise, from below 10% to above 30% today – and in my book he’s the clear favourite for the nomination for all the same reasons that Corbyn won today.

If Sanders goes so far as to win the Presidency in November 2016 – an entirely credible proposition given the weakness of the Republican candidates and the likelihood of a Donald Trump split-off right-wing candidature – that raises the prospect of what would until today have looked impossible: a trans-Atlantic green and socialist alliance of Jeremy Corbyn and President Sanders.

And of course that would hugely boost Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2020 UK general election. Forget Obama’s increasingly hollow promise of “Yes we can!” – the cry will be “Yes we bloody well will!”

Not a moment too soon.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan. His selection adds another interesting candidate to the race to be London’s next Mayor.

The Green Party candidate Sian Berry has a worthy opponent in Khan, the man who infamously led Labour’s anti-Green ‘attack unit’ during the recent General Election campaign.

The selection of Sadiq Khan as Labour’s candidate is welcome in one particular respect: it helps to maintain the principle that no-one can be elected Mayor of London if they support the expansion of Heathrow airport.

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson established that principle between them, but Tessa Jowell would have broken it – and would therefore have had a hard time against the likely Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, who is vociferously opposed to the airport’s expansion.

This may make a difference to the final result of the Mayoral election, because voters’ second preferences count. If the Greens come third then their voters’ substantial number of second preferences will be redistributed. Tessa Jowell would have had very little credibility for this part of the electorate.

Heathrow no, Gatwick yes – too bad about the climate

However the situation with Sadiq Khan is more complex. He opposes the expansion of Heathrow – but favours expanding London’s other big airport at Gatwick. According to an Evening Standard report, Khan says he has “thought long and hard” about what they describe as the “aviation capacity crisis”.

He stressed he was “not anti-aviation” and is in support of a new runway being built to expand Gatwick. Of course the Standard often misrepresents people and gets things wrong. But on the same date Khan himself wrote an article for City AM in which he said:

“I believe the answer to the airport capacity problem lies in expanding Gatwick and making Heathrow better, not bigger.”

Khan may have thought long and hard about airport capacity, but has he given any thought at all to dangerous human-triggered climate-change?

There are many reasons for opposing Heathrow expansion, including noise, air pollution, road traffic congestion, and the destruction of housing. Khan shows every sign of taking those arguments seriously.

But if he was also opposed to enabling more take-offs and landings at Heathrow because of the increasing contribution aircraft emissions are making to climate change, he would be opposing the expansion of Gatwick too.

The only intellectually consistent position from which to champion airport expansion is the systematic denial of climate science. There is no sign that Khan takes this view. Therefore, his opposition to Heathrow expansion runs the risk of being in the end nothing more than NIMBY-ism.

Who is the greenest of them all?

For the sake of building cross-party co-operation against the Tory Government, it would be good if Green voters felt they could give a Labour candidate their second preferences. But what will Sadiq Khan do to earn them?

Without standing firm against London airports expansion full stop, as Greens stand firm, it’s as yet hard to say. And, given that Khan is likely to be up against the renowned green-leaning Zac Goldsmith – a former editor of The Ecologist – he will have his work cut out.

However even Goldsmith – whose opposition to Heathrow expansion is a key platform of his campaign for the mayoralty – is curiously silent on the bigger issues.

In a thundering editorial in the Evening Standard last May, for example, he lambasted Heathrow expansion citing air pollution, traffic congestion and BAA’s monopolistic tendencies, but had nothing to say on either climate change or whether Gatwick expansion would be acceptable.

The reality is that, as we lean into this mayoral election race in London, the only thing that Greens can say with one clear voice is: vote Green. Vote for our superb candidate, Sian Berry.

If Corbyn can come from being a complete outsider to being the hot favourite to win the Labour leadership, then surely it can be time too for Londoners to get behind the only candidate who can be trusted to stand firm against any more crowding of our skies – and pollution of our atmosphere.

Let the Green momentum build …

Event: Sian Berry will be speaking on this issue in London today, Saturday 12th September. Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8EP starting 2pm.

With: Keith Taylor, Green Party MEP, Prof Alice Bows-Larkin, Tyndall Centre, Manchester University; Christine Taylor, Stop Heathrow Expansion; Brendon Sewill, Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign; Leo Murray, A Free Ride; Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace; Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth; Sian Berry, Green London Mayoral Candidate; Cllr Jonathan Essex South East Greens; John Stewart HACAN.

Victor Anderson is a former Green Party Member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is the Green Party’s national Transport Spokesperson. Both are core members of Green House.

Jeremy Corbyn’s win today marks a revolutionary, seismic change in British politics. But it is also so much more than that.

It’s not just the fact that he won, but that he won so decisively in the first round, with almost 60% of the vote, victorious in each of the three Labour Party ‘chapters’ – party members, affiliated supporters, and £3 registered supporters.

With so clear and strong a mandate from the Party, trades unions and cooperatives, and wider society including supposedly ‘disengaged’ young people, even his strongest detractors among Labour MPs have little choice but to go along with the euphoric tide that swept him to the leadership – no matter how little they share in that euphoria themselves.

And it is testament to Corbyn’s political integrity that his first act as Labour Leader and Leader of the Opposition was to take to the streets in today’s ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ march in London, which begins at Park Lane and ends, symbolically, at Downing Street.

