Labour Revolt Over Heathrow Expansion

The 28 Labour MPs who voted on Wednsday night against the government's planned expansion of Heathrow Airport to include a third runway have sent a strong message to Gordon Brown about the political opposition that awaits this project.

The vote was the largest rebellion on a motion tabled by opposition parties since the Labour government came to power in 1997.

Rebels included three former Labour party environment ministers - Michael Meacher, Chris Mullin and Nick Raysnford.

The building of a third runway may also cost Labour votes. An ICM poll conducted in December suggested that 23% of respondants would be "less likely to vote Labour" if the third runway was built. Of those who said that they intended to vote for Labour at the next eletion, 13% declared themselves "less likely" to do so if the expansion were to go ahead.

Director of Greenpeace John Sauven suggested that the commons vote "will have alarm bells ringing in No 10. Gordon Brown has got a problem on his hands."

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Heathrow, Human Rights and Peru

Opposition to the third runway at Heathrow is not merely about local traffic and noise pollution or even the flattening of the nearby village of Sipson to make way for the planned expansion.

More fundamental than this is the fact that our culture's "addiction to oil" (President Bush's words, not mine) is being met at an increasing cost not only to the physical environment but also to some of the planet's most vulnerable tribal peoples.

Latest to face the risk of the world's expanding thirst for oil are previously un-contacted tribes living in the remote Peruvian Amazon. Anglo-French oil company Perenco have recently been granted permission by the Peruvian government to drill for oil in the region.

Peru’s national indigenous organization, AIDESEP, is opposed to Perenco’s plans as is Survival International who have several videos on the issue on their site. Perenco itself intends to send in over 1,000 workers to the region and to build 14 oil wells.

When Shell began oil extraction among the Yora people in South East Peru in the 1980s, approximately half of the tribal population died over the coming decade, often as a result of contracting diseases for which they had no immune system.

Perenco officially denies the existence of uncontacted tribes in the area, despite confirmation of their existence by the governments of Peru and Ecuador and by Barrett Resources who formerly carried out exploration work in the area. Survival names some of these groups as the Cacataibos, Isconahua, Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro, Mastanahua, Murunahua and Nanti.

Oil exploration is often a human rights issue and by advocating a way of life, personally and in terms of public policy, that actively moves away from carbon-dependency, we have more chance of reducing the demand for fresh oil exploration of the kind currently being carried out by Perenco.

Building a third runway at Heathrow because "If we don't, someone else will" is a dishonest approach when the need is for far more radical action that significantly reduces air travel globally.

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