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Watching British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announce that Britain is joining U.S. military operations against Iran was like listening to a broadcast from the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984.

Speaking from Downing Street with Union Jack flags behind his shoulders, Starmer affected a somber, reassuring tone, saying that Britain was permitting the United States to use British military bases for “defensive strikes” to prevent Iran from “firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians.”

The British leader’s ability for double-think is impressive. Even after making the announcement, he assured the public that Britain’s involvement is not “offensive”. This is while the U.S. uses British bases in England, Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to mount bombing raids on Iran, which have so far killed nearly 800 civilians in only a matter of days. Civilian deaths from Iranian strikes across the region – so far, fewer than 20 – are a tiny fraction of that figure.

For several weeks, the United States had been flying squadrons of fighter jets and refueling tankers to Britain on their way to the Middle East for what has now turned out to be a major war with Iran. Starmer previously maintained the double-think that Britain wasn’t going to let its bases be used by Trump for any eventual war. The British premier said that this reluctance was based on “lessons learnt” from the Iraq War in 2003 when his predecessor Tony Blair had backed the George W Bush administration in launching a disastrous decade-long conflict that resulted in over one million deaths, millions of displaced, and regionwide terrorism that continues to haunt multiple nations.

Britain has learnt nothing from history. Today, it is repeating the same reckless rush to war in the Middle East in the service of American imperialism. Only this time, a war with Iran could be on an even greater disastrous scale than in Iraq. And Starmer is projecting the risible fiction that Britain is not involved because, he claims, what it is doing is “defensive”. This is Orwell meets Alice in Wonderland.

Starmer, like the rest of the European leaders, is throwing fuel onto a potential conflagration in the Middle East. They are fueling Washington and Israel’s impunity to commit even more crimes by not calling out the aggressor. Instead, the British and the Europeans are pathetically appeasing the aggressor and blaming the victims, Iran.

No wonder Donald Trump has such contempt for these vassals because they have no backbone or independence. This week, Trump told British media that Starmer was an inferior ally, even after the prime minister did a U-turn in favor.

When the Americans and the Israelis started bombing Iran on February 28, it was in the midst of diplomatic negotiations between U.S. and Iranian delegates. Omani mediators were saying on February 27 that progress was being made on talks about Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. But the decision to bomb Iran was taken weeks ago by Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. The talks were just a pretext to give time for cranking up the war machine, with Britain’s help, of course.

Just like the attacks last June on Iran during previous negotiations, Washington and Israel opted for unilateral military action. That is aggression, a blatant violation of international law. Trump and Netanyahu’s claims about Iran building a nuclear weapon and their taking defensive action are cynical lies. Are we to believe people who are carrying out genocide in Gaza?

On the first morning of the latest round of aggression, Iran’s religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was killed in air strikes on his home in Tehran. Scores of other Iranian senior figures were also murdered in separate attacks. Trump boasted about “decapitation”.

That same morning, U.S. and Israeli air strikes hit an elementary school in Minab in southern Iran, killing 165 schoolgirls.

Yet none of the European leaders, including Starmer, condemned this mass murder and aggression. They saved their hypocritical words to censure Iran after it retaliated with its own strikes on U.S. interests across the Persian Gulf and on Israel. Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have been hit with waves of Iranian drones and missiles.

Like Britain, the Gulf monarchies are not innocent bystanders. They have provided the U.S. war machine with crucial bases and logistics to mount the aggression on Iran.

Britain’s Starmer tries to feign innocence that his country and the Gulf states are somehow “not involved”. This is an insult to common intelligence.

Britain and the Gulf monarchs are up to their necks in complicity with the U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran. They will reap the whirlwind for the crimes they have sown.

Trump and his administration have foolishly walked over the abyss, and they are dragging their vassals with them. Trump’s stupidity and lies are so outrageous that they beg questions about his sanity.

Iran has reluctantly gone to war out of self-defense. But it is clear that once committed, Iran is prepared for a long war. It has taken out much of the supply and logistical bases in the Gulf that the U.S. needs to maintain its armada of warships and aircraft. It is believed that when the U.S. and Israel are depleted of their million-dollar missiles and not very effective air-defense systems, the Iranians will move to the next phase of firing their more modern and more powerful anti-ship ballistic missiles.

Moreover, the impact on the global economy from shutting down the Persian Gulf is going to be even more consequential and devastating for the fragile American and European economies.

Iran warned the United States for years not to go to war. But the arrogant Americans and their allies did not listen. They were so full of their own propaganda, illusions, and ignorance of history.

That’s why Trump, Rubio, Netanyahu, Starmer, and other European politicians are speaking with such incomprehensible doublespeak and double-think, and why they are walking into catastrophe.

These arrogant people learn nothing from history, and they are doomed to repeat it. Tragically, and criminally, a lot of innocent people will suffer because of these psychopathic clowns and liars who slavishly serve a capitalist system driven by war.

Part of the problem, too, is that the Western media have for years indulged in the propaganda lies that afforded impunity to criminals in office who keep repeating their crimes.

However, the whole Western warmongering system is about to crash against a wall of objective reality. Orwellian deceit and distortion of history can postpone reality… until the absurdity and contradictions become unbearable.

Finian Cunningham is coauthor of Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism’s Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation

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Being in England at the moment, I suffer not so much from a state of cognitive dissonance as from a state of emotional dissidence.

On the one hand, I have nothing but contempt for the prime minister, Keir Starmer. He is dull and humorless and has the soul (or perhaps I should say he appears in public to have the soul, since I do not know him personally) of an apparatchik advanced to the rank of the nomenklatura. His ideas are pure gimcrack, and therefore he has only to be faced by a choice to make the wrong one. Although claiming to be working class (which he assumes to confer on him the status of moral aristocrat), he made an excellent living, before turning politician, in that most parasitic and destructive of all branches of the law, human rights. Even his face, his very hair, is boring. He is the kind of man who is able to bore at a distance.

On the other hand, I do not want him to resign as prime minister because he would be replaced only by someone worse. As the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins put it with regard to depressed states of mind, “No worst, there is none.” This, perhaps, is not strictly or literally true, for it is difficult to imagine anyone’s regime worse than that of Pol Pot or Macías Nguema, but within quite wide limits it is always possible to wrest deterioration from a bad situation. And the lamentable fact is that the possible replacements for Starmer, were he to resign or be forced to resign, are yet worse than he.