Corbyn’s campaign and its resounding success have destroyed the New Labour project for good. Tony Blair and his entire legacy are reduced to rubble in an democratic earthquake of overwhelming power.

Blair himself is looking more likely than ever to end up in a court of law charged with the ultimate war crime – that of unprovoked military aggression against another nation. Others that colluded in the lies that took Britain to war in Iraq must also be fearing for the future.

But it’s the Tories who will really be quaking at the knees

But the deeper angst is on the Government side. David Cameron has good reason to fear the coming of Corbyn. His Bullingdon Club arrogance and Oxford Union debating skills will cut little ice against Corbyn, who will provide the serious, penetrating, analytical, humane opposition we so desperately need.

Any attempt by Cameron to stick with the old ‘yah boo’ style of Prime Minister’s Questions will look trivial, inept, condescending and utterly inappropriate.

For many years now he and his party have faced a Labour opposition that essentially shares their world view, so the debate has been focused on small but symbolic issues of detail. Both parties have colluded, for example, in

• economic ‘austerity’ – the imposition of deep public sector spending cuts that overwhelmingly impact on the poor, while flooding banks with cheap money to maintain booms in asset values for the exclusive benefit of the rich;
• the dismantling and privatization of the National Health Service and other essential public services;
• the idea that unaccountable corporations acting in pursuit of profit are preferable to public service, cooperative, state and community provision;
• the broad neoliberal agenda of supporting the power of international capital against people and the environment, as manifest in ‘free trade’, ‘investor protection’ and other provisions of TTIP, CETA and so on;
• nuclear power – no matter how high the cost;
• maintaining a ‘two track’ approach on climate change – giving diplomatic support to strong international agreements, while supporting fossil fuel industries with friendly policies and tax breaks;
• the desire to maintain nuclear weapons, at enormous expense, whose exclusive purpose is the mass murder of millions of people;
• membership of NATO, the world’s most powerful and aggressive military alliance;
• Britain’s role as a lackey to US power, unfailingly lending military and diplomatic support to both covert and overt US aggression whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere;
• unquestioning support for key military allies of the US, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia, no matter how egregious their crimes and disregard for international law including the Geneva Conventions.

The remarkable thing about Corbyn is that he is not merely luke-warm on some of these issues in the manner of his predecessor Ed Miliband, but that he rejects the entire package outright.

That 90% of ‘common ground’ that once existed between the two parties has now entirely evaporated. From now on Labour’s opposition will be real, serious, profound and principled.

This political earthquake still has a long way to run …

Corbyn’s opposition role will of course have huge environmental implications. Uniquely among the candidates for the Labour leadership, he advanced a powerful ‘green’ manifesto which set out a series of important policies on everything from fracking and nuclear power (against) to community energy and renewables (for) and conserving the integrity of our ecosystems on land and in sea.

And now he and his shadow ministers will be vigorously advancing those policies which promise – in line with opinion polls of renewable energy and other issues – to be overwhelmingly popular.

He will also be vociferous in his opposition to the viciously anti-environmental policies of the Conservative government – for which they have so far escaped serious political consequences. No longer will Cameron, Rudd and others be allowed to get away with talking green while attacking the environment by every means available to them.

That opposition will, moreover, be reflected in the media. Often in the most unflattering terms of course – what else would you expect in the Mail, Express, Sun, Times, Star and Telegraph? But bit by bit, the truth will shine through.

Perhaps the biggest change will be reflected in the BBC, which is constitutionally required to maintain political ‘balance’ between government and opposition and which, moreover, is itself under attack from a Government determined to ‘cut it down to size’ by limiting its services and reducing its funding base.

We can therefore expect the entire ‘centre ground’ of British political thought to shift markedly to the left – in the process exposing the current government as the exteme right-wing ideologues they are.

A green and socialist alliance across the Atlantic?

But the repercussions will also be international. Corbyn’s success both reflects and will in turn inspire left wing, anti-austerity parties and movements like Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.

And it will echo across the Atlantic where the polls show the avowedly socialist and environmentally committed Bernie Sanders looking ever more likely to defeat the neoconservative Hillary Clinton and become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

The story of Clinton’s decline from well above 50% to below 40% has been almost precisely mirrored by Sanders’s rise, from below 10% to above 30% today – and in my book he’s the clear favourite for the nomination for all the same reasons that Corbyn won today.

If Sanders goes so far as to win the Presidency in November 2016 – an entirely credible proposition given the weakness of the Republican candidates and the likelihood of a Donald Trump split-off right-wing candidature – that raises the prospect of what would until today have looked impossible: a trans-Atlantic green and socialist alliance of Jeremy Corbyn and President Sanders.

And of course that would hugely boost Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2020 UK general election. Forget Obama’s increasingly hollow promise of “Yes we can!” – the cry will be “Yes we bloody well will!”

Not a moment too soon.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan. His selection adds another interesting candidate to the race to be London’s next Mayor.

The Green Party candidate Sian Berry has a worthy opponent in Khan, the man who infamously led Labour’s anti-Green ‘attack unit’ during the recent General Election campaign.

The selection of Sadiq Khan as Labour’s candidate is welcome in one particular respect: it helps to maintain the principle that no-one can be elected Mayor of London if they support the expansion of Heathrow airport.

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson established that principle between them, but Tessa Jowell would have broken it – and would therefore have had a hard time against the likely Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, who is vociferously opposed to the airport’s expansion.

