We do not consent! National Strike called for Valentine’s Day

A nationwide strike has been called for Tuesday 14th February 2023, Valentine’s Day.

A group calling themselves the “People’s Union” are calling for everyone across the whole country to down tools, and protest against the corrupt “people in power” and their crony capitalism. 

The group is claiming the corruption inside Parliament, and throughout the whole system itself, is now so bad that it’s affecting every aspect of our lives. And they believe it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. Especially if the people sit back and allow it to happen.

Citing the cost of living crisis as the most obvious reason why people should strike, the group claim that is in fact, just one of the many things wrong with the country right now. According to a People’s Union representative, the list is extensive.

Barry Paskin started the online Facebook group on 28th December 2022, and already over 12’000 members have joined.

Some of their reasons for the strike include the wasted PPE contracts given to government contacts that have cost the taxpayers millions, which have added to the inflation nightmare due to the billions of pounds in debt the government borrowed from the Bank of England during the pandemic.

Even more billions of pounds have been sent to Ukraine, which we can’t afford, where the officials were just exposed for gambling the money away, paying for prostitutes and buying expensive cars. 

The disgraced ex Chancellor and Conservative party chair Nadhim Zahawi, who was on Sunday 29th January “finally” sacked by the Prime Minister from holding a government position (but still remains an MP) for not paying millions in taxes, has been fined by HMRC, but then tried to cover it up. And it wasn’t his first time being involved in a scandal.

Dominic Raab being accused of multiple counts of bullying; employed, then sacked, then re-employed again Home Secretary Suella Braverman using her personal phone for government business; alleged texts by Liz Truss to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying “It’s done”, minutes before the Russian gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 were blown up at the end of September, partly leading to Europe’s ongoing energy crisis. 

Not to mention, ex Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “Party-Gate” scandal, where he was forced to resign due to breaching the lockdown mandate, as well as former Health Minister Matt Hancock who was caught kissing his now girlfriend Gina Coladangelo in an octopus-like embrace. The former Health Minister was seen on CCTV breaking his own social distancing guidelines, whilst still married to his wife Martha Hoyer Millar, the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra.

Hancock was an economist at the Bank of England, before serving as a senior economic adviser and later chief of staff to George Osborne. He was first elected as the MP for West Suffolk in 2010. 

Since then he’s held several positions within the 13 year Tory government, including (ironically) being the United Kingdom’s Anti-Corruption Champion, from 2014 to 2015. 

After leaving the Jungle and coming 3rd on I’m a Celebrity, where he raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds for appearing on the reality TV show, whilst still serving as an MP, Matt Hancock was this month filmed on the London underground by Geza Tarjanyi. The man was accusing him of murder due to securing a large batch of sedative drug called Midazolam whilst he was Health Minister. The sedative was used in conjunction with a high dose of Morphine during the lockdown, to facilitate the end of life care for elderly patients in hospitals and care homes across the country during the pandemic. 

Tarjanyi has since been charged with assault and banned from entering London. He was released from police custody on conditional bail to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday 22 February. According to witnesses within the US prison system, where Midazolam is used along with other pharmaceutical products to kill death row inmates, Midazolam can have some serious side effects during the process of sending someone to sleep forever.

Now Rishi Sunak’s latest headache is about Graham Edwards, brought in by the Prime Minister to run the Conservative party’s finances, but was found to have used a tax avoidance scheme. Meanwhile, Conservative chief executive Stephen Massey works for a firm that encouraged high earners to reduce tax bills by funnelling cash into a film investment project. “Do the corruption scandals never end?” ask the People’s Union.

Apparently this is just the tip of the iceberg, because the People’s Union claim that it’s not just political corruption that’s the problem. Top officers within the Met Police and other forces around the country have recently been found guilty of multiple counts of rape, sexual abuse, murder and being in the possession of child pornography. 

These officers include David Carrick who recently pled guilty to 49 counts of rape and sexual assault over a staggering 20 year period, and Wayne Couzens who was found guilty last year of the kidnapping, rape and the murder of Sarah Everard. Couzens was given a whole life sentence for his vicious crimes. 

