TUC26 reaffirms welfare not warfare and backs BDS

There was a strong showing for peace and international solidarity on the final day of TUC26 Congress. London CND Chair Carol Turner reports.

For the second year running, and with the support from the General Council (GC), Congress backed a welfare not warfare position, expressed in Motion 75, Building Real Security, from the University and College Union (UCU) which reaffirmed support for the TUC’s ‘Wages Not Weapons campaign, prioritising investment in workers and public services’. Moving the motion, General Secretary Jo Grady argued: ‘The global arms race does not make us feel safer. Security is having stable employment with a decent wage.’

This is ‘the most progressive motion on the agenda,’ she argued. ‘Because every pound spent on bombs doesn't get a homeless person off the streets. It doesn't build a new school. It doesn't feed a hungry child. It doesn't help a desperate NHS, a crumbling transport infrastructure or the crucial need for a programme of insourcing and re nationalisation.

The historic decision of Wednesday was Composite Motion 77 on Palestine, which was passed unanimously supporting the Palestinian-led movement for boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) for the first time. The decision is a direct challenge to Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s statement that he ‘whole-heartedly opposes the BDS movement’. 

Zita Holbourne, Artists Union of England (AUE), who moved the composite, said she was ‘proud to have led boycotts against apartheid in South Africa as a student, and to stand with Palestine today’. PSC Deputy Director Peter Leary welcomed the decision which ‘recognises that the limited steps announced by the government fall far short of meeting Britain’s legal obligations not to assist Israel’s ongoing genocide, apartheid, illegal occupation and other violations of international law’. 

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS welcomed it too: ‘This mass movement of solidarity with the people of Palestine, led by PSC with many trades unions affiliated to it, is the reason why your government was compelled to adopt minor measures in the right direction to end its complicity. But it’s way short of UK’s legal obligations to end complicity in genocide, in apartheid, in illegal occupation. So we must work further to grow our BDS movement.’

Congress also debated Cuba and Ukraine. Motion 76, which called on the UK government to oppose US sanctions and reject military intervention against Cuba and backed the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, was also carried; as was Motion 78 instructing the GC ‘to continue campaigning in solidarity with Ukraine’ and work with the European and International TUCs to highlight the plight of workers in ‘Russian occupied Ukrainian territory’. However, the motion made no reference to the need for a ceasefire or negotiation to end the four-year war. During a debate on another part of the agenda, Motion 12 from the TUC Black Workers Conference, which addressed the growth of far-right parties, was also carried. 

Details of the Congress, including the text of motions and a link to the TUC YouTube channel with live coverage of the proceedings are available here.