Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? #TORYRIG2019

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

This mid June Vox Article just grabbed my attention, “Why did Labour suspend members after anti-Semitism dossier leak – and keep quiet about it?” Mark Sivier reports on, “The Labour Party has said it has suspended party members named in a leaked party report as having broken rules. The claim, it seems, was not made voluntarily but in response to High Court litigation. A party member named Mark Howell has brought a claim for breach of contract against the party, demanding damages as well as the expulsion of members who broke internal rules and a referral to the CPS for possible prosecutions. He claims party funds and resources were deliberately deployed at the 2017 election, ‘not to win vulnerable seats presently held by rival parties but instead to increase majorities in safe seats of certain favoured party Members of Parliament.’ In other words, he says Labour breached its contract by sabotaging its election campaign in not trying to win enough seats to win a Parliamentary majority.”

I was remis in being late to notice this news item. Vox report that, “According to the Evening Standard: The court heard three separate investigations have been launched by Labour since the report was leaked, while a written legal argument on the party’s behalf confirmed that members have been suspended. ‘The party has promptly commenced an investigation into whether any members referred to in the Report have, based on the materials referred to in the Report, breached the Party’s rules’, it said. ‘Some of the party members have been suspended from membership so far as it is necessary to do so to protect the integrity of the investigation’.” This was supposedly done, “To protect the integrity of the investigation” According to Sivier, “that suggests the suspensions were of party officers who might have had a chance to interfere – such as those in the governance and legal unit, which investigates anti-Semitism accusations, among other complaints. But it may also indicate suspensions of people suspected of leaking the report.”

Sivier comments that, “The party has faced multiple, insistent demands for suspensions over the allegations in the report but stonewalled – suggesting the latter is the more likely case. Labour has insisted that no further hearings will be needed until its internal investigations – three of them – are concluded, around mid-July.” Although he optimistically states that, “We’ll know the way the wind is blowing by then, in any event, depending on whether any of those accused of sabotaging the 2017 election or racially abusing Labour MPs end up facing expulsion or other punitive action – or if someone is named as the whistleblower who leaked the report;” we are still waiting the hear. Sivier says, “that should tell us everything we need to know about Keir Starmer’s position on this issue.” I think most progressive members of the Labour Party hold strong opinions on Starmer after his cowardly capitulation and craven apology in the Ware case. But does the case brought by Mark Howell offer clarity and hope?

Few media outlets picked up on this news item at the time and I’m sure Howells case didn’t make Newsnight, but I could be wrong. A Morning Star Article entitled, “Labour faces legal action from one of its own members over claims party staff ‘sought the victory of rival parties’” elaborates further on the case. It reports, “Labour has suspended some of its members following the leaking of an internal report into allegations of anti-Semitism in the party, the High Court heard today. The 860-page report, which found ‘no evidence’ of anti-Semitism being handled differently from other complaints and that ‘factional opposition’ towards Jeremy Corbyn had hindered efforts to tackle the crisis, was leaked in April. Labour is now facing legal action from one of its members over claims that party staff ‘sought the victory of rival parties’ in key constituencies in the 2017 general election.”

Morning Star say, “Mark Howell, a member of Vauxhall CLP who joined Labour in 1969, says the leaked report shows that Labour staff breached party rules by ‘promoting the election of rivals of party candidates.’ Mr Howell claims that the party therefore ‘breached its contract with the claimant and its non-contractual pact with the voting public of the UK.’ At a remote hearing today, Mr Howell told the court: ‘At stake is the democratic pact underlying the country’s political integrity and civil society.’ He said, ‘On the evidence, arguably a different government should have been in position ever since June 2017, the 2019 general election should not have occurred and the enactment of the result of the EU referendum should have been done in a different manner. The subversion of rules of democracy that has taken place is much like […] gambling crooks paying a bent goalie to let in his team’s opponent’s goals’.”

According to the Morning Star, “Labour’s barrister, Rachel Crasnow QC, told the Ms Justice Eady, sitting at the High Court, that ‘some of the party members have been suspended from membership so far as it is necessary to do so to protect the integrity of the investigation’.” A claim was issued on 12 June in the High Court against David Evans as general secretary and Iain McNicol. Mark Howell began his campaign calling for Justice on behalf of Labour Party Members has set up a Crowdjustice fundraising page. The greatest challenge in any campaign of this kind is not persuading people that the cause is important enough that they should offer financial support; it is getting your campaign noticed in the first place. The concerted effort to discredit the leaked Labour Report was not just keeping the media from publicizing the fact a case had been bought, it was also battling the new right leaning Labour Leader Keir Starmer’s efforts to persuade the membership there was ‘nothing to see here!’

Explaining what motivated Mark Howell to initiate the legal fundraising campaign the Crowdjustice fundraising page explains that:
“Labour staff breached party rules by promoting the election of rivals of party candidates. The party therefore breached its contract with the claimant and its non-contractual pact with the voting public of the UK. At stake is the democratic pact underlying the country’s political integrity and civil society. On the evidence, arguably a different government should have been in position ever since June 2017, the 2019 general election should not have occurred and the enactment of the result of the EU referendum should have been done in a different manner. The subversion of rules of democracy that has taken place is much like gambling crooks paying a bent goalie to let in his team’s opponent’s goals. Those who should be MPs of 3 years’ standing and others who have a story about 2017 to tell are welcome to join the claim. A comprehensive judgment will clear the air and get politics back on track.”

Howell has provided regular updates on the Crowdjustice fundraising page as the legal campaign has progressed. In Howell’s first update posted on the 24th of June, 2020 he outlined the initial actions taken, saying, “Suspensions have been disclosed in the High Court.” He said that, “My claim was issued two weeks ago in the High Court against David Evans as general secretary and Iain McNicol personally (as opposed as former general secretary). There are other possible co-claimants and co-defendants who the Judge urged the current defendants to recognise as having been given notice of. No part of the claim was conceded or removed at the hearing last Friday.” Given the serious impact of what occurred, it was encouraging that Howell was able to report that, “On the contrary, permission was given to introduce additional allegations against Iain McNicol, and potentially others. Ian McNicol tried to get his name removed, but was refused because of the potential ground of chapter 2 clause II rule 7.”

Howell also noted that, “I withdrew my request for an order for suspensions since the party in the early hours of Friday morning admitted that they already had. Because I had originally asked for more detail, the Judge (Dame Jennifer Eady) said that she had to award them half their costs. I have not yet decided whether to appeal against it. I knew that the names of those suspended, or at least some of them, would inevitably come out pretty soon since, as the defendants pointed out at the hearing, many members are authorised to interrogate the central membership database and see whether someone has the suspension flag against them. The next steps will be to elaborate on the additional claims against Iain McNicol (potentially others) and then for the defendants to supply their defence on the part of the general secretary David Evans or Iain McNicol, unless of course either or both decide to submit to judgment on liability without further ado.”

Howell reported that, “An application will be made to add claimants – narrowly losing 2017 candidates or others with first-hand knowledge – and defendants who were in a similar position to McNicol. Following the determination of liability, whether by trial or admission, a further hearing will then be needed to assess damages under various heads. The court can also make declarations and conceivably referrals, for example to the director of public prosecutions. Such declarations and referrals should rise to the historic import of the events of the United Kingdom’s general election campaign of 2017.” Ominously Howell points out that, “The world might now have been a rather different place if the relatively small band of individuals against whom evidence has recently come to light had not, as they seem to have done, interfered.” It wasn’t just an issue for the UK’s working poor seeking an end to the cruelty of austerity, EU citizens deserved a secure future, reckless arms sales and jingoistic foreign policy would have stopped.

