I have a confession to make.
When a journalist writes this it generally means they will proceed to reveal something they hope will actually show them in a good light or justified in some way. But I have a real confession to make, of something I did that was wrong.
Somewhere in the UK, among the papers of a dead loved one which nobody has the heart to throw out, in cardboard boxes in dusty attics or deep in the filing cabinets of Jeremy Corbyn, exist still a few copies of thousands of letters bearing my authentic signature.
These letters, on expensive paper with an impressive Foreign and Commonwealth Office crested header, state that the British Government will not deal with the African National Congress because it is a terrorist organisation.
Many of them go on to state that Nelson Mandela is a terrorist who was rightly convicted of terrorism by a South African court after a free and fair trial.
I really did write those thousands of letters, not just sign them. I did not believe a single word of it, and was only “doing my job” as a civil servant, but in a sense that makes it worse.
So I know how many government functionaries currently feel in carrying out the government’s policy of supporting and indeed actively participating in genocide.
When I joined the FCO, in my “fast stream” intake of 22 I was one of only two who was not public school and the only one who was not Oxbridge. I also had the unusual background of being a member of CND, Friends of Palestine and various other activist groups.
I could not be excluded because in the several days and stages of public examinations I had (tied with 2 others) outperformed everybody else of the 80,000 people who had entered the Civil Service administrative exams (it was 1984 with 3.5 million unemployed).
But the security services were not happy, and my “positive vetting” was delayed. This is an extremely exhaustive process (nowadays direct vetting) for those with the highest security clearance. An MOD officer, usually retired military, is assigned to investigate everything about you for months, including interviewing many who know you.
So while I joined the FCO in September 1984, for five months I was not given a job but rather put on full time French language training together with three other misfits (one of whom I think was being given extra investigation because his uncle was Roger Hollis).
In the end my positive vetting was left with a query, and I was pulled in to see the Head of Personnel Department. They said that they had decided to grant my vetting certificate, but that I was going to be placed on the South Africa (Political) desk as a direct test of whether it was possible for me to put my politics aside and function as a civil servant.
So I did. You tell yourself many things to get by, chiefly that the UK is a democracy and ministers are elected by voters to determine policy; whereas you as a civil servant are merely carrying through the wishes of the voters.
Thatcher was Prime Minister and she simply was a straightforward supporter of apartheid. This is much denied but I am an eye witness. Geoffrey Howe was Foreign Minister and it was never easy to determine what he thought about anything. Junior ministers running day to day policy were Lynda Chalker and Malcolm Rifkind, who were both viscerally anti-apartheid.
But the line that Mandela was a terrorist and the ANC a terrorist organisation was dictated by Thatcher and absolutely insisted upon.
It is difficult now to explain the intensity of feeling in the UK and the strength of the anti-apartheid campaign. Scores of letters would arrive every day, many from MPs, and – this bit is hard to believe now – in those days every letter would be answered point by point, not with a generic reply.
I was writing those replies by hand, and then giving them to the secretaries to type up. In 1985 the Department got its first word processor and I was able to draft forty template paragraphs and select from those for the replies. But out those replies went from Craig Murray, stating that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist, thousands of them.
I was very actively involved in the Whitehall battle to change the policy, but that is a different story which I have in part explained before.
But this is an extremely important thought that I want you all to ponder.
In 1985, the Terrorism Act 2000 was still 15 years away. There was no such thing as a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act.
Under today’s legislation, every single one of those people writing in support of the African National Congress or out campaigning for the release of Nelson Mandela would have been liable for arrest under Section 12 1 (a) of the Terrorism Act.
That is the danger of allowing the state to dictate whom you must consider a terrorist and punishing those who disagree with the state.
In 1985 the official position of the British state was that the ANC were terrorists and apartheid South Africa were the good guys.
In 2024 the official position of the British state is that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists and apartheid Israel are the good guys.
The state can be wrong.
It is therefore not an irony that Starmer and Cooper banned Nelson Mandela’s grandson from entering the UK as a “terrorist sympathiser” because of his support for Palestine. In this as so much else, Starmer is a follower of Thatcher.
The difference forty years later is that the state is now persecuting British citizens and locking them up for daring to say that the state can be wrong.
The ANC example explains why it is essential we do not give way to this pressure.
