Bell Ribeiro-Addy

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Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Bell Ribeiro-Addy (born 1 March 1985) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Streatham since the 2019 general election. Solidly on the left of the Party, she considers herself a "life-long socialist" and a feministand was briefly Shadow Minister of State for Immigration in 2020.

Student activist

Bell Ribeiro-Addy was the National Black Students' Officer for the National Union of Students (NUS) from 2008 to 2010, national co-ordinator of the Student Assembly Against Racism, and the national convenor of the NUS' Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism campaign. In 2010, she and LGBT+ officer Daf Adley pushed the Durham Union Society to cancel a debate on multiculturalism, concerned for students' safety if far-right BNP MEP Andrew Brons were to speak on campus.

Politics

Before becoming an MP, Ribeiro-Addy was chief of staff to former Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott. She has sat as a school governor at Saint Gabriel's College, Camberwell since 2018.

Ribeiro-Addy was elected as the Labour MP for Streatham in the 2019 general election with a majority of 17,690, reduced by over 8,000.

Ribeiro-Addy in her maiden speech called for some form of reparations to former colonial subjects. In one of her first news interviews as an MP, Ribeiro-Addy called for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ghana, stating that "it is my duty to make sure all people are free, and not discriminated against."

In January 2020, Ribeiro-Addy was appointed as Shadow Minister for Immigration, just weeks after her election as a member of parliament. She was not retained in the role following the election of Sir Keir Starmer as Labour Leader. She became the Co-chairperson of Labour's left-wing Socialist Campaign Group.

All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations

Speaking to the Morning Star’s Roger McKenzie, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP talks about the growing campaign for reparations that now has cross-party support from several Members of Parliament.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy is the Labour Party member for Streatham in south London and also chair of Westminster’s all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations.

Ribeiro-Addy is joined in the group by fellow Labour members Apsana Begum, Dawn Butler, Marsha de Cordova and Clive Lewis, Kate Osamor, Nadia Whittome, plus Sir Peter Bottomley from the Tories, Caroline Lucas from the Greens, Anne McLaughlin from the Scottish National Party and independents Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe.

The APPG is following in the footsteps of the late legendary former MP for Tottenham, Bernie Grant, in not just fighting for reparations but for the return of arts and cultural artefacts, such as the bronzes looted by British colonialists from the Kingdom of Benin.

“This work has been going on since well before I was born,” Ribeiro-Addy acknowledges.

“I am proud to be part of those continuing the work of Bernie Grant who fought so hard for many years to put these issues on the agenda.

“But many other individuals and groups have also been working on these issues for many years.”

She added: “There are a lot of individuals and campaigning organisations who are involved and I think there is space for everybody in this fight for justice.”

The APPG is set to hold a major conference on reparations over the weekend of October 21-22 in central London, which will be co-chaired by Dr Julius Garvey, academic, activist, and son of Jamaican national hero Marcus Garvey, alongside Britain’s first black woman MP, Abbott.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “We are bringing activists and policymakers together to look across the board at the next steps.”

She told me that it was really important for people to look beyond reparations as being only about direct financial compensation.

“We will be looking at the compensation for enslavement and colonialism but we will also consider environmental reparations and education, among other things that can help to tackle the institutional racism that faces people of African descent in Britain and across the diaspora.”

The former shadow minister for immigration under Corbyn said it was important to remember why slavery was abolished so that the discussion continued from a factual basis rather than continuing a mythology.

“William Wilberforce and others played an important role in helping to see the end of the transatlantic slave trade — but it wasn’t the decisive factor.

“People rose up in rebellion against enslavement which contributed towards the British reaching the conclusion that it was a system that had become economically unviable and so they had to look for another model,” she said.

“The facts are that countries like Jamaica and Barbados are in hock to the IMF and other bodies as they struggle to make their way after the legacy of slavery and colonialism.

“So one of the things that needs to be looked at is whether a writing off of the debt owed by these nations to the already rich former colonial powers needs to be part of the equation of reparations.”

But what are the prospects for making any headway with reparations?

In April, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dismissed a request from Ribeiro-Addy in Parliament to issue a full apology for slavery.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “We are obviously not going to see an apology from the Tories. For them, this is all part of their culture wars and issues about so-called ‘wokeness.’

“They seem more concerned about stopping people from even voting rather than doing the right thing.”

And what about the Labour Party?

“The previous leader of the party had a clear policy of supporting reparations and worked with Bernie Grant on the issue for many years.

“There is no current policy on this from the current leadership.”