Plus we’ve now all found out about the suspected suicide of senior West London Met Police Chief Inspector Richard Watkinson, who was found dead on 12th January by officers, the same day he was due to be charged over the possession of graphic child pornography, sex toys and boys’ pants allegedly found in a secret room in his home. Watkinson was often the public face of the police force during press conferences who worked in the West Area Command Unit. He was alleged to be charged over links to a network of online paedophiles.

The pornographic images found on his computer were said to be of the ‘upmost severity’. Watkinson allegedly installed a secret-trap door at the property, which apparently led to a hidden part of the house, where computer equipment was found containing the images. 2 other men were charged last week with similar offences, neither of them were police officers though according to reports.

Both Carrick and Couzens worked for the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) department of London’s Metropolitan Police force. The PaDP is responsible for providing officers (armed and unarmed) to protect the Houses of Parliament and government ministers. PaDP officers also covers security at Downing Street, which is home to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as the protection of diplomatic missions in the UK.

Around 1600 cases of alleged sexual offences and domestic abuse allegations against the police are now being reopened and reviewed, after they had been initially closed and the police officers accused were not formally reprimanded. However, due to the Carrick case being discovered, where multiple allegations were ignored over a number of years, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Mark Rowley has chosen to reassess the historical allegations.

At least another 16 serving Met Police officers have been convicted of crimes since the horrific murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021. Everard was approached and handcuffed by PaDP officer Wayne Couzens, raped, strangled to death near Ashford in Kent, where her body was then burnt to try and cover it up. Fortunately Couzens was caught that time, but how many other police officers who have committed crimes have “slipped through the net”?

12 of the 16 officers since convicted have committed sexual offences or violence against women or girls. And just this week, PC Sam Grigg pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault of a 20 year old female, after he tied up both her arms and legs with tape.

According to the People’s Union, and the many articles being reported by the press lately, the list goes on and on. The People’s Union believe the corruption is so widespread throughout the system, it can no longer be ignored or tolerated. They also believe it all to be connected.

For a December 2006 Parliamentary Select Committee on Home Affairs, on the relationship between young black people and the criminal justice system, written evidence in the form of a memorandum was submitted by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). Within that report the Met Police stated:

“The MPA considers that the Committee needs to be cognizant of the historical role and purpose in the evolution of the criminal justice system, which is not unrelated to the above issue of racism.

“Another explanatory factor put forward for the disproportionality in stop and search rates is the recognition that police exercise their discretion through the application of what has been termed the prevailing notions of respectability.

“As Sir John Woodcock, then HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said back in 1992:

“What is happening to the police is that a 19th Century institution is being dragged into the 21st Century. Despite all the later mythology of Dixon, the police never were the police of the whole people but a mechanism set up to protect the affluent from what the Victorians described as the dangerous classes.”

So in understanding the above words of Sir John Woodcock, the police service was created not to protect the majority from a dangerous ‘criminal’ element as we’ve all been lead to believe, but in fact, to protect the elites from the ‘dangerous classes’, aka We the People!

In the famous words of Lord Acton in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. According to the People’s Union, never before has a truer word been said. Because if the police service was in fact created to protect the elites, how do we counteract that systemic corruption?

Barry Paskin the official spokesperson for the People’s Union asks, “Now does it all make sense yet? The truth is very quickly starting to unravel!”

“We’ve all had enough,” declares Paskin, animatedly. “We’re no longer willing to put up with it all; We DO NOT consent!”

The growing restrictions being imposed by the government is yet another such reason for the national strike. Ironically at the same time NHS staff, Firefighters, Teachers, Rail workers and the People’s Union are striking in protest, the so called “Anti-Strike” Bill, which is actually called the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, has now passed through the Commons after its third try, and is likely to be passed by the Lords. 

The bill will give the police legal powers to shut down any protests, even before they take place, and gives ministers sweeping new powers to restrict the right to strike.

However, Paskin points out that we all have the fundamental human right to freedom of assembly, and the right to strike should be kept in full and not tampered with in a fair and democratic society. People should be allowed to protest against their government and hold ministers to account; taking that freedom away is tantamount to tyranny.

But the People’s Union say that matters in Westminster and London aren’t the only things negatively affecting society, the group claim. So called 15 minute “prison” cities (as they call them), are being erected all across the UK. The real name for the traffic zones are Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN). 

