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Labour Humanists’ Chair makes speech to party conference

Very pleased to see Labour’s commitment to education, to a stronger school admissions code, to supporting teachers, to compulsory SRE in every state school.

My constituency party Chipping Barnet supports inclusive schools and the best teachers free to teach in any state school.

That is why Labour needs to go further and address the issue of state-funded faith schools. A third of state schools have a religious character and that number is growing through the Tories’ largely unregulated and growing academies and free schools programme.

Many state funded faith schools can and do select pupils on the basis of the religion of their parents. Labour should strengthen its position to make clear that whether someone believes in god or not, or which god they believe in, should have no bearing on whether their child can access a high quality education at their local school.

Those schools can and do put religious requirements on teaching jobs too. Allowing state funded schools to hire, fire, or set a ceiling on promotion for, suitably qualified teachers on religious grounds, must be at odds to Labour’s commitments to equality and to improving teacher quality.

Where I live, all new primary schools just opened or proposed are religious ones- Jewish and Christian. In 5 years time my daughter will be starting school. As a non-religious person who absolutely shares Labour values of equality and for inclusive high quality education, in 5 years time where should I send my daughter, when my local schools are faith schools, not inclusive, and have religious indoctrination as part of the ethos and curriculum?

Conference, let there be no doubt – our education system is only safe with Labour. Only Labour truly supports teachers. Only Labour fights for every young person to reach their educational potential regardless of their background. That is why I am a member.

And that is why Labour should not ignore or play down the threat to our values of equality and inclusion.
Labour must continue to fight for the right to every young person to have a high quality education at their local school
And we should have a national review of religion in education, ensuring the teaching of non-religious world views such as Humanism equally alongside religious perspectives.
We must look to strengthen out policy and rule out any state funded school from discriminating, selecting and segregating along religious grounds.

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World Humanist Congress a huge success

Over 1000 atheist, humanist and other non-religious organisations and activists from over 60 countries from the world gathered in the internationally renowned university city of Oxford  for the World Humanist Congress, hosted by the British Humanist Association (BHA). This was the first time the Congress has been held in the United Kingdom since 1978 and was the the biggest Congress in its history.

Congress celebrated freedom of thought and expression and, on closing the conference, the BHA unveiled the Oxford Declaration on Freedom of Thought and Expression. The Declaration was described by BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson as an ‘urgent manifesto’ for reform and subject to overwhelming popular endorsement on the Congress floor. The Declaration read that ‘The right to freedom of thought and belief is one and the same right for all; no one anywhere should ever be forced into or out of a belief; the right to freedom of expression is global in its scope; there is no right not to be offended, or not to hear contrary opinions; states must not restrict thought and expression merely to protect the government from criticism; and freedom of belief is absolute but the freedom to act on a belief is not.’

Catch up

The World Humanist Congress had many speakers and sessions over three days. The Congress was filmed and those will be available shortly. Many hundreds of photographs are beginning to be uploaded by the BHA and delegates to the World Humanist Congress group on Flickr. You can also catch up with what happened by reading the news reports on the BHA website, searching for #WHC2014 on Twitter, and checking out the Congress Facebook page.

At Congress, Labour Humanists’ chair Naomi Phillips led a session asking ‘Should Humanism matter in politics’ with a truly fantastic panel: Kerry McCarthy MP, Tom Copley AM, Julie Pernet (European Humanist Federation) and Maggie Ardiente (American Humanist Association). We will publish a report of this session soon.

 

 

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CLP supports our aim to be an affiliated society of the Labour Party

Good news from Hampstead and Kilburn CLP, whose Committee adopted the following resolution on 24th July 2014:

The Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party will campaign to accept Labour Humanists as an affiliated Society of the Labour Party.
Copy of the resolution to be sent to:
The NEC
Angela Eagle MP
Lord Kinnock

We hope to see more CLPs following this lead to promote Labour Humanists within the party, to help grow our supoprt and get our voice heard for a more equal, ethical and secular Labour.

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Save the date: No Prayer Breakfast at Labour Conference

We are delighted to announce that, jointly with the British Humanist Association (BHA), we will be holding our ‘No Prayer Breakfast’ fringe meeting at Labour Conference. 8am Tuesday 23 September, Hilton Hotel, Manchester. The venue is just outside the secure zone which means that it is accessible to people not attending conference this year too. We’ll be announcing our line up of fantastic speakers soon.

