I have frequently explained that when I sat in the International Court of Justice and heard Israel’s lawyers tell lie after lie to justify or excuse the Gaza genocide, I could feel I was palpably in the presence of evil.
At least in the Hague you could also feel and indeed observe that most people in the courtroom – including the majority of the judges – were repulsed by the evil.
Yesterday that same evil, and the same lies, was manifested in the US Congress by Netanyahu, to an audience which glorified, reflected and amplified that evil.
Let us not forget that the large majority of citizens of the world, including majorities in many Western countries with pro-genocide leadership classes, are indeed repulsed by and reject the genocide.
The United States has now, openly and before the entire world, endorsed its genocidal imperialist project and rejected both the very notion of international law and the institutions which a more idealistic American generation worked so hard to create – the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.
Netanyahu’s slanderous attacks on the institutions of international law were applauded to the rafters by America’s political leaders. The whole world was watching, and took note.
The Zionist project per se is evil. To steal another people’s land and subject them to long and progressive genocide is about as evil a deed as can be imagined.
There is no such thing as a moderate or progressive Zionist. Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide are fundamental to the entire Zionist project.
I am hopeful that for an entire younger generation around the world, any notion that the United States are the “good guys” has now been destroyed. The reduction of international relations to USA = good guys vs Russia and China = bad guys was never true.
In Europe I am also hopeful that this will lead to a more widespread realisation that NATO is anything but a force for peace and stability, that the destruction of Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan was a series of terrible crimes, and that Ukraine/Russia is massively more complicated than the media would have you believe.
We always have hope, we always have courage, and we always have determination. The fight for truth and freedom never ends.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
There is an argument to continue the convention of referring to the President of the United States as the most powerful man in the world. The dollar has not quite yet been replaced as the world’s international reserve currency and Bretton Woods still, creaking and cracking, holds.
China is now the manufacturer of the world and its brands are no longer laughable worldwide. The United States has just sustained massive damage to its soft power from its support for Gaza genocide.
But China still plays the long game, relying on trade, investment and loans to increase its economic reach. It does not depend on military force or covert regime change to secure access to economic resources.
The more direct American methods work in the short term. Israel is benefiting from the Arab regimes of the Gulf, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia all being dependent on US military and security service support to protect them from their own populations.
The USA is still prepared to project direct military power and fight wars overseas to maintain its influence. China now has greater military capability than the USA, but sees no advantage in using it.
Chinese leaders look with disdain at the crazed and sustained violence of the NATO states this last quarter century, and sees the West losing, not gaining, global influence. That China is gaining steadily such influence, nobody seeks to deny.
But the USA has succeeded, by defying international law, in physically enabling the genocide in Gaza. They will in the next week install a puppet government in Venezuela and quickly move to strip that country’s vast oil wealth into the hands of the US oil giants.
Short-term American crudity can succeed a little while longer, as the Chinese watch their trillions of dollar reserves build, and bide their time. So for now I think we can still go along with the cliché that the US President is the most powerful man in the world.
Except obviously he isn’t. The fact that Joe Biden wakes up in the morning and has to be reminded to remove his pyjamas is no longer hidden. That Biden’s mental faculties declined past normal operation some time ago has been extremely obvious, yet denied by the media and the political establishment even when it was obvious to everybody.
There is a parallel to F D Roosevelt. The myth is not true that his paralysis was hidden from the American public, though it was minimised in PR output. But what is certainly true is that when he stood for re-election for his fourth term in 1944, his extremely poor health, including heart failure, was hidden and directly lied about. He died after five months in office.
We seem to live in a strange age where politics relies more than ever on the big lie technique, even as social media makes the exposure of such lies inevitable. My interpretation is that the permanent state of cognitive dissonance and bewilderment of a population that does not know what to believe any more, is a state which power likes to see in the population.
As the radical fall in turnout in the UK general election showed, the bewilderment and distrust simply leads populations to disengage.
So now we know that Biden is not running anything much, who is? Certainly not Kamala Harris, who has been completely sidelined as Vice President and given only poisoned-chalice briefs like border control. Her function till now, other than the obvious box-ticking of having her on the ballot, was as a lightning rod for public dissatisfaction.
Being President of the United States is a big job. I have no doubt that Biden has enough faculty to make some broad calls, without absorbing a great deal of detail on policy or information on recent events. His career long support for Israel has determined policy; how much he really understands about what is happening in Gaza is a different question.
Most important is that Kamala Harris is absolutely tainted with the active genocide support of the Administration; the supply of weapons and direct military assistance to Israel are all on her too.
But if Biden is not the man running the USA, then who is? How does the state operate?
Well, according to my sources, the most powerful man in Washington, and effectively de facto President, is Jake Sullivan. His official position is National Security Advisor but I am told his work covers far more than this, including domestic policy questions, and he is the person who does the detailed work which Biden cannot do.
Which makes it interesting how seldom he appears in the news – which he does primarily when visiting foreign leaders.
Sullivan has the classic Atlanticist background, as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford to supplement his Yale education. He is fanatically pro-NATO and anti-Russian, unquestioningly Zionist and was the architect of the destruction of Libya as senior policy adviser to Hillary Clinton.
Given the obvious inadequacy of Biden, the studied disinterest of the media in analysing how his Administration actually functions, tells us a very good deal about self-censorship and media ownership.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
In its reaction to the International Court of Justice’s crystal clear ruling on occupied Palestine, the Labour government has disgracefully attempted to ignore the ruling and to continue the Tory policy of total support for Israel.