He does have one card up his sleeve against his rebellious troops, the members of Parliament of his own party: namely, that it is within his power to call an early general election, in which case the great majority of those members of Parliament would lose their seats, for no government has ever been more unpopular than his. (Interestingly, I heard a professor of political science, a subject in whose existence I do not really believe, predict, before Starmer was elected, both that he would be elected and that his government would within a few months be the most unpopular in history—a prediction so uncannily accurate that it made me almost believe that political science was, after all, a real subject.)

The general consensus, however, is that Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered. I saw one article with the headline “Starmer has to go but his successor will be worse,” and I thought that was similar to a suicide note. If his successor will be worse, why should he have to go? In politics, the usual choice is between the bad and the worse, not between the bad and the good—and history shows that those who elect a politician because he is good, and not because he is merely better than the alternative, usually end up disappointed, disillusioned, and even embittered. Politics, at least in the modern age, is not a metier for good people.

Of course, it is a matter for profound pessimism that a man like Starmer, of no known ability except that of getting on in a bureaucratized hierarchy, should be better than the likely alternatives, but realities must be faced.

The belief that change from a bad situation can only be for the better is what brought him into power in the first place. His predecessors in the job were terrible, but less terrible than he. We are now in danger of continuing that downward trajectory. This is the natural consequence of believing in the good rather than in the less bad.

There is, in addition, a crisis of political legitimacy in Britain (as in France). With his dim brain attuned to nothing as finely as to power, Starmer has always burbled about his mandate to rule. In the legalistic sense, he has such a mandate, but in a wider and more important sense, he has none. He was elected with 20 percent of the electorate eligible to vote, and with 34 percent of the votes actually cast; the procedure was followed, and no fraud was alleged. But on this rather fragile foundation was erected his supposed mandate to do what he wished or thought right to do, with an alleged justification greater than that of the divine right of kings. Vox 20 percent of the populi, vox dei.

The problem is that almost any conceivable government in the near future will be illegitimate in the same sense that Starmer’s government is illegitimate. The old two-party system has broken down, and whatever the faults of the two parties, they did confer legitimacy on the elected government. And legitimacy of the government is one of the important preconditions of social peace or harmony, at least in the modern world with its belief in the forms of democracy.

The declining legitimacy of government, with the consequent rise in the possibility of real social unrest, is the result of a belief, partly right and partly wrong, that whatever the government, nothing important really changes. The captain at the helm of the ship of state may change, but the ship continues in its direction, generally toward the rocks, for there is nothing to connect the wheel with the rudder.

It is true that the national debt continues to rise whoever is in power or office (and there is nothing like the national debt to ensure the enslavement of a population to its outwardly democratic state). And yet still there is better and worse, at least at the margins, among the politicians on offer. Since life for most of us is a matter of many small things, changes at the margins matter.

Therefore, people who say (and I have heard many say it) that they do not vote because they—the politicians—are all the same, all out for their own advantage, and because nothing much will change, are mistaken. Even the threat of a change of personnel in government will exert some restraining effect on politicians.

That Starmer should stand between a ghastly present and a worse future make me think of one of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales, the one about Jim who was taken to the zoo, ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion.

Original article: theamericanconservative.com

En Sociedad

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Sumado a esto, es patente el declive de la capacidad de gestionar eficazmente los desafíos más complejos y las complicaciones más acuciantes del liderato político en general.

Sí, las élites políticas inglesas ven el mundo a través de un lente brumoso y tienen un algoritmo que es, mayormente, obsoleto.

De no ser, primordialmente, por las estructuras de inteligencia y de seguridad, el caos y la degradación serían, en estos momentos, de ribetes dantescos.

Las implicaciones del Barón Peter Mandelson en las actividades del depredador sexual Jeffrey Epstein sólo están empujando un poco más al despeñadero al gobierno de Keir Starmer y llevando aún más a la ruina al partido Laborista.

Esta situación crítica en la que está inmerso Starmer, debía llegar irremediablemente con o sin develamiento de los documentos judiciales de Epstein porque el belicista Starmer era uno de los peores primeros ministros que registra la historia política de Gran Bretaña. Ni siquiera su adhesión a la prórroga de la guerra en Ucrania, que lo hace para receptar un mayor apoyo de las estructuras profundas del poder inglés, podrá transferirle un éxito en su caótico modelo de gobierno.

A lo más, podrá aspirar a tener un minuto adicionado, pero el juego para él ya ha terminado.

Igualmente, la renuncia obligada de su jefe de gabinete, Morgan McSweeney (por el caso Lord Mandelson y por otros escándalos denunciados por investigadores independientes), es otro golpe durísimo para Starmer (McSweeney era su cerebro), y para las líneas del estado profundo israelí conectadas con la facción del laborismo de Starmer.

Morgan McSweeney, el estratega de Starmer en Downing Street, era otra persona con lazos de larga data con Israel.  Por esa razón, hubo una gran afluencia de efectivo y conectores de influencia israelíes para que Starmer sea un morador del 10 de Downing Street.

A causa de eso, algunas informaciones indican que, en cuestiones decisivas del gobierno, era Morgan McSweeney quien ponía su sello personal, ejecutivo y clánico.

Sea como fuere, Keir Starmer es considerado el primer ministro más impopular de la historia inglesa y una reciente encuesta de YouGov señala que el 50 % de los ciudadanos está de acuerdo con una pronta dimisión de Starmer. 

Publicado originalmente por Geopolítica rugiente

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The latest episode of the Epstein revelations which has impacted the UK might well be a trigger for the entire British establishment to come crashing down. Emails which show both the former Prince Andrew and Britain’s US ambassador Peter Mandelson were selling inside information about British government policies and future strategies have shocked not only the political sphere of the Westminster bubble but also the wider public, with some analysts predicting a major knock-on effect.

It is a sad state of affairs, but traditionally the British royal family has a history of protecting paedophiles, the more recent case of Jimmy Savile being still remembered today by most Brits. But now the public has to accept that Epstein had a proximity to the royal family, enjoyed special access to even land his private jet at military bases and was much closer to the Queen than originally thought. The recent move by King Charles to remove Andrew from “the firm” might have shown some verve to royal supporters, but as more troves of evidence are released many now suspect that this last-ditch survival strategy hides more than it reveals. Did King Charles know more than he is letting on? Were he and the Queen closer to Epstein than originally thought?

For the moment, the king is going to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate to the public that he has nothing to do with his brother’s grubby world of Epstein’s business deals nor his paedo ring, even going so far as to announce his intention to fully cooperate with police investigations which could land Andrew a prison sentence.

Emails from the recently released batch of Epstein files seem to show the former prince passing on reports of visits to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam and confidential details of investment opportunities.