Ribeiro-Addy said that she was heartened by work on reparations in other parts of the world, such as in California in the United States, one of the biggest economies in the world.

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, set up a far-reaching commission in 2021 that included the descendants of slaves who were lawyers, educators, elected officials and civil rights leaders.

Although the panel did not make a firm recommendation for the payment of reparations, it did calculate the potential cost to California was likely to be more than $800 billion — more than 2.5 times the state’s $300bn annual budget.

But an advisory group in San Francisco did recommend that “qualifying” black adults should receive a $5 million lump-sum payment, guaranteed annual income of at least $97,000 and personal debt forgiveness.

Was this the sort of approach Ribeiro-Addy was prepared to support?

She said: “That’s the sort of information that we need to gather, but we have to remember that the outcomes might be different depending on where you are in the diaspora.

But the momentum towards reparations is gathering a head of steam.

The Caribbean Reparations Commission set up by Caricom, the economic bloc covering the 40 million people living in the Caribbean region, launched its own Reparations Commission in 2013.

The commission set out a 10-point plan to persuade former colonial powers to deliver reparatory justice.

The plan calls for a formal apology, funding for repatriations where people want it, an indigenous peoples’ development programme, the creation of cultural institutions and the return of cultural heritage, assistance to remedy the public health crisis among descendants, education programmes, historical and cultural exchanges, psychological rehabilitation.

The commission also wants to see steps taken to transfer technology to former colonies to aid in development and debt cancellation and financial compensation.

All of these issues will be under discussion at the reparations conference later this month.

The title of the conference,“Charting a Pathway Towards Reparatory Justice,” reflects the long journey that has already been trodden and, perhaps, the lengthy journey ahead.

The leadership of Ribeiro-Addy, who has proved herself to be a committed and determined socialist and anti-racist fighter, will be important as the battle for reparations for the descendants of the brutal transatlantic slave trade comes to a head.[1]

'Covid-19 has not gone away'

Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have.

On Feb 8, 2022, Bell Ribeiro-Addy participated in a discussion sponsored by the Zero Covid Coalition titled "Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have."[2].

From a post about the discussion:[3]

The pandemic is not receding, with hospitalisations and deaths still high. Ignoring Covid-19 is reckless and this negligence must be opposed
There are widespread and false claims that the pandemic is receding. Globally, new cases are currently well over 3 million per day and around 4 times higher than the previous peak in April 2021. In addition, this has happened extraordinarily suddenly, with the surge taking place in the first few part of this year. With a short time lag new daily deaths have also begun to rise. If there is such a thing as a ‘mild’ pandemic, this is not one of them.
The misinformation and even propaganda about the pandemic receding is clearly wrong. In Britain this is almost all based on the fall in recorded new cases. Yet deaths are still rising and hospitalisations remain stubbornly high.
It is not known how much non-reporting there is of people who have had a positive lateral flow test.
Despite this the government has abandoned its own ‘Plan B’, PCR tests are largely a thing of the past and people are no longer advised to work from home. It is even reported that the requirement for those infected to self-isolate will be dropped. This is a reckless approach. At our last meeting we reached over 48,000 people online.
Speakers

Socialist Campaign Group

In 2021 Bell Ribeiro-Addy was member of the Socialist Campaign Group in the House of Parliament.

Stop the War Statement on Crisis in the Ukraine

Stop the War Statement on Crisis in the Ukraine was released February 18 2022.

Stop the War opposes any war over Ukraine, and believes the crisis should be settled on a basis which recognises the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and addresses Russia’s security concerns.

Our focus is on the policies of the British government which have poured oil on the fire throughout this episode. In taking this position we do not endorse the nature or conduct of either the Russian or Ukrainian regimes.

The British government has talked up the threat of war continually, to the point where the Ukraine government has asked it to stop.

Unlike the French and German governments, it has advanced no proposals for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and has contributed only sabre-rattling.

Indeed, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has even accused those seeking a peaceful settlement of preparing “another Munich.”

Instead, the British government has sent arms to Ukraine and deployed further troops to Eastern Europe, moves which serve no purpose other than inflaming tensions and indicating disdain for Russian concerns.

It has also declared that Ukraine has a “sovereign right” to join NATO, when no such right exists to join it or any other military alliance.

Britain needs to change its policy, and start working for peace, not confrontation.

Stop the War believes that Russia and Ukraine should reach a diplomatic settlement of the tensions between them, on the basis of the Minsk-2 agreement already signed by both states.

It believes NATO should call a halt to its eastward expansion and commit to a new security deal for Europe which meets the needs of all states and peoples.