At least 100 councils are confirmed to be planning to restrict local residents from going about their normal business, outside of a ’15 minute’ boundary area. Or being fined should they stray outside of their designated route, without a permit to enter another area within the city’s main circumference.

Oxford City Council is already seeing resistance from local residents opposed to the restrictions, with constituents seen on camera removing barriers, and a scheduled protest in the City centre set for Saturday 18th February. 

Caroline Green the chief executive of the council recently appeared on video showing her “disappointment” in a misinformation campaign being waged by “conspiracy theorists”, declaring that climate “lockdowns” don’t exist. A statement on the council’s website says, “The trial is currently planned to begin in 2024. The traffic filters are not physical barriers of any kind and will not be physical road closures. They are simply traffic cameras that can read number plates.”

The statement goes on to read, “If a vehicle passes through the filter at certain times of the day, the camera will read the number plate and (if you do not have an exemption or a residents’ permit) you will receive a fine in the post.”

On 1st February a meeting was held about the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) in Bath, supported by “Together”, a nationwide movement dedicated to “protecting democracy”. Councillor Manda Rigby, cabinet member for transport said: “It’s disappointing, but unsurprising, that some are trying to stoke culture wars and are using an external organisation to Bath to do so.

“Every single proposal started from a request from the community – not the Council imposing anything unwanted – and has been subject to much adaption through the consultation processes. The point of a Liveable Neighbourhood is to improve residential areas, making them safer, healthier and more pleasant places to be.”

The People’s Union also points out that we have an “unelected” Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak. The group says he was placed in power by his “mates” in government, not elected by the people, following the fall of Liz Truss’ government over the mini budget crisis. The richest man in Parliament, who along with his wife Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Infosys founder billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, are jointly worth £730 million according to reports.

One of the group’s gripes is the fact that Sunak’s hedge fund Thélème Partners, which he co-founded in 2009, invested millions into Moderna stocks. Now coincidentally, 2 months after Sunak was appointed Prime Minister, Moderna have just gained a multi million pound government contract to supply an additional 250 million mRNA vaccines.

Thélème Partners revealed in November 2022 the hedge fund owned over 6 million shares in the pharmaceutical company, with a value at the time of US$710 million. Rishi Sunak has not yet spoken out on whether he will benefit financially from the shareholding or not.

It’s not known whether the Prime Minister holds any investment in the Thélème fund after leaving the company in 2013, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven which doesn’t make company records public. Normally a partner in a hedge fund would own a stake in the management company and have money invested in its fund. In 2019 Sunak declared in the list of ministers’ interests that he was the beneficiary of a blind trust. The contents of the trust have not been disclosed to the public.

The People’s Union Facebook group was only set up at the end of December 2022, but within just 1 month over 11’500 people joined. Barry Paskin says, “The response has been fantastic. People everywhere are starting to realise just how bad the country is being run.

“We’re calling for everyone in the UK to strike, protest and make some noise on Tuesday 14th February. If you can’t strike due to circumstances, make some noise at 12 noon wherever you are, with pots and pans or whatever you have handy.”

According to Paskin, it’s not just the 13 years of Tory government that’s the problem. “Just last week Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were in Davos, bumping shoulders with the rich and powerful business leaders attending the World Economic Forum summit in Switzerland.”

“We have not given our consent for our government or the opposition to do business with these people. At no time have we been consulted or seen, either on a Conservative or Labour manifesto, the fact that the World Economic Forum is now part of our governing body. Yet it’s clearly referenced on the government website.” states Paskin.

The People’s Union strike on Tuesday 14th February coincides with the continued strike action of staff at the DVLA in Swansea, and with the UCU strike of university staff at more than 150 universities across the UK. Plus teachers represented by the NEU strike in Wales on that day, and staff at the British Museum, who are PCS members. 

About the People’s Union 

 

The People’s Union was started by Barry Paskin during a livestream video on his personal Facebook profile, and a Facebook group set up on 28th December 2022, which now has nearly 14’000 members in just 6 weeks.

 

The People’s Union website can be found at www.peoplesunion.online 

 

The Facebook group can be found at https://facebook.com/groups/871089024038047/

 

Their Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089587346125