The UK statement says that:
The Foreign Secretary was clear on his visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories earlier this week that the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence.
But of course it is not the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements that is at issue. It is their existence.
New Labour’s position is that the 800,000 Israeli illegal settlers currently in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should stay in their illegal settlements. That is the opposite of what the International Court of Justice said in its Opinion, which is that Israel must undertake restitution.
270. Restitution includes Israel’s obligation to return the land and other immovable property, as well as all assets seized from any natural or legal person since its occupation started in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions, including archives and documents. It also requires the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements and the dismantling of the parts of the wall constructed by Israel that are situated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as allowing all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence
Plainly “It also requires the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements” is fundamentally different from the Lammy/Starmer line that Israel must not further expand the illegal settlements.
This is extremely important. Maximum pressure must be brought on the Labour government to align with the ICJ. The official policy is that the UK does respect and follow ICJ judgments.
MPs need immediately to press ministers on this precise point. Does the UK accept the ICJ ruling that all illegal settlers must be removed from all settlements?
You can help by writing to your MP asking for their view on this specific question, pointing out the UK’s legal obligation to follow the rulings of the ICJ.
Furthermore the Court specifically stated that states may not trade with Israeli interests in the Occupied Territories. The ICJ said at Para 278 that all states are obliged:
…to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory…and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Again the Labour government must be pressed to meet its legal obligation to comply with the ICJ ruling. I fully support direct action by activists to destroy products in shops imported from Occupied Palestine, and thus ensure compliance with international law.
The second part of the British government statement is an attempt to maintain the position which was roundly rejected by the International Court of Justice. The Zionist states had attempted to argue before the court that the general principles of international law had been superseded in this case by the Oslo Accords.
The British government is striking for the “safety” of this position in the second part of its statement, where it says:
This government is committed to a negotiated two-State solution which can deliver a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.
The problem is that there can be no equality of negotiation between the occupier and the occupied, particularly when the occupied are subject to the apartheid and systematic despoilation outlined at length in the ICJ judgment.
The British government position is precisely the same as arguing that the general principles of international law were negated by the “negotiated settlement” that set up Vichy France.
The ICJ directly addressed and overruled these objections put forward by the UK and partners to its acting in this case:
38. Some participants have contended that the Court should decline to reply to the questions put to it because an advisory opinion from the Court would interfere with the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process laid out by the framework established in the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (hereinafter the “Oslo I Accord”) and the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (hereinafter the “Oslo II Accord”), and may exacerbate the Israeli-Palestinian disagreement, thereby compromising the outcome of negotiations.
39. In the view of other participants, an advisory opinion from the Court would not interfere with the negotiation process and the Court should not decline to give one on this basis. They have suggested that, on the contrary, an opinion from the Court is all the more necessary in light of the fact that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled for many years.
40. In the present circumstances, the question of whether the Court’s opinion would have an adverse effect on a negotiation process is a matter of conjecture. The Court cannot speculate about the effects of its opinion. In response to a similar argument in another case, the Court stated:
“It has . . . been submitted that a reply from the Court in this case might adversely affect disarmament negotiations and would, therefore, be contrary to the interest of the United Nations. The Court is aware that, no matter what might be its conclusions in any opinion it might give, they would have relevance for the continuing debate on the matter in the General Assembly and would present an additional element in the negotiations on the matter. Beyond that, the effect of the opinion is a matter of appreciation. The Court has heard contrary positions advanced and there are no evident criteria by which it can prefer one assessment to another.”
(Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996 (I), p. 237, para. 17.)
In light of the foregoing, the Court cannot regard this factor as a compelling reason to decline to respond to the General Assembly’s request.
41. It has been contended by some participants that the Court should exercise its discretion to decline to answer the questions before it, while others have argued that, even if the Court were to reply to these questions, it should take care that its reply does not interfere with the established framework for negotiations, since it is the Security Council, and not the General Assembly, which has primary responsibility for issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to these participants, an advisory opinion from the Court could negatively affect or interfere with the negotiation framework that the Security Council has established for resolution of the dispute. Other participants who have addressed the question have argued that the Court’s opinion would not be detrimental to the work of the Security Council. In their view, the Security Council does not have exclusive responsibility under the Charter with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, since the General Assembly may also address, alongside the Security Council, issues of such concern.
42. This argument is similar to the one examined in section 3 above, in so far as the negotiating framework is concerned, but also concerns the respective competences of the Security Council and the General Assembly in the maintenance of international peace and security. The Court addressed the latter issue in its Wall Advisory Opinion as follows: “Under Article 24 of the Charter the Security Council has ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’”
(I.C.J. Reports 2004 (I), p. 148, para. 26).
However, the Court emphasized that “Article 24 refers to a primary, but not necessarily exclusive, competence” (ibid.). The General Assembly has the power, inter alia, under Article 14 of the Charter to “recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation”. The Court further stated that “there has been an increasing tendency over time for the General Assembly and the Security Council to deal in parallel with the same matter concerning the maintenance of international peace and security” and that this “accepted practice of the General Assembly, as it has evolved, is consistent with Article 12, paragraph 1, of the Charter”
(Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2004 (I), pp. 149-150, paras. 27-28). This is indeed the case with respect to certain aspects of the Palestinian question.
