First London borough backs universal basic income pilot following Green Party motion
Islington has today become the first London Borough to back a trial implementation of a universal basic income following a motion proposed to Islington Council by Green Party councillor Caroline Russell. The motion calls on the government to introduce a universal basic income on a trial basis across Islington in response to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.
The council will now write to the work and pensions secretary Thérèse Coffey and chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak to ask them to fund a trial of the scheme in the borough after passing the motion this evening.
A universal basic income is a non-means tested payment paid to all residents of a country or area. Its proponents seek to use it as a policy which would replace most forms of welfare, and be set at a level to guarantee a basic standard of living.
Islington’s passing of the motion comes just over a month after the London Assembly rejected a similar motion calling for a trial of a universal basic income across the whole of London. The motion – proposed by Green Party of England and Wales co-leader and London Mayoral candidate Sian Berry – wasn’t backed by Labour members of the Assembly.
Speaking on the passing of the motion, Russell – who sits as both a councillor in Islington and alongside Berry in the London Assembly – said:
Universal Basic Income is an idea whose time has come. As the Covid crisis deepens and Brexit looms, the need to provide security to every single person has never been greater.
As we build back from this pandemic, it just makes sense to give people a non means tested payment providing the security of an economic floor below which they cannot fall. Not a safety net with holes, but a solid foundation upon which each and every person can stand and build from together.
I hope that Labour members of the London Assembly will now take inspiration from their colleagues at a local level here in Islington and back a trial of Universal Basic Income for Londoners.”
Russell currently sits as one of two opposition councillor in Islington, with every other councillor representing the Labour Party. Russell’s motion follows similar calls from councils elsewhere in the country, such as in Norwich.
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Image credit: Joe Dunckley – Creative Commons
Any idea when the trial is going to start?
I suppose it is churlish to criticise a UBI initiative when I believe UBI should be equal to green issues in our policy agenda.
But,,,the clue is in the name “UNIVERSAL” Basic Income.
Ideally. UBI would be introduced globally, obviusly an impracticality.
But if you can have a universal income experiment in Islington, why not just in Coronation Street?
We do not need experiments, the poor are not laboratory rats, we do not need to find out if they spend wisely. Even if they did not, the case for UBI is not altered one jot.
UBI needs to be introduced to include 100% of the population within the largest possible jurisprudence, and then as a matter of principle, to reduce inequality, or looked at from the other perspective, increase equality: in other words, to redistribute wealth on the grand scale.
This is the necessary accomanying condition to fighting the green war to rid ourselves of the world wide religion of consumption, enrichment and beggar-your-neighbour, and rediscover solidarity and cooperation as the first principles.
Sorry, Islington, I am on the same side as you without reservation.
The GP has to think wider and more radically, now that the climate change and ecological crisis awareness battles have been won.