Let us face facts. Like most resistance units against colonialism, the ANC were indeed forced by the exigencies of asymmetric warfare into actions that were careless of, or even targeted the lives of, colonial settler civilians.
That did not put them on the wrong side of history. Apartheid South Africa was wrong just as Apartheid Israel is wrong. Occupied people have, in international law, the right of armed resistance. Within that context of lawful struggle, individuals remain accountable for individual war crimes.
The Terrorism Act, abused by the Israel lobby to make it illegal to support Israel’s opponents, is fundamentally bad legislation. It literally provides for up to 14 years in jail if you “express an opinion” in favour of a proscribed organisation.
40 years ago it would have been used against the large majority of the population who “expressed an opinion” in favour of the ANC, officially viewed as a terrorist organisation.
The sickening ratcheting up of pressure on Palestine supporters by super Zionist Keir Starmer continued yesterday with a 6am raid on highly distinguished journalist Asa Winstanley. All his electronics and journalistic materials were seized.
Today 10 UK police launched a pre-dawn raid on the home of Asa Winstanley, one of Britain’s leading and most celebrated investigative journalists.
All this devices, so all his journalistic materials, were seized and are now with the authorities.
He was not charged with a crime. pic.twitter.com/bT9fpnE8rU
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) October 17, 2024
Panicked Zionist “elites” who run western states are lashing out in fear at their opponents. As their popular support evaporates in the face of clear evidence of appalling Israeli atrocities, they are resorting to the methods of fascism.
————————————————
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.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
PayPal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
It is therefore not an irony that Starmer and Cooper banned Nelson Mandela’s grandson from entering the UK as a “terrorist sympathiser” because of his support for Palestine. In this as so much else, Starmer is a follower of Thatcher.
The Global South must become more active; it annoys me how passive they are. They should initiate instant ban on western politicians/ambassadors etc. that have expressed any support for Israel. Tit for tat.
The western hegemony is unfortunately so easily upheld, because there is no party on the other side that takes the fight.
The whole terrorism label is wholly politicized, defunct.
ANC were terrorists then suddenly they were not. Same with PLO, same with Contras, same with Kahane Chai, same with Mujahedin e-Khalq, same with Afghan Mujahedin etc. – time and time again one sees how the West use the terrorist label when it fits not the law but when it fits their geopolitical interests.
Or take Ukraine, where the Ukrainian army could time and time again attack Russian civilians in Russia proper and no Western politician voices condemnation or labels Ukraine a terrorist state; instead the West are busy raiding the homes of pro-Palestinian journalists in the West, labeling them terrorist supporters for exposing the crimes of the terrorist state of Israel.
UK police raid home, seize devices of EI’s Asa Winstanley
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/uk-police-raid-home-seize-devices-eis-asa-winstanley
Thanks Craig, it is really important to understand the biggest lobby advantages were “agreed” years ago. I understand my role preparing regulated reports for an imaginary board; doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of the civil service. The reason I chose that role is the independent fund managers use very old advantages in the capitalist system. These laws and psychological tools of governance and accountancy are drafted in a way that – unconsciously – allows most humans to have a good excuse for not knowing them.
The number one statement I was told by managers, senior managers and even directors: “it doesn’t matter” – very few had the adequate background of corporate law and finance. Basically none having any practical experience of the actual duties of booking trades or speaking to investors or speaking to regulators. My function as a consolidator of global market data, to be interpreted by global market laws and reported to investors on an equal basis; in line with the prospectus and the older capital laws of companies: “didn’t matter” – it didn’t matter because very few understand our banking laws and the banks like it that way.
I stated that the responsibilities we imagine rest with government had passed to the banks; in 2009 they realised the banks had messed up; government had let them get away with it. The slew of laws sat between law and accountancy with neither professional class taking responsibility: still believing it rests with government.
The final stage of the market is the lowly investor, the key workers who pay a contribution to take part in society and so to their representative the independent fund manager. The laws on terrorism are actually embedded in this legislation and because it is a G7 market rule set the US interpretation where “dollars are speech” equity splits the opinion of the market. It’s not by chance that Blackrock and State Street started consolidation of our independent voices. The corporate policy of avoiding politics similar to the civil service; framing professional conduct only in areas of entity interest: my colleagues work for the business of buying assets. I have always worked for society’s future; the conduct rules and market rules should prevent all that we see in society. However, it needs impetus from the market; it requires truth.