This may make a difference to the final result of the Mayoral election, because voters’ second preferences count. If the Greens come third then their voters’ substantial number of second preferences will be redistributed. Tessa Jowell would have had very little credibility for this part of the electorate.

Heathrow no, Gatwick yes – too bad about the climate

However the situation with Sadiq Khan is more complex. He opposes the expansion of Heathrow – but favours expanding London’s other big airport at Gatwick. According to an Evening Standard report, Khan says he has “thought long and hard” about what they describe as the “aviation capacity crisis”.

He stressed he was “not anti-aviation” and is in support of a new runway being built to expand Gatwick. Of course the Standard often misrepresents people and gets things wrong. But on the same date Khan himself wrote an article for City AM in which he said:

“I believe the answer to the airport capacity problem lies in expanding Gatwick and making Heathrow better, not bigger.”

Khan may have thought long and hard about airport capacity, but has he given any thought at all to dangerous human-triggered climate-change?

There are many reasons for opposing Heathrow expansion, including noise, air pollution, road traffic congestion, and the destruction of housing. Khan shows every sign of taking those arguments seriously.

But if he was also opposed to enabling more take-offs and landings at Heathrow because of the increasing contribution aircraft emissions are making to climate change, he would be opposing the expansion of Gatwick too.

The only intellectually consistent position from which to champion airport expansion is the systematic denial of climate science. There is no sign that Khan takes this view. Therefore, his opposition to Heathrow expansion runs the risk of being in the end nothing more than NIMBY-ism.

Who is the greenest of them all?

For the sake of building cross-party co-operation against the Tory Government, it would be good if Green voters felt they could give a Labour candidate their second preferences. But what will Sadiq Khan do to earn them?

Without standing firm against London airports expansion full stop, as Greens stand firm, it’s as yet hard to say. And, given that Khan is likely to be up against the renowned green-leaning Zac Goldsmith – a former editor of The Ecologist – he will have his work cut out.

However even Goldsmith – whose opposition to Heathrow expansion is a key platform of his campaign for the mayoralty – is curiously silent on the bigger issues.

In a thundering editorial in the Evening Standard last May, for example, he lambasted Heathrow expansion citing air pollution, traffic congestion and BAA’s monopolistic tendencies, but had nothing to say on either climate change or whether Gatwick expansion would be acceptable.

The reality is that, as we lean into this mayoral election race in London, the only thing that Greens can say with one clear voice is: vote Green. Vote for our superb candidate, Sian Berry.

If Corbyn can come from being a complete outsider to being the hot favourite to win the Labour leadership, then surely it can be time too for Londoners to get behind the only candidate who can be trusted to stand firm against any more crowding of our skies – and pollution of our atmosphere.

Let the Green momentum build …

Event: Sian Berry will be speaking on this issue in London today, Saturday 12th September. Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8EP starting 2pm.

With: Keith Taylor, Green Party MEP, Prof Alice Bows-Larkin, Tyndall Centre, Manchester University; Christine Taylor, Stop Heathrow Expansion; Brendon Sewill, Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign; Leo Murray, A Free Ride; Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace; Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth; Sian Berry, Green London Mayoral Candidate; Cllr Jonathan Essex South East Greens; John Stewart HACAN.

Victor Anderson is a former Green Party Member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is the Green Party’s national Transport Spokesperson. Both are core members of Green House.

Jeremy Corbyn’s win today marks a revolutionary, seismic change in British politics. But it is also so much more than that.

It’s not just the fact that he won, but that he won so decisively in the first round, with almost 60% of the vote, victorious in each of the three Labour Party ‘chapters’ – party members, affiliated supporters, and £3 registered supporters.

With so clear and strong a mandate from the Party, trades unions and cooperatives, and wider society including supposedly ‘disengaged’ young people, even his strongest detractors among Labour MPs have little choice but to go along with the euphoric tide that swept him to the leadership – no matter how little they share in that euphoria themselves.

And it is testament to Corbyn’s political integrity that his first act as Labour Leader and Leader of the Opposition was to take to the streets in today’s ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ march in London, which begins at Park Lane and ends, symbolically, at Downing Street.

Corbyn’s campaign and its resounding success have destroyed the New Labour project for good. Tony Blair and his entire legacy are reduced to rubble in an democratic earthquake of overwhelming power.

Blair himself is looking more likely than ever to end up in a court of law charged with the ultimate war crime – that of unprovoked military aggression against another nation. Others that colluded in the lies that took Britain to war in Iraq must also be fearing for the future.

But it’s the Tories who will really be quaking at the knees

But the deeper angst is on the Government side. David Cameron has good reason to fear the coming of Corbyn. His Bullingdon Club arrogance and Oxford Union debating skills will cut little ice against Corbyn, who will provide the serious, penetrating, analytical, humane opposition we so desperately need.

Any attempt by Cameron to stick with the old ‘yah boo’ style of Prime Minister’s Questions will look trivial, inept, condescending and utterly inappropriate.