We refute the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance, and believe its record in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya over the last generation, not to mention the US-British attack on Iraq, clearly proves otherwise.

We support all efforts to reach new arms control agreements in Europe and to move towards nuclear disarmament across the continent.

We urge the entire anti-war movement to unite on the basis of challenging the British government’s aggressive posturing and direct its campaigning to that end above all.

The statement had been originally MPs signed by Diane Abbott, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, Beth Winter, Zarah Sultana, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Apsana Begum, Mick Whitley, Tahir Ali and Ian Mearns. All withdrew their signatues after Labour Party pressure.[4]

Justice for Palestine

Justice for Palestine was a 15th May, 2021 letter from British Members of Parliament.

In the light of the Israeli Government’s military offensive on Gaza and its attacks on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories I have signed the following statement calling for Justice for Palestine issued by the Socialist Campaign Group...

As the former colonial power that issued the Balfour Declaration, and then was responsible for the Mandate leading up to the Nakba of 1948, Britain has a special responsibility to do all it can to ensure a just peace.

We, therefore, call on the UK government to:

  • Demand an end to the siege of Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
  • Impose sanctions on Israel for its repeated violations of international law, place an embargo on arms sales and end trade with illegal settlements.
  • Demonstrate full support for the International Criminal Court’s opening of an investigation into alleged war crimes in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
  • Recognise the state of Palestine.

Signatories included Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP.

Communist Party connections

Liberation

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Bell Ribeiro-Addy with Roger McKenzie.

Cuba Vive, North West Rally

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With guest speakers

Join us during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool for an evening of speakers and films on Cuban internationalism, health and solidarity with Palestine to raise money for the Cuba Vive medical appeal.[5]


Cable Street '21

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Communist Party of Britain September 27 2021. CORBYN AND COMMUNITY LEADERS TO MARK BATTLE OF CABLE OF STREET - Jeremy Corbyn and local Labour MPs Apsana Begum (and Bell Ribeiro-Addy) will join trade union and community leaders on Sunday (October 3) to mark the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street in East London.

Harsev Bains, Robert Griffiths, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Apsana Begum

On October 4, 1936, hundreds of thousands of people blocked the proposed march by Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists through an area populated by many Jewish families.

Bloody battles broke out as 6,000 metropolitan police tried to clear a path for the anti-Semitic 'Blackshirts'. But they could not overcome the barricades erected by Jews and gentiles, communists and socialists, and Irish and English workers under the slogan of the anti-fascist war in Spain, 'No Pasaran - They Shall Not Pass'.

Jeremy Corbyn's mother Naomi was there on the day. So too were Harold Rosen and Connie Isaakofsky, then members of the Young Communist League, whose son writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen will read a poem at next Sunday's event.

Other speakers include Rabbi Herschel Gluck, actor Marlene Sidaway on behalf of the International Brigades Memorial Trust, RMT railway workers' leader Mick Lynch, representatives of the Bengali Workers Council and the Indian Workers Association (GB) and Ruth Levitas, whose father Maurice went from Cable Street to fight in Spain while uncle Max organised a successful rent strike and was later elected to Stepney council.

Convenor of the Cable Street '21, Robert Griffiths, urged local people, workers, socialists and anti-racists to assemble at 1 pm on Sunday, at the junction of Leman St and Cable St, to march to the mural on St Georges (Stepney) Town Hall 'Racism, including anti-Semitism, still blights many people's lives today', he remarked, 'We should take inspiration from the unity that won the Battle of Cable Street'.

"We need a people's vaccine"

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"No freedom day for the virus - we need Zero Covid"

July 19, 2021.

Chair Nimo Hussein:

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"The Virus is Not Going Away..."

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Morning Star and Zero Covid Coalition November 1 2021

"Stopping the virus"

"Stopping the virus: It doesn't have to be this way"

Zero Covid Coalition was live January 24 2021.

Our demand is that the government adopt a Zero Covid strategy, learning from the great success it has had in in other countries. To do this, we are uniting all those who want more effective action from the government.

Join us to hear from 25+ speakers including Jeremy Corbyn MP, Diane Abbott MP and Richard Horton (The Lancet) to find out more.

