Keir Starmer has left about 70% of the landscape of historic western political and economic thought vacant to his left. It is unsurprising that a new party will arrive to claim the unoccupied ground.

A meeting at the weekend discussed a new party provisionally called The Collective, which may be led by Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the meeting. That was strangely secretive but seems to have been an adjunct of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Movement international conference, which occurred simultaneously and featured many of the same cast.

The Collective is not new. This name was used for a loose coalition of independent candidates in the last general election, although it did not register as a political party so the name was not on the ballot paper. I had expected it to join forces with the Workers Party for which I stood, which did not happen. I think a non-aggression pact was broadly observed, though I recall grumbles.

My general attitude is positive – I think a new left party is urgently needed as it sinks in to people just how right wing Starmer is. He is also becoming massively unpopular very quickly, while the Tories still are.

But I believe these practical points are important on the detail of what needs to be done on the left in the UK today.

1) Corbyn and Galloway must come together.

The Workers’ Party got 210,000 votes at the General Election, which is a good start that cannot be ignored, and is building a membership and organisational base.

I count both men as friends and I know they get on fine on a personal basis. Jeremy remains the leader who gained three million more general election votes in 2017 than Keir Starmer did in 2024. George Galloway has a large base of dedicated support.

The failure to come together as a united left in the 2024 general election was a historic opportunity lost. The blame for this did not lie with Galloway, who in January 2024 himself put a motion to the Workers Party conference enabling such merging. I did not discuss it direct with Jeremy, but I believe he thought his best chance of election was as an Independent.

My own belief is that a Corbyn-led party might have won several seats and this was a tactical mistake by Jeremy; whereas George needs to tone down his populist social conservatism, which alienated many around Jeremy, if the aim is for a united left.

The biggest mistake of all would be for the two parties to refuse to unite; which sadly is far from impossible. Initially any new party needs to be led by Jeremy to establish itself. George should be Deputy Leader. Neither man would wish to serve for an extended period.

I would like to see Andrew Feinstein eventually lead, not least because he most definitely would not want to do it.

2) The party must be anti-Zionist.

The destruction of Jeremy’s very real prospects of being Prime Minister by the utterly ludicrous, Establishment-organised slur of antisemitism cannot simply be ignored.

The truth is, I am very sorry to say, that as Labour leader Jeremy was far too willing to attempt to appease the Zionist lobby, by throwing people who would have walked through fire for him under the bus. Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson are among the scores of people who come to mind.

A great many of the expelled activists were Jewish.

A new party of the left should make plain that these anti-genocide activists are positively welcome, and celebrated.

3) The party must avoid cliquishness

If the new party is essentially Jeremy’s project, this is a problem. He does tend to surround himself with a very tight and unchanging group. If you will allow me a moment of delusion of grandeur, the fact that they held a conference on forming a new party of the left and did not bother to contact Craig Murray is an indicator they are not reaching out widely.

According to the report in the Canary, the Director of the new party will be Pamela Fitzpatrick, who is Director of Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, unelected to either position.

I exclude Ms Fetherstone from this next, because I simply do not know in her case. But one irony, and the reason so many decent activists were stabbed in the back when Corbyn was leader, is that many of the close Corbyn clique are in fact Zionists.

They are “soft” Zionists, you know, the ones who want to treat the natives kindly, pat Palestinians on the head and build them cultural centres in their reservations. But Zionists they are. They support the continued existence of the terrorist entity in the Middle East.

The Peace and Justice Project has laudable aims and does advocacy and campaigning work worldwide, with a focus inter alia on South America, influenced by Jeremy’s impressive and underrated wife Laura. But I am obliged to say it is not the most transparent of organisations.

The Peace and Justice Project Ltd is a private company. I believe it has a very serious membership income but I am not entirely sure what it is. The published accounts tell you next to nothing, certainly not its income or membership figures.