Later on, on 30 November 2010, according to the BBC, he appears to have forwarded official reports of those visits sent by his then-special adviser, Amit Patel, to Epstein, five minutes after receiving them.

There were also details of investment opportunities in Afghanistan, described as “confidential”, which appear to have been passed on to Epstein on 24 December 2010.

The King understands how the Epstein affair could irreparably damage the prestige and influence of the royal family, so it is understandable that throwing his brother under a bus is all about self-preservation.

For Peter Mandelson, at the heart of the British story, it would appear that the dark, murky world of corruption in which he is installed will protect him from any prosecution, as quite apart from being connected to Israel, his own black book of potential blackmail material must be extensive. So what we are witnessing is the comical pretence that he is being dismembered limb from limb from political life and the privileges that it bestows, when in reality he has only lost his job as US ambassador, which even that gave him a handsome pay off as a golden handshake. Mandelson has been selling state secrets to Epstein for quite some time and it should come as no surprise that his home in the leafy suburbs is owned by a Rothschild billionaire. The police investigation into him is a farce and will uncover nothing, while rumours circulate that he will relocate to Israel.

Of course, the Israel connection to the whole affair is critical to understanding the bigger picture and, even though the British press dutifully peddled the absurd idea recently that the whole Epstein honey trap was a Russian operation, the truth is that Israel is the main benefactor of the blackmail ring, although the real asset of Mossad is not Epstein, but Ghislaine Maxwell, who, in reality, was running Epstein. Israel is at the heart of the whole affair, even in Britain.

A little-reported detail is the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, who is apparently Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. In reality, though, McSweeney was so much more than this. Quite apart from McSweeney’s own think tank, which is in reality a censorship tool against freedom of speech being linked to Israel, he was the architect and genius behind Starmer and a fortuitous asset of the Zionists. Both Mandelson and McSweeney have a much darker and closer relationship with Israel than the British press let on, and with both of those key pillars next to Starmer now gone, it is hard to imagine how much longer the PM has left in Downing Street, as now he is alone in the barbaric world of British politics where his own party’s top MPs will be the first wolves to come to his door. If Starmer himself is a product of Mossad and the CIA, as some believe he is, is it fair to assume that those same organisations have now left him in such a state that he will fall on his own sword? Israel needs the British people to look elsewhere now and not join the dots up, linking more or less everything to them. Trump also is looking for others on whom the Epstein story can be pinned. Starmer would seem to be the perfect fall guy here as the entire shabby circus looks for a victim. Watch now as his own MPs, on the Israel payroll, plot for him to resign, and also observe how Mandelson, if anything, is protected by the establishment and will even keep his seat in the House of Lords.

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Negli ultimi mesi il dibattito europeo sulla “autonomia strategica” ha smesso di essere un esercizio accademico e ha assunto contorni sempre più concreti. A spingere le capitali del continente non è una improvvisa conversione ideologica, bensì una pressione esterna che si è fatta più esplicita e aggressiva: la politica statunitense, tra minacce tariffarie, pretese territoriali legate alla Groenlandia e uso disinvolto della coercizione economica, sta mostrando ai governi europei un dato che per decenni è rimasto sullo sfondo. L’alleato che garantiva un “ombrello protettivo” non solo chiede “pagamenti” sempre più onerosi, ma tende a trattare l’Europa come uno spazio subordinato, utile finché allineato e sacrificabile quando serve.

In questo tentativo di riposizionamento si collocano due eventi politicamente convergenti e quasi simultanei, ovvero la visita del primo ministro britannico Keir Starmer in Cina, con la scelta dichiarata di privilegiare un approccio pragmatico alla cooperazione economica, e le dichiarazioni del primo ministro belga Bart De Wever, divenute virali per la crudezza con cui ha descritto il rischio di una Europa ridotta da “vassallo felice” a “schiavo infelice” se non saprà tracciare linee rosse. Entrambi i casi indicano una tendenza, quella del progressivo riconoscimento, dentro le classi dirigenti occidentali, che l’ordine internazionale sta cambiando e che la dipendenza automatica da Washington non è più né gratuita né garantita.

La visita di Starmer a Pechino, al di là delle polemiche interne britanniche, è stata presentata come risposta a interessi nazionali concreti: accordi su export e investimenti, promesse di ampliamento dell’accesso al mercato e prospettive di collaborazione in settori industriali e tecnologici. Le critiche dei conservatori britannici, che hanno tentato di ridurre l’esito della missione a una caricatura, mostrano però un punto più profondo: in molte democrazie europee e occidentali la “questione Cina” viene ancora usata come arma di politica interna, spesso in continuità con cornici e priorità dettate da Washington, anche quando ciò comporta auto-sabotaggio economico.

Eppure, lo stesso fatto che un capo di governo britannico difenda pubblicamente la necessità di “interagire” con la Cina, sottolineando i costi delle “opportunità mancate”, segnala che qualcosa si muove. Per anni, l’allineamento quasi incondizionato alla traiettoria atlantica è stato presentato come unica via possibile, soprattutto a Londra. Oggi, tra stagnazione, inflazione importata, perdita di competitività e crescente incertezza, l’idea che il Regno Unito e l’Europa possano permettersi di chiudere porte e mercati appare meno sostenibile, soprattutto quando gli Stati Uniti dimostrano di usare dazi e minacce come strumenti di pressione anche verso i propri partner.

In questo contesto, non possiamo evitare di parlare ancora una volta della Groenlandia, divenuta simbolo della torsione coercitiva della politica nordamericana. Le pretese statunitensi sull’isola, accompagnate da ricatti tariffari e da una retorica che tratta la sovranità come merce negoziabile, hanno agito da shock culturale per l’opinione pubblica europea. Non è soltanto una questione artica, ma l’evidenza plastica che, nella logica di potenza, gli interessi vengono prima dei vincoli, e che perfino un alleato può diventare oggetto di pressione. Le parole di De Wever, in questo senso, non sono una provocazione isolata: descrivono l’angoscia di una Europa che scopre di essersi affidata per troppo tempo al “bastone” altrui, senza costruire strumenti propri di deterrenza, autonomia industriale e capacità diplomatica indipendente.

Questo risveglio, tuttavia, convive con resistenze strutturali. La NATO resta, per molte élite, non solo un dispositivo militare ma un orizzonte mentale: l’idea che la sicurezza europea sia inconcepibile senza Washington, e che ogni tentativo di diversificazione sia un tradimento o un azzardo. Le dichiarazioni del segretario generale Mark Rutte, secondo cui l’Europa “sogna” se pensa di potersi difendere senza gli Stati Uniti, esprimono con brutalità questa cultura della dipendenza. È una posizione che non si limita a registrare un divario di capacità, ma tende a trasformarlo in destino politico, con un effetto paralizzante. Le capitali discutono di autonomia, ma quando si tratta di compiere scelte industriali, energetiche e strategiche coerenti, riaffiorano timori di ritorsioni nordamericane, divisioni interne e riflessi di subordinazione.