Here’s a short write up from our 5th No Prayer Breakfast in 2012.

 

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No place for atheists or secularists in Tory Britain?

Leading Tory Eric Pickles MP recently derided atheists as ‘militant’ and ‘intolerant’. He also stated ‘we’re a Christian nation’ and told non-believers to ‘get over it’. These would seems to be quite shocking, exclusionary and ill-informed remarks from the Government lead for Communities, and we questioned whether this was the official Government line.

It was really rather dismaying that the Prime Minister David Cameron carried on where his Cabinet colleague left off, restating that this is a ‘Christian country’ and announcing plans to promote religion – he wants ‘to expand the role of faith’ – and to increase the role religious groups, particularly as service providers.

Where does all this leave non-believers and those who want to see a fairer, more equal and secular state, with no religious privilege? It doesn’t seem that the Conservative-led Government sees a place for us in their vision of Britain.

Join Labour Humanists!

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Now is the time for Labour properly to support teachers

If Labour is serious about supporting teachers and improving quality in classrooms, it must have a change in policy to say that no state-funded school is allowed to place a religious requirement on any teaching or non-teaching job. That is the key message set out in an article published on LabourList, Labour’s biggest independent grassroots e-network.

All types of faith schools (around a third of state-funded schools), from those under Local Authority control to Academies and Free Schools, have the ability to place religious requirements on teaching positions. This means in practice that many state schools are able to hire, fire and promote (or refuse to promote) teachers simply on the basis of their personal beliefs and behaviour outside of school, no matter how well qualified they are. We think this is totally wrong.

Labour’s values should be firmly in favour of equality and inclusion. We are working within the Party and seeking to influence policy at this crucial time to ensure that under the next Labour Government, no teacher’s job prospects could be determined by whether she believes in god or not.

Join us today and help to get our position heard.

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Working for a more compassionate law on assisted dying

Assisted dying has been raised again as a major social, political and media story over the past few months, so we thought it would be helpful to set out our position as a group working for a more equal, ethical and secular Labour Party.

We want to see a more ethical and compassionate law on assisted dying in the UK that would protect the vulnerable but also allow mentally competent adults the right to die with dignity in a time and manner of their own choosing.

For people who are terminally ill or who are permanently and incurably suffering, who have made a clear decision, free from coercion, to end their lives and who are physically unable to do so themselves, we support a change in the law to legalise assisted dying and euthanasia.

We want to support Labour elected representatives working for a change in the law on assisted dying.

We agree with the British Humanist Association’s assessment of the current situation and its case for change:

Currently, the needs and autonomy of patients are often disregarded. Many people are in fact helped to die by doctors or nurses but without the safeguards that legislation would bring. Compassionate doctors, who follow the wishes of their terminally ill or incurably suffering patients by assisting them to die, risk being charged with assisting suicide or murder. The current system also results in close relatives being faced with the immensely difficult choices of whether, knowing that it is unlawful, to assist a loved one who is begging for help to put an end to their suffering or not to act and hence prolong their suffering.

We do not believe that anyone should be put into the position of having to make such choices, or indeed into a position where they believe that they have no other option but personally to end the life of someone they love. The few terminally ill and suffering people who are able to travel abroad to die often do so before it would be necessary if they did not need to be still able to travel.

Being able to die, with dignity, in a manner of our choosing must be understood to be a fundamental human right – a position supported by the landmark judgment in the Purdy case, where our highest court ruled that European Convention on Human Rights can be invoked in relation to the end of life.

Legalising assisted dying would ensure that strict legal safeguards are in place and empower people to make rational choices over their end of life care, free from coercion. The choice of an assisted death should not be instead of palliative care for terminally ill people, but a core part of comprehensive, patient-centred approaches to end of life care.

Time and again courts have said that a change in the law is a matter for parliament to enact – this is, necessarily, a political as well as moral issue. Despite strong public support for a change in the law, the majority of parliamentarians have so far been reluctant to support moves to legalise assisted dying.