43. The Court also recalls that Article 10 of the Charter confers on the General Assembly a competence relating to “any questions or any matters” within the scope of the Charter and that Article 11, paragraph 2, specifically provides it with competence to “discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations”. This is the case with respect to the questions posed by the General Assembly in the present proceedings. As the Court has stated previously,
“[w]here, as here, the General Assembly has a legitimate interest in the answer to a question, the fact that that answer may turn, in part, on a decision of the Security Council is not sufficient to justify the Court in declining to give its opinion to the General Assembly”
(Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2010 (II), p. 423, para. 47).
As pointed out in paragraph 40 above, whether the opinion of the Court would have an adverse effect on the negotiation framework is a matter of conjecture on which the Court should not speculate.
Moreover, in view of the fact that the General Assembly has the competence to address matters concerning international peace and security, such as those raised in the questions it has posed, there is no compelling reason for the Court to decline to give the requested opinion
I have given the link to the full Opinion of the ICJ. This is an excellent summary from Law For Palestine. The Opinion is extremely lucid and decisive.
The ball is now back in the court of the UN General Assembly, which requested the Opinion. The General Assembly now should move to suspend Israel’s membership of the United Nations. That is the next project on which I shall be working.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Under Sturgeon, Scotland was in thrall of an incredible degree of rampant corruption that included government, civil service, police, prosecutors and judiciary.
Listen to this simply stunning speech in Parliament yesterday by David Davis MP and you will understand precisely why I spent four months in jail, almost all in solitary confinement.
It is time for a public inquiry, led by judges from outside Scotland.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
An old man in a comic opera uniform was dragged by carthorses in a gilded carriage through the streets of London, then bedecked in diamonds and more gold, all to very little purpose.
That we truly have a uniparty could not be better proven than by a new captain taking over the ship of state, and not moving the tiller one inch, instead merely making minute adjustments to the trim of the sails.
Take the centrepiece Great British Energy company, to be sited in Scotland as a butcher’s apron branded beacon of unionism. GBE will invest in renewable energy with a budget of £8.3 billion over 5 years.
£1.6 billion a year. That sounds impressive until you realise that the turnover of the renewable energy sector is already £80 billion a year. And that the UK has to invest £77 billion a year in renewables, insulation and the grid to meet its carbon reduction obligations – of which it is estimated that £26 billion a year needs to come from the public sector.
£77 billion a year. Of which on these plans 2% is to come from the public sector.
This is what remains of Labour’s Green New Deal plans after being gutted by Starmer.
The other big headline announcement is that Thatcherite staple of deregulation. In particular planning controls on housebuilding are to be relaxed in order to stimulate housebuilding by the private sector.
By reinstating compulsory housing development plans for councils to hit housing targets, New Labour boldly rolls the regulatory regime back to… err back to…[checks notes again]… 2023.
Yes, this great measure reinstates the situation in place under Tory governments until last year, when Michael Gove gave more powers to local councils in England and Wales to protect green belts.
The timidity on public investment in both energy and housing is ludicrous. Nothing is being done to build more public housing. Nothing is being done to address the fundamental problem of the housing market, which is rentier landlordism.
What keeps house prices so high is competition to buy between commercial landlords. Mortgage payments are lower than rent payments, but ordinary people lack the capital formation or income as percentage of property price to secure mortgages at the inflated house prices.
So commercial landlords who have the capital for deposit and security own an ever escalating percentage of domestic property.
Landlords can rent at exorbitant prices to renters who have no choice, and landlords can abuse them by neglecting property maintenance.
Public sector homebuilding, rent controls and restrictions on lending for landlordism are the necessary measures that any government which was not a continuity conservative government would take. Starmer has no interest whatsoever in actually pursuing social justice.
The Labour Party has shackled itself to austerity. Rachel Reeves is to boost the power of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is the institutional enforcement of Thatcherite economics and the total rejection, not just of modern monetary theory, but even of Keynesian demand management.
This is astonishing for what pretends to be a social democratic government.
Not everything is appalling. Ed Miliband’s support for onshore wind and for autonomous consumer energy production is to be welcomed. The improvement of workers’ rights is also welcome, though it should include a real move to a proper living wage and immediate abolition of age wage bands.
Children are to be sacrificed to maintain Kid Starver’s macho Thatcherite credentials, with the maintenance of the two child benefit cap having been elevated to a symbol of “toughness”.
Only 34% of those who voted, voted for this government. Why anybody would bother to do so I have no idea. We still have a conservative and unionist government.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
With Gaza genocide as the galvanising issue, in seats where Muslims are over 30% of the electorate, Labour’s vote share plunged from 65% in 2019 to 36% at the 2024 general election.
In Blackburn, where I stood, Labour’s vote share dived incredibly, from 65% to 27%. This in a general election where Labour won a huge majority.
The strategy to stand anti-Gaza genocide candidates and show Starmer that Labour cannot, as in the past, take the support of Muslim voters for granted, was therefore a success. Four anti-genocide Independent MPs were elected, taking seats from Labour.
However, if you look beneath this headline, the situation is less celebratory for a Left/Muslim anti-war alliance than it may appear on the surface.
To look into this requires a granular look at my own experience in Blackburn that I hope you will find interesting.
In the early 2000s, the Stop the War movement was a highly successful example of a broadly Left/Muslim alliance in which I was deeply involved. It went on to oppose not only the war in Iraq and Afghanistan but also the wave of officially inspired Islamophobia and the attacks on civil liberty in the “War on Terror”.