In Update 2 posted on the 27th of June, Howell said, “David Evans and Iain McNicol have until Tuesday to say what redactions in, or excisions from the Report they want.” In Update 3 on the 30th of June Howell reported as, “Seat pairing pattern emerges, UK-wide, grassroots reports are coming in of pairs of neighbouring seats in 2017, one safe Labour, the other the Leader’s marginal target seat that it was the aim to gain. Head office and nation/region offices misdirected activists, digital advertising and resources to such pairs of seats across Britain, especially England and Wales. Instead of being sent to the marginal of the pair, people were sent to the safe one.” Howell asks, “Were you one of them, turning up at a marginal ripe to be gained yet turned away and told to go to the nearby safe seat? If so, please get in touch and tell your story. PS Despite the efforts of a small band of officers, 36 Marginals were gained by Labour in 2017 (6 Labour Marginals were lost) but it could so easily have been many more.”

In Update 4 posted on the 7th of July Howell appealed for, “More funds needed for the next stage.” He went on to describe, “The next stage is to convince the court that there are additional aggrieved claimants whose devotion of energy and emotion and expenditure of money and, in the case of candidates, loss of prospective income, was nullified in the 2017 general election campaign by industrial scale rule breaking, criminal acts and casual racism that there is abundant evidence of, but also that there are other defendants to be held accountable for the most egregious examples of this as well.” Howell warns that, “As the scale of involvement of solicitors and barristers ramps up their modest fees are going to be thoroughly deserved and should be begun to be prepared for now.” It is never an easy or inexpensive decision to go to Court, but the importance of correcting this injustice cannot be overstressed when you consider the impact it is still having on the people of this country.

In Update 5 posted on the 10th of July, Howell reported on the, “Court of Appeal Reviews Report Confidentiality and Costs Order. While preparations continue, in terms of strengthened legal team, further evidence and additional parties, the Court of Appeal, as of today, has begun a review of the confidentiality and costs parts of the decision made at the High Court hearing on 19 June at which suspension of members named in the report was revealed. While the order to pay costs may be reduced there is still a need to build up a financial reserve for at least one important hearing before the trial can take place.” That end in Update 6 on the 12th of July 12, Howell said, “Less is More. To get the fund over the hump and ready for one or two important hearings coming up, could people contribute just £10? If 500 did by the end of the coming week we would be in a strong position. Less is more. Remember, this case is for the many, not the few.” Do not expect any big Corporations or wealthy Tory donors to chip in on this one!

In Update 7 posted on the 17th of July Howell warned that there was just, “One week to go to hit the target.” Referring to the original fundraising deadline he said, “With seven days still to go 312 believers in justice have already shown solidarity to reach nearly 60 % of the target.” In reality this type of fundraising campaign doesn’t just require people to believe in justice what is most urgently needed in the first place, is for people to realize that there is a campaign to bring this to Court; I have only just discovered this effort, but it’s not too late to ‘megaphone’ it to get the word out. Howell reminds us that, “Justice in the Labour Party, in the country and everywhere, which means unrigged democracy.” He appealed, “If only another 312 contribute an amount of just £15 during the course of the next week then we will make it.” He says, “the road will be open to legal remedies for the cheating in the general election of 2017 that changed the course of history for the worse since.” It got worse in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election.

In Update 8 posted on the 18th of July Howell appeals, “SEND FUNDS AND FACTS.” He reminds Labour members of the progress so far saying that, “My claim was issued on 12 June in the High Court against David Evans as general secretary and Iain McNicol. There are other possible co-claimants and co-defendants on the court file. On 19 June Ian McNicol tried to get his name removed, but was refused because of the potential ground of chapter 2 clause II rule 7. I withdrew my request for an order for suspensions because the party a few hours beforehand admitted that they already had. With the Court’s permission, on 10 July I introduced additional allegations against Iain McNicol, and potentially others and I also referred the Report and costs order to the Court of Appeal.”

Howell announces that, “On 30 July, physically at court, the defendants will try to challenge the legal basis of the claim. Although this hearing will be about law it will helpful nevertheless to have further information from members who were involved in the 2017 general election campaign, whether in Tory Marginals starved of help or Labour held seats on which over generous help was bestowed. The end result of the claim will be to determine the defendants’ liability for the results of wrong doing. A further hearing will assess damages under various heads.” Howell warns that, “The court can also make declarations and conceivably referrals, for example to the director of public prosecutions. Such declarations and referrals should rise to the historic import of the events of the United Kingdom’s general election campaign of 2017.” Howell once again reminds us of what could have been. The massive difference in policy decision on spending in the UK as well as our support for interventions overseas; it is a sobering thought!

In Update 9 posted on 24th of July, referring excitedly to the initial fundraising goal deadline, Howell exclaims. “We did it, with 30 hours to spare. The minimum necessary target was passed yesterday with 30 hours to spare to the deadline, and this case is now moving towards securing further professional involvement.” He offers a, “Huge thanks to all.” Howell isn’t just seeking funding, but also expecting those with knowledge and evidence of the diversion of funds from Marginal seats that required the funding with resources squandered in safe seat constituencies that had little need of additional funding or extra canvassers on the ground. In Update 10 on the 26th of July, Howell posts an Email [email protected] and appeals for evidence: “Any contact, particularly evidence of paired neighbouring Labour held and non-Labour held marginal constituencies where leader’s order to focus on the marginal was undermined by officials’ secret instruction to misrepresent data as an excuse for focusing on the Labour held seat.”

In Update 11 posted on the 31st of July 31Howel reports on the, “Court of Appeal now dealing with sham hearing that purported to strike out claim.” He explains how, “On 30 July, at a sham hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice that took place (but should not have) before a biased judge, who, without warning, organised a premeditated ambush concerning my previous complaint of several months ago, the court purported to strike out my claim against David Evans and Iain McNicol. I had considered whether to request that a different judge deal with the hearing but concluded that the listed judge would obstruct this, which could have made matters worse.” This development sounded ominous, but the battle was not over yet.

Howell reported that, “I spoke to the senior administrator at the Court of Appeal immediately afterwards who, as a result, has now linked the court’s review of the removal of the internal report from the High Court file on 19 June, which had already threatened to undermine the 30 July hearing, together with its consideration of the defects in the dramatic strike out decision at the end of the hearing, including the previous complaint. In doing so, I should make clear that, quite properly, the internal report and all of the other relevant evidence is very much part of the Court of Appeal’s file. It aims to come to a provisional conclusion before the end of August. I also spoke to supporters immediately afterwards, who I am moved to say seem to whole heartedly back me in the light of this further peculiar development.”

In Update 12 posted on the 1st of August Howard says, “Thank you for your support,” and tells us that, “The Court of Appeal is deciding whether to allow the Labour Party internal report evidencing the subversion of the 2017 General Election together with other evidence to proceed to trial.” In Update 13 posted on the 13th of August Howell said the, “Judge awaiting transcripts: The Court of Appeal Judge is awaiting transcripts of the hearings in the High Court on 19 June and 30 July.” He said that, “The Labour Party has contributed toward the cost. Next steps will be decided in the week commencing 1 September.” In Update 14 posted on the 25th of August, Howell again appeals for, “Funds needed for counsel now instructed. David Lemer of Doughty Street Chambers will represent the case before the Court of Appeal. Further funds are needed as the amount of work involved is considerable.”

