Liberals Are OK With Slavery

Liberals love to talk about the slavery of 400 years ago, which the Republican Party successfully abolished in this country, but when it comes to slavery today, it is a different story. And there is quite a bit of slavery today–mostly in Islamic countries, which for many centuries have been the prime centers of slave owning and slave trading, and in China.

Some years ago, I wrote about a report that someone had approached Jesse Jackson, the American “civil rights leader,” about getting involved in the anti-slavery movement. Jackson’s representative declined, saying that slavery was not part of Jackson’s agenda. I wrote that this had been reported, but I couldn’t verify whether it was correct. Then I got an email from a guy who said, Yeah, that was me. It’s true. I reached out to Jesse Jackson and was told he wasn’t interested in opposing contemporary slavery.

Then we have Britain’s Labour Party. Labourites are committed to transitioning Britain’s energy supply to solar and wind–an impossibility–and don’t want to hear about the fact that Chinese solar panels, which dominate the market, are made with slave labor. It is actually relatively easy to dominate a market if you don’t have to pay your workers. This is the latest:

Labour MPs have voted to block a ban on the Government buying solar panels where there is “credible evidence” of modern slavery in the supply process.

Peers concerned that China has used forced labour to make the panels had amended legislation in an attempt to stop GB Energy, Britain’s new publicly owned energy company, buying such products.

Note that it is the House of Lords that didn’t want the U.K. supporting slave labor.

But ministers whipped Labour MPs to vote against the proposed amendment, which could mean that solar panels made by slaves end up being installed on public buildings.

Because 80 percent of the world’s solar panels are made in China.

The U.S. does better than the U.K. on this issue:

Critics, including on the Labour benches, said that the Government should look to mirror laws in the US, where it is presumed that goods produced in Xinjiang are made with forced labour unless otherwise proven and are subject to an import ban.

The amendment was voted down by 314 votes to 198.

It had proposed that public money “must not be provided if there exists credible evidence of modern slavery in the energy supply chain of any company designated Great British Energy”.

No Labour MPs defied the Government by voting for the amendment.

That is pretty stark. Britain’s left-wing party is unanimously willing to support slavery in a foreign country in order to get the best deal on solar panels.

It is also classic 21st century liberalism: agitate to tear down Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, because Nelson didn’t take a public position against slavery–not much of an issue in his time–even though the institution he led to dominance, the British Navy, went on to suppress the world-wide slave trade. But meanwhile, collaborate in supporting slavery that is still going on today, more than 200 years later. Typical.