This video is of me addressing a Stop the War conference on Islamophobia in 2007.
Stop the War’s work goes on and is closely linked with the pro-Palestinian movement, of which I have been a member since the 1970s and which has also been broadly a successful Left/Muslim alliance.
So what is the problem?
Well one pointer is that, of the scores of specifically anti-Gaza genocide candidates, over 20 of whom were standing in constituencies with more than 30% Muslim voters, the only 4 elected were themselves Muslim.
None of the anti-genocide non-Muslim Left candidates, myself included, were able to be elected on the basis of Muslim support.
This is not a fluke statistic, as I hope to explain.
Firstly, there is a problem for many Left candidates in fitting in with the social conservatism of Muslim communities. In Blackburn I found previous writings of mine, for example on abortion, gay rights and on legalisation of cannabis, being widely circulated and used against me.
Muslim supporters urged me to say my views had changed, but naturally I could not lie in this way.
I was also contacted by panicked supporters the day before the election over a quote from the Koran being widely circulated against me, which states:
“O believers! Do not take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Would you like to give Allah solid proof against yourselves?”
Sometimes this kind of attack was quite crude. I was more than once called a “Kaffir”. This example is from comments on the Facebook page of popular Muslim media 5Pillars.
Maria Hussain, who joins in, is the sister of the successful candidate, now Independent MP, Adnan Hussain, and co-ordinated his extremely effective social media campaign.
My second point is that there is a real problem with sectarianism in the UK’s Islamic communities. What I came across in Blackburn – and I believe to be a general problem promoted by British security services – is a specifically Sunni extremist sectarianism. This was used to portray me as an “Assadist”.
By focusing on anti-Assad rebels and the Syrian civil war, this Sunni sectarianism explicitly supports the US/NATO/Saudi position. It was ruthlessly used within British Muslim communities against Workers Party candidates all over the UK, on the alleged basis that the Workers Party is pro-Assad. That assertion is itself based on some alleged comments praising Assad by George Galloway, which I have never seen adequately sourced.
This position was well expressed by Dilly Hussain of 5pillars in a dialogue with Sheikh Asrar Rashid held in Blackburn during the election campaign. This link takes you to a key moment.
The entire dialogue is well worth viewing as a fascinating discussion in which Dilly Hussain puts the prevalent view of the British Sunni community, and Sheikh Rashid responds with thoughtful points with which I very largely agree.
As brief background the Syrian rebel forces – DAESH, ISIS, Al-Nusra and to a large extent the Free Syrian Army – are mostly specifically Sunni, while the Assad regime has been broadly protective of Syria’s substantial Shia, Alaouite, Christian, Jewish and other minorities.
That is extreme shorthand: many Syrian Sunnis support Assad and the original Syrian democracy movement had broad cross-communal support.
The key point however is that the positions put forward by Dilly Hussain – supporting the overthrow of Gaddafi by NATO and supporting the alliance by Syrian rebel groups with the USA against Assad – are identical to those which were being advanced against me in Blackburn by the Adnan Hussain camp, where I was consistently and quite wrongly described as pro-Assad.
The first time I ever met Adnan Hussain, at a pro-Gaza demonstration in Blackburn in April, he included in his speech support for British policy in the Ukraine against Russia. I was bewildered by this. It was only during the election campaign that I understood where it came from.
This pro-NATO aspect of Sunni sectarianism, on the basis of the Syrian civil war, is hard for a liberal mind intellectually to reconcile with what is the genuine and heartfelt opposition of these same Sunni sectarians to Western policy in Palestine. It was a real problem for the Left/Muslim alliance in this general election.
Thirdly, the place of religion in politics is itself a problem for a Left/Muslim alliance.
In Blackburn, campaigning through the religious Establishment was the central plank of Adnan Hussain’s campaign, planned and organised from the outset.
Ulama means scholars of the Islamic religion, a specific and highly trained group. Imams are clerics. The Ulama and Imams together may be taken as forming the religious establishment.
Adnan Hussain very frequently claimed that he had the endorsement of the Scholars and Imams of Blackburn, and indeed that this was the very basis on which he was standing for election. He reinforced this by social media output, often filmed or photographed within mosques or madrassas, continually reinforcing the notion his campaign had the backing of the religious Establishment. Even at his few “political” meetings he always took care to have Imams and scholars behind him.
In this meeting publicised by his campaign and within a religious building, Adnan Hussain states:
With the duas [prayers] of (name of senior cleric present), with the duas of the scholars, I am taking this stance Inshallah [Allah willing], with your support I hope that we are successful Inshallah.
I am showing you here a small fraction of this kind of social media output by the Adnan Hussain campaign, featuring religious establishment endorsement:
There is much more of this. I confess I am uncomfortable with this religious basis of campaigning. On top of which it is very definitely illegal.
Using spiritual influence in an election campaign is against the law and grounds for disqualification. It was used against Luftur Rahman in his disqualification as Mayor of Tower Hamlets in 2015.
It is however a law which is extremely difficult to enforce. Neither the Returning Officer nor the Electoral Commission have any power to intervene against the use of spiritual influence. And while it is an offence, the Electoral Commission advise the police can only act where undue spiritual pressure is brought to bear on a named individual.
The wider electoral law against spiritual influence can, the Electoral Commission say, only be activated by an electoral petition brought against the result by a defeated candidate, to be heard by an electoral court.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not going to do this.