Eppure, la realtà si incarica di mettere alla prova tali dogmi. L’esperienza delle crisi recenti ha mostrato che la dipendenza ha costi tangibili. Sul piano energetico, la rottura traumatica di catene di approvvigionamento con la Russia e la rinuncia a opzioni di diversificazione hanno generato vulnerabilità e rincari. Sul piano industriale, la riduzione della cooperazione economica con partner extra-occidentali ha colpito settori chiave, mentre gli Stati Uniti hanno continuato a perseguire politiche protezionistiche a vantaggio della propria manifattura e del proprio complesso tecnologico. Sul piano geopolitico, la pressione di Washington non è diminuita quando l’Europa si è allineata, anzi in alcuni casi è aumentata, come accade tipicamente nei rapporti asimmetrici.

Da qui l’emergere di un pragmatismo che guarda alla Cina come a un interlocutore necessario in una economia globale interdipendente. Questo non implica cancellare divergenze o ignorare competizioni, ma riconoscere che la scelta non è fra “amicizia” e “ostilità” in senso assoluto; la scelta è piuttosto fra massimizzare margini di manovra o restare intrappolati in una dipendenza che limita opzioni e produce vulnerabilità. In questa chiave, la cooperazione con la Cina diventa una leva di equilibrio che permette accesso a nuovi mercati, investimenti, filiere industriali, collaborazione su transizione energetica e innovazione, senza rinunciare alla capacità di negoziare e difendere interessi europei.

Se l’Europa vuole davvero uscire da questa condizione subalterna nei confronti di Washington, deve compiere un salto di maturità. Parlare di “autonomia strategica” non deve essere solo uno slogan, ma una politica coerente che richiede strumenti industriali, capacità energetiche diversificate, infrastrutture tecnologiche, una diplomazia capace di dialogare con più poli e, soprattutto, una cultura politica che distingua l’interesse europeo dai riflessi di appartenenza automatica. In un mondo che si avvia verso il multipolarismo, la scelta non è fra Occidente e resto del mondo, ma fra dipendenza e autonomia. Le visite come quella di Starmer e le parole come quelle di De Wever indicano che la consapevolezza sta crescendo. La domanda decisiva è se l’Europa riuscirà a trasformare questo risveglio in forza politica, superando la visione chiusa di chi, in nome di una fedeltà atlantica senza condizioni, finisce per accettare che altri decidano priorità e limiti del continente.

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I didn’t authorise the UK sanctioning of Roman Abramovich in March 2022, but I did authorise over 800 other designations of Russian individuals and firms, while I was still at the Foreign Office. I have no connection with the oligarch, nor do I support Chelsea. But I am alarmed by Keir Starmer’s threat to take him to court over the disposal of the proceeds from the Blues’ sale, which appears doomed to fail.

On 17 December, Starmer stood up in Parliament and said, “my message to Abramovich is . . . the clock is ticking, honour the commitment you made and pay up now. If you don’t, we’re prepared to go to court so every penny reaches those whose lives have been torn apart by Putin’s illegal war.’

Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government on 10 March 2022. Under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 all of his assets in the UK were frozen and remain so to this day. He was also subject to other restrictive measures including a director disqualification (i.e. he cannot operate as a director of a UK firm such as Chelsea) and a travel ban.

The practical impact of sanctioning Abramovich was to tip Chelsea into a short-term cash crunch, because the football club’s (i.e. Abramovich’s) assets were frozen. Chelsea’s spending became tightly regulated by a licence issued by the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) at the Treasury. This forced Abramovich to divest his assets which he did in May 2022 when the club was purchased by a consortium led by Todd Boehly. The proceeds of the sale have been frozen ever since.

Clearly, the sale proved the technical effectiveness of the UK sanctions regime at that time. Liz Truss as Foreign Secretary had made it her quest to close ‘Londongrad’, the catch-all term for very high net worth Russian oligarchs who had parked their money in Britain. Forcing Abramovich to sell Chelsea, which he purchased in 2003, was undoubtedly a feather in her cap in terms of how it played out in UK press coverage.

Yet, with pressure to sanction Abramovich and other UK-based oligarchs building after the war in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022, he had already announced his decision to sell the club on 2 March. In doing so, he pledged to donate “all net proceeds from the sale” to the “victims of the war in Ukraine”.

It was and appears to remain Abramovich’s intention that while much of the money would go to Ukrainian victims of the war, some might also go to victims in other countries, including in Russia.

When he made this announcement, UK lobbyists immediately urged the British government to insist that the funds only go to Ukraine, expressing fears that some money may end up with Russian victims of the war, including former Russian armed forces personnel. It is this pressure which has undoubtedly led the government to take the position that it has.

Yet, Starmer’s pronouncements appear little more than virtue signalling.

Abramovich owns these assets, even though they are frozen. It is not for the British Government to adjudicate on how they are disposed. Sanctions are not intended to be permanent. It is still far from clear when the Ukraine war will end, but should a peace agreement be sealed and held to, it is conceivable that UK sanctions would be lifted in the future. Should that happen, Abramovich would again have access to his capital, including the proceeds from the Chelsea sale, and be free to use it as he pleased. While freezing Abramovich’s assets was legal under UK sanctions law, attempting to strong-arm him into sending those assets to Ukraine is not.

Of all the oligarchs, Abramovich was most active in supporting efforts to end the Ukraine war, even attending the failed Istanbul peace talks in March and April 2022. His offer to give the Chelsea proceeds to a charitable cause was consistent with his peace efforts but was not legally binding.

It was also unique, as no other previously UK-based oligarchs have offered to do the same.

The UK has frozen over £25 bn in Russian assets since the war started; the government does not have the powers unilaterally to send those funds to Ukraine as that would amount to theft. Had the similarly sanctioned oligarch Mikhail Fridman chosen to sell Holland and Barret in 2022, which was owned by his investment firm Letter One, the government could not have insisted that the proceeds be sent to Ukraine in the form of vitamin supplements and nuts.

The government now issuing a licence to allow for the Chelsea billions to be sent to Ukraine does not impose any requirement on Abramovich to use that licence. The sanctions licencing system exists to allow designated persons to access their frozen assets to meet essential costs. Mikhail Fridman famously complained that the freezing of his assets forced him to ask the government for money ‘to use taxis and buy food’.