There are a number of linked organisations – Progressive International is another – which appear to primarily exist to pay their staff to do stuff that other activists do for nothing, only with added layers of self-importance and entitlement.

Perhaps the paying bit is a good thing, and doubtless the abuse is much worse in the world of right-wing think tanks. But there is just something about it all that does not quite sit right with me, and makes me think it is not a good basis for a mass political party.

So, in short, a genuine new party of the left cannot just automatically get run by the bunch around Jeremy Corbyn, as appears to be the presumption.

4) The party must avoid British Unionism

I have always found it very strange that there are those who support Irish unification but oppose Scottish Independence. The current support of the UK state for the genocide in Gaza is just one example of its malevolence, which is a feature and not a glitch.

In Scotland the large majority of the left wing are pro-Independence; while the right, including the Starmerite right, are overwhelmingly Unionist. The space for a radical left unionist party is very small indeed.

The desire to break up the imperialist UK – whose continuing Imperial instincts have helped devastate Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Palestine in recent times – is a perfectly decent left-wing impulse.

The Alba Party in Scotland is already anti-NATO and anti-monarchy, among other left-wing markers.

Ideally, a new left party should simply leave Scotland (and perhaps Wales) alone. If it does wish to campaign in Scotland, it should take the line that Independence is for the Scottish people alone to decide, and support the unfettered right of the Scottish people to choose, at a minimum.

But any genuine left-wing party should wish to break up the rogue UK state.

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Alongside Richard Medhurst I had the chance to state rather more truth than is generally heard inside the United Nations in Geneva:

“Not only is the West complicit in the Genocide in Palestine, the ruling class of the West is so scared of its own citizens that it is now prepared to persecute its own citizens in support of a genocide”.

Richard Medhurst followed up on the same theme:

Our appearance at the UN was organised by Justice for All International, an admirable Geneva based NGO with which I am proud to be associated. If you can donate to their continuing crowdfunder I should be grateful. Please note that neither Richard nor I stand to receive anything from this other than (hopefully) travel expenses. Their crowdfunder is here.

On an apparently unrelated note, the scandal of the day is Keir Starmer receiving money from wealthy donors for designer clothes and accessories for his wife and himself. In the video above I am wearing the second-hand suit I bought in the Hague when I pitched up for the ICJ South Africa/Israel Genocide case. It doesn’t appear to detract from my words at all.

In the video I state that the reason the western ruling class support Israel is that they are bought.

UK civil servants are not allowed to receive gifts above a very small monetary value, in case they are influenced. I cannot understand why elected politicians are not subject to the same rule. They are in receipt of perfectly adequate public salaries and administrative and policy support from the public purse.

Why are any donors allowed to pay to influence them?

I would say the same for political parties. Individual donations over £1,000 should be banned, from people or organisations. If that shrank party machines, that would be entirely a good thing.

If the West is ever to return to meaningful democracy, these are a small but essential proportion of the changes required in our corrupt systems.

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I just sat through a recording of the Trump/Harris debate. Ignoring the merits of their political stances, I agree with the general consensus that Kamala Harris “won” in performance terms, but only because Trump was awful.

Both were of course terrible on Palestine. While I appreciate that that is of most interest to perhaps a majority of my readers, and that it is a key issue for a significant slice of US voters, it is not what this post is about. I am considering more broadly the prospects for who becomes US President.

Trump’s ability to make a coherent argument appears to have deserted him and he was easily sidetracked by Harris into irrelevant quibbles, notably on rally attendances.

While Harris said nothing even vaguely impressive herself, and was wide open to attack on her own record, Trump did not seem sufficiently in command of the logic of debate effectively to counterpunch.

I suspect that the debate will have done very little to affect public support, because Trump’s attack messages on immigration will motivate his followers regardless, and he kept banging then out.