For one thing there is a £5,000 fee to bring the petition, plus you need to have lawyers to take it through the process who are likely to cost many times that.
But rather more importantly, I am not sure it would be right to bring a petition. The voters of Blackburn decided they prefer Adnan Hussain to me. Who am I to query their motives?
While I stated that I am not comfortable with the use of religion as a campaign platform, that is not to say that I agree that it should be illegal to do so. I am in two minds on the subject. I have always felt the disqualification of Rahman was unfair.
The law against spiritual influence in elections was introduced in the 19th century specifically to stop the Catholic church hierarchy in Ireland from instructing people to vote for Irish nationalists.
While I do favour the separation of the state from religion, and worry about the ability of religious hierarchies to exercise control over their followers which in some instances may be unhealthy, I am not certain that I agree the state should be able to dictate to people the criteria by which they should vote.
In short, if Muslims wish to vote for somebody because they are Muslim, or even because their religious hierarchy tells them to do so, is it not their right to vote as they wish?
There is however one aspect of this whole experience which does concern me. Blackburn remains an extremely segregated town, to a degree it is hard to believe if you have not experienced it. There are whole wards which are well over 95% Muslim or over 95% non-Muslim. There are state schools which are 98% Muslim or 98% non-Muslim.
I held 5 public meetings during my election campaign, and attendance at every one was roughly 50% Muslim and non-Muslim.
Contrast that to attendance at Adnan Hussain’s meetings. He held two public meetings I know of, and this the second is identical in composition to the first, i.e. frighteningly ethnically homogeneous.
It is of course natural that a campaign which is heavily based on religion will not attract those not of that religion. Hussain’s campaign tried to state that they had significant support in non-Muslim areas, highlighting in particular his personal friendship with a popular mixed martial arts fighter, but I can tell you for certain this is empty.
At the count you can see the ballot boxes from different polling stations counted, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Hussain’s total of 10,518 votes contained an absolute maximum of 500 non-Muslim votes, and probably a great deal less than that.
In a community as tragically divided as Blackburn, the effects of an MP being elected by only one section, across a divide that to some individuals is sadly bitter, can only be unhelpful.
I realise this is probably more information than you wanted to know about Blackburn and its politics. But I believe that those insights can be more widely applied to the electoral fate of the Left/Muslim alliance on Gaza.
I also think an account of what happened was owing to the readers of this blog, who after all financed my campaign through crowdfunding. For which I am, as ever, extremely grateful.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Six months ago I said to a well-known public figure that the US intelligence agencies had destroyed Trump’s first Presidency and that, in a second chance, he would have to uproot their entire leadership or simply let them continue to run the country and concentrate on making money for himself.
My contact replied that they had recently been told by Tucker Carlson that Trump was very aware of the danger that the intelligence services would have him assassinated. Trump was therefore likely to go for the second option. The last sentence was the musing of my contact, not of Tucker Carlson.
I am not suggesting that the intelligence services were behind the assassination attempt this weekend. I have no idea. I am however wondering what thoughts are currently flitting through Trump’s head about his near-death experience.
I was incidentally trying to calculate what fraction of a degree the rifle was mis-aimed by, to miss his brain by one inch at a range of 120 yards. My maths were not up to it, but it is a margin of the tiniest tremor of the hand on the trigger.
I think it is almost certain that Trump has wondered whether the security lapse were not, at the least, caused in part by a lack of zeal and enthusiasm on the part of those state actors co-ordinating his security.
That is no criticism of Trump’s immediate bodyguards, who acted admirably. It is also fair to note that Trump’s own defiance was courageous. He could not have known if other shooters were around, nor how seriously he had himself been hit already.
That personal bearing has almost certainly increased his election chances. Even more so is the fact that, by some strange political alchemy with little relationship to logic, it appears to be accepted wisdom that this incident makes it much more difficult for Democrats to make Joe Biden stand down.
In his address from the White House, Biden did not mistake Trump for Frank Sinatra or forget why he was there. It is thus touted as restoring his position. It was however a typical Biden performance, snide and partisan, particularly in restating his 6 January narrative as though that were a serious threat to democracy and not a stupid, isolated riot.
That democracy in the United States is meaningless is plain from the choice offered to the electorate between two incredibly flawed individuals. It is a scenario you could not make up.
If you were to put Donald Trump and Joe Biden into an entirely random yoga class in Oklahoma, neither Trump nor Biden would be the person in that yoga class best suited to be President of the United States.
There is however one sense in which democracy in the United States is more alive than in the United Kingdom. Here the Establishment got the operative they wanted in Keir Starmer elected, but had no argument with the Tories other than over competence.
In the United States the Establishment is worried that Trump’s isolationist tendencies and lack of enthusiasm for starting wars, may damage the never-ending gravy train of the military industrial complex.
In particular Trump sees both China and Russia as potential trading partners with whom money can be made to mutual benefit. He does not see them primarily as a military threat.
Trump is in short not on board for the whole propaganda narrative that requires designated enemies to fuel massive defence spending, and justify the continuous series of invasions of other countries.
This is not ideological opposition to war on Trump’s part. It is simply that, like China, he realises that trade, finance, investment and soft power are ultimately much more lucrative than the classic western imperialist model of armed conquest.
Trump’s problem is that the powerful vested interests who make money from the western imperialist model include the intelligence services. That is why they ruthlessly undermined his first Presidency.
