Moving on from the success of the Norfolk Divestment Public Meeting in November (when PSC activists from Waltham Forest shared their experience), we held a 2-hour workshop on Saturday the 14th December at the Norwich Friends’ Meeting House to start the important work of planning out the strategy to take the campaign forward.
Key steps include working with the local government trade unions, particularly Unison. We need to reach out to the thousands of current local government officers who probably have no idea that some of their pension contributions are being used, either directly or indirectly, to kill and displace and destroy Palestinian lives, property and land. Similarly, we need to reach out to recipients of local government pensions.
We’ll also be taking our campaign to the leaders of the 7 Norfolk District Councils, as well as the leader of the County Council. We’ll be focused on raising the issue with the County’s Pensions Committee – the body responsible for investment decisions. (We noted that the County Council Elections – when all 84 Councillors will have to stand down – are on May 1st 2025. We will certainly be targeting candidates in those elections.)
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that at least £13m of Norfolk’s Local Government Pension Scheme investments are in companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide & war crimes in Palestine – these include among others Caterpillar, BAE and Thales.
We’ve set up a Divestment Working Group who are actively taking this important work forward. Please contact Claire if you would like to get involved – either by joining the Working Group, or with different aspects of the wider campaign.
In Peace & Solidarity
Claire Collen
Secretary@norfolkpsc.org.uk