Thanks to East & South-East Asians for Labour (Labour’s official affiliated society for ESEA members), the solidarity motion drafted by us and Labour Movement Solidarity with HK has been submitted in full to Labour Party Conference! You can read it below. It is set to be merged with the Uyghur rights motion already submitted by Finchley & Golders Green Labour.
The conference will take place 25-29 September in Brighton. Delegates from local Labour Parties across the country, affiliated societies and trade unions will debate and vote on policy motions. So we are asking our supporters in Labour and the unions: please contact your delegate and urge them to back our motion! First, delegates will need to vote to prioritise this topic (“foreign policy towards China”) in the priority ballot at the start of conference. Then, if we are prioritised, we need them to speak up and vote for the motion.
Whether or not our motion is prioritised, we will be in Brighton speaking to attendees and activists to about our cause. We hope to reach hundreds of labour movement activists and persuade them to return to their unions and constituency parties ready to build the campaign locally, set up protests and other actions with us.
We are a grassroots campaign with no staff or significant funding, so we rely completely on the efforts of volunteers. If you will be in Brighton during the conference and want to help, please get in touch on info@uyghursolidarityuk.org!
- Read ESEA For Labour’s announcement
- Read LMSHK’s announcement
- Read the related motion submitted by Finchley & Golders Green Labour
Full motion:
China, Hong Kong and the Uyghurs: solidarity, peace, democracy, liberation
Motion submitted by ESEA For Labour; supported by Uyghur Solidarity Campaign UK & Labour Movement Solidarity with Hong Kong (UK)
Labour believes socialism means political and economic democracy. Despite pretences, China’s authoritarian state represents neither.
Uyghurs and other majority-Muslim peoples in Xinjiang/ East Turkestan suffer genocidal persecution including racist surveillance; political, cultural and religious repression; forced contraception and sterilisation; forced labour in global corporate supply chains; children removed from families; and concentration camps.
A violent, corporate-backed crackdown has attacked Hong Kong’s movement for democracy and civil liberties. Independent unions are surging but under assault. British colonial-era anti-union and anti-democratic laws facilitate this.
Throughout China, worker exploitation is rampant. Wealth inequality approaches US levels. Independent unions and protests are suppressed while corporations and state bureaucrats profit. But workers, women, minorities and dissidents continue to resist.
In all levels of government and grassroots campaigning, Labour will:
- Build solidarity with independent labour, democratic and liberatory movements, protests and strikes in China;
- Resist hijacking of this cause by nationalists and hawks promoting anti-Chinese racism, superpower rivalry, trade wars and militarisation;
- Support freedom and human rights for the indigenous peoples of Xinjiang/ East Turkestan and Tibet, and their right to democratically determine their futures;
- Support universal suffrage for Hong Kong, release of political prisoners and repeal of the National Security Law;
- Propose Magnitsky sanctions against officials involved in these abuses;
- Support protests and worker action against businesses complicit in these abuses;
- Propose laws requiring big businesses to transparently audit supply chains to source worldwide, and cut ties to rights abuses;
- Welcome unconditionally all refugees who seek sanctuary here from tyranny and persecution.
Uyghur Solidarity UK 