We saw the utter empty nonsense that was the “Russiagate” hoax, on which I have written extensively, but the simple fact remains there has never been any evidence whatsoever of Russian involvement in leaking the DNC, Clinton or Podesta emails.
We saw the hounding from office of Trump’s National Security Officer General Michael Flynn for conversations with the Russian Ambassador which, when finally released in full, turned out to be entirely proper. We saw the jailing of Roger Stone for lying to the FBI, which the mainstream media disgracefully failed to reveal was for claiming to have links with Wikileaks that he did not in fact have.
We had the famously putrid Guardian front page claiming Manafort/Assange meetings that never happened.
Then to cap it all we had the CIA co-ordinated monstering as fake of the Hunter Biden laptop revelations two weeks before the 2020 election.
That this laptop – which all concerned knew was genuine – was proclaimed false was perhaps the most significant example of fake news in the history of the world. That lying narrative was coordinated between security services, and mainstream media all over the western world and undoubtedly affected the election result.
Even more significantly, both Facebook and Twitter cooperated to suppress Hunter Biden laptop stories and to boost the narrative that the laptop was fake. There was therefore the perfect alliance – security services, state and corporate media, alternative media corporate gatekeepers – working together to promote a lie and ensure Biden’s election.
It says something about the world in which we live that the most important and successful fake news in history was set up precisely by those who claim to be the arbiters of fake news.
Which brings me back to the start of this article. What does Donald Trump do about it if he gets back in to power?
I think Trump is quite right to fear that were he to negotiate a reasonable settlement of the Ukraine war, rather than continue the multi trillion dollar bonanza of weapons, death and high energy prices it now is, then he might be assassinated by his own security services.
For Trump to really run the United States would require an unprecedented cleanout of the Clintonite leadership throughout the security establishment, going much deeper than a normal change of administration. I think Trump always did understand that but found it impractical to “drain the swamp”.
With the ailing Biden, it is obvious to everybody he is not actually in charge of anything. I predict that, if we get a Trump administration, Trump will not actually be in charge either but will settle for an easy life while allowing the Establishment to continue to run the country.
When Peter Cook founded the Establishment Club, nobody scoffed at him and said “what a silly conspiracy theorist, there is no such thing as the Establishment”. I prefer to use that word rather than Deep State. But it is the same thing.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
What exactly has changed as a result of that election, other than a different team of snouts in the trough?
Starmer’s first act as Prime Minister of the UK was to attend a NATO warmonger fest and promise unlimited resources to keep the terrible and unwinnable war in the Ukraine going. In addition he is pledging to increase UK “Defence” spending to 2.5% of GDP, or over £18 billion a year extra – a massive bonanza for the arms industry.
Let us be absolutely plain that this is not “defence”. There is no country which has any plan or even vague intention to invade the UK. In modern history, only Germany, France and the Netherlands ever had such plans (the Netherlands actually succeeded but nobody noticed as the victors write the history).
Russia and China in particular have no intention whatsoever of attacking the UK. Let me write that again because, while it should be a basic fact of international relations, it is one that our entire geopolitical system depends upon denying. In fact I am not sure I have ever seen it stated plainly anywhere else.
Russia and China have no intention whatsoever of attacking the UK.
Our “defence” expenditure is not for defence. It is for power projection overseas. It is spent on aircraft carriers and worldwide nuclear submarines, not on anti-missile defences around British cities.
Our “defence” expenditure is geared to attacking other countries. And attack other countries we do. Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen to name but a few. We are currently attacking Russia by proxy.
That picture is not Gaza but Sirte in Libya, once Africa’s most prosperous country, after receiving the benefit of NATO “defence” expenditure.
Ask yourself this simple question – when did a Russian missile last land on British soil? The answer is never. Yet Starmer has just announced we are explicitly sending Ukraine missiles capable of striking inside Russia.
Aircraft carriers have no purpose whatsoever except power projection. There is no defensive use of an aircraft carrier. You don’t park them just off the UK to intercept incoming attacks. Aircraft carriers have the sole purpose of taking aircraft to attack countries far away from us. They are agents of imperial power projection.
Starmer’s second call after NATO was to meet Joe Biden to do homage. Which is fitting in this context as our aircraft carriers are incredibly expensive platforms for American aircraft. If Biden had any idea who Starmer was at the time, he will certainly have forgotten by now.
All of this money dedicated to destroying human beings is a firm pledge by Labour. There is however no firm pledge of anything for the NHS beyond further “reform”, which means piecemeal privatisation. There is no firm pledge for anything that does not kill people. It is of course a question of priorities.
For one quarter of the cost of the pledged increase in defence spending, Labour could both lift the two child benefit cap, thus taking over 300,000 children out of child poverty, plus give junior doctors the 30% pay increase they deserve.
Instead we have the unchanging priorities of the British Establishment, enforced by a Labour team who are more heartless and self-serving even than the Tories. Amazingly Labour are more in thrall to the private healthcare lobby, more in thrall to the armaments lobby and more in thrall to the Israel lobby.
Since the advent of universal suffrage, no government has ever been elected with the votes of a smaller percentage of eligible voters. 34% of those voting delivered a massive landslide under the ludicrous UK electoral system, and with a low turnout only 20% of eligible voters backed Starmer.
Picture 70 adults inside a big superstore. On average only 14 of them voted Labour. You can be walking down several aisles and to the checkout and never pass anyone who voted for this government. That is the foundation of popular “support” on which this Starmer regime rests. As the gap between rich and poor grows at unprecedented speed, it is not public support Starmer has to worry about, but something much more fundamental than that.