For many years now he and his party have faced a Labour opposition that essentially shares their world view, so the debate has been focused on small but symbolic issues of detail. Both parties have colluded, for example, in

• economic ‘austerity’ – the imposition of deep public sector spending cuts that overwhelmingly impact on the poor, while flooding banks with cheap money to maintain booms in asset values for the exclusive benefit of the rich;
• the dismantling and privatization of the National Health Service and other essential public services;
• the idea that unaccountable corporations acting in pursuit of profit are preferable to public service, cooperative, state and community provision;
• the broad neoliberal agenda of supporting the power of international capital against people and the environment, as manifest in ‘free trade’, ‘investor protection’ and other provisions of TTIP, CETA and so on;
• nuclear power – no matter how high the cost;
• maintaining a ‘two track’ approach on climate change – giving diplomatic support to strong international agreements, while supporting fossil fuel industries with friendly policies and tax breaks;
• the desire to maintain nuclear weapons, at enormous expense, whose exclusive purpose is the mass murder of millions of people;
• membership of NATO, the world’s most powerful and aggressive military alliance;
• Britain’s role as a lackey to US power, unfailingly lending military and diplomatic support to both covert and overt US aggression whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere;
• unquestioning support for key military allies of the US, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia, no matter how egregious their crimes and disregard for international law including the Geneva Conventions.

The remarkable thing about Corbyn is that he is not merely luke-warm on some of these issues in the manner of his predecessor Ed Miliband, but that he rejects the entire package outright.

That 90% of ‘common ground’ that once existed between the two parties has now entirely evaporated. From now on Labour’s opposition will be real, serious, profound and principled.

This political earthquake still has a long way to run …

Corbyn’s opposition role will of course have huge environmental implications. Uniquely among the candidates for the Labour leadership, he advanced a powerful ‘green’ manifesto which set out a series of important policies on everything from fracking and nuclear power (against) to community energy and renewables (for) and conserving the integrity of our ecosystems on land and in sea.

And now he and his shadow ministers will be vigorously advancing those policies which promise – in line with opinion polls of renewable energy and other issues – to be overwhelmingly popular.

He will also be vociferous in his opposition to the viciously anti-environmental policies of the Conservative government – for which they have so far escaped serious political consequences. No longer will Cameron, Rudd and others be allowed to get away with talking green while attacking the environment by every means available to them.

That opposition will, moreover, be reflected in the media. Often in the most unflattering terms of course – what else would you expect in the Mail, Express, Sun, Times, Star and Telegraph? But bit by bit, the truth will shine through.

Perhaps the biggest change will be reflected in the BBC, which is constitutionally required to maintain political ‘balance’ between government and opposition and which, moreover, is itself under attack from a Government determined to ‘cut it down to size’ by limiting its services and reducing its funding base.

We can therefore expect the entire ‘centre ground’ of British political thought to shift markedly to the left – in the process exposing the current government as the exteme right-wing ideologues they are.

A green and socialist alliance across the Atlantic?

But the repercussions will also be international. Corbyn’s success both reflects and will in turn inspire left wing, anti-austerity parties and movements like Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece.

And it will echo across the Atlantic where the polls show the avowedly socialist and environmentally committed Bernie Sanders looking ever more likely to defeat the neoconservative Hillary Clinton and become the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.

The story of Clinton’s decline from well above 50% to below 40% has been almost precisely mirrored by Sanders’s rise, from below 10% to above 30% today – and in my book he’s the clear favourite for the nomination for all the same reasons that Corbyn won today.

If Sanders goes so far as to win the Presidency in November 2016 – an entirely credible proposition given the weakness of the Republican candidates and the likelihood of a Donald Trump split-off right-wing candidature – that raises the prospect of what would until today have looked impossible: a trans-Atlantic green and socialist alliance of Jeremy Corbyn and President Sanders.

And of course that would hugely boost Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2020 UK general election. Forget Obama’s increasingly hollow promise of “Yes we can!” – the cry will be “Yes we bloody well will!”

Not a moment too soon.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan. His selection adds another interesting candidate to the race to be London’s next Mayor.

The Green Party candidate Sian Berry has a worthy opponent in Khan, the man who infamously led Labour’s anti-Green ‘attack unit’ during the recent General Election campaign.

The selection of Sadiq Khan as Labour’s candidate is welcome in one particular respect: it helps to maintain the principle that no-one can be elected Mayor of London if they support the expansion of Heathrow airport.

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson established that principle between them, but Tessa Jowell would have broken it – and would therefore have had a hard time against the likely Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, who is vociferously opposed to the airport’s expansion.

This may make a difference to the final result of the Mayoral election, because voters’ second preferences count. If the Greens come third then their voters’ substantial number of second preferences will be redistributed. Tessa Jowell would have had very little credibility for this part of the electorate.

Heathrow no, Gatwick yes – too bad about the climate

However the situation with Sadiq Khan is more complex. He opposes the expansion of Heathrow – but favours expanding London’s other big airport at Gatwick. According to an Evening Standard report, Khan says he has “thought long and hard” about what they describe as the “aviation capacity crisis”.

He stressed he was “not anti-aviation” and is in support of a new runway being built to expand Gatwick. Of course the Standard often misrepresents people and gets things wrong. But on the same date Khan himself wrote an article for City AM in which he said:

“I believe the answer to the airport capacity problem lies in expanding Gatwick and making Heathrow better, not bigger.”

Khan may have thought long and hard about airport capacity, but has he given any thought at all to dangerous human-triggered climate-change?

There are many reasons for opposing Heathrow expansion, including noise, air pollution, road traffic congestion, and the destruction of housing. Khan shows every sign of taking those arguments seriously.

But if he was also opposed to enabling more take-offs and landings at Heathrow because of the increasing contribution aircraft emissions are making to climate change, he would be opposing the expansion of Gatwick too.

