8 December 1999

Peter Warburton, deputy leader of the Natural Law Party of the UK

This year’s annual conference of the Natural Law Party broke new ground in many ways. New alliances were forged with several organisations to work together for the betterment of the society, and new strategies were evolved to gain support for the party’s policies from a much wider public.

The conference, held at the Maharishi Golden Dome in Skelmersdale from 26-28 November, lived up to its theme of challenging the government’s mismanagement of the nation and offering perfection to everyone.

Party leader Dr Geoffrey Clements set the tone in the opening session by highlighting how the government has consistently ignored hundreds of scientific studies showing the benefits of Natural Law programmes in health care, education, crime reduction and other areas. "We are not offering hope or faith or empty promises, but programmes that have been shown to work. We know that government leaders are fully aware of these programmes and their benefits. It is a matter of gross criminal neglect that they ignore the facts and do not bring these benefits to the nation," Dr Clements said.

Dr Guy Hatchard summarised his newly completed PhD thesis on the "Scientific Validation of Maharishi Vedic Economy: Wholeness on the Move". His research, conducted on economic trends in New Zealand, Norway, the UK, the USA, and Mozambique, shows positive improvements in a broad range of economic indices and quality of life as a result of increased numbers of people practising the Transcendental Meditation and the TM-Sidhi programmes. For example, in 1993 New Zealand and Norway approached the "Maharishi Effect" threshold, with 1% of the population instructed in Transcendental Meditation. At this time their scores rose significantly on the World Economic Forum IMD Index of economic success, which is constructed from more than 200 global statistics.

"Successful economy is not based on money or greed but on human potential. The programmes of the Natural Law Party unlock that potential and enliven the all-directional quality of Natural Law - Wholeness on the Move - at all levels of society," Dr Hatchard said.

The next speaker, Ben Humphries, Northwest Representative of the World Development Movement (WDM), spoke about the importance of putting people before profits in the global economy. He said that the mission of WDM is to campaign for political changes to bring justice to the world’s poor. The aim is to eliminate the root causes of poverty, including Third World debt, World Trade Organisation regulations that favour multinational companies, and the promotion of genetically engineered foods among the world’s poorest farmers. In a hard-hitting address, Mr Humphries described the growing opposition by thousands of organisations to current injustices in world trade. He was pleased to hear about the global initiatives of the Natural Law Party to create balance and progress in the world economy.

"Ben Humphries has a found a party here to support him world wide," said Dr Reinhard Borowitz, Secretary General of the Maharishi International Council of Natural Law Parties. "The Natural Law Party, which is now active in over 80 countries, is not trying to push through the interests of any one group or section of society. It is a global political force that can unite all positive, evolutionary forces in the world. With its holistic programmes the Natural Law Party can take leadership to solve today’s global problems."

Dr Borowitz said that governments are progressively losing their power to multinational companies and economic organisations. "A new globalised approach is vital in politics," he said. "It is not just a matter of human rights but ‘humanity’ rights - the right to natural food, pure water, and pure air. We must hand over our planet in good condition to the next generation. The essential step to solving global problems is to raise global consciousness."

The Northwest Representative of Amnesty International spoke about the organisation’s activities in 140 countries where it has human rights concerns. In response to comments from Conference Chairman, Richard Johnson, that the Natural Law Party’s coherence-creating programmes would help relieve stress in world consciousness and thereby help to lighten Amnesty’s load, Mr Plant said: "We are delighted to hear that you include human rights in your policies. We hope that the work of both our organisations will progress and that our next Annual Report of human rights’ violations be a fraction of the size!"

In an impassioned address, Lynda Brown, campaign organiser for Joan Ruddock, MP, described the progress in the women’s campaign in the UK for an outright ban on GMOs. "Women can add great power to the debate," Ms Brown said. "We are asking what kind of science will serve us and our children best in the next century. The GMO debate is a unique opportunity for the first time for us all to be stakeholders in the food agenda for the 21st Century." She encouraged everyone to keep writing to their MPs and supermarkets and to help educate everyone about the issues. "If we don’t buy it, they can’t sell it, and it will die," she said.

Mark Griffiths, the NLP’s Environment Spokesman responded with an inspiring update on the party’s global campaign to ban GMOs. "There has been great progress in Europe, but we must keep the pressure on until the job is done," he said. "Attention is now shifting to the USA and what has happened in Europe in the last twelve months will happen in the US in the next twelve months, and then it will die."

The Saturday evening session of the conference was a celebration of the global successes of the Natural Law Party, with party leaders calling in from different countries to share their news. Dr John Hagelin, quantum physicist and presidential candidate for the Natural Law Party of the USA, announced that the party was on target to field 2,000 candidates in next year’s federal, state and local elections in all 50 US states. "This will be a third party challenge unprecedented in US history," Dr Hagelin said. In a move that has captured the attention of the US media and public, Dr Hagelin is challenging for the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, which received 20% of the votes in 1992. If he is successful, he will represent both Natural Law and Reform parties in the election and present a very serious challenge to the Republicans and Democrats.

German Martina, Natural Law Party leader in Argentina, reported on the many successes resulting from the recent Third Convention of Natural Law Parties of Latin America. "From us the people hear something that no politician ever gives. We have heard from a wide variety of people that we are offering just what they need."