The Establishment is hacking away at the foundations of public consent to be governed.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
I left Scotland during this election campaign simply because I thought I could do more good campaigning explicitly for Gaza in a seat where Starmer could be punished for his genocidal zionism.
Scottish independence and the freedom of my own country remains the cause closest to my heart. But although Scotland suffers the drain on its resources of every kind that it has suffered every day of the pestilent Union, Scotland’s little children are not currently being blown into pieces. I am therefore justified in my prioritisation of Palestine at the moment.
I formed an alliance for Palestine with my old friend George Galloway. We have had very different positions on Scottish Independence in recent years, though he used to be for it. George told me, and indeed the media, he has given up campaigning against it.
I was happy to support the Workers Party in England because I supported more of their manifesto than that of any other party there, and particularly the re-nationalisation of all natural monopolies.
It was the intention that more of the Independent pro-Palestinian candidates across the country would stand as Workers Party, though with the election being called so quickly structures and alliances for the Left had to be cobbled together.
I did not actually join the party and I did not use the party’s leaflets or its red white and blue branding (except in small imprints of the party logo). I very definitely refused to wear a red white and blue rosette! My campaign concentrated very heavily on Gaza.
It has to be said that the political situation in Scotland is a toxic mess I was glad to be out of for this election. The SNP absolutely deserved the kicking they got.
Support for Independence remains defiantly around 50% as it has done this last eight years, despite the SNP having squandered every single chance to take it forward. The key moment was when Brexit occurred against the will of a very large majority of the Scottish people, expressed in a referendum. That was the moment to declare Independence, against the hated Johnson government.
It is not that Sturgeon bottled it. It is that she had no interest in Independence. She was far more interested in building an extreme cult of personality, featuring hoardings, conferences and vehicles plastered with giant images of herself, and forming a Praetorian Guard of ultra loyal supporters fuelled by a highly charged culture wars agenda.
That included the effort to jail Alex Salmond based on false accusations, which were orchestrated from ****’s office and **** HQ. Were I to fill in the blanks they would send me back to jail.
By accident or design, those most strongly opposed to Nicola’s side of the culture wars agenda also happened to be the most radical supporters of Independence, who were driven from the party en masse, which enabled Sturgeon to continue the conversion of the SNP into a de facto devolutionist party.
Scots are not stupid people, and given the choice between two parties, Labour and SNP, neither of which appeared willing to do anything in practice about Independence, they voted in this election for the one less obsessed with weirdo culture wars, and with a leadership less under criminal investigation.
The SNP were also not helped by the fact that those who left for Alba included nearly all the actual footsoldiers. In the constituency where I live, all of the ward captains who organise the leaflets and posters in their wards left for Alba. It turned out that the SNP’s remaining culture wars enthusiasts were less big on canvassing in the rain.
However Alba itself got nowhere. The ostensibly pro-Independence space is too crowded by the SNP while the media and electoral system militate against new parties. In my view Alba is also over-obsessed, from the other side, with culture wars issues that ordinary people are much too sensible to spend much time thinking about.
One thing that saddens me about the SNP rout is that the party’s talent lay heavily at Westminster, which is where the accident of timing sent many great activists after the 2014 referendum. The SNP benches at Holyrood make me groan, being a result of Sturgeon’s outrageous selection procedures.
Nobody is more sympathetic than me to mental illness (I am bipolar myself), but a situation where a candidate wins over another who got ten times the votes, because the mentally ill get preference, strikes many people as not entirely sound.
So it is a huge mess. I am not sad I missed this election in Scotland, because nothing I could do would have helped. My hope is that this huge defeat will wake the cult up to what Sturgeon did to the party and her monumental failure.
That can lead to a reconciliation to reunite the Independence movement in an SNP which becomes again a broad church, and again focused on gaining Independence, not only at elections.
The Scottish parliamentary elections are two years away. We have that period to capture the 30-40% of Scottish Labour voters who support Independence. I have no doubt disillusion with a Starmer government, elected on 34% of the UK vote (and just 1 in 5 of eligible voters) will set in very, very quickly.
Scottish Independence is still coming within my lifetime. I shall be home soon.
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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Millions fewer people turned out to make Keir Starmer Prime Minister than turned out to attempt the same for Jeremy Corbyn. That is the most important fact of this election, and the one the mainstream media works hardest to hide.
I don’t think any Prime Minister has ever come to power with less popular enthusiasm than Keir Starmer.
Here in Blackburn we had an astonishing result. I was working on projections which had the Labour vote falling from 29,000 to 15,000 which seemed amazing enough. Although on the doorstep the Labour vote seemed extremely soft, I didn’t imagine it could fall from 29,000 to 10,000 in one election.
This is even more extraordinary because the sitting MP, Kate Hollern, was standing again and during the entire campaign I never heard a bad word against her.
The Labour vote collapsed for two reasons. Firstly because of Starmer’s ardent zionism and the genocide in Gaza. Secondly because Blackburn is a town with a strong socialist tradition, which held entirely firm for Corbyn when the red wall collapsed in 2019.
It is fair to say that Gaza caused the Labour vote to collapse in the Muslim areas and that Labour’s extreme switch to the Thatcherite right caused the Labour vote to collapse in the (there is no good way to say this) white areas. But it is important to realise that there is community crossover on both issues.