But I wanted to focus in on the shameless bias of the moderators in favour of Harris. The framing of questions to each candidate was far more hostile towards Trump. Let me take the first four questions asked, two to each candidate:

David Muir to Trump:

“Mr President, I do want to drill down on something you both brought up. The Vice President brought up your tariffs, you responded, and let’s drill down on this. Because your plan, it is what she calls, it is essentially, a national sales tax. Your proposal calls for tariffs, as you pointed out here, on foreign imports across the board. You recently said that you might double your plan imposing tariffs of 20% on goods coming into this country. As you know many economists say that with tariffs at that level, costs are then passed on to the consumer. Vice President Harris has said it will mean higher prices on gas, food, clothing, medication, arguing it will cost the typical family nearly 4,000 dollars a year. Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices because of tariffs.”

Note what is happening here. Muir twice quotes Harris and validates her assertion that a tariff is a sales tax: “it is what she calls, it is essentially, a national sales tax”. He then quotes Harris again on it costing American families $4,000 a year. His question then to Trump is not framed as whether he agrees with Harris’s assertion, but the much more loaded question of “Do you believe Americans can afford higher prices?”

I am in general inclined towards free trade myself, but a tariff is not simply a sales tax, and the $4,000 a year claim is utter nonsense.

The average US household spends only about 11% of its consumption on imported goods. That equates to about $8,000 worth of imported goods per household per year.

Even if Trump were to slap a 20% tariff on all imported goods – which is not his plan – and even if all those goods currently enjoyed zero tariff – which is certainly not the case – and even if there were no import substitution and the entire cost was passed on to the consumer – neither of which would be the case, it plainly is not remotely possible that a 20% tariff on part of $8,000 of spending could cost $4,000.

But whereas various nonsenses spouted by Trump were “fact-checked” by the moderators, Harris’s completely clueless propaganda was endorsed and reinforced.

Trump however ought to have been able to counter by talking of the purpose of promoting domestic production and encouraging domestic industry and agriculture. His inability to do so – and indeed to counterpunch with logical refutation on anything – made this deeply unsatisfying watching.

Lindsey David to Trump

“I want to turn to the issue of abortion. President Trump you have often touted that you were able to kill Roe v Wade last year. You said that you were proud to be the most pro-life President in American history. Then last month you said that your administration would be great for women and their reproductive rights. In your home state of Florida you surprised many with regard to your six-week abortion ban because you initially said that it was too short and said (quote) “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks”. But then the very next day you reversed course and said that you would vote to support the six-week ban. Vice President Harris says that women should not trust you on the issue of abortion because you have changed your position so many times. Therefore why should they trust you?”

Note the aggression in the phrasing of this question, and the use of the negative connotation verb “touting” in the setup. Also throwing in of amplifier phrases… “the very next day”.

Now contrast the tone with the superficially “combative” questions to challenge Harris

David Muir to Harris:

“We are going to turn now to immigration and border security. We know it’s an issue to Republicans, Democrats, voters across the board in this country. Vice President Harris, you were tasked by President Biden with getting to the root causes of migration from Central America. We know that illegal border crossings reached a high in the Biden administration. This past June President Biden passed tough new asylum restrictions. We know the numbers since then have dropped significantly. But my question to you tonight is why did the administration wait until six months before the election to act, and would you have done anything differently from President Biden on this?”

This is fascinating because plainly the intention is to appear to be tackling Harris, while the entire framing of the question is slanted to favour her. The characterisation of Harris’s role is precisely the framing of her campaign team: she was not in charge of border control or immigrant policy, but rather of tackling “the root causes” of immigration. This is exactly how Harris wants it put, but not really true.

Furthermore the problem is presented as essentially solved, again an extremely dubious proposition, and the question is basically – why did it take you so long?

After a couple of exchanges between the candidates Muir leapt in to interject and reinforce a point already made by Kamala Harris:

David Muir:
“President Trump on that point I am going to invite your response”
Trump:
“Well I would like to respond”
David Muir:
“Let me just ask though, why did you try to kill that bill, and successfully do so, that would have put thousands of extra agents on the border?