The only intellectually consistent position from which to champion airport expansion is the systematic denial of climate science. There is no sign that Khan takes this view. Therefore, his opposition to Heathrow expansion runs the risk of being in the end nothing more than NIMBY-ism.

Who is the greenest of them all?

For the sake of building cross-party co-operation against the Tory Government, it would be good if Green voters felt they could give a Labour candidate their second preferences. But what will Sadiq Khan do to earn them?

Without standing firm against London airports expansion full stop, as Greens stand firm, it’s as yet hard to say. And, given that Khan is likely to be up against the renowned green-leaning Zac Goldsmith – a former editor of The Ecologist – he will have his work cut out.

However even Goldsmith – whose opposition to Heathrow expansion is a key platform of his campaign for the mayoralty – is curiously silent on the bigger issues.

In a thundering editorial in the Evening Standard last May, for example, he lambasted Heathrow expansion citing air pollution, traffic congestion and BAA’s monopolistic tendencies, but had nothing to say on either climate change or whether Gatwick expansion would be acceptable.

The reality is that, as we lean into this mayoral election race in London, the only thing that Greens can say with one clear voice is: vote Green. Vote for our superb candidate, Sian Berry.

If Corbyn can come from being a complete outsider to being the hot favourite to win the Labour leadership, then surely it can be time too for Londoners to get behind the only candidate who can be trusted to stand firm against any more crowding of our skies – and pollution of our atmosphere.

Let the Green momentum build …

Event: Sian Berry will be speaking on this issue in London today, Saturday 12th September. Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8EP starting 2pm.

With: Keith Taylor, Green Party MEP, Prof Alice Bows-Larkin, Tyndall Centre, Manchester University; Christine Taylor, Stop Heathrow Expansion; Brendon Sewill, Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign; Leo Murray, A Free Ride; Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace; Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth; Sian Berry, Green London Mayoral Candidate; Cllr Jonathan Essex South East Greens; John Stewart HACAN.

Victor Anderson is a former Green Party Member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is the Green Party’s national Transport Spokesperson. Both are core members of Green House.

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan. His selection adds another interesting candidate to the race to be London’s next Mayor.

The Green Party candidate Sian Berry has a worthy opponent in Khan, the man who infamously led Labour’s anti-Green ‘attack unit’ during the recent General Election campaign.

The selection of Sadiq Khan as Labour’s candidate is welcome in one particular respect: it helps to maintain the principle that no-one can be elected Mayor of London if they support the expansion of Heathrow airport.

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson established that principle between them, but Tessa Jowell would have broken it – and would therefore have had a hard time against the likely Tory candidate, Zac Goldsmith, who is vociferously opposed to the airport’s expansion.

This may make a difference to the final result of the Mayoral election, because voters’ second preferences count. If the Greens come third then their voters’ substantial number of second preferences will be redistributed. Tessa Jowell would have had very little credibility for this part of the electorate.

Heathrow no, Gatwick yes – too bad about the climate

However the situation with Sadiq Khan is more complex. He opposes the expansion of Heathrow – but favours expanding London’s other big airport at Gatwick. According to an Evening Standard report, Khan says he has “thought long and hard” about what they describe as the “aviation capacity crisis”.

He stressed he was “not anti-aviation” and is in support of a new runway being built to expand Gatwick. Of course the Standard often misrepresents people and gets things wrong. But on the same date Khan himself wrote an article for City AM in which he said:

“I believe the answer to the airport capacity problem lies in expanding Gatwick and making Heathrow better, not bigger.”

Khan may have thought long and hard about airport capacity, but has he given any thought at all to dangerous human-triggered climate-change?

There are many reasons for opposing Heathrow expansion, including noise, air pollution, road traffic congestion, and the destruction of housing. Khan shows every sign of taking those arguments seriously.

But if he was also opposed to enabling more take-offs and landings at Heathrow because of the increasing contribution aircraft emissions are making to climate change, he would be opposing the expansion of Gatwick too.

The only intellectually consistent position from which to champion airport expansion is the systematic denial of climate science. There is no sign that Khan takes this view. Therefore, his opposition to Heathrow expansion runs the risk of being in the end nothing more than NIMBY-ism.

Who is the greenest of them all?

For the sake of building cross-party co-operation against the Tory Government, it would be good if Green voters felt they could give a Labour candidate their second preferences. But what will Sadiq Khan do to earn them?

Without standing firm against London airports expansion full stop, as Greens stand firm, it’s as yet hard to say. And, given that Khan is likely to be up against the renowned green-leaning Zac Goldsmith – a former editor of The Ecologist – he will have his work cut out.

However even Goldsmith – whose opposition to Heathrow expansion is a key platform of his campaign for the mayoralty – is curiously silent on the bigger issues.

In a thundering editorial in the Evening Standard last May, for example, he lambasted Heathrow expansion citing air pollution, traffic congestion and BAA’s monopolistic tendencies, but had nothing to say on either climate change or whether Gatwick expansion would be acceptable.

The reality is that, as we lean into this mayoral election race in London, the only thing that Greens can say with one clear voice is: vote Green. Vote for our superb candidate, Sian Berry.

If Corbyn can come from being a complete outsider to being the hot favourite to win the Labour leadership, then surely it can be time too for Londoners to get behind the only candidate who can be trusted to stand firm against any more crowding of our skies – and pollution of our atmosphere.