The licencing system doesn’t exist to transfer assets outside of the UK for government-supported causes. Licences are requested by the designated person and their legal representatives.

This case boils down to two broad themes, neither of which reflect well on the embattled Starmer.

First, a tug of war between what seems right and what is legal. With Ukraine fast running out of money, sending them the Chelsea billions may feel like the right thing to do, yet it is legally questionable. Second, this is an attempt to shift the cost of supporting Ukraine’s failing war effort onto sanctioned individuals, to avoid asking Rachel Reeves for more money, at a time when the government’s approval ratings are tanking.

On the second, the Europeans have already died on a similar hill through their failed attempt to expropriate Russian sovereign assets held in Euroclear to support a so-called reparations loan to Ukraine. Keir Starmer should think long and hard before trying the same trick and failing, whereupon he, too, will have to ask British taxpayers to pay for the Ukraine war to continue.

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Starmer’s government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can now outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation – and thereby make it impossible to defend it

The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime.

And lo behold, here we are.

The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any kind of support for an organisation proscribed under the legislation, whether it is writing an article or wearing a T-shirt.

Recent attention has focused on Section 13, which is being used to hound thousands of mostly elderly people who have held signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” They now face a terrorism conviction and up to six months in jail.

But an amendment introduced in 2019 to Section 12 of the Act has been largely overlooked, even though it is even more repressive. It makes it a terrorism offence for a person to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation” and in doing so be “reckless” about whether anyone else might be “encouraged to support” the organisation.

It is hard to believe this clause was not inserted specifically to target the watchdog professions: journalists, human rights groups and lawyers. They now face up to 14 years in jail for contravening this provision.

When it was introduced, six years ago, Section 12 made it impossible to write or speak in ways that might encourage support for groups whose central aim was using violence against people to achieve their aims.

The law effectively required journalists and others to adopt a blanket condemnatory approach to proscribed militant groups. That had its own drawbacks. It made it difficult, and possibly a terrorist offence, to discuss or analyse these organisations and their goals in relation to international law, which, for example, allows armed resistance – violence – against an occupying army.

But these problems have grown exponentially since the Conservatives proscribed Hamas’ political wing in 2021 and the government of Keir Starmer proscribed Palestine Action in 2025, the first time in British history a direction-action group targeting property had been declared a terrorist group.

Now journalists, human rights activists and lawyers face a a legal minefield every time they try to talk about the Gaza genocide, the trials of people accused of belonging to Palestine Action, or the hunger strikes of those on remand over attacks on weapons factories supplying killer drones to Israel.

Why? Because saying truthful things about any of these matters – if they could lead a reader or listener to take a more favourable view of Palestine Action or the political wing of Hamas – are now a terrorist offence. Any journalist, human rights activist or lawyer making factual observations risks 14 years behind bars.

Few seem to have understood quite what impact this is having on public coverage of these major issues.

A month and a half into the hunger strike by eight members of Palestine Action – the point at which people are likely to start dying – the BBC News at Ten finally broke its silence on the matter. That was despite the hunger strike being the largest in UK history in nearly half a century.

There are clear political reasons why the BBC had avoided this topic for so long. It prefers not to deal with matters that directly confront the legitimacy of the government, which funds it. The BBC is effectively the British state broadcaster.

But in a naturally spineless organisation like the BBC, the legal consequences have clearly weighed heavily too. In a recent short segment on the hunger strike, BBC correspondent Dominic Casciani carefully hedged his words and admitted to facing legal difficulties reporting on the strike.

In these circumstances, news organisations make one of two choices. They simply ignore factual things because it is legally too dangerous to speak truthfully about them. Or they lie about factual things because it is legally safe – and politically opportune – to speak untruthfully about them.

The so-called “liberal” parts of the media, including the BBC, tend to opt for the former; the red-tops usually opt for the latter.

The government itself is taking full advantage of this lacuna in reporting, injecting its own self-serving deceptions into the coverage, knowing that there will be – can be – no meaningful pushback.

Take just one example. The government has proscribed Palestine Action on the grounds that it is a terrorist organisation. It has justified its decision by implying, without producing a shred of evidence, that the group is funded by Iran, and that its real agenda is not just criminal damage against arms factories but against individuals.

Any effort to counter this government disinformation, by definition, violates Section 12 of the Terrorism Act and risks 14 years’ imprisonment.

Were I to conduct an investigation, for example, definitively showing that Palestine Action was not funded by Iran – proving that the government was lying – it would be a terror offence to publish that truthful information. Why? Because it would almost certainly “encourage support” for Palestine Action. There is no fact or truth exemption in the legislation.

Similarly, the government has suggested that the current “Filton Trial” – which includes discussions of events in which a police officer was injured during a struggle over the sledgehammers being used to destroy the Elbit factory’s weapons-producing machinery – demonstrates that Palestine Action was not just targeting property but individuals too.

Were I to try to make the case that the alleged actions of one individual – only one person is charged with assault – prove nothing about the aims of the organisation as a whole, I would be risking a terrorism conviction and 14 years’ imprisonment. Which is one, very strong reason not to make such an argument.

But in the absence of such arguments, the reality is that social media is awash with posts from people echoing outrageous official disinformation. This spreads unchallenged because to challenge it is now cast as a terrorism offence.

In truth, since proscription, any statements about the political aims of a deeply political organisation like Palestine Action occupy a grey area of the law.

Is it a terrorism offence to point out the fact, as I have done above, that Palestine Action targeted Elbit factories that send killer drones to Israel for use in Gaza. In doing so, may I have “recklessly” encouraged you to support Palestine Action?

Can I express any kind of positive view about the hunger strikers or their actions without violating the law?

The truth is that the law’s greyness is its very point. It maximises the chilling effect on those who are supposed to serve as the public’s watchdogs on power: journalists, human rights groups, lawyers.

It allows the government – through complaint police forces – to selectively pick off those dissenting individuals it doesn’t like, those without institutional backing, to make examples of them. This is not conjecture. It is already happening.

Investigative journalist Asa Winstanley describes the raid on his home by counter-terrorism police.

Those ‘media professionals’ who fail to speak out against this latest assault on journalism are not journalists. They are courtiers and stenographers.https://t.co/qaGrk11Tgw

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) October 21, 2024

The abuse of the Terrorism Act discourages research, analysis and critical thinking. It forces all journalists, human rights activists and lawyers to become lapdogs of the government. It creates a void into which the government can spin events to its own advantage, in which it can avoid accountability and in which it can punish those who dissent. It is the very antithesis of democratic behaviour.