As stated before Howell isn’t just seeking funding, but he is also expecting those with knowledge and evidence of the diversion of funds from Marginal seats that required the funding with resources squandered in safe seat constituencies that had little need of additional funding or extra canvassers on the ground. I presume it is still not too late to come forward with information while the fundraising continues apace. We are about to enter that critical first week of September, but still I hear scant mention of this case in the media so I was determined to ‘megaphone’ it here. All of these legal battles contribute to the restoration of justice that will highlight the massive necessity for Electoral Reform in the UK. If Labour had won in 2017 a corrupt Tory ‘landslide victory’ would never have taken place. This judgement and the exposure the anti-Semitism propaganda could oust Starmer and will be further delegitimize the fake Tory majority stolen in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election even without a full Investigation of the vote. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[SA]

Kim
Thanks for this massive labour of love. It must be time consuming for you but so important for our democracy. Corbyn was too nice, he thought that the machinery of the Labour Party would automatically support a democratically elected leader but that was not to be. Many would prefer tory rule rather than a Corbyn government. I myself don’t know whether it is better to resign from the party or to stay in case membership becomes essential to combat this enemy from within.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

SA – Thank you for your support. I think if you have Labour membership right now it could be strategically important to hang onto it for a little while longer as there could be an earthquake of outraged backlash against Starmer for his lurch to the right, his treacherous capitulation and recklessness in squandering the membership dues on the cowardly craven grovelling to Ware’s Poison Dart Blowers. There are NEC elections where the progressive Left might just wrestle back control of Labour so that sane individuals can remove Starmer from power once his manipulations to hide the truth are exposed by all pf the Court cases. If the Zionist Israeli Lobby, via the BoD, force Starmer to oust Corbyn then my hope is that Jeremy will decide to continue serving, not as an Independent, but as a Green Party MP. If this occurred you might see a whole slew of progressive Labour MPs join him as Green MPs, precipitating a massive exodus of Labour members to the Green Party and possibly a realization by the Unions that their interests are far better served by funding a fully Socialist Party.

It is now five years on from Angela Merkel’s decision to offer hope and welcome to the many refugees fleeing conflict and privation in countries where our foreign intervention has done little more than exacerbate violence and destruction as a consequence of our proxy wars to control resources. That sea of humanity that flooded over Europe has had an opportunity to recover from the horror of conflict, move on, build new lives and become assimilated within the EU. For a few, the trauma of their experiences was so deeply etched in their troubled minds that the support offered was too little, too late, and as Corbyn stated after the Manchester bombing, our senseless overseas interventions have consequences! We cannot bomb countries into joining our sham democracy of tyrants; we just engender hatred and enlist jihadists to a cause. Perhaps if we were able to create a genuine, truly democratic, fairly elected Government in our own country first, there might be a stable and just society worth emulating with the credibility to negotiate for lasting peace.

I am reminded of more than just the packed trains and lines of people trudging across Europe to seek freedom, but also the awful tragedy of that shocking picture of the body of a little boy washed up on a Greek beach. Yet even that horrific reality failed to instil a universal determination to resolve the carnage we had set in motion. Countries strengthened their borders increasing the risk and desperation of the dispossessed crammed together in camps awaiting rescue that was increasingly refused. While countries with the least capacity to offer sanctuary are still forced to accept the greatest burden, the EU did a deal with a ruthless despot to halt the flow of people who must remain virtually imprisoned in limbo. The boat crossings have become more dangerous and deadly as countries seek ways to contort Maritime Law, searching for an excuse not to rescue those in peril on the sea. Moving vessels away from the area of greatest traffic to police relitively few crossing the English Channel undoubtedly sealed the fate of thousands drowning in the Med.

The Greeks and Italians have grown weary of the lack of cooperation from other EU states, who have refused to take a fair quota of migrants. Dubs battled to secure refuge for a number of unaccompanied children, but our wicked Tory Government rapidly minimized the hope offered only to a token few. All safe passages of asylum entry are being blocked off while the Tories continue to stoke foreign conflict with bombing raids and deadly weapons sold to despots to target and extinguish rival ethnic groups. Across the channel the French are persecuting migrants and breaking up their dismal encampments to essentially drive desperate escapes, while Priti Patel wants to use the Royal Navy to harass refugees on the high seas! Artist folk hero Banksy has sponsored a rescue vessel to save the abandoned refugees fleeing North Africa. Their crew may have underestimated the logistics of managing this valiant effort, but Banksy’s high profile will ultimately help jog the conscience of those rare philanthropists who occasionally step up.

Theresa May of the ‘Go Home’ vans was finally ousted only to be replaced by an even more incompetent Tory PM, who is equally happy to ignore the almighty mess she created with the Windrush scandal. Most victims remain uncompensated for the ruthless persecution they suffered due to May’s targeted bigotry. Despite the protests Black Lives still don’t matter enough to this Tory Government who have stepped up ‘Stop and Search’ during the Covid crisis. Nigel Farage and his Britain trashing Brexiteers are still relentlessly stoking hatred and blaming migrants; when their precious crash out departure prevails, who will they blame for the massive deprivation that will follow? In a Byline Times Article, “Fact-Free Farage UK Asylum Applications Fall,” Sam Bright reports that, “New Government figures show the Brexit Party Leader’s asylum ‘invasion’ for what it is: a myth. The number of people applying for asylum in the UK has fallen in 2020 – exposing the fallacious warnings of an ‘invasion’ stoked by Nigel Farage and the right-wing press.”

Bright shows, “New figures released by the Home Office today show that, in the first half of 2020, asylum applications in the UK stood at 13,305, compared to 19,118 in the second half of 2019 – a fall of 31%. This drop in asylum applications was particularly stark in quarter two of this year – the period from April to June – with only 4,850 applications recorded, 37% fewer than during the same period last year. This stands in stark contrast to the assertions of the political right, which has insisted that the UK is experiencing an uncommon, unacceptable influx of asylum seekers. Indeed, this is such a priority for the Home Office that it yesterday released a video taking aim at ‘activist lawyers’ allegedly blocking the deportation of these individuals. Farage’s lockdown project has been to direct his newly unassigned political fury at vulnerable individuals crossing the Channel on dinghies.”

Sadly despite never being elected Farage still knows how to push the right political buttons to forward his bigoted agenda. Bright reports that, “In response to his outrage campaign – amplified by the tabloid media – Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have buckled to pressure, deploying the Government’s military and rhetorical might to scare off the asylum seekers. While the Prime Minister was labelling the actions of the asylum seekers ‘stupid and dangerous and criminal’, he was scoping out whether the Navy could be used to repel their small vessels, and even let loose an RAF aircraft to patrol the strait between the UK and France. Yet, even ignoring statistics from the past few months, the UK welcomes far fewer asylum seekers than its European counterparts. In both 2018 and 2019, Germany received 150,000 asylum applications, while the UK received roughly 40,000. The UK’s combined total over these two years was less than France, Spain, Greece and Italy.”

Bright points out that, “The pet project of Farage, Johnson and Patel will actually make their war against asylum – incidentally, a human right enshrined in the 1951 UN Geneva Convention – more difficult.” He explains how, “Currently, under EU law, the UK has a right in some circumstances to return an asylum seeker to the first EU country they entered. So, if the asylum seeker in question had made the journey from Iran to France and had then crossed the Channel, the UK could attempt to hand responsibility back to Paris. However, after Brexit, the UK’s participation in this agreement – known as the ‘Dublin III Regulation’ – will end, and the EU has given no indication that it will seek to negotiate a new deal with Johnson’s Government.” The French are notoriously stubborn in EU negotiations, so with the UK determined to enforce exclusive fishing rights they might decide to be a lot less cooperative in dealing with the refugees seeking to cross the channel: the dishevelled camps may be moving to Kent!