Let the Green momentum build …

Event: Sian Berry will be speaking on this issue in London today, Saturday 12th September. Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8EP starting 2pm.

With: Keith Taylor, Green Party MEP, Prof Alice Bows-Larkin, Tyndall Centre, Manchester University; Christine Taylor, Stop Heathrow Expansion; Brendon Sewill, Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign; Leo Murray, A Free Ride; Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace; Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth; Sian Berry, Green London Mayoral Candidate; Cllr Jonathan Essex South East Greens; John Stewart HACAN.

Victor Anderson is a former Green Party Member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is the Green Party’s national Transport Spokesperson. Both are core members of Green House.

Last week, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) joined the ever-more vocal debate on antibiotic resistance, calling on GPs, nurses, pharmacists and dentists alike to rein in inappropriate prescription practices.

According to the institute, 10 million prescriptions for antibiotics are dished out unnecessarily every year, despite  – in the words of NICE Director of the Centre for Clinical Practice Professor Mark Baker – “knowledge amongst GPs that many patients … do not require and will not benefit from antibiotics.”

This intervention is welcome, as are NICE’s newly published guidelines which set out recommendations for the responsible use of antibiotics. The resistance problem is (as we are frequently told by experts including the Chief Medical Officer and WHO officials) set to shake the very foundations of modern medicine.

We must implement every measure possible to safeguard our drugs for future generations, and as overuse of antibiotic in human medicine is the principle driver of resistance in humans, this is a sensible place to start.

Farms emerge as a major engine of drug resistance

However, there is a crucial area that we cannot afford to overlook if we are to have a chance of truly tackling this issue: systematic overuse of antibiotics in farming. Farm animals account for almost two thirds of all antibiotics used in 26 European countries and for approximately 40% of total usage within the UK.

There is a broad consensus of the association between antibiotic consumption in animals and resistance in human infections. For some bacterial infections such as Campylobacter, Salmonella and E. coli, farm antibiotic use is a key cause of resistance.

Emergence of resistance to antibiotics classed as ‘critically important’ for humans is a major recent development, driven in part by inappropriate use of these drugs in farming.

Yet antibiotic use in farming tends to be overlooked. One reason is that farm antibiotic use falls firmly within the scope of Defra, with comparatively little involvement from health officials in the formulation of policy in this area.

The Government’s five year AMR Strategy provides an example of this siloed approach. It fails to include measurable targets for reductions in farm use, despite including targets for use in human medicine. GPs are urged to take action, yet veterinary prescribing practices escape scrutiny.

This dichotomy is a curious one. Misuse of antibiotics in farming is a public health issue. The implications are already being felt by the very healthcare professionals exhorted to curb their prescribing practices.

Within the EU, human infections such as MRSA are being traced back to the farm, and the costs of human resistance from profligate of drugs in farming will increasingly be felt by the NHS.

Professor Baker states that handing out drugs to patients which are unlikely to do the patient any good “is not good practice”. This comment throws current on-farm prescribing practices into sharp relief.

Over 85% of UK farm antibiotic use is for mass medication

Antibiotics are routinely given to healthy animals – in the knowledge that they will not do the animals any ‘good’ in the therapeutic sense. What they will do is to increase the rate at which many animals put on weight, increasing farm profitability.

Within the EU it is legal to routinely treat animals which do not require treatment as a purely preventative measure – an insurance against potential disease outbreaks. In the UK over 85% of farm use is for mass medication.

Farmers may even use the critically important drugs. Whilst medical use of these drugs has declined over the last eight to ten years in the UK – thanks to the hard work of our health professionals – farm use has increased by 35% in last four years.

Sick animals must, of course, be treated. Groups of animals in which there is some incidence of disease may need treatment to avoid contamination. But routine, purely preventative dosing of healthy animals flies in the face of any rationale behind responsible use, and exposes the targets directed at prescribers of human medicine as disintegrated, incoherent and potentially ineffectual.

Why are the principles around ‘responsible’ antibiotic use in human medicine considered less salient when applied to animal medicine?

There appears to be an easy justification: if we do not preventatively treat livestock, disease outbreaks risk impacting welfare and farm profitability. This is indeed the case in intensive systems, where animals are typically kept together indoors in confined spaces, conditions which linked to respiratory diseases and infections such as swine dysentery.

Farm use of antibiotics must be tightly regulated

Dr Ron Daniels, Chair of the UK Sepsis Trust, provides a disconcerting analogy: “Within my intensive care unit that unit, we look after 12 patients treated in isolation. If we changed our system to look after 50 or 100 patients within that same footprint, patients would start to share their bacteria and we would find the spread of resistant bacteria between those patients very quickly.”

Whatever your views on intensive farming, the rationale behind prophylactic use of drugs to groups of healthy animals becomes increasingly questionable as the link between farm use and human resistance grows stronger.

Whilst official policy tells us that such routine use is insupportable, lack of clear guidance on antibiotic usage in animal medicine is putting our health at risk. The VMD, responsible for antibiotic use policy within the UK, has stated that “prescribing practices are known to vary between veterinary surgeons depending on experience, information available and degree of risk considered acceptable.”

We urgently need standardisation of farm use of antibiotics, in take the shape of a coherent policy to phase out routine, prophylactic mass-medication, and dramatically reduce use of the critically important antibiotics.