Otto Odermatt, calling from Seelisberg, Switzerland, described how he recently achieved 5% of the votes when he stood for the Natural Law Party in Canton Uri. "To be successful you must become famous in your area by communicating with the people. You must meet all the journalists and make them your friends," he said. "Most of all you should never be afraid, nobody has such a good programme as us." He said that he particularly gained popular support when he announced plans to build a 500-metre high Maharishi Tower of World Peace in Seelisberg.

Other highlights of this very full conference included a presentation of the completely new web site for the Natural Law Party of the UK, designed and constructed by Deirdre Warburton and Steve Haysom. They received loud applause for the excellent, simple and efficient layout of the site, which presents the entire range of policies and programmes of the party. The site includes many new features and readers are encouraged to view it for themselves at www.natural-law-party-org.uk

In its the final session the conference took an exciting turn with the decision to join with guest speaker Keith Collins in conducting a nation wide campaign for recycling of waste in the UK.

Mr Collins is an economist and Director of Ecologilla and the London Recycling Consortium. He has worked for the government of Ontario, and more recently in the UK, designing and implementing intensive recycling schemes for community groups and local authorities. He pointed out that Britain currently recycles less of its waste than any other country in the Western world - only about 8%. The Netherlands recycles 60%.

Mr Collins said that in Britain today most domestic and industrial waste is dumped in landfill sites. "The space available for these sites is less and less, they create an enormous amount of pollution and environmental damage, and they are very unpopular with the general public," he said. He strongly criticised the UK government’s response which is merely to start taxing landfill sites and at the same time planning to increase from 10 to 130 the number of large incinerators around the country.

"Incinerators are ‘land filling’ the sky. You put garbage in and you get garbage out - particulates and dioxins in the air and heavy metals in the toxic ash. The pollution from landfill sites and incinerators is linked with increased incidence of a variety of cancers, birth defects, and disruption of hormones," Mr Collins said. "Not only is there overwhelmingly public opposition to both landfill sites and incinerators, but they are enormously expensive to operate."

Mr Collins pointed out that the move to build incinerators is driven only political interests and by waste companies who stand to make large profits. The two incinerators in London, for example, produce more pollutants which have been found to be harmful to human health than all the other sources of pollution in London put together - the millions of cars, countless industrial plants, and domestic heating for millions of people. Nonetheless, the Government wants to build eight more incinerators in London in the next few years.

Opinion polls show that 95% of the population prefer the option of recycling waste. Recycling produces least damage to the environment and human health, while yielding maximum economic advantage since recycled materials can be reprocessed and sold. Taking waste paper as an example, he said that the value of the power generated by incinerators is only one hundredth of the sale value of the recycled paper.

Furthermore, US figures show that in terms of pollution, recycling just 1% of waste is equivalent to taking one million cars off the roads.

Mr Collins said that using schemes already tried and tested, 40% of waste can be recycled immediately and a further 40% is compostable. The remaining 20% can also eventually be recycled. He gave examples of several towns in North America and Europe that have achieved over 80% recycling within ten years. The top locations in the UK are Wye at 64% (pop. 1,000) and Bury St Edmonds and Daventry at 45%. Some towns in the US and Australia (Canberra) are now going for 100% recycling.

The proponents of incinerators quote surveys showing that only 30% of the British public will participate in recycling schemes. However, Mr Collins said, a UK recycling trial in Rochford, where there was a properly organised scheme to collect sorted waste from people’s homes, found that 97% participated fully from the first day.

Following Mr Collins’s brilliant and convincing presentation, the Deputy Chairman of the Natural Law Party, John Collins, proposed that the Natural Law Party and Mr Collins’s organisation should join together to launch a "Campaign for a Pollution-Free Waste Industry in the UK". As an initial step, he suggested that everyone should write to Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, calling for an 80% recycling and composting programme. He also suggested writing to MPs asking them to contact the Select Committee on this issue requesting more priority to recycling and suggesting that landfill tax funds should be made available to local councils to help introduce intensive recycling /composting schemes.

The feeling of the Natural Law Party conference was that this could become as big an issue as the party’s Campaign to Ban Genetically Engineered Food. New policy documents will be drafted and there will be a joint campaign with Keith Collins’s organisation in London during Dr Clements’ forthcoming campaign for Mayor of London.

During discussions of the drug abuse problems raging in the UK, businessman and author, William Hite, summarised the contents of his new book, which analyses the problem and presents the Natural Law Party’s solutions. "This is a far greater problem than most people imagine," Mr Hite said. "One third of our children will end up addicted to alcohol or drugs. The government has statistics but no understanding of the subject. If the policies in this book were implemented, we cannot imagine how life in this country would change for the better."

Mr Hite proposed an independent campaign, supported by the Natural Law Party, with the theme "Keep Drugs out of Families", promoting the use of Transcendental Meditation, coherence-creating groups of Yogic Flyers, and the introduction of Natural Law programmes in health care and education - all proven means to reduce drug abuse.

Simon Cohen, a Retired Assistant Chief Probation Officer, endorsed Mr Hite’s position and said that consciousness-based education is the only long-term solution.

John Renwick, NLP Spokesman for Housing and National Planning, gave a brilliant assessment of the benefits for health, happiness and good fortune for everyone that will come from the introduction of the Natural Law-based approaches to building and planning available through the science of Maharishi Sthapatya Veda

The conference also included a lively discussion of completely new strategies to make the Natural Law Party more successful. We will report on these in a future mailing.