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Participants included Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP chair, Jo Grady UCU, Jay Patel, Robert West, Richard Burgon MP, Dr. Coral Jones, Keith Venables, Zita Holbourne, Sabby Dhalu Stand Up To Racism, Karen Reissmann People Before Profit, Lawrence Davies Equal Justice solicitors, Dr. Emma Runswick Zero Covid Coalition, Ramona McCartney The People's Assembly, Louise Irvine Keep Our NHS Public, Ben Chacko Morning Star, Howard Beckett Unite the Union, Riccardo la Torre FBU, Pascale Robinson We Own It, Matt Willgress, Arise and Labour Outlook, Sonali Bhattacharyya Momentum UK, Larissa Kennedy NUS, Helen O'Connor GMB.

Zero Covid Conference

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November 2020 The People's Assembly organized an online "Zero Covid Conference". Participants included:

International Brigade Association

Members of the International Brigade Association, trade unionists and other anti-fascists assembled in the evening on Tuesday 28th October at TUC Congress Centre to celebrate the memory of La Pasionaria and other women who took part in the 1936-38 Spanish war against fascism. The event was organised by Philosophy Football to take place exactly 70 years after La Pasionaria made her most famous speech on 28th October 1938 to the parade of the International Brigades on their withdrawal from Spain.

Two veterans attended last Tuesday’s event at Congress House: Jack Jones, former general secretary of the TGWU and pensioners’ leader and Penny Feiwell (nee Phelps) who, in 1936, was a young nurse who went as a volunteer to help tend the Republican wounded. She worked in makeshift hospitals just three km behind the front lines.

There were speeches from Marlene Sidaway, secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady, Sally Alexander, co-editor of Women's Voices from the Spanish Civil War, Unison’s head of health Karen Jennings and National Union of Students Black Students officer Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy. There was music from Rhoda Dakar and Nick Welsh, folk violinist and singer Eliza Carthy accompanied by Saul Rose. And there was a humorous poetry reading from Jackie Kay.[6]

Rally: How do we defeat Johnson’s racist offensive?

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With: Diane Abbott MP • Gary Younge journalist & campaigner • Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour Leader • Sharon Graham, Unite General Secretary • Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP • Kevin Courtney, NEU Joint General Secretary • Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP • Dawn Butler MP • Mick Whelan ASLEF General Secretary • Sarah Woolley, BFAWU General Secretary • Steve Hedley, RMT Senior Assistant General Secretary • Margaret Greer, Unison Black, Jermain Jackman, Talha Ahmed Muslim Council of Britain, Peter Herbert Society of Black Lawyers.

"Standing with Women"

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Red Labour March 19 2021 - with Dr Louise Raw, Amna Abdullatif, Laura Pidcock, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Anne Stebbings, Pam Fitzpatrick.

Latin America Conference 2021

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Cuba Solidarity at Labour Party Conference

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Cuba Solidarity Campaign Monday, 4 October 2021.

After eighteen months and twenty online public meetings CSC was delighted to participate in and host our first face-to-face public meetings, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in September.

At the Labour Party Conference in Brighton we were invited to speak at ‘The World Transformed’, the Young Labour rally, as well as organising a fringe meeting as part of the main conference fringe programme.

CSC’s conference exhibition stall was extremely busy all week. Several MPs including Ian Lavery, Kate Osborne and Bell Ribeiro-Addy had their photographs taken with our ‘End the US blockade, 60 years too long’ poster, and it was great to see many existing CSC members visit to say hello and give their support, as well as Labour Party delegates who came to ask questions, buy gifts and join. More than 20 new members were recruited during the week.[7]

Cuba Covid letter

April 15 2020, fifty one British members of parliament have written to Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Secretary and acting Prime Minister to call for the US blockade of Cuba to be temporarily suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Grahame Morris MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba, coordinated the letter which asks the British government to make a public statement and to raise the issue directly with its counterparts in the United States’ government.

The letter from the British parliamentarians cites examples from around the world where governments and international organisations have demanded that humanitarian aid be allowed in to Cuba to help the country fight COVID-19. It quotes Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Arancha Gonzalez, Spanish Foreign Minister, and Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, who have all publicly called for sanctions to be suspended to Cuba and other sanctioned countries to allow for the delivery of essential supplies and medicine to stop the spread of the virus.

Yours sincerely,

Grahame Morris MP, Chair, APPG Cuba.

