From Allen Keep

Thursday 5 December 2024

I'd like to share here my recent email to the Councillors of Calder Ward. Here it is.

Dear Comrades.
I write to you as a resident of Calder Ward as you are my elected representatives on Calderdale Council and as a member of Halifax Fiends of Palestine a local group affiliated to the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

You are aware that the Local Government Pension Scheme is managed for Calderdale Council by the West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF) which provides the same role for our neighbouring authorities. Council employees have their contributions to the WYPF deducted from their wages and the Council meets their employer obligations (about three quarters of the pension fund) through the Council Tax i.e. from all your Calder Ward residents who are liable.

As a contributor through my council tax, I want my contribution and all contributions to be invested ethically and responsibly by WYPF and I believe a great many council employees and fellow residents in Calder Ward will feel the same, as may well those who are already in receipt of a WYPF pension.

WYPF claim they are committed to responsible investment. The Investment Strategy Statement (ISS) they are obliged to make includes the Fund's views on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors including their expectations of the companies they invest in and the social and environmental impact of their business practices.

Unfortunately, as of 31st March 2024, the PSC has identified that £995m of WYPF's holdings are invested in companies complicit in genocide, apartheid and human rights violations in Palestine.

As an example, WYPF invests in BAE systems as confirmed to me personally by their Responsible Investment Engagement Manager. As you know, BAE produces vital components for the F35 Jet produced by Lockheed-Martin (which WYPF also invests in).

Your Government recently refused to suspend licenses to BAE systems allowing them to continue to sell vital components to Lockheed-Martin so they could continue to sell these weapons of war to Israel.

It is undeniable that these jets are used to commit war crimes against an occupied people in Gaza. Indeed, the day before David Lammy met with Netanyahu following Labour's election victory, Netanyahu gave a televised briefing advising that he had personally authorised an attack in Al-Mawasi which he freely acknowledged was a declared "safe zone". The target was Mohammed Dief a Hamas leader who is, like Netanyahu, the subject of a proposed ICC arrest warrant. The attack murdered 89 civilians and injured hundreds, disproportionately women and children. It was conducted by an F35 jet.

That is a war crime in which WYPF is directly complicit
I should remind you that according to International Law Gaza is illegally occupied by Israel. I will also remind you that the highest court on earth, the ICJ has found that a plausible genocide is taking place in Gaza and that ICJ rulings on interim measures to prevent genocide are binding on all member states. Those rulings include a demand that Israel ends its occupation in Gaza and that member states uphold this demand and do everything in their power to mitigate against genocide and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

The ESG officer for WYPF made it clear to me that they could only alter their position on investment in BAE and others via a change in Government policy. You will have a view on current government policy on Israel which I'd be happy to hear as I'm sure your constituents would.
Our view is that short of a change in this Government's, your government's, position on licenses to Israel and divestment, boycott and sanctions generally we must continue to pressurize WYPF to divest from companies such as BAE.

We believe that a key step in doing so would be for WYPF's Council partners, in this case your Labour Council, to demand they divest from companies like BAE who profit from war crimes. We don't believe that our Calderdale staff, pensioners and residents should see their contributions invested in such companies.

We will campaign to encourage your Council, our Council, to demand that WYPF do not continue with such investments in our name.

My question to you is therefore very simple. Can we count on your support for this campaign?

I look forward to your responses.

Please note that I intend to make this letter public.
Regards,
Allen

I'd also like to report back on my attendance at Calder Ward Forum on 2.12.24 following this letter. I published the letter on our local community Facebook page and I have reported back on that page.

I wrote to the Cllrs. On 13th November as above and again on the 20th November. As I received no response (and still haven't) apart from a helpful reply from Cllr. Courtney offering to share information I therefore attended Ward Forum and spoke in the "open forum" section of the meeting. 

The Cllrs. decided my email could not go on the formal agenda for the meeting. Before the meeting, I discussed the protocol for the "open forum" section of the meeting with the local Council officer for recording the meeting. 

Before speaking, I asked the Chair (Cllr Courtney) if she would prefer to clear the issue currently being discussed (at considerable length in a somewhat hostile environment) which was about parking issues. I was however invited to speak and simply read out my email as published here and asked why there had been no response and what the response was from each Cllr.

Cllr. Timbers responded, seemingly on behalf of all the Ward Cllrs. (as no other Cllr. spoke) and, as he later claimed, reflecting the "collective response" of the Labour Council to what he described as why didn't he just relay that answer to me

Timbers pointed out that the Ward Cllrs. had not replied to my email as the same question had been put to Council and therefore they had effectively already responded to it.

I was given no opportunity whatsoever in this "open forum" to respond to Cllr. Timbers so I would like to point out the following. 

My question to local Ward Councillors and that put to full council were not the same. Timbers' response does not explain why there was no response to the question I asked on 13.11.24 and the council meeting on 27.11 24 two weeks later. If Cllr Timbers felt the Council's answer to a question I didn't ask was sufficient to answer a question I asked of the ward councillors two weeks previously, why didn't he just relay that answer to me between 27.11.24 and 2.12.24.?

In any case, Cllr. Timbers is not responsible for the Council's response. The formal response to the question presented to full council on WYPF has not been given according to the Council's Democratic Services unit (I spoke to them). They told me that this is given, in writing, to the questioner following the meeting and has not been issued. The verbal answer given in the chamber is not minuted and not the official response of the Council I was told. 

I was alerted by a colleague that Cllr. Timbers had given his own account of the question and answer at full council on his Facebook page but I wasn't able to see it in the ward meeting because, despite being his constituent, he has blocked me.

Cllr. Timbers went on to say in the ward meeting that there was nothing the Council could do about divestment by WYPF because of their legal responsibilities towards their pensioners. He cited, somewhat gleefully, the case of Cowans V Scargill in 1985. Note the latter name and the date. 

This was an anti-union legal ruling made during the miners' strike which denied the NUM their democratic control over their own funds and how they were invested. Cllr. Timbers may have thought I hadn't heard of this ruling but I'm sadly old enough to remember it. 

This "legal precedent" was not cited in the Council chamber as I recall. It would be an unfortunate case to cite by a Labour Council anyway and it didn't answer my question which was whether my ward Councillors support our campaign.  

Cllr Timbers made it clear to me after the meeting that he does not support the campaign, which did not come as a shock.

Following Cllr. Timbers' response the "open forum" conversation returned immediately to lengthy and often bitter contributions about parking and a statement from a constituent about filming in Heptonstall.

Despite having my hand up for a very long period of time the Chair declined to call me back in to respond to the reply I had been given by Cllr Timbers. 

In a 2.5 hour meeting I was able to speak for the length of time it took me to read my email as invited by the chair. 

Many others were invited to speak several times, with many speaking at some length. I'm pretty sure that I was the only person to speak but was then not invited to speak again.  I think my issue (the forum is subtitled "what is important to you") took around 15 minutes of a discussion that lasted 2 hours but then I am used to the marginalisation of pro-Palestinian voices in our democracy.

Following the meeting, I asked Cllrs. Ahmed and Courtney, who did not speak at all, for their answer to my question of support. Cllr. Ahmed said he didn't know whether he supported the campaign or not and that the issue was not "black and white" Cllr Courtney said she "couldn't answer that question now"

This is by far the end of the matter. In the meantime, I welcome comments from our ward Cllrs. or anyone else regarding their support or otherwise for our campaign. 

I think I have a clear answer from Cllr. Timbers but if he would like to debate or discuss the issue further with me at a time and venue of his choosing, I will be happy to attend.

Or you could just respond here Jonathan?