This ought to appall anyone who cares about the truth, about public debate, about scrutiny. Because they have all been thrown out of the window.

And in proscribing Palestine Action, the government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation and thereby make it impossible to defend that group.

That is what authoritarian governments do. That is exactly where Britain is now.

Original article:  www.jonathan-cook.net

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Starmer wanted punk band Bob Vylan prosecuted for chanting ‘Death to the IDF!’ Four months on, he’s bullying the police to let Israeli football thugs into the UK to chant ‘Death to the Arabs!’

June 2025: Keir Starmer’s government urge police to investigate the punk band Bob Vylan for inciting racial hatred and public order offences after chanting “Death, death to the IDF!” at the Glastonbury music festival.

At that time, the IDF, Israel’s military, is known to be responsible for killing and maiming more than 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with many thousands more dead under Gaza’s rubble. The United Nations; every major human rights organisation, including Israeli ones; and the International Association of Genocide Scholars have all agreed that Israel and its military are committing genocide in Gaza.

Lisa Nandy, Britain’s sports and culture secretary, calls the chant against the IDF – and the BBC’s inadvertent broadcasting of it – “appalling and unacceptable”. Keir Starmer terms the chant “appalling hate speech”. They agree that Bob Vylan and another band, Kneecap, should have never been given “a platform” by either Glastonbury or the BBC. There is widespread agreement in the media and Westminster that the chant is evidence of antisemitism.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, revokes a visa for Bob Vylan to perform in the United States – a move that the Starmer government does nothing to protest.

October 2025: West Midlands police announce that they are barring Tel Aviv Maccabi fans from attending a match in Birmingham against Aston Villa next month because of fears of violence. Tel Aviv’s supporters are notorious for their racist and violent behaviour, both inside Israel and abroad.

Nearly a year ago, there were ugly riots in Amsterdam’s streets provoked by the Tel Aviv fans – many of whom have served or are serving in the IDF – after their team lost against local side Ajax. Inside the stadium and later on the streets, the Tel Aviv fans could be heard chanting ”Death to the Arabs” and “There are no more schools in Gaza because we killed all the kids!”.

The West buries a genocide – by making victims of Israel’s football thugs.

My latest article on why western politicians and the media were so keen to whip up yet another invented antisemitism furore, this time in Amsterdam:https://t.co/l9BYO4EDEw

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 11, 2024

Despite the Tel Aviv fans instigating the Amsterdam violence, much of it caught on video, Dutch and British politicians and media initially went out of their way to portray the Tel Aviv fans as the victims – until, confronted with the evidence, that narrative collapsed. For example, David Lammy, then Britain’s foreign secretary, lost no time writing on X: “I utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.”

It was precisely these “violent clashes and hate crime offences” in Amsterdam that lead West Midlands police to decide its officers will not be able to safely police the Europa League match in Birmingham, scheduled for November 6. They term it “high risk”.

But once again, Starmer and his ministers seek to revive the early, confected Amsterdam narrative, this time suggesting that it is the the Tel Aviv football hooligans that are in danger from Aston Villa fans, that any resentment from Aston Villa fans towards Tel Aviv fans is driven solely by antisemitism rather than by the Tel Aviv fans’ long record of genocidal chants and racist violence, and that the police decision to bar the Tel Aviv hooligans is capitulation to “antisemitism”.

Starmer himself wants the police decision overruled. Ed Miliband, his energy secretary, says: “We cannot have a situation where any area is a no-go area for people of a particular religion or from a particular country.”

But as happened with the official Amsterdam narrative, Starmer’s utterly implausible narrative regarding the Aston Villa game collapses almost immediately. On Sunday, Israeli football authorities are forced to call off a derby between Maccabi and another Tel Aviv team after both sets of fans riot.

Conclusions:

1. British police should not be dealing with the matter of the Aston Villa game. It should never have been thrown into their lap. Tel Aviv Maccabi would not be playing in the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, if Israeli sports team were banned from all international competitions, as they should have been long ago. Russia has been banned. So why are Israel teams still competing? Israel’s genocide in Gaza is far more egregious than anything done by Moscow in Ukraine. The Tel Aviv fans wouldn’t be coming to the UK if their team wasn’t playing.

2. If Starmer and his ministers were so sure that a British punk band needed prosecuting for chanting “Death to the IDF!”, why are they so keen to overturn a police decision and invite foreign fans to the UK when it is widely understood both that those fans will bring their brand of genocidal rhetoric to British streets (“Death to the Arabs!”) and that they are certain to intimidate and use violence against Muslim and Arab communities in Birmingham? Why does the Starmer government think it so important to give special privileges to foreigners to platform their racial hatred, while seeking to remove any platform from British citizens, such as Bob Vylan, they accuse of spreading hate.

Remember this too. Bob Vylan used violent rhetoric against a racist and violent foreign army – a rhetoric neither the band nor its fans were in any kind of position to act on. The IDF is one of the strongest armies in the world; Bob Vylan’s fans pose no threat to it. The chant is better understood as chiefly symbolic: a punkish variation of “Down, down with the IDF!”

The Tel Aviv fans, however, are not just invoking violent, symbolic rhetoric. They are in a position to actually implement that violence in very practical ways – and not just in one setting, but two.

Some of these fans, either currently serving in the Israeli military or as reserve soldiers, have actually helped destroy almost every school in Gaza, and have been actively butchering Palestinian children – at least 20,000 children, the number that have been identified so far before the rubble is cleared.

But it goes further. These fans can, in fact, act out their violent chants and impulses in Birmingham by attacking anyone who looks Muslim or Arab. They can carry out their threats on Britain’s streets. It was obviously this assessment that led the West Midlands police to conclude that the fans should not allowed to attend the match. Why would Starmer wish to overturn a decision to avert a real danger of violence from foreign fans directed at British citizens? Why is the supposed right of foreign fans to attend a football match being placed above the safety of the British public? Why are the supposed sensitivities of a group of hooligans more important than good race relations in Britain?

3. Once again, Starmer’s government is misrepresenting events – in this case, a decision by the police – as “antisemitic”. In the British political and media establishment’s view, is there anyone left in British society – apart, that is, from the political and media establishment – that isn’t “antisemitic”?

The government’s logic on antisemtism is clearly back to front. Violent, racist Israeli football fans do not represent Jews. They don’t even represent all Israelis. Conversely, an aversion to hosting violent, racist football fans is not antisemitism. It is a public order matter. Meanwhile, imagining that violent foreign football fans who chant “Death to the Arabs!” need protecting because they also happen to be Jewish, as Starmer is doing, is antisemitic and Islamophobic in equal measure.