Dan Carden MP, Vice Chair, Kate Osborne MP, Vice Chair, Kim Johnson MP, Vice Chair, Paula Barker MP, Vice Chair, Alison Thewliss MP Allan Dorans MP, Amy Callaghan MP, Andy McDonald MP, Apsana Begum MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Beth Winter MP, Carol Monaghan MP, Chris Law MP, Chris Stephens MP, Claudia Webbe MP, Clive Lewis MP, Dave Doogan MP, Diane Abbott MP, Geraint Davies MP, Ian Byrne MP, Ian Mearns MP, Ian Lavery MP, Imran Hussain MP, Joanna Cherry MP, John McDonnell MP, Jon Trickett MP, Kate Osamor MP, Kenny MacAskill MP, Kirsten Oswald MP, Kirsty Blackman MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP, Margaret Ferrier MP, Marion Fellowes MP, Martyn Day MP, Mary Kelly Foy MP, Mick Whitley MP, Mike Amesbury MP, Mike Hill MP, Navendu Mishra MP, Olivia Blake MP, Owen Thompson MP, Rachel Hopkins MP, Richard Burgon MP, Ronnie Cowan MP, Sam Tarry MP, Sarah Champion MP, Stephen Bonnar MP, Stephen Flynn MP, Yasmin Qureshi MP, Zarah Sultana MP[8]

Defend Democracy in Bolivia

Defend Democracy in Bolivia was an October 2020 letter circulated by Friends of Bolivia.

MPs and Lords from the Labour Party, SNP and Sinn Fein, as well as nine trade union leaders and solidarity activists across the UK, sign a letter in support of Bolivian democracy ahead of this weekend's election.

Despite all of this, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is ahead in the polls ahead of the presidential election due to be held on October 18th, after numerous delays.

There are fears that these elections will not be free or fair and that right-wing, anti-democratic forces will once again seek to deny Bolivians their wish to build a progressive and democratic country.

We, the undersigned, therefore express our support for all those struggling for democracy, human rights, equality and social progress in Bolivia.

Signatories included Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Labour Party​.

"Socialist Solutions"

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Labour Party conference fringe. Sponsored by Labour Assembly Against Austerity and Arise.

With Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, John McDonnell MP, Richard Burgon MP, Dave Ward, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Ian Lavery MP, Sarah Woolley, Holly Turner, Ruth Hayes, Mark Serwotka, Steve Turner, Nadia Jama.

"Our Right to Resist"

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Apsana Begum MP, Diane Abbott MP, Shami Chakrabarti, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP.

FightBack2021

FightBack2021 was held online January 2021. Thousands of Labour activists tuned in to be part of Arise Festival’s kickstart to a year of activism, ‘Fighting back in 2021: How Labour’s Left should respond to the current crisis’. Listeners heard from an impressive array of speakers, ranging from MPs in the Socialist Campaign Group, left journalists, trade unionists, and activists in the Labour Party and wider social movements. The message was loud and clear – the Labour left is here to stay, and will be at the forefront of both resisting the Tories’ reactionary agenda, and standing for socialist solutions to the crisis and democracy in the Labour Party.

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The second session, Chaired by Rachel Garnham (Campaign for Labour Party Democracy), saw participants debate ‘Resisting the Tories: Mobilising Labour’s grassroots, the trade unions, communities and the movements’.

Sian Errington, from the Arise Festival team, set the scene by arguing that ‘work inside the Labour Party and building movements in our workplaces, communities and the streets are not in any way counterposed or contradictory. As Tony Benn argued again and again, both are essential and supplement each other’.

Building on that point, Andrew Scattergood, national Co-chair of Momentum, emphasised that we should ‘focus on building power in local government and in our workplaces… building a confident movement that leads resistance against the Tory treatment of working class communities, that elects the best of our movement into national and local chambers, and continues the task of democratising the Labour Party, pushing it to adopt transformative, socialist policies’.

The panel featured further contributions from Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Christine Blower (former NUT General Secretary and Labour peer), Helen O'Connor (The People's Assembly]] Against Austerity), Ronan Burtenshaw (Tribune), Gemma Bolton (Labour NEC), Sean Waters (Sussex Uni Labour), and Dr John Puntis (Keep Our NHS Public). All emphasised the importance of socialists in the Labour Party joining with trade unions, community campaigns and social movements to resist the Tory’s agenda.

People Before Profit

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With John McDonnell MP, Ian Lavery MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Claudia Webbe MP, Roger McKenzie UNISON, Grace Blakeley, Maya Goodfellow, Dr Mona Kamal, Laura McAlpine, Jon Trickett MP, Richard Burgon MP.

References

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have. (accessed February 13, 2023)
  3. ↑ Video: Covid-19 has not gone away. Only the restrictions on it have. (accessed February 13, 2023)
  4. ↑ [2]
  5. ↑ [3]
  6. ↑ https://londoncommunists.blogspot.com/2008/11/viva-la-pasionaria.html]
  7. ↑ [4]
  8. ↑ [5]
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