In human medicine, pushy patients may indeed make things tricky. But in some ways the role of the vet is more complicated than that of the medical doctor: they must contend with the patient – the animal, as well as the client – the owner. Clear regulation is crucial to ensure that pressures are not brought to bear on prescribing decisions.

The medical community must add their voice to the call for measures to save antibiotics for use in unhealthy humans, not in healthy animals. Lack of action risks undermining any progress made in human medicine, and failing to halt the spread of antibiotic resistance which will render our precious drugs useless.

Emma Rose is Campaign, Communications and Lobbying Specialist for the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics – a coalition of health, medical, animal welfare and NGO organisations, supported by the Jeremy Coller Foundation.

Twitter: @ASOAntibiotics

Anti-Fracking campaigners in Lancashire have welcomed a local council’s decision to approve the development of a solar farm – just across the way from the Preston New Road site where Cuadrilla has spent years trying to get permission to carry out hydraulic fracturing.

The solar farm is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 1,300 homes and save approximately 2,310 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, the equivalent of taking 513 large family cars off the road.

Fylde Council unanimously approved the application for the Staining Wood solar farm subject to the completion of a habitat regulation assessment, which it looks likely to pass. The site is expected to be operational by March 2016.

Members of Residents Action on Fylde Fracking (RAFF) who visited the site prior to the planning meeting were impressed with the plans for the site.

LightSource, the company that intends to develop the solar farm, intends to give the land area dual use – allowing sheep to graze on the solar farm, as well as creating “enhanced habitat corridors” and planting new trees in order to increase biodiversity.

Local support for renewable energy

Commenting on the council’s decision, a spokesperson for RAFF said: “RAFF has consistently promoted green energy as an alternative to developing shale gas in Lancashire.

“As well as providing green energy, the plans for this site will enhance the biodiversity of our area, unlike those of Cuadrilla, which are set to destroy natural habitats, pose a threat to public health, destroy our agricultural and tourism industries, and contribute to global warming.”

The council said that it has seen an increase in these types of applications over the last year and they are proving to be popular with local residents. “We are finding that across the borough people are more supportive of this type of renewable energy generation”, observed Matthew Taylor, Fylde Council’s Senior Development Officer.

He added that the area is well suited for solar farms given the area’s good connectivity to the national grid, flat land and higher than average levels of sunlight.

This news comes as the government has announced it intends to drastically cut financial support for solar energy generation in the UK, despite Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd’s promise to “unleash a new solar revolution“ in Britain following her re-election as an MP last May.

Most recently Panasonic, one of the world’s largest electronics companies and a major supplier of solar panels in Britain, urged the government to rethink its proposals that could cause “substantial” and “irreversible” damage to the industry.

‘Missed opportunity’ as offshore wind farm is refused

But the news on offshore wind is less rosy. Energy Minister Lord Bourne has just refused planning approval for the 194 turbine, 970MW Navitus Bay offshore wind farm planned for the English Channel 13.4 miles off the coast from Bournemouth and 10.9 miles from the western tip of the Isle of Wight.

The main reasons given in the decision letter concerned the views out to sea from land, including the Dorset Heritage Coast, and possible harm to tourism. Lord Bourne concluded it would lead to “significant adverse impact on the perception of viewers standing on the coastlines”.

The only recourse for the developer, Navitus Bay, is to apply for a judicial review of the decision, however this would require them to show that the decision was either irrational or unlawful. Project Director Stuart Grant said: “We will now discuss the options available with our shareholders and update stakeholders in due course.”

RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, described the decision as “deeply disappointing” and a “missed opportunity … it means we’re failing to capitalise on the UK’s superb offshore wind resource and the economic benefits it brings.

“Years of hard work and significant investment went into developing this project which could have added £1.6 billion to the economy of the region and created up to 1,700 jobs – it’s most unfortunate that that has now been lost.”

In June Amber Rudd told RenewableUK’s offshore wind conference: “You represent one of the 21st century industrial success stories. You – we – are world leaders. Pioneers. Innovators. The best business minds working with the best engineers, within one of the world’s strongest policy and financial frameworks.

“And working together we now have the most operational offshore wind here in UK waters than anywhere else in the world. And that is where 21st century industrial Britain should be – leading the world. As our friends over at the Department for Business would say – Britain is Great!”

Views versus climate change?

Friends of the Earth south west Campaigner Mike Birkin said: “It’s astonishing that a major clean energy scheme has been rejected on the grounds that it may harm the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.  

“The Jurassic Coast is not designated for its scenic value, and it is hard to see how the sight of wind turbines on the horizon on a clear day could be considered damaging to it.  

“The real threats to Dorset’s fragile coast come from climate change – and potentially oil and gas exploitation. Navitus Bay, which could have been the largest clean energy project in the south of England, would have played a key role in helping to counter this.

“Yet again the UK is turning its back on a major clean energy project that would have created hundreds of jobs, boosted the local economy and helped the nation to tackle climate change.”

Ben Lucas is a writer for DeSmog.uk while also pursuing an Investigative Journalism Master’s degree at the City University of London. He has a particular interest in UK and international politics, economics and environmental issues.

This article was originally published by DeSmog.uk and has been extended by The Ecologist with additional material about offshore wind.

In Israel’s Negev desert, ethnic cleansing is once again rearing its ugly head.

The unrecognised Bedouin village of Umm Al Hiran faces demolition and replacement with a Jewish town, Hiran.