In fact, it is racism of the ugliest kind – racism that clothes itself in the guise of anti-racism. By weaponising antisemitism in this utterly cynical way, Starmer discredits the real anti-racists and breathes life into the racist’s claim that Jews have special, alchemical powers that can invert the world, making “up” look like “down”, “black” look like “white”. It feeds the very worldview that led to pogroms against Jews across much of Europe and culminated in the Holocaust. Starmer knows this.

4. Politicians have long put pressure on football authorities to “stamp out racism” in the game. Yet, here is the Starmer government trying to normalise genocidally racist rhetoric in Britain by inviting it into a Birmingham stadium. If Tel Aviv fans are given a privileged platform to vent their “Death to the Arabs!” chants in the UK, why not accord the same privilege to racist fans from British clubs?

And if the police are forced to climb down on a decision against Tel Aviv Maccabi, what sort of precedent – practical and rhetorical, if not immediately legal – will this set for other violent actors?

5. Starmer is weaponising antisemitism in this way for purely political reasons, entirely unrelated to the safety of British Jews. This is not new from him, nor is he alone. The British establishment has been using “antisemitism” as a tool to wield against every and any threat to its continuing entrenchment of power.

Over the past five years, Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, an exceptionally rare case of a democratic socialist getting within scent of power, to oust him from the Labour party.

Once Corbyn was gone, Starmer used weaponised antisemitism against the left of the party to purge its members – one of the reasons his party has plumbed new lows in polling.

Starmer has used weaponised antisemitism against student movements that tried to highlight and end their universities’ culpability in financing and arming Israel’s genocide.

Starmer used weaponised antisemitism to outlaw Palestine Action, which targets factories in Britain sending weapons to Israel for use in the Gaza genocide and was piling additional pressure on his government to end arms sales to Israel.

Starmer is using weaponised antisemitism against ordinary, peaceful citizens who have held a placard supporting Palestine Action’s work.

And now, driven into a logical and ethical cul-de-sac through his relentless campaign of mischaracterising anti-racism as antisemitism, Starmer is implicitly accusing the police of antisemitism. Why? Because they are trying to protect British communities from the overspill of genocidal violence issuing from Israel.

Original article:  www.jonathan-cook.ne

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Keir Starmer’s approach appears so weak because he has been working hard to open up a more open trade and investment relationship with China.

Unfortunately, the disintegration of the spy case against Christopher Berry and Christopher reveals an uncomfortable truth about international relations; that we spy on the countries that we want to do business with.

Keir Starmer probably wants the China spy case to go away ahead of his planned visit to Beijing this year. How Embarrassing for him to be asked about Chinese spies by the press pack while he’s smiling for the camera with Xi Jinping in Tiananmen Square. But he just needs to man up.

The criminal case was launched under the previous Tory government and involved an extensive investigation by MI5 and SO15 over a period of more than a year. It’s unfortunate that it has dragged on this long as I believe both men have a case to answer.

The government has released three statements by Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Collins the first of which, from 22 November 2023 is damming.

It suggests that Christopher Berry, according to the statement, was cultivated by a Chinese intelligence agent called ‘Alex’ who commissioned him to pursue certain types of information about British parliamentarians and about UK government policy. ‘Alex’ also facilitates access for Berry to Xi Jinping’s so-called ‘right hand man’, an almost inconceivable feat for an apparently humble economics teacher living in Hangzhou.

Berry, in turn, is regularly receiving information from his friend Christopher Cash in London who he met while teaching together in China in 2017. Problem is that Cash has gone on to be Director of the China Research Group in London, set up by Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien to advance the case for a more hawkish UK policy towards China. And Cash is passing on information to Berry, having had regular and privileged access to Parliamentarians such as Tugendhat as well as Alicia Kearns, then Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Sometimes, the best place to hide a book is in the library.

Occasionally, Berry requests information at short notice and on least one occasion an offer of payment to Cash (no pun intended) is made. Throughout, it appears clear that Cash knows his old friend Berry is reporting to a Chinese ‘interlocutor’ and on one occasion remarks that ‘you’re in spy territory now’.

Berry and Cash’s communication was followed for over a year by MI5.Among other things, they discuss Tom Tugendhat’s possible elevation to a Ministerial role, something the Chinese would have been very interested in, given his hawkish stance on China policy. Details of a secret meeting of Taiwanese officials is revealed.

It’s true that not much of the information apparently revealed is earth shattering, but that does not mean that Chinese intelligence services wouldn’t have found it useful. The vast majority of secret intelligence reporting is remarkably mundane but helps to create building blocks that form a picture or a trend over time. It can also be useful to corroborate intelligence from other sources and to assist with targeting, as Collins points out.

Throughout the period of the investigation, China Research Group was playing an active role in lobbying on China policy. And the supposedly hawkish Cash was passing information directly to the Chinese Communist Party, via Berry. Everything about the case suggests that Berry is using Cash as a covert human intelligence source.

What makes Collins’ statement more damming is that it was written at such a low level of security classification. That is what makes the CPS argument that it fell 5% short of being enough so spurious. Because more classified material must surely have been relied upon in court at a later stage.

There is also an air of cock-up rather than conspiracy to this case collapsing. Had MI5 waited four months to arrest both men after the National Security Act of 2023 received royal assent, we wouldn’t be having the discussion about whether or not China was assessed as an enemy and both men would likely already be in court. Because this is a matter upon which the courts should decide, not politicians keen to manage their relationships with foreign states.

Keir Starmer’s approach appears so mendacious and weak, precisely because he has been working hard to open up a more open trade and investment relationship with China.

Since October of 2024 the labour government has launched a conveyor belt of Ministers and senior officials into China to warm up the relationship. This includes David Lammy while Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Environment Secretary Ed Miliband, junior trade minister Douglas Alexander, the National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell and former Chief of the Defence Staff, Tony Radakin. All this has been paving the way for a grand visit to China by Starmer that has been mooted for the end of this year.

Rather than fronting up to Xi and handling a potentially awkward conversation, I believe Starmer has gone into cringe mode and chosen to see the Berry and Cash case as a major fly in the ointment.

Throughout this year, the government has already gone to great lengths to avoid publishing in full details of its so-called ‘audit’ of UK-China relations, despite appeals from the Foreign Affairs Committee to make it public. Instead, David Lammy made a statement to Parliament on the day the National Security Strategy was launched, 24 June 2025, picking a busy day to bury inconvenient news.

