Miami Five victory: Court of Appeal rules that Rene Gonzalez can come to Britain.

Photo from The Morning Star - Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez

JUDGES overruled the Home Office yesterday after it tried to block a member of the Miami Five from visiting Britain to engage in talks about Cuba-US relations in the Commons.
US-born Rene Gonzalez was refused a visitor’s visa twice last year after he was invited by MPs to speak at the International Commission of Inquiry into the Five as a key witness.

Now, Court of Appeal judges decided that the refusals breach the freedom to receive and impart information under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The judges also refused to let the Home Office appeal against their decision at the Supreme Court.

Cuba Solidarity Campaign director Rob Miller told the Star: “This is fantastic news and it’s about time that common sense prevails.
“We look forward to welcoming Mr Gonzalez, the other four heroes — Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez and Antonio Guerrero — and their families in Britain as soon as possible.”
Mr Miller spoke from Cuba, where he is with Mr Gonzalez to discuss how and when he will travel to Britain to meet MPs.

A group of 28 MPs — including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell — intervened in the legal battle last year by writing to judges to state that the Home Office was violating the ECHR.
Also, 126 MPs signed a parliamentary motion in 2012 calling for Mr Gonzalez’s visitation rights.

‘We are all in this together’ Conservative Party – UK

Photo from The Canary - The cabinet elite.

We’re all in this together is a common phrase Conservative party MPs like to use. But we are not all in this together. Here are the reasons why:
1. 53% of the cabinet was was privately educated. Yet only 7% of the UK population goes to private school.
The cuts the Tories want to make in education will impact upon the huge majority, students in state schools. With less than half of the cabinet attending state schools, it is easy to see why they are so out of touch.
2. 50% of the UK cabinet attended the Oxbridge universities.
Also, the prime minister and the chancellor were both members of the Bullingdon Club – a drinking club for the wealthiest students at Oxford University. It is claimed that one of the “pranks” members of the Bullingdon Club partake in is burning £50 notes in front of homeless people.
Considering their privileged upbringing, it is hard to fathom how the government can have sympathy with ordinary students. They’ve already lumbered students with fees of £9,000 and may yet increase them.
3. The UK has a cabinet that is two thirds male.
Cameron’s cabinet is not reflective of the British public. Maybe if there was a higher representation of women, the government would have had the guts to change the “tampon tax’  from luxury to essential.  Instead, women will continue to pay tax on an item they have no choice in buying.
4. 96% of the government is white, compared to 86% of the general population. These figures may go some way to explaining why the Conservative statement from the home secretary, Theresa May, who said it was “impossible to build a cohesive society” with high immigration.
In 2013, an84 year old man died after being held in shackles for five hours by UK immigration officials. A recent inquest said May’s “home office rules” were to blame.
5. Cameron is unable to answer Jeremy Corbyn’s questions, sent in by ordinary people who them answered, at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Cameron would not confirm that his planned tax credit cuts would not make people worse off from April 2016, even though he knows ordinary people will suffer.
6. It appears the Conservative party is so out of touch with Scottish people that it may well end the union. The English votes for English laws (Evel) legislation will fundamentally change the nature of “one member one vote’, with Scottish MPs claiming they will be second-class MPs.
7.  Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, also promised that junior doctors would not get a pay cut. He was forced to back track on this promise, because junior doctors working longer hours will receive a pay cut.
Since then he has claimed junior doctors will get an 11% pay rise. Once again he has been proven wrong, being accused of “manipulating the figures’  because most junior doctors will get a real terms cut of 26%.
Yet Cameron backed the MPs’ pay rise of 10% by saying: you’re paid a rate for the job and you should take the rate for the job. This is despite the fact Cameron has enforced public sector pay being capped at 1% for the next four years.

The platitude “we’re all in this together” is simply not true. If we were in this together, equality would be entrenched in society. Instead, the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting even poorer.