On Wednesday there was a supposed mass lobby of MPs to get peace in the Middle East through voting for a Ceasefire. I went along with an urgent need to update my MP John McDonnell on the situation with my Palestinian MSF nurse and his pregnant wife. The day was thwart with rainy cold day and there was a queue to endure outside to get in through security. Being PMQs, school show rounds and other business it was extremely busy. Usually I can go in with a visitor pass to lobby John but as this was a mass lobby the security had been issued with event passes. I have attended other mass lobbies in the past on various campaigns where we have been give a committee room and made comfortable while we await response to lobby slips from our MPs. But on this day we had to use Westminster Hall, notoriously known for being cold with only a isolated heaters to help the staff working in this environment. The parliamentary staff were kind and supporting around the situation they had been requested to manage. There was a large table of Green Lobby Slips and a microphone for the staff to relay responses from MPs. Not all MPs were prepared to come and listen to the care and concern we all had for a need to stop the horrors we are seeing in Gaza and in the West Bank. Some were busy with other business. Not all lobbyist were able to get in to lobby their MPs but thousands around the the nation had written to their constituency MP. MPs are duty bound to listen to their constituents and act on the issue they are being presented with. They are to be a voice for all their constituents no matter the party politics!
Has Parliament is a like a second home for me with many attendances to various meetings once I had got some warmth from a hot chocolate in the Jubilee cafe I went to the Central Lobby just at the time visitors where gathered for the speaker crossing into the House. A kind parliament staff informed me that with the red event card I was not permitted in the central lobby. This was a first ever experience of not having my constitutional right to be in the Central Lobby a place where all citizens of the land can come and raise issues with their MPs through lobby slips! I was taken aback with this but did not get annoyed as the staff member said an arrangement was made in the Westminster Hall. So I followed that procedure.
There was another incident that alarmed me in that another lobbyist a lady that had travelled some distance into to London to speak with her MP on her concern to get the peace in the Middle East was also forbidden to see her MP in the Central Lobby. Her MP had replied to her Green Lobby slip and written to meet by the Gladstone statue in the Central lobby. But the parliamentary police said with her Red Event pass they had been instructed not to permit entry to the central lobby! So even with the evidence of the MPs instruction to meet there, the constituent could not meet with her MP.
We asked the parliamentary staff what she should do? The suggestion was to go out of parliament and come back through security for a Visitors pass .. but there would have been major hours delay to this, given the queue outside to lobby! By this time the MP availability to meet in the central lobby would have passed!
Clearly there had been a failure to inform all MPs of the restriction on Central Lobby meet ups with their constituents to Red Event passes!
John, my MP did come to me after he had put forward points in the chamber on Gaza and the urgent need for the ceasefire! But has he is so well liked by others when he turned up he got hijacked by others for them to put their issues forward! I had to interrupt and say he is my MP and we have a major issue to discuss on my MSF nurse in Gaza. But it was quite a struggle to get some private time to discuss all what I had done and how to help Mo'men and his pregnant soon to give birth wife. We set up a plan for John to revisit my emails and I forwarded another important email. We need safe passage out and safe countries to offer help. My nurse and his wife have an offer from a Bosnian doctor's family who are preparing a home for them if they can get out. Ambassadors in Egypt and Qatar have been contacted by the doctor. John is to write to the Foreign office to see what plans are being made to help safe evacuation. A painful decision by Palestinians to leave their ancestral land. Nakba on grand proportions after years of suffering intimidation.
i have to say I was cold and exhausted and given I am 70 this year was alarmed that suitable due care and provision was not made for lobbyists. Sargent of Arms has been so kind with me in the past and I feel I need to raise the matter with him. It took 36 hours of warmth and rest to get the chill out of me from that day. My muscles and joints aching. But my heart aching for the pain that I am seeing and the very worrying manipulation of our constitutional rights.
To add THE HOUSE OF COMMONS BEHAVIOUR and the Speakers disobeying of the Clerk advice on Constitutional protocol let everyone down EVERYONE! ALL THE ELECTORATE, ALL THE CONSTITUENTS. ALL THE NATION, ALL THE VOICES FOR CEASEFIRE FAILED BY CHAOS!
We had in the lobby people from all over the nation, all backgrounds, all cultures, all religions, mothers with young babies, elderly, some workers had been given the day off to come to parliament with the blessing of their line managers and fellow colleagues to get voices heard. Yet we were all let down in what is a Peoples Parliament not an exclusive club for MPs! MPs are duty bound to be voices for their constituents, listening to them on the frontline of policies, to hear if policies are failing to support citizens and need amendments!! our voices are the power to drive change for a better world not a world full of division but a need to come together in harmonious compromise. A Democracy needs to listen to the people and act.. if not we become an autocratic dictatorship of a minority view oppressing the many.
We need politicians and world leaders to Mature in the Wisdom of Peace, The Greatest Power is Peace and with this togetherness on this one planet home we all share. Our planet cries out to be healed and cared for. We have a collective battle to undo all the foolish damage we have done on this Earth by foolish greed and deluded power and illegal invasions and land grab.
Each Global Citizen has the right to live in Peace and Harmony with living dignity. There are in fact more of us that wish this than those that wish to divide us and create conflict.
Note in my photos the empty space of the Westminster Hall while masses of lobbyists queued outside in the rain.
Speaking with others in the hall waiting for MPs we discussed how stressed we all are and going through a form of grief. Grieving the loss of the world we wish and want it to be in Peace and Harmony. There are symptoms of the stages of grief of breaking into Sobbing deep intense crying from deep inside, anger, frustration, pacing up and down, feeling of trapped in a new reality and fear of losing all, sometimes sat blank numb unable to comprehend all the horrors been seen. We may not be on the frontline but because we care for humanity hurt when others hurt. It really is time for no more weapons no more violence!
The only arms to be our arms embracing one another in care and compassion for all..
if not we are on a trajectory of self destruction... how crazy Homo Stupidus to destroy our only life support system by ego driven foolishness ..
Shalom Salem Peace Om Shanti
with respect to this lady and no doubt had great concerns to share with John. John clearly engaging and listening. But I had waited in the cold and was full of pain as to the whole situation in Gaza and the safety of my MSF nurse and his pregnant wife. I travelled home feeling a failure to be a strong voice. Since though had a very very good email and phone call with an ambassador PA so keeping John in the loop of that email.
A retired nurse midwife whose family helped liberate Belsen. I was born post war in 1954 grew up with the horror stories of the Holocaust, nursed Holocaust survivors not a terrorist to wish Shalom Salem Peace Om Shanti in the world and NEVER AGAIN... but a peace loving caring woman that loves all our global family on a very beautiful planet home. We need to respect all and care for all.
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