Having been involved in a similar Russia strategy exercise while in government, it’s obvious to me that the China audit would have been a curates egg of the good and the bad. The intelligence agencies and MoD will have gone large on how China is mean and nasty, and how we should spend billions deter its hostile actions, including the vanity deployment of Carrier Strike Group 25. The Foreign Office and Department for Business and Trade will have spoken about the need for constructive engagement and to tap the vast economic opportunities from a more open trading relationship.

China is a massive land of opportunity, after all. Okay, some nasty stuff is going on in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, but there is serious money to be made. The UK trade and investment relationship with China is tiny compared to our relationship with the US. Britain runs a consistent trade deficit with China and also invests more in China than China invests in Britain, meaning a double whammy of UK capital flowing out. International relations is messy, people!

We’re not at war with China and the idea that we shouldn’t develop trade links with the world’s second largest economy, a line pushed by people like Tugendhat, will hurt Britain’s economy more than China’s. Starmer’s fault is that he is too scared and not sophisticated enough to deal with the good and the bad in his dealings with muscular statesmen like Xi.

UK-China relations were stuck in the chiller under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, who didn’t like the idea of Chinese investment in telecommunications and nuclear reactors. Yet David Cameron’s Golden Era of Sino-British relations never completely went away in the Foreign Office.

The China network, as the Foreign Office describes the web of consulates across that country all reporting in to the British Embassy in Beijing – has seen a hefty injection of resources over the past fifteen years. Private sector ‘experts’ were brought in on big salaries to ‘engage’ across key sectors of China’s economy. When I left the Foreign Office in 2023, the Cabinet Office was still labouring bureaucratically to develop a China strategy that would equip HM Government with the skills it needs to understand and engage with China better.

Certainly, while I was working at the British Embassy in Moscow, the difference in approach by the UK towards two separate adversaries – China and Russia – couldn’t have been more stark. From having been a major trade and investment partner before the Ukraine crisis bubbled up in February 2014, the UK has almost not economic ties with Russia today.

When I first visited the British Embassy in Beijing in 2015, it looked and felt remarkably different to the Embassy in Moscow. The harsh security culture with the resident MI5 representative watching over the UK staff like a hawk, didn’t appear as strong in China as it was in Russia.

Perhaps typical for a former Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer is trying to spin the collapsing of the espionage case against Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash on the weight of an arcane aspect of how spying was defined in the Official Secrets Act drafts one hundred and fourteen years ago.

But I recall Sir Richard Moore, while he was still at the Foreign Office in King Charles Street, saying to Dominic Raab, ‘well, you do realise Foreign Secretary that intelligence can only operate if we pay people to give us information’. Raab threw one of his trademark tantrums, although I can’t tell you why.

In this case, at the very least, Cash and Berry appear to have been in the pay of the Chinese Communist Party and should answer to this in court. Starmer just needs to man up, rather than continuing to waffle and obfuscate.

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Ahead of a UNGA council in New York, Britain, Canada and Australia seemed to form a united front against Donald Trump when they ploughed ahead with their formal acceptance of Palestine having its own state.

In the case of Britain, many would argue that it was about time and should have been decades ago as the Balfour Declaration which laid the foundations of Israel as a state didn’t show much reverence towards the ‘locals’. Even in recent years it should and could have been acknowledged by Britain when, in 2014, France’s PM made an informal statement towards accepting Palestine’s own sovereignty.

Much media attention was given the Sir Keir Starmer’s speech, televised but his address merely threw up more questions than answers and underlined a point that many sceptics will point out in days to come: the move is largely symbolic and has very little if any significance in the bigger picture.

Of course it was a step in the right direction but given that Starmer’s support in polls in the UK is close to single figures and that he is battling week by week for his own political existence, for Britain to make this statement just two days after Trump left the UK shows that it lacks any real substance and was all about political posturing, on many levels to many players.

Western leaders are now pulling off a huge bluff in trying to present themselves to their own electorates that they don’t agree with the genocide which the Israelis are carrying out, despite supporting it in real terms for two years and giving Netanyahu and his government absolute impunity from international law.

Yet it is international law which will be the basis of any statehood that Palestine might seek although little mention of this has been presented in recent days. None of these western countries who have made these statements have anything to back up their speeches with as none even have a blueprint they can offer the Palestinians – a roadmap to creating a state. Given this oversight it is hard to take these moves seriously when, in particular, Starmer mentions there will be no place for Hamas in such a new, shiny state, but can’t explain how that would possibly work.

The gesture by Canada, Australia and the UK is aimed largely at two camps, but in reality isn’t going to make any real impact. These three leaders want to send a message to Netanyahu that he needs to listen to them and move towards a ceasefire while stopping the senseless slaughter of women and children in tents. But it’s also directed at Trump. As it is the Donald who has the real power at the UN Security Council level as the U.S. will always veto any proposals for a separate new state for Palestine. He, as well as Netanyahu this week, both made it clear that any such state cannot be allowed. These countries are hoping that Trump’s vanity will get the better of him and he will give in to pressure, but what they fail to understand is that even if the U.S. were to back it at the UN level, the implementation of such a plan would need to be with the full support and agreement of Israel anyway.

The critical point about these statements of support is not only that these countries lack any faith in the idea as none can even be bothered to draw up any draft plans, but more that even together they are weak when faced with the power of the U.S. and Israel. None of these leaders are prepared to back up their “demands” for a Palestinian state by going further and threatening Netanyahu with sanctions and an arms embargo which is where the buck stops. Because of this, the gesture is empty and meaningless which is perhaps why the Palestinian foreign minister described the statements as “brave” as she knows that it merely placed more tension on countries like Britain or Canada with Trump who might have to make more threats to them as a consequence.

Yet in reality neither Trump nor Netanyahu are going to be phased by the support for a Palestinian state and have no problem at all being isolated at the UN. The real danger is in fact that the ganging up on Trump may well push Netanyahu to accelerate the killing in Gaza and impose an annexation on the West Bank, while encouraging settlers to step up their land grabs. The UNGA meeting will also throw the spotlight on another issue though which is the impotence of the UN Security Council itself, made up of UK, France, China, Russia, and the USA. Quite apart from the fact that his motley crew cannot resolve conflicts in central Africa, find a peace deal for Ukraine and certainly not even reduce the most horrific genocide seen in modern times, the UN itself, which it accommodates, is financially destitute and having to dramatically wind down a number of massive operations like its Word Food Program while laying off thousands of workers. The UN is broke and even more ineffective than it has ever been due largely to the Trump pulling a lot of its funding. The ace up Trump’s sleeve if these countries go further will be to pull the U.S. out of the UN altogether for a period of time to show the world who really runs it in the first place. Political posturing comes with a very high price.