Let us then look at the framing of another “challenging” question to Harris:

Lindsey David to Harris:

Vice President Harris, in your last run for President you said you wanted to ban fracking, now you don’t. You wanted mandatory buyback programmes for assault weapons, now your campaign says you don’t. You supported decriminalising border crossings, now you are taking a harder line. I know you say that your values have not changed, so then why have so many of your policy positions changed?

Note how, with both questions to Harris, the answer is provided within the question. The immigration question was presented as solved and the flip flop question as reflecting consistent values. Harris did grab on to the proffered lifeline and banged on about her values as a “middle class kid”, and all the hard luck cases she claimed to have been inspired to help.

On Palestine, naturally both vied to present themselves as the staunchest supporters of Israel. Kamala Harris did genuflect towards protection of Palestinian civilians and the Palestinian right of self-determination, but this was so obviously a token gesture from Israel’s chief armers and funders as to not need further comment.

All in all, extremely dispiriting. Harris came over as an entirely unprincipled political operator who will adopt whatever positions serve her career, but is rather more intellectually competent than previously expected. Trump came over as a loose cannon which nobody has loaded.

As with Starmer, there is no doubt that Harris is the Deep State shoo-in candidate, and the priming of the debate in her favour is hardly unexpected. It does require an effort of textual analysis to pin it down, and I hope I have given you a start on that.

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As Starmer and Reeves subject the UK economy to yet more austerity and deregulation, the Scottish Government takes the blame for cutbacks caused by an economic policy in which they have zero say.

That has always been the problem with devolution: it is responsibility without power – an invidious position to be in.

That is not to say the Scottish government does not make plenty of mistakes of its own – the absurdly large sums of money thrown at the “third sector”, often to further pet causes, is one example.

Angus Robertson has just imposed cuts on Creative Scotland programmes, when the arts are a powerful economic driver for Scotland. What he has not done is cut the bloated Creative Scotland itself. Scotland spends considerably more on the administration of the arts than the creation of art.

The SNP has embraced the entire Freeport scam, which is deregulation gone wild and a recipe for human and environmental exploitation.

All this is a reminder that in an Independent Scotland, life will not be perfect and we will still have some appalling politicians. But it also shows that devolution is an effective weapon against Independence because the Scottish Government faces almost inevitable unpopularity from implementing Westminster-enforced policy.

The pretendy “parliament” at Holyrood is a jumped up regional council, no more than that. As we look back on ten years since the Independence referendum, we can mourn the gradual decline in governmental competence at Holyrood.

Still more can we mourn the undeniable fact that for the SNP leadership devolution was enough. They like pretending to be a government and in the last decade have done nothing to advance Independence (other than a Supreme Court hearing for the power to hold a referendum, which they were always going to lose but still deliberately threw, to make sure).

The truth of the conspiracy by Sturgeon to jail Alex Salmond continues to leak out bit by bit. I would add this thought:

When I first (before the Salmond trial) saw the WhatsApp messages between the conspirators plotting the allegations, I could not understand at all why the police were not investigating conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

I realised that in fact the conspiracy stretched beyond Sturgeon’s office and SNP HQ, and the police and the Crown Office had to be corruptly involved too. I remain absolutely convinced of that.

I have written recently of the revolutionary atmosphere that pervaded the Independence campaign ten years ago – the feeling that a new nation could be built that was radically fairer and more equal.

For me, the most significant date in Scottish history in my lifetime was 31 January 2020. On that night the UK left the EU, and Sturgeon assembled the SNP MPs and MSPs for an announcement. There was widespread anticipation she would announce a referendum, given massive public opinion on Scotland against leaving the EU. Independence had established a sustained polling lead.

Instead Sturgeon climbed down completely and said that there were “no tricks or clever wheezes” that could bring Independence. That was the Rubicon moment for the SNP, the day that they became a unionist party and not an Independence party.