Bright comments that, “Having paraded the ‘technocrat’ as an enemy of the people, it seems that Brexiters now have no other option than to pursue irrational, fact-free policies devoid of expertise that simultaneously drum up nationalist fervour while making the nation weaker. As Mike Buckley has noted in these pages, the climate of foreign loathing institutionalised by Brexit and the consummation of Johnson is hollowing out British society and the economy. Doctors, nurses, labourers and academics are either leaving the country or have simply chosen not to arrive. The myths of populism – such as the asylum invasion fantasy – are not just slogans. They are now the prevailing beliefs of the Government, and the nation is suffering the predictable, dire consequences.” The new immigration policy after crash out Brexit will be one of “Scavenge, Exploit, Deport” where the UK reduces the burden of offering UK training opportunities to cash in on the brain drain of cheaper professionals from overseas on fixed term visas.

Aside from an almighty mess over immigration that has stoked so much far-right nationalist fear mongering and senseless hatred in the UK what else can we expect in the dystopian nightmare of crash out Brexit? Asking that very question is another Byline Article entitled, “Project Fear Becomes Project Reality Whither Brexit Negotiations Now?” Mike Buckley “looks at the most likely options for the UK as the Brexit transition phase nears an end – and sees a catastrophic ‘no deal’ break as the most likely outcome. Brexit is set to be a disaster. By January, there is likely to be food and fuel shortages, public disorder and price hikes. The Navy may be called on to protect British waters from European fishermen, while troops may be drafted on to the streets to help police retain a semblance of control. This is not the return of Project Fear – it is a leaked Government document which describes likely outcomes this winter in the face of a COVID-19 second peak and the end of the UK’s current trading relationship with the EU.”

Buckley reports that, “Brexit negotiations are, in the words of EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, going backwards. Barnier is keen to resolve outstanding areas of disagreement on fishing rights and the level playing field, which covers commitments on state aid rules, workers’ rights, food and environmental standards.” He warns that, “Barnier and David Frost, his UK equivalent, operate at cross purposes. Where Barnier seeks to minimise damage, Frost is tasked with playing to the choir of the Conservative, pro-Brexit, European Research Group (ERG) of MPs and the Leave voters who gave Boris Johnson’s party a majority last December. Under Johnson, the UK position has been reduced to merely restating the UK’s intention to ‘take back control’ of sovereignty, laws and fishing waters, in wilful disregard of the fact that trade deals entail compromise.” The British conveniently forget that the largest market for the seafood we catch is France who will no longer be a free market for the UK to trade with tariff free!

Buckley points out that, “The prioritisation of sovereignty presumably polls well with voters the Conservatives need to keep, but it is also the only possible distraction from the real-world costs of Brexit which are now increasingly hard to hide. Trade Barriers and Hard Borders As the leaked Government document makes clear, the approaching end of the transition period brings with it consequences that the Conservatives have long tried to deny. There will be a border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, destabilising the peace process and increasing costs for business. The building of huge lorry parks in Kent and Hull is an admission that trade will be disrupted, deal or no deal, despite years of claims that all would carry on as before. The City of London faces barriers to trade that will cost it and the Treasury billions. Terrorists and organised criminals will benefit from Brexit as security ties are lost. The list could go on.” You do not have to love the EU and all it stands for, to pragmatically reject Brexit.

Buckley also warns that, “Even if a Brexit deal is concluded, it would make little difference to trade barriers. Checks would still have to be conducted on every piece of freight, taking time and causing chaos. The prioritisation of rhetoric over planning has also left the UK unable to negotiate worthwhile future trade deals. Three years have been wasted failing to agree what Britain wants from its negotiations, argues the Institute for Government – risking trade and regulatory policy being dictated by better-prepared partners. The public is increasingly aware of this, with 60% now believing that Brexit is likely to lead to higher food costs.” Having this self-harm coincide with the massive unemployment that will result from the Covid crisis will create the perfect storm as more and more people experience the Tory Government designed destitution program that is Universal Credit. Living costs are steadily increasing, with the benefit paid delayed by over a month and inadequate to live on despite being raised, people will starve and start rioting.

Buckley says, “The Conservatives provide mixed messages on the Government’s commitment to an EU trade deal. Some in the party apparently want to open the ‘real’ negotiations with the EU next year, confident that Leave voters will have been satisfied by exulting ‘no deal’ headlines on 1 January. If this is the plan, they may find the same response that some hard Brexiters have received on asking for last year’s Withdrawal Agreement to be reopened: it’s a little late. The EU already has the main prize it wanted – Single Market integrity and an enforceable border backed by a legally-binding international treaty. It is unlikely to come back for round two, after a ‘no deal’ rupture – at least until there is a change of government in the UK. Deal or No Deal? If the caricature is true and Dominic Cummings is the power behind the throne in Downing Street, then a ‘no deal’ may be the outcome.” Cummings is a principal instigator of this insanity: we must get him out. Cummings is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin!

I cannot believe how many people are prepared to accept that this unelected cretin has the right to dictate our future. Buckley says that, “The Financial Times reported that the Prime Minister’s chief advisor wants a ‘minimal, light-touch regime for state aid for British business after Brexit’ – anathema to the EU. It quotes a Government insider who believes that Cummings’ view is ‘once you’ve left, you should just do whatever you want’. There is no chance of the EU concluding an agreement on these terms. ‘The EU is a creature of law,’ argues George Peretz QC, an expert in EU law at Monckton Chambers in London. ‘Having a body issuing reports, saying ‘this was a bit naughty, don’t do it again’ in the place of a proper independent regulator with teeth is just not going to cut the mustard.’ Some believe that the UK will fudge the issue by concluding a deal that allows the Government room to diverge from EU norms on rights, standards and state aid – only to never make use of its new freedom.” The UK is no match for the EU 27!

Buckley explains that, “This ‘Brexit in name only’ would allow Johnson to claim that sovereignty has been returned while retaining a level of market access. But the chance of the Conservatives’ ERG accepting such an outcome is minimal, while the EU is unlikely to want to sign a deal that would require it to monitor UK behaviour for years to come. It is far more likely that the UK is heading towards what has been the logical conclusion of Brexit since day one: a clean break.” I have never considered for an instant that this band of Tory crooks wanted anything more than full on crash out Brexit, but Buckley warns, “With that choice comes consequences the public may not be willing to pay. Voters are increasingly sceptical about the benefits of Brexit and new trade deals, and are concerned about deals that would reduce environmental and animal welfare standards.” The compromises to our NHS will signify the end of free access to care and an insurance based system that makes healthcare another exclusive privilege of the wealthy elite.

Buckley reports on how, “A clear majority of all voters, including 2019 Labour-Conservative defectors, believe that COVID-19 has shown that there is a need for more international cooperation rather than less.” Why do so many totally accept the ‘borrowed votes’ scam that purports to explain a fake Tory ‘landslide victory’ in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election? Severe hardship and deprivation will bring people to their senses to demand a full Investigation. He says, “If Brexit does lead to higher food prices, lower standards of food and animal welfare, fewer jobs and a slower economic recovery than our former EU partners, it could quickly become a millstone for the Government. Johnson and co. have justified Brexit on the basis that it is ‘the will of the people’, but few voted for complete severance. A BBC/ComRes poll in July 2016 found that more than 60% of Leave voters expected to stay in the Single Market, for instance. No one voted for chaos, higher prices and shortages.” That is why we must get the Tories out ASAP! DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

The UK has one of the oldest and most established democracies in the world, but our dissent towards authoritarianism has been shockingly rapid and following the Covert 2019 Rigged Election the looming dictatorship can no longer be complacently ignored. In the Open Democracy, openJustice Article entitled, “The coronavirus crisis: revealing an ugly truth about the UK and human rights,” they announce a commitment to publishing a series of pieces on the issue of our rapidly dwindling Human Rights under Tory rule. They say that, “The UK is not protecting the rights of its marginalised people – and matters are worse in the wake of coronavirus. But civil society is providing hope. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed to many what was already obvious to plenty: that after forty years of privatisation and deregulation and after 10 years of austerity, the United Kingdom is a country in which financial interests too often override those of our most vulnerable citizens. We are in a time of upheaval, in which nothing is certain.”

OpenJustice say, “Britain is leaving the European Union and over the next five years the Conservative Party will likely succeed in its intention to repeal the Human Rights Act. In autocratic fervour, it is also planning to ‘reform’ (read: restrict) a citizen’s ability to challenge the lawfulness of its own decisions.” Judicial Review has allowed our Judiciary to provide a level of scrutiny that does not fit the current Tory Government agenda and they are eager to dispense with such problematic niceties. Checks and balances are surplus to requirement in the Johnson/Cummings dictatorship, where ‘accountability’ is a dirty word. Any watchdog organizations that are not already totally neutered and powerless to set compliances will be taken over, dominated and strictly controlled by Tory Government appointed elites, just to provide a public veneer of oversight while what little remains of tiresome ‘red tape’ is rapidly stripped away. We should anticipate more appalling tragedies like Grenfell in their deregulated Tory utopia for the wealthy few.

After we are forced to endure crash out Brexit we will lose any and all of the protections enshrined in our membership of the EU and workers will be vulnerable to the exploitation of powerful US Corporations; control of our newly privatised NHS will help them to accomplish this perverse goal. OpenJustice warn that, “This should concern us all – in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, human rights and the rule of law are more important than ever. Amidst the new pressures created by this crisis, the rights of minorities are easily left behind. Meanwhile, across the globe, some authoritarian governments are using the virus as a cover for cracking down on the freedoms of their citizens and stripping away state support. Crises provide those with power the opportunity to do such things, and a natural response to this can be a tacit acceptance that extreme measures are necessary in extraordinary times. Human rights legislation was meant to guard against this, to provide a robust defence against a slide into autocracy.”

They announce that, “This week openJustice is launching a new series – The Unlawful State: Stories from a Pandemic – in which we investigate and report on the stories of people whose voices we do not normally hear but whose rights have been trampled in the wake of the pandemic. In our previous series, The Unlawful State, we discovered that even before the coronavirus crisis, the UK government frequently engages in unlawful activity, failing again and again to uphold the picture of a civilised society that is painted in legislation. In the exercise of power and the pursuit of profit, the law is trampled on.” OpenJustice provide a chilling Rothschild quote: “’The time to buy property is when there’s blood in the streets’, Baron Rothschild said in the 18th century. Today’s powerbrokers and profiteers often seem to follow this maxim when it comes to property and much more besides, with the carnage wrought by the pandemic creating conditions ripe for the exploitation of the vulnerable and the abandonment of the law.”

“As part of the first material we are publishing in this series, openJustice spoke to an asylum-seeking woman in London who gave birth during the pandemic. Facing layer upon layer of vulnerabilities and disadvantage, including substandard accommodation and mental health problems – she experienced a stark lack of care prior to and following the birth of her child. Her story is only too familiar to many other women around to world, who have been denied the minimum standard of care set out by the World Health Organization for childbirth as a result of sometimes unnecessary measures introduced in response to COVID-19.” For decades the British public have enjoyed the security of not having to worry about the cost of Healthcare, but this Tory Government’s determined to end all that. Workers in the US know that losing your job means losing Healthcare insurance if you are lucky enough to have a job that includes that benefit. This makes American workers beholden to their employers and silently compliant with exploitation.

It is alarming to witness how many really critical decisions are being taken without any debate in Parliament, the appointment of grossly inappropriate leading figures and massive expenditures without oversight or tendering. Replacing Public Health England with an ill defined new organization to be led by serial failure Dido Harding who lack experience in the field is just one example. Open Justice report that, “the Coronavirus Act 2020, rushed through Parliament in May, gives the UK government unprecedented emergency powers that have an extraordinary impact on democratic norms and civil liberties, leading human rights charity Liberty to call for the Act to be repealed. The Act allows, among other things, for the cancellation or postponement of elections and gives government powers to ban protests, demonstrations or indeed any gatherings at ‘any place’. This piece of legislation allows the government to more easily detain (or ‘section’) people on mental health grounds and medicate people against their will.”

OpenJustice say “Black people are four times more likely to be detained under measures contained in the Mental Health Act and 61 percent of refugees will experience a mental health crisis or breakdown. So, there are no prizes for guessing which communities are most likely to be affected by these measures. The act relaxes standards in social care – essentially suspending the Care Act 2014 – which, according to Disability Rights UK, is already having a ‘devastating impact’ on disabled people. Despite all of this, the legislation did not receive the warranted level of Parliamentary scrutiny, being ‘fast-tracked’ through Parliament and receiving Royal Assent just four working days after its first reading.” The Government have yet to report on how or why BAME communities have been disproportionately impacted by Covid 19; it is just another of those investigations announced that never materializes.

According to openJustice, “The pandemic has hit Britain at a time when human rights were already being drastically undermined following 10 years of austerity. Policies such as severe cuts to local government budgets and the virtual destruction of legal aid have combined to create the perfect conditions for a raft of unlawful decisions made by public bodies over many years.” This Tory cabal are oblivious to criticism when they fail and get things wrong; there are no ‘lessons learned’ and there is never an apology. OpenJustice say, “Following his visit to the UK two years before the coronavirus crisis in 2018, Philip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights commented that: ‘great misery has also been inflicted unnecessarily, especially on the working poor, on single mothers struggling against mighty odds, on people with disabilities who are already marginalized, and on millions of children who are being locked into a cycle of poverty from which most will have great difficulty escaping’.”

OpenJustice relay how, “Last year, we met Shairaz Khan who, despite his learning difficulties, had been placed in substandard, rodent infested accommodation and without the care that he needed to clean and feed himself. Prior to our report, Ealing council were failing to meet their duties under the Care Act 2014, and many described a ‘crisis in social care’. This was before things went from bad to worse, with the Coronavirus Act suspending local government’s duties in social care.” The ‘Holocaust in Care’ has culled the most vulnerable, but abandonment of such costly obligations will form part of the next wave of austerity that we all know is imminent given Tory Government commitments not to increase the taxes on those who could really afford to contribute more. OpenJustice, “also reported, as part of our first series, on how children with Special and Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are being forced to fight for their education. This was before the closure of schools to prevent the spread of the virus.”

OpenJustice noted that, “Arising from the pandemic, there are also important questions around the use of big data and automated decision making, with the use of an algorithm that appeared to discriminate against A-level students on the grounds of class and race leading to an embarrassing government U-turn following protests from students.” Even more worrying is the concern over patient data, “ministers and activists are questioning how the personal health information of millions of NHS users might be used after it was handed over to the controversial artificial intelligence giant, Palantir, in the name of tracking the spread of COVID-19. But Palantir has a worrying track record including pioneering a policing software which has been accused of creating racist feedback loops. This, combined with a complete lack of transparency over the deal, creates a worrying picture.” This is a data goldmine all too valuable to US Healthcare Corporations and insurers who ration care based on excluding existing conditions.

OpenJustice claim, “All is not lost, though. Following the pandemic, civil society quickly galvanised. From successful legal action that resulted in disadvantaged children receiving free laptops or tablets so that they could partake in virtual learning, to the self-organising MutualAid groups that have connected millions of locals across the country, people have come together, helped one another and learned from one another in ways we couldn’t have imagined.” This type of community cooperation and the support of volunteers will be needed to combat the onslaught in the months ahead. It provides an unexpected disruptor to the insidious Tory Government plan to cull the ranks of the ‘economically inactive’ with a mass ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’ expected in a virulent next wave of Covid 19. Herd Immunity has not been abandoned it has just been modified to sweep the nation in a series of devastating resurgences that will hit the elderly, the disabled, the working poor and ethnic minorities the hardest; they don’t vote Tory!

Ending their article on a high point openJustice say, “Alongside the voices of those who are disproportionately suffering during this pandemic, our new series will be profiling inspiring stories from civil society. We hope that people from many walks of life who are advocating on behalf of marginalised communities will be moved to look at ways in which they could be using human rights and the law as a tool in their mission. This piece is part of our series The Unlawful State: Stories from a Pandemic where we lift up the voices of those whose lives are being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus crisis. We also find out what civil society are doing about it. Click here for more.” It will be worth checking back with the Open Democracy website for more articles in this series. This article highlights a number of the areas where our human rights are under threat in our vanishing democracy, but the situation is set to become a lot worse as we head towards the point of no return, crash out Brexit in a midwinter resurgence of the virus.

I remain seriously alarmed by how many have accepted the unfathomable result of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election without even questioning the legitimacy of the vote. The Tory use of state funds to pay a charity to dig up dirt and disseminate propaganda on the opposition Labour Party should have had people removed in handcuffs. This alone was enough to delegitimize the vote even without a full Investigation into the highly suspect postal votes. Too many people faithfully believe there will be a chance to vote the Tories out in a few years time; this is not guaranteed and even if it were the Electoral System remains wide open to industrial scale fraud, the Tories maintain a stranglehold over the media and the progressive opposition has essentially disappeared. We need a change of leadership in both main political parties, but a really good start would be to keep the pressure up for the removal of Dominic Cummings. As I have said before, “Cummings is the grenade; oust him ad you pull the pin!” DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

When Prime Ministers Questions returned on Wednesday it seemed fitting that analysis of a catastrophic train wreck was top of the agenda as three weeks on from the incident near Stonehaven that killed three and rocked the entire Scottish community. That deadly ‘Train wreck’ was emblematic of Boris Johnson and his corrupt cabal’s totally shambolic handling of so many issues over the past few months as there is little doubt we are right on track for a lot more mayhem in the months ahead, unless we demand a full Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election to derail this Tory Government and force them out of office. Tory MP Andrew Bowie asked for “deepest condolences” to be offered to the family and friends of the three men who died, “as well as our thanks and heartfelt gratitude to the incredible men and women of our emergency services and multiple agencies who worked in incredibly difficult conditions to help the survivors from that incident.” Tories only show huge respect for such vital workers in emergencies!

Bowie said, “The interim report is on the desk of the Transport Secretary as we speak, and I know that the full report will take time to run its course, as is only right, but what assurances can my right hon. Friend give my constituents that the serious questions that they have will be answered, that any recommendations will be implemented and that the Government will do everything they can to prevent an accident like this from ever happening again?” The PM responded by thanking him for raising the matter, added his own condolences and took his customary opportunity to extol the virtues of rescuers by “paying tribute to the extraordinary work of the emergency services and the public for the bravery that they showed.” Boris boasted that, “Britain’s railways are among the safest in Europe, partly because we take accidents like this so seriously, and therefore we must ensure that we learn the lessons of this tragic event to make sure that no such incident recurs in the future.” Tories exploit our dedicated EMS staff: they never learn lessons!

Keir Starmer began by joining the PM in his comments regarding the tragic events of just a few weeks ago followed by paying tribute to John Hume, who died during recess calling him “a beacon of light in the most troubled of times” and saying “He will be seriously missed.” Starmer proceeded by saying, “Let me start today with the exams fiasco. On the day that thousands of young people had their A-level grades downgraded, the Prime Minister said, and I quote him: “The exam results…are robust, they’re good, they’re dependable”. The Education Secretary said there would ‘absolutely’ not be a U-turn; a few days later—a U-turn. We learned yesterday that the Education Secretary knew well in advance that there was a problem with the algorithm, so a straight answer to a straight question, please: when did the Prime Minister first know that there was a problem with the algorithm?”

Boris Johnson stalled by offering birthday greetings then replied, “I say to him, on the exams and the stress that young people have been through over the summer, that both the Secretary of State for Education and I understand very well how difficult it has been for them and for their families, going through a pandemic at a time when we have not been able, because of that pandemic, in common with most other countries in the world, to stage normal examinations. As a result of what we learned about the tests—the results—that had come in, we did institute a change. We did act. The students, the pupils of this country now do have their grades, and I really ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether he will join me in congratulating those pupils on their hard work, and whether he agrees with me that they deserve the grades they have got.” He evaded an answer with distracting congratulations.

The only point of Starmer’s question was the need for Education Secretary Williamson to resign. Starmer persisted, “I have already expressed congratulations to all those students and I do so again, but I want to go back to my question, which the Prime Minister avoided. I know why he avoided it, because he either knew of the problem with the algorithm, and did nothing, or he did not know when he should have. Let me ask again: when did the Prime Minister first know that there would be a problem with the algorithm?” Starmer failed to insert another question and the PM was pursuing his standard avoidance strategy; both men had returned to type!

The PM was evasive saying, “As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well, Ofqual made it absolutely clear time and again that in its view the system that was in place was robust. Ofqual is, as he knows, an independent organisation and credit had to be given to its views. All summer long, he has been going around undermining confidence and spreading doubts, in particular about the return to school in safe conditions… It is absolutely true. And today is a great day because the parents, pupils and teachers in this country are overwhelmingly proving him wrong and proving the doubters wrong, because they are going back to school in record numbers, in spite of all the gloom and dubitation that he tried to spread. It would be a fine thing if, today, after three months of refusing to do so, as pupils go back to school, he finally said that school was safe to go back to. Come on!”

Equally capable of baiting, Starmer said, “The Prime Minister is just tin-eared and making it up as he goes along. I am surprised… The Education Secretary stood at that Dispatch Box yesterday and acknowledged that Labour’s first priority has been getting children back to school. That has been our first priority. I have said it numerous times at this Dispatch Box, and the Prime Minister knows it very well. He is just playing games. The Prime Minister is fooling nobody. Even his own MPs have run out of patience. The vice-chair of the 1922 Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), has said that the Government are ‘saying one thing on Monday, changing its mind on Tuesday, something different presented on Wednesday.’ That sounds familiar doesn’t it? Another of his MPs, who wisely wants to remain anonymous, is perhaps in the Chamber today. He or she said… I am speaking for you, because this is what was said by his own MPs. He or she said, ‘It’s mess after mess, U-turn after U-turn. It’s a fundamental issue of competence, God knows what is going on. There’s no grip.’ His own MPs are right, aren’t they?” Who’s a naughty boy then?

This was like watching two little boys in the playground as Johnson hit back with, “This is a Leader of the Opposition who backed remaining in the EU and now is totally silent on the subject. Now he has performed a U-turn. He backed that, and perhaps he still does. This is a Leader of the Opposition who supported an IRA-condoning politician who wanted to get out of NATO and now says absolutely nothing about it. This is a Leader of the Opposition who sat on the Front Bench…” He couldn’t have strayed any further from the point and the Speaker lost patience: “Order!” He scolded, “I think that questions are being asked, and we do need to try to answer the questions that have been put to the Prime Minister. It will be helpful to those who are watching to know the answers.”

But the PM was determined to distract and bait Starmer saying, “I think it would be helpful to all those who are watching to know…” The Speaker interrupted again, “Order! Prime Minister, I think I will make the decisions today. Come on!” But spoilt toff Johnson just blathered on, saying, “Mr Speaker, if I may say so, I think it would be helpful to all those who are watching to know that this Opposition, and this Leader of the Opposition, said absolutely nothing to oppose the method of examinations that was proposed and, indeed, they opposed the teacher accreditation system that we eventually came up with. Is he now saying that those grades are not right, or is this just Captain Hindsight leaping on a bandwagon and opposing a policy that he supported two weeks ago?”

Starmer replied, “The problem is that he is governing in hindsight, as well as making so many mistakes. Mr Speaker, before I go on, the Prime Minister said something about the IRA, and I want him to take it back. I worked in Northern Ireland for five years with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, bringing peace. As Director of Public Prosecutions, I prosecuted serious terrorists for five years, working with the intelligence and security forces and with the police in Northern Ireland. I ask the Prime Minister to have the decency to withdraw that comment.” That barb had hit a raw nerve, but he was foolish to let Johnson see his hurt and anguish over the insult. He said, “It is the same every time: pretend the problem does not exist, brush away scrutiny, make the wrong decision, then blame somebody else. This has got to change, because the next major decision for the Prime Minister is on the furlough scheme. The jobs of millions of people are at risk. The longer he delays, the more they are at risk, so will he act now, finally get this decision right and commit to extend the furlough scheme for those sectors and those workers that desperately need it?”

Johnson was defensive, “What we are doing in this Government is getting our pupils back to school, in spite of all the doubts that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has tried to sow, and we are getting people back to work. What he wants to do is extend the furlough scheme, on which this country has already spent £40 billion. What we would rather do is get people into work through our kick-start scheme, which we are launching today—£2 billion to spend to support people, young people in particular, to get the jobs that they need. He wants to keep people out of work in suspended animation. We want to move this country forward. That is the difference between him and us.”

The Speaker intervened, “There was a question about the allegation regarding Northern Ireland, and I was very concerned—that was the point I was making. I think that, in fairness, I am sure you would like to withdraw it.” Surely he didn’t expect Johnson to remove that painful barb that had been so offensive? Johnson doubled down, saying, “Mr Speaker, I am very happy to say that I listened to the protestations of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I think they would have been more in order, throughout the long years in which he supported a leader of the Labour party.” The Speaker had to concede; expecting decency, let alone an apology from Johnson would never be an option. The Speaker announced, “We are leaving it as it was. I call Keir Starmer.”

Starmer shouldn’t have revealed such vulnerability; unable to let the matter drop he said, ”When the Prime Minister has worked with the security and intelligence forces on prosecuting criminals and terrorists, he can lecture me. I asked him to do the decent thing, but doing the decent thing and this Prime Minister don’t go together.” Stating the obvious he returned to his familiar ‘who’s been a naughty boy’ tactic and still failed to articulate a real question, “This has been a wasted summer. The Government should have spent it preparing for the autumn and winter. Instead, they have lurched from crisis to crisis, U-turn to U-turn. To correct one error, even two, might make sense, but when the Government have notched up 12 U-turns and rising, the only conclusion is serial incompetence. That serial incompetence is holding Britain back. Will the Prime Minister take responsibility and finally get a grip?”

Johnson needed to reinvent his litany of disasters as a resounding success story! He said, “I take full responsibility for everything that has happened under this Government throughout my period in office. Actually, what has happened so far is that we have succeeded in turning the tide of this pandemic, and, despite the negativity and constant sniping from the Opposition, we are seeing a country that is not only going back to school but going back to work. Britain is in the lead in developing vaccines and in finding cures for this disease—dexamethasone—and treatments for this disease. Not only that, but we are taking this country forward, despite the extreme difficulties we face. What I think the people of this country would appreciate is the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I, the Labour Front-Bench team and everybody across this House coming together, uniting and saying that it is safe for kids to get back to school. I must say that we still have not heard those words from him. Will he now say, ‘School is safe’?”

Starmer now allowed Boris to bait him into agreement, saying, “I have said it so many times. School is safe. My own children have been in school throughout. There is no issue on this. The Prime Minister is seeking to divide, instead… I wrote to him on 18 May, in confidence and in private, offering my support to him to get kids back to school. The only reason they were not back before the summer was because of his incompetent Education Secretary.” There is zero accountability from Cabinet Minister as Civil Servants are ousted; the Johnson/Cummings dictatorship value loyalty far more than competence from the compliant Tory cabal in office.

Starmer limped on, a wounded beast trying to regain his dignity as he said, “The Prime Minister will recall that before the recess I asked him whether he would meet the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group. I had the privilege of meeting the families on 15 July. They gave me incredibly moving accounts of how covid-19 had taken their loved ones from them. On Sky News last week, the Prime Minister was asked whether he would meet the families and he said: ‘of course I will meet…the bereaved—-of course I will do that.’ But yesterday they received a letter from the Prime Minister saying that meeting them was now ‘regrettably not possible’. The Prime Minister will understand the frustration and the hurt of those families that he said one thing to camera and another to them. May I urge him to reconsider, and to do the right thing and find time to meet these grieving families?”

Johnson replied, “May I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is absolutely typical of him that he should frame it in that way? Of course I am very happy to meet the families and the bereaved and I sympathise deeply with all those who have lost loved ones throughout this pandemic; we all feel their pain and their grief. But it turns out that this particular group he refers to are currently in litigation against the Government, and I will certainly meet them once that litigation is concluded.” This was a typical cowardly stance to avoid accountability for his shambolic handling of the crisis. Egged on by Starmer’s concession he wanted more grovelling from this inept Labour Leader. He continued on the offensive with, “I say to him that it would be a better thing if, rather than trying to score points in that way, he joined together with this Government and said not only that school is safe to go back to..”

He continued baiting Starmer in the hope of eliciting more grovelling compliance instead of genuine opposition, “By the way, that is the first time in four months that he has said it, so I am delighted to have extracted it from him over this Dispatch Box… He has never said it to me in the House of Commons. I hope he will also say that it is safe for the workforce of this country to go back to work in a covid-secure way. We want to take this country forward. Not only are we getting the pandemic under control, with deaths down and hospital admissions way, way down, but we will continue to tackle it, with local lockdowns and with our superlative test and trace system, which, before Opposition Members sneer and mock it, has now conducted more tests than any other country in Europe. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might hail that, rather than sneering at this country’s achievements.”

Tory MP David Jones obviously hadn’t got the memo on not mentioning Brexit because his question was on tariffs, “Discussions in the Joint Committee established under the withdrawal agreement will have the most crucial bearing on the future of trade, not only between the UK and the EU but within the UK itself. Unless otherwise agreed in that Committee, goods passing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be subject to the full rigour of the European customs code and to the imposition of tariffs. That would be quite unacceptable, so will my right hon. Friend commit to do whatever it takes to ensure that it does not happen?” Johnson had to just lie his way out of this one; uttering pure Boris-shit he said, “My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the concern that he does. We must, of course—and will—deliver on what the protocol says, which is that there shall be unfettered access between GB and NI, and NI and GB, and there shall be no tariffs. We will legislate in the course of the next months to guarantee that.”

SNP Ian Blackford MP said, “May I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the tragedy that we witnessed close to Stonehaven, and indeed with the Leader of the Opposition’s tribute to John Hume—a man who did so much for the delivery of peace in the island of Ireland? Yesterday the Prime Minister told his Cabinet: ‘I am no great nautical expert but sometimes it is necessary to tack here…in response to the facts as they change’. It was surprisingly honest for the Prime Minister to admit that his Government are all at sea—a UK Government now defined by eight U-turns in eight months. But if the Prime Minister is true to his word, surely he must see sense and change tack for a ninth time. With the clock ticking for struggling businesses and workers, will the Prime Minister commit today to extend the job retention scheme beyond October—or are Boris’s Government making the political choice to accept levels of unemployment last seen under Thatcher in the early 1980s?”

I would say the PMs ‘tacks’ were more like ‘crash gybes;’ at sea an uncontrolled gybe can result in serious injury or broken gear! The epitome of Johnson’s reckless conduct, but he took onboard one recurring message as he replied, “Opposition Members of all parties seem to want to extend the furlough scheme, which has already cost the country £40 billion. It has supported 11 million people, but, after all, keeps them in suspended animation and prevents them from going to work. We want to get people back to work, and that is why I hope the right hon. Gentleman will instead support our kick-start scheme to get young people into jobs and support them in those jobs. How much better is that than languishing out of work?” So brace for sustained waves of unemployment then!

Blackford corrected him saying, “My goodness, ‘languishing out of work’; the furlough scheme is there to protect people so that they can come back to work when the time is right. France, Germany and Ireland have extended their furlough schemes until 2021. They have made a moral choice. They are not prepared to punish their people with record levels of unemployment. People in Scotland are seeing a tale of two Governments. While the Tories are cutting furlough scheme support, yesterday Nicola Sturgeon was announcing new investment to protect jobs, including a youth guarantee. We all know that jobs are under threat if the furlough scheme ends in October. The power to end this threat lies with the Prime Minister. Will he do his duty and extend the furlough scheme, or are we going to return to levels of unemployment last seen under Thatcher, with the resultant human misery?”

Determined to refuse an extension, at least for now, the PM said, “We are not only continuing with the furlough scheme until the end of this month, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, a scheme that is far more generous by the way, than anything provided in France, Germany or Ireland. We are continuing with that scheme, but after it elapses we will get on with other measures to support people in work. Starting today, there is the kick-start scheme to help young people to get the jobs that they need. That is in addition to a £160 billion package that we have spent to support the economy throughout this crisis. The Government have put their arms around all the people of this country to support them throughout the crisis. That is what we are doing, and we will now help them to get back into work.” Oh no, not another deadly Tory death hug! Tory arms around the Care Homes led to a ‘Holocaust in Care!’

The dire situation we are in could get really bad with another Tory Government ‘train crash’ coming down the track very shortly as the infection rate rises due to increased transmission in schools, work places and on public transport. Johnson isn’t on solid ground with concerns growing among backbench Tory MPs over his chaotic leadership; Boris Johnson is all at sea and floundering with yet more ‘crash gybes’ imminent. That deadly crash-out Brexit iceberg is dead ahead and he is refusing to turn away from the inevitable ‘Titanic’ disaster; the Titanic success’ of Brexiteer fantasy land is fading fast. Just as that unsinkable ship sank and many innocent souls perished, many will die due to Johnson accepting Cummings’s delusional ‘Herd Nerd’ plan. Keir Starmer is revelling in his role as the ‘Captain of Capitulation,’ offering zero opposition to the Tories and sabotaging Labour from within. Cummings and both these rogue Captains need to walk the plank before they completely scupper any hope of the UK not sinking into the abyss. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

While our sadly corrupted BBC now proudly tout “News from the UK and around the world,” the selective output of distraction I call ‘Handyfloss’ and blatant propaganda has increased exponentially. Despite serious and legitimate concerns over the algorithmic rejigging of exam results to further disadvantage the already disadvantaged, the sorry saga morphed into a massive distraction tool as the hapless Tory Education Secretary dithered and delayed over correcting the problem. Now the news has reverted to what is supposedly everyone’s most important priority: tourism, playing the travel quarantine lottery and the minutia of the Government’s shambolic smorgasbord of highly discriminatory lockdown restrictions that support leisure spending, the necessity to return to work and get children back in school while punishing personal and familial interactions that exclude a cash register. This was highlighted by Craig in his recent Post: “The Currency of Absurdity.” While we are distracted by such banal ‘Handyfloss’ what of the real news?

It was really important for ‘Auntie’ to double-down on the latest allegations regarding the highly predictable discovery of Novichok poisoning in the mysterious case involving opposition politician Navalny’s attempted assignation by the evil Russian state on the direct orders of Putin. In his Post: “Novichok, Navalny, Nordstrom, Nonsense,” Craig has dissected the logic-free analysis, arguing convincingly to demonstrate that this has all the classic indicators of another ‘false flag’ event. One need only consider how conveniently it ties all the Novichok lose ends together to target Russia as a major pariah global enemy. Meanwhile other grievous atrocities are ignored. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is only noted for their beleaguered healthcare system’s inability to provide reliable data on Covid 19 while there is no mention of our continued supply of arms to the Saudi’s to bomb their citizens into oblivion! The ongoing Israeli atrocities persecuting the Palestinian people also remains under wraps.

The title of the Canary Article, “Israeli forces attack a 68-year-old Palestinian man using brutal knee-to-neck tactic” tempts readers who, following the brutal murder of George Floyd in the US, have started to question this ruthless tactic and its deadly origin as a technique of severe oppression used by authoritarian regimes. However, the full extent of the Israeli assault on the Palestinian people in the violent theft of their land continues unabated; it is exposed in this piece along with a call to protest. Under the final heading, “Get Involved” they appeal, “Palestine Action is holding a demonstration against Israeli Arms Company Elbit on Saturday 5 September. Join them.” The scheduled start time of 1:00PM at 77 Kingsway, London might provide too little notice for you to attend, but this pro-Palestinian solidarity group needs our ongoing support now more than ever and not just to: #ShutElbitDown

The Canary report that, “Once again, Israeli forces have been caught on camera using the brutal knee-to-neck tactic. This time it was to restrain a 68-year-old Palestinian man. On 1 September, Khairy Hanoun was savagely attacked after a demonstration in the northern West Bank. He was protesting against the confiscation of his land. Video footage shows the occupation forces shoving Hanoun to the ground, while one soldier rams his knee into the farmer’s neck. Meanwhile, other soldiers pointed weapons at those filming the assault.” The Bulldozing of land continues unnoticed by the Western media and our heavily biased BBC ‘world news’. They say that, “Hanoun’s land is located in Shufa village, close to Tulkarem city in the northern West Bank. Abdelkarim Dalbah, an activist and researcher from Tulkarem, told The Canary that Israel plans to confiscate around 800 dunums of land from Shufa village in order to build an industrial zone.”

According to the Canary, “Dalbah said: The [Israeli occupation’s] bulldozers came two weeks ago and started bulldozing the land and making roads for the industrial zone. People were prevented from being on their land. Of course, the inhabitants started to demonstrate in order to prevent this terrible Israeli project. On Tuesday we had four demonstrations in the area. The IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] prevented us from reaching the land. They used sound bombs and tear gas on people. After the demonstration had finished, the Israeli soldiers followed some teenagers, so Khairy and some activists tried to talk to the soldiers to tell them not to shoot at the kids. You can see from the video what happened. We managed to release Khairy from their hands. Khairy is a great activist, and he’ll continue to demonstrate against the confiscation of his land.” The Israelis apartheid regime have felt emboldened by the unquestioning support of US President Trump who now endorses their expansionist takeover of the West Bank.

The slightest mention of the Israelis apartheid policy of Palestinian subjugation, persecution and confiscation of land is effectively silenced by the Israeli Lobby here and elsewhere as anti-Semitism is redefined to encompass any criticism of this rightwing rogue state. The Canary warns that the Israeli Government are, “Slicing up the West Bank. Dalbah explained the significance of Israel’s latest land grab plans. He said: ‘There’s already an Israeli industrial zone in west Tulkarem with ten Israeli chemical companies inside’. This existing industrial zone has had massive impacts on people’s health in the area. It even contains one factory which was forced to close down inside Israel’s borders because it was so hazardous. Dalbah continued: Now they are planning this new industrial zone in south Tulkarem. If the land is confiscated it will be terrible: it is the south