Before we had fact checkers and all the other professional groups, wise kings had auditors; and because normally the king’s wisdom was debatable, those who dealt with them had accountants. I am on the oldest rules and they are all consistent. If you care about these things please learn, from someone else if you find me offensive; the funding of genocide is illegal. You simply need to find the laws in a body of work no one has read because the board I report to is a part-time duty based on the imaginary idea of what a board working on your behalf would be interested in. I respect the truth, I read the laws and the guidance for twenty years. Our investors care about more than profit.
Best regards,
Rob
In case an impression is formed of the viscerally anti apartheid former foreign Secretary Sir Malcom Rifkind as a thoroughly good egg – one of the “fundamentally decent” British politicians of legend – he went on the BBC last October to say everyone in Gaza should be denied water and electricity. Sir Malcom is a former honorary secretary of Conservative Friends of Israel, so it may safely be assumed that his opinions on any expression of sympathy (or even understanding) for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance are strident.
Sir Malcom’s son, the Times columnist Hugo Rifkind, said Sir Keir Starmer was having a good “war” in Gaza shortly after the now PM went on LBC to likewise express support for collective punishment.
You aren’t the only person who has had to learn the hard way about the inherently fascist nature of the state and its bureaucracies. The surprise isn’t in the conforming to them but in the rejection of conformity once you realise that you can’t keep your conscience and the money, and that you’d rather have clean hands. Well done that bloke.
“The sickening ratcheting up of pressure on Palestine supporters by super Zionist Keir Starmer continued yesterday … Panicked Zionist “elites” who run western states are lashing out in fear at their opponents. As their popular support evaporates in the face of clear evidence of appalling Israeli atrocities, they are resorting to the methods of fascism.”
The rolling back of democracy and the descent into fascism is well advanced in the UK. The total establishment control of a compliant mainstream media is just one example of this and their spinning of a tissue of lies about the war in Ukraine and their disgusting support for genocide in Gaza are just two graphic demonstrations of it. The competition between the two candidates in the Tory leadership contest to be the most anti-immigrant is another.
Starmer is well versed in the methods of authoritarianism having expelled hundreds, if not thousands, from the Labour Party on spurious grounds, Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension then removal of the whip being only the most glaring. Add to that his virtual suspension of free speech in the Labour Party and, worse still, his support for Israel denying food, water, power and medical supplies to the entire Gaza population. “They have that right” he said. We all saw and heard it.
But as we have a compliant media and political class there is no serious public discussion of these issues, much less any debate in Parliament.
Exactly one month ago Craig wrote about the development of a new political party of the left, “The Collective”, putatively/provisionally led by Jeremy Corbyn pending, as I understand it, the selection/election of a new leader.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/09/a-new-left-wing-party-in-the-uk/
Any serious new party of the left would have to engage with and confront the above issues fully and fearlessly in the knowledge that they could be jailed.
I would suggest that any such new party should have democratic renewal front and centre as one of its main policies (possibly reflected in its party name) and that the proposal and national discussion of a new democratic constitution for the UK should be in the forefront of that.
Such proposals, public discourse and policy could potentially be a world-leading example of democratic modernisation and a counter to the increasing insanity that we are now witnessing.
In the meantime what, if anything, is happening with the five independent UK MPs elected on a ‘support Gaza’ platform?
For me the most chilling revelation in the Ed Snowden biography PERMANENT RECORD was that workers at the NSA spent their lunchtimes watching Fox News. And this was Fox News at its rabid, warmongering worst.
But it makes perfect sense. if you’re paranoid about tariotrs and whistleblowers then you’ll recruit exclusively from the ranks of unquestioning patriots. Snowden himself was an unquestioning patriot who was converted to Establishment-critic by the nature of what he discovered in the course of his job.
The problem is that unquestioning patriots are, by very defintion, not the smartest and most analytical among us. If they’re futher vetted at promotion stage (by the Israel lobby, for instance) then you end up with a leadership that’s fundamentally weak and susceptible to woolly thinking and delusion. One can observe a similiar process throughtout the entire political system/media class — few would argue that the quality of those we see nightly on our TV screens is not at an all-time low.
Napoleon Bonaparte surrounded himself with generals who were brave enough to question him. The western political system, on the other hand, is being rotted from within by mediocrtities who don’t question anything.