I also want to make an observation about the 2014 Referendum. While I was making myself ill, dashing all over Scotland giving numerous speeches, I noticed the almost total absence of both Sturgeon and Robertson from the street campaign. Neither was frequently in broadcasting studios either, especially in the crucial last week. I have been told Sturgeon experienced a medical event, but that does not fully explain it.

This Labour government is going to become very unpopular, very quickly. Starmer achieved the second lowest ever percentage of votes cast for his party of any Prime Minister in British history.

Only Ramsay MacDonald’s 1923 minority government had a narrower base of support:

1923 MacDonald 30.7%
2024 Starmer 33.7%
2005 Blair 35.2%
2010 Cameron 36.1%

If you look not at percentage of voters but percentage of the total electorate, the result is even more stark:

2024 Starmer 20.2%
2005 Blair 21.8%
1923 MacDonald 21.8%
2010 Cameron 26.7%

One in five eligible voters cast their votes for Starmer. If you look at the other lowest examples, MacDonald led a minority government, Cameron a coalition, and Blair had to resign after two years.

Do not allow the fluke first past the post result to fool you. A Labour victory in the next Holyrood election is not inevitable. And yes, I do intend to stand for Alba.

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No major western leader is ever again going to be able to speak about human rights or ethical values, without attracting howls of derision. They are turning on their own people in order to prevent protest at a genocide they actively support.

Keir Starmer stepped up the pressure on opponents of Zionist genocide on Thursday with the arrest of journalist Sarah Wilkinson and the charging of activist Richard Barnard, both under the draconian Section 12 of the Terrorism Act which carries a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

The UK MSM has of course ignored these, but is universally carrying outrage at the conviction of two Hong Kong activists for sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of … 2 years.

But they tell us it is China and not the UK which is the authoritarian dictatorship.

(To be plain, I do view the Hong Kong convictions as also an unwarranted interference with free speech. I merely point out the incredible hypocrisy of the British Establishment and far worse laws here).

Richard Barnard has been charged and will face trial, apparently related to public speeches supporting the Palestinian right to armed resistance.

Sarah Wilkinson was released on bail after about 14 hours. Like the recent arrest and bailing of Richard Medhurst, the arrest and bailing is a device to chill her reporting and activism.

The harassment of dissident journalists at ports, using the extensive powers of the Terrorism Act for questioning and confiscation of communications equipment, has become routine. I myself suffered detention, interrogation and confiscation of equipment for “terrorism” last October.

But the Sarah Wilkinson case is an escalation, in that this is a raid on a journalist whose home was invaded by 16 policemen at 7.30am, while she was arrested and taken to the police station as her home was comprehensively turned over, presumably looking for gunmen under the bed.

More details of the raid have come out which are scarcely believable. Armed counter-terrorism police wearing balaclavas were used against a peaceful, female journalist. She was manhandled and physically hurt. The ashes in her mother’s funerary urn were desecrated in a “search”. And Sarah’s bail conditions include that she may not use a computer or mobile telephone.

It is a fascist government that sends 16 police to bust a peaceful journalist at home at 7.30am.

Like the stopping of Richard Medhurst’s plane on the tarmac by police vehicles and his being dragged from the plane (which had just landed and was en route to the gate anyway) this is an authoritarian theatre of intimidation, a Nazi stamping of the violence of the state.

Richard Barnard is a co-founder of the brilliant Palestine Action, which has done so much to disrupt the Israeli arms industry in the UK as it continues to send vital equipment to carry out the mass destruction of civilians in Gaza.

BREAKING: After a targeted campaign by the zionist lobby, Palestine Action's co-founder Richard Barnard is facing three charges for two speeches.

He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and encouraging 'criminal activity'. pic.twitter.com/cWq0qwk15v

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 29, 2024

Richard has been charged under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act over two speeches he made supporting the Palestinian resistance.

I have of course said this before, but it bears repeating:

Palestine has the legitimate right of self-defence against the illegal occupation.
The occupying power Israel has no right of self-defence. That is the plain position in international law.