While there was concern that “vote-splitting” of the pro-Palestinian vote would let Labour back in, in the end Labour just collapsed too far and in fact the mechanism was more complicated than that.
Very little of Adnan Hussain’s vote came from the “white” areas. I personally witnessed the counting of one ward in the south of the constituency where he only got 2 votes but I got 120, in a ward normally entirely Labour. In fact my ability to take “white” socialist or protest votes from Labour allowed Adnan Hussain in.
I have published my doubts about some of the figures behind Adnan. I sincerely hope he will now prove me wrong and become a formidable opponent to Starmer, particularly over Palestine.
Allow me to say I thought we did brilliantly to get over 7,000 votes. Only 5 weeks ago we had only Naila, myself and one local man who wished to be anonymous. We had no office, no money except what you readers crowdfunded, no party members and no contacts.
From that standing start we wrote, designed, printed and delivered 170,000 leaflets, held five great public meetings and spoke to thousands of voters. We had 80 volunteers working really hard by the end. 30 came from Blackburn and others from 13 different countries!!
Our opponents had well-established networks of supporters and activists. At times our campaign was enormously stressful, at times enormously fun. I must confess I found some of the personal and religious bigotry thrown at me hard to cope with at times.
Well, that is over. The voter turnout in Blackburn was a horribly low 53%. In an election where only 3 million people could bother to watch a Sunak/Starmer TV “debate” that was a race for the right-wing ground, the foundations of Starmer’s apparently huge mandate are very shaky indeed.
Watch this space.
I am exhausted today – obviously more developed thoughts will follow.
Yesterday was unforgettable. We have campaigned with open hearts and honed minds, against the slough of corruption which is politics under modern capitalism.
I cannot tell you how happy I am at Julian’s release. It is 4.00am and I haven’t been to bed yet. I have spoken to John Shipton but everyone else is on a plane en route to Australia.
The guilty plea is of course coerced in the extreme and nobody should take it seriously. It gives a chance to claim hollow victory to the odious Biden regime, at the cost of a terrible precedent in law classifying journalism in espionage. But the precedent is only in a court of first instance so is not binding.
I should be plain I have always advised Julian and Stella to take a plea deal if offered and get out of jail. I have no doubt this was a life or death choice. I also believe we will be grateful for the still greater contributions Julian’s immense intellect and capacity for radical thought will make to human development in the future.
The Justice Department were further motivated to offer a deal by the fact that they appeared to have painted themselves into a very difficult corner at the next UK extradition hearing in a fortnight, over Julian’s ability as a foreign national acting outside the US to claim constitutional protections, and could have lost the extradition case altogether.
There is so much more to say but if I don’t get some sleep I will not be alive to say it. I am crying with happiness.
Meantime my election campaign in Blackburn continues. We are very seriously out of money. If you can channel your elation into a donation that would be very helpful.
When I stood in Blackburn against foreign secretary Jack Straw in 2005 as an anti-Iraq war candidate, Jack Straw’s campaign manager was Ibrahim Master. He is now the campaign manager of “Independent” candidate, vote-splitter Adnan Hussain.
This is him on the right campaigning with Adnan.
When I attended a meeting with Adnan until 2.30am three nights ago to try to resolve the vote split that could let Labour back in, Ibrahim Master was in the meeting as Adnan’s second, and did much of the talking.
Jack Straw was the Foreign Secretary personally responsible for the war in Iraq and the death of a million Iraqis, with the blatant lies about Iraqi WMD which he personally told as Foreign Secretary.
Yet in 2005 Master openly campaigned for Straw on the basis that the war in Iraq was not important in Blackburn.
Master drew great criticism for this pro-Straw stance from the wider Muslim community outside Blackburn, but the Muslim community here was under such tight control they voted overwhelmingly for Straw.
Now consider this.
When my candidacy for Blackburn was announced in March, Jack Straw issued an attack on me on 3 April, stating that I had “no cause” to stand in Blackburn.
Then lo and behold, two months later after the election was called Jack Straw’s old fixer turns up with an “Independent Candidate” to split the pro-Palestine vote.
Now you can believe that the man who thought that at least 1 million dead Iraqis was not important enought to oppose Straw and Labour, has had a conversion and is desperately concerned for the children of Gaza.
Other explanations are available.
We are still fighting very hard here. We need help. Come and join us as a volunteer here in Blackburn. Floor space is available.
Contact [email protected].
We are also now completely out of funds! Please donate.
With a very heavy heart I have agreed to the toss of a coin to decide whether I or local independent candidate Adnan Hussain should stand in BLackburn.
I feel I am letting down all those who helped and crowdfunded me, and all our local supporters. The amazing support is swelling every day.
But the last minute decision by Blackburn’s independent group of councillors to run a candidate against me, gives the real danger that Genocide Labour will win. As I was unable to agree in a late night meeting with their young candidate yesterday who should step down, I find myself obliged to agree to a coin toss in the wider interest of the Palestine movement.
This wide ranging interview took place in Lahore in May this year while on a tour from Lahore to Chittral.
I also met with the PTI leadership and with Imran’s legal team.
I also got to umpire some cricket matches, including at the wonderful Lahore Gymkhana, venue of Pakistan’s first ever Test Match, and at Langlands, Chittral in the Hindu Kush which may be the world’s highest cricket pitch.
This was a fabulous meeting to a packed hall. There were moments in both Chris and Richard’s speeches where you could have heard a pin drop and breath was held.