Seven hundred villagers face displacement, and only because they are of the wrong ethnicity.

Umm Al Hiran is one of tens of unrecognised villages in the Negev, inhabited by descendants of the Abu al-Qian tribe. Located in the area of Wadi Attir, the village is divided into two areas: Umm Al Hiran and Attir.

Attir is also facing demolition in order to expand a Jewish National Fund (JNF) forest – in Israel, greenery is more important than Palestinians. Both these areas are in the master plan of the Be’er Sheva metropolitan area.

While the Israeli state has justified the demolition, by claiming the villagers are squatters on government land, the reality is that they were transferred to the Yattir Forest in 1956 by direct order of the military administration at the time. Villagers claim this was done to clear space for military use and that they were given guns to defend the border from West Bank infiltrators.

Umm al Hiran was founded by military order – yet it is ‘unrecognised’

The government never denied the transfer of these villagers. The transfer was verified by a military document that stated the residents of Umm Al Hiran received over 7,000 dunams of this land near the Wadi by direct order in 1956. This would make it their second displacement, after having been moved in 1948 from their original lands, now used by Kibbutz Shoval.

Over the past ten years the village has endured several housing demolitions, due to its unrecognised status. Villagers have been offered the ‘compromise’ of moving to the nearby town of Hura where they will be given an 800 square metre plot of land. The residents refused, as they do not want to be moved for a third time.

Umm Al Hiran’s case is especially significant as it sets a precedent. While other unrecognised villages such as Al-Araqib and Dahmash (see video, below) have faced multiple demolitions, none have been replaced with a Jewish town.

The destruction of Umm Al Hiran will make it easier to destroy other Arab villages within Israel and resettle Jews on their ruins. It would represent will be the beginning of the Prawer Plan, simply under another name. Unfortunately, this outcome is looking increasingly likely.

On August 23, Israeli machinery and bulldozers began building the foundations for the Jewish settlement of Hiran. The villagers now fear their displacement is imminent. The additional presence of the Israeli police suggests the state is determined to begin wiping Umm Al Hiran off the face of the earth.

Video: the unrecognised village of Dahmash in the eyes of its children. Child: Rimas Safyan Aasaf; Videographer and Director: Naif Hammoud; Music: Al Fira’a.

The villagers of Umm Al Hiran have exhausted most avenues to prevent the demolition of their homes. Legal appeals have been fruitless, which is unsurprising considering that the legal system is set up to promote the Jewish character of Israel – hardly a forum in which Palestinian citizens can attain justice.

In May, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that, despite government documents to the contrary, Umm Al Hiran was built on state land, paving the way for its destruction. The judges ruled that the government’s actions did not in any way violate the villager’s rights, and even if such rights were violated, it was “proportionate harm”.

The Judaization of the Negev

However, there is little doubt that if the residents of Umm Al Hiran were Jewish, there would be no problem with their presence on the land. In fact, there are several Jewish-owned farms in the area surrounding the village; none have been asked to leave, and all are recognised by the state.

It seems that in Israel, ‘proportionate harm’ is any harm inflicted on Palestinian citizens for the benefit of the Jewish population.

It is significant that the core group slated to move into Hiran’s 2,400 housing units are nationalist religious Jews, many of whom have ties to West Bank settlements, and will be joined by a smaller number of secular residents from nearby Meitar. A number of the nationalist Jews are living in a nearby forest waiting to move to Hiran.

The town of Hiran, which is said to include a hotel and country club, is part of a larger government settlement program in the Negev that began in 2002 when the Knesset approved the founding of 14 new Israeli communities in the region.

The villagers of Umm Al Hiran have said that they are willing to be a part of the new Hiran development, but doubt that the community would accept them. With rising right-wing sentiments and racist tensions in Israel, this fear is not unfounded.

The politics of unrecognition plays a significant role in the plan to destroy Umm Al Hiran. Unrecognised villages such as Umm Al Hiran do not have access to infrastructure or electricity.

The government has used the issue of lack of services to try and convince Bedouin communities to leave their land and move to government-designated townships (not unlike Native American reserves), where they will be provided with water, electricity and schools.

The irony of this offer is that individual Jewish Israeli families, who set up small farms in the Negev region, enjoy state subsidies. Moreover, one of Umm Al Hiran’s neighbours is a dog farm that enjoys access to water and electricity. So, it seems that it is preferable to be a dog than a Palestinian Bedouin in Israel.

The Bedouin struggle continues

There is no reason that the Bedouin of Umm Al Hiran should have to move in order to have basic services. The villagers of Umm Al Hiran wish to maintain their rural lifestyle and demand official recognition – something that the state has ignored for many years.

The residents of Umm Al Hiran are not prepared to give up without a fight – they have announced their intention to stage protests against their impending displacement; an escalation in their struggle, which has mainly been based on litigation.

They have the support of several Palestinian civil society organisations, such as Adalah and 7amleh who produced a video about the village, in an attempt to raise international awareness.

The demolition of Umm Al Hiran will mark the advent of the Prawer Plan, and must be fought against tooth and nail. Just as Prawer did not pass in 2011, it should be met with the same outrage in 2015.

Alia Al Ghussain is a freelance writer currently based in Haifa. Her writing interests include political and social issues in the Middle East, refugee rights in Europe and the rise of European racism. She tweets @little_a91

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.