However, there are many humanist and Labour MPs and Peers who do support a change to a more compassionate law. This year, we will brief on the ethical case for changing the law to allow assisted dying, with appropriate safeguards. We will support Labour elected representatives who seek to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill and permanently and incurably suffering people who wish to die with dignity in a manner of their choosing.

 

 

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Dangers of religious Free Schools

There has been much in the news about the Tory-led Government’s Free School programme recently – with a particular focus on the failings of the Al-Madinah Islamic school in Derbyshire. There have been reports particularly of gender discrimination and unequal treatment of women and girls in the school, including from teachers who said they were forced to wear the hijab.

The report from an emergency Ofsted inspection found that the school was ‘dysfunctional’ and that it is ‘a school which has been set up and run by representatives of the community with limited knowledge and experience.’

Relating to the widespread failings of Al-Madinah school, Labour’s recently appointed Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt described the Government’s Free School programme as ‘a dangerous ideological experiment’. He also wrote to Education Secretary Michael Gove with concerns including those about religious discrimination and unequal treatment of women and girls.

We welcome Dr Hunt’s efforts to expose and tackle problems at Al-Madinah and other Free Schools. We would like Labour to go further to acknowledge and seek to tackle the specific concerns with religious Free Schools.

The Government’s Free Schools are largely unregulated and the Coalition Education Ministers have also dropped a number of checks which had been part of the vetting procedure for new school applications. The door is open to groups even with extreme religious views to apply and to get state-funding to run schools.

Unlike other Free Schools, those with a religious character do not have to have inclusive admissions and are permitted to select up to 50% of spaces based on religion – excluding and discriminating against children and families with no religion or the ‘wrong’ religion.

We also have serious concerns about the curriculum taught in faith Free Schools, which could be heavily religiously biased. They can opt out of the National Curriculum and can focus teaching on religious instruction. There are risks that religious ideology and dogma – including that which is gender discriminatory or homophobic – could be prioritised by the schools over education.

It is our firm position that state-funded schools should be inclusive and not be allowed to discriminate in admissions or employment on religious grounds. The rights of children and young people to a broad and balanced education whichever school they attend should be paramount.

 

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Faith schools: discriminatory admissions policies under the spotlight

This summer the spotlight has been on religious discrimination in admissions to state-funded faith schools. We have argued that selection by faith schools is often, in practice, discrimination against children and families along class and ethnicity lines, as well as particularly against the non-religious. See, comment on and vote for our submission to Labour’s policy review.

The Fair Admissions Campaign published high level data which paints a concerning picture of the extent to which state-funded faith schools are engaging in socio-economic selection through their discriminatory admissions policies. It has revealed the 50 segregated schools most unrepresentative of their local areas: the list is overwhelmingly dominated by religiously selective schools, exposing sharply the segregating effects of faith-based admissions criteria.

Following a complaint by the British Humanist Association (BHA), the state-funded, Catholic, London Oratory School has been forced to overhaul its admissions policy after being found to be in breach of the school admissions code in a number of ways including on socio-economic grounds. Read the BHA’s statement.

The Accord Coalition for inclusive schools has been updating its report of testimonies and media reports of discriminatory and exclusive practices by faith schools. Read how religious selection can divide families as well as communities.

Our position

We are affiliated to the BHA and we support the Fair Admissions Campaign and the Accord Coalition. We seek to influence Labour Party policy on key secular and humanist issues.

We believe that discrimination in admissions by state-funded faith schools is unnecessary, unjust, disastrous for social cohesion, and completely against Labour values. We have therefore asked for a commitment to inclusivity and opposing discrimination in admissions by faith schools to be included in Labour’s manifesto for the 2015 general election.

Labour should guarantee that children will not be turned away from their local school on the basis of their parents’ beliefs. We firmly believe this would be a popular policy and likely vote winner.

Policy options

We would like Labour to consider the following policy options which we believe would be broadly supported and, if adopted, would be a significant step forward:

A. No new faith school allowed to discriminate in its admissions

B. No existing faith school allowed to discriminate in admissions in the future

We think it is vital that a commitment to inclusive admissions with no religious discrimination by faith schools permitted is in Labour’s 2015 manifesto.

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One Nation Labour needs to break its silence on faith schools

Labour Humanists’ Chair Naomi Phillips writes for political website politics.co.uk on the need for Labour to break its silence and speak out against discriminatory faith schools.