Yet in the UK, it is legal to offer full-throated support to Israel’s genocide and to wish that all Palestinians are exterminated.

IDF participants in genocide happily move between Israel and the UK with no legal consequences.

Yet it is illegal to support certain Palestinian organisations when engaged in legal acts of armed resistance.

The state’s actions against activists have been ramped up – as I predicted – since Starmer came to power.

Five young activists in Glasgow were ten days ago given sentences ranging from 12 months to 24 months in prison for direct action against Thales weapons plant in Govan, which makes parts for Israel’s Watchkeeper drones, widely used against civilians in Gaza.

The sentences from Sheriff Judge McCormick were savage – far higher than would normally be given on the specified charges, which were of breach of the peace, vandalism, disorderly conduct and acting in an abusive manner.

These normally would attract at most a suspended sentence on a first offence. McCormick also ignored the Scottish government guidelines not to give custodial sentences of 24 months or less but to seek alternatives.

More tellingly, McCormick completely ignored the elephant in the room: the genocide in Gaza, which Thales are supplying.

(The fact the action occurred before the genocide should be properly viewed as a commendable act of prescience.)

The Zionist Starmerite Establishment were quick to crow over the jailing – notably Luke Akehurst and John Woodcock (who is laughably called Lord Walney nowadays and is the Government Adviser on political violence) who said “Activists considering breaking the law to get their way need to see there will be consequences”.

This follows similarly harsh sentencing of climate change activists, including those who merely took part in Zoom calls discussing direct action.

The authoritarian reaction of the threatened Zionist ruling class is a worldwide phenomenon. Redoubtable Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has been ludicrously charged under hate speech laws for retweeting mainstream pro-Palestinian tweets.

American activist Professor Danny Shaw was turned over by the FBI on return to the USA following a trip which included speaking on a panel alongside me at the Palestine International Film Festival.

Also in the United States my friend Scott Ritter has been raided by the FBI and all his electronics and other materials confiscated.

I have spoken to Danny Shaw and to Richard Medhurst. In all of these arrests and detentions, including my own, the emphasis has been on confiscating electronics and on questioning focusing very strongly on contacts, meetings and sources of finance.

The Five Eyes intelligence services are plainly building up Venn diagrams of the democratic opposition to Zionism and the neoliberal project. It is notable that many of those recently arrested over Palestine – including Mary Kostakidis, Richard Medhurst, Scott Ritter and myself – were active in the campaign to free Julian Assange.

I have always maintained that Keir Starmer’s record shows that he will be an even bigger danger to civil liberties than the Tories. It is worth noting that all of the Tory recent draconian legislation – The Public Order Act, The National Security Act and even the Rwanda Act – was not opposed or was supported by Starmer as the pretend “Leader of the Opposition”.

Starmer and Cooper are continuing the Tory policy of challenging a High Court ruling won by Liberty, that Suella Braverman acted illegally in tabling secondary legislation lowering the threshold to ban a demonstration on grounds of inconvenience to the public.

The forthcoming Online Safety Act will be truly chilling, including making it illegal to publish what the government deems misinformation.

Starmer has always been MI5-controlled. The fact that, while a Tory government was in power, the Crown Prosecution Service destroyed all the key documentation revealing Starmer’s involvement in the Assange, Savile and Janner cases (the last being far more important than generally appreciated), shows the extent to which Starmer is a protected Deep State asset.

If we are to survive this descent onto fascism as a society, we need to be prepared to dissent now, and each of us needs to be prepared to go to jail if necessary.

A last word to Craig Mokhiber, the senior UN international lawyer who resigned in protest at UN pusillanimity in face of genocide:

A dark evil has descended over the West. As the genocide in Palestine continues, the US, UK, Germany & other Western governments, instead of cracking down on those committing, aiding and inciting the genocide, are cracking down on those opposing the genocide. Human rights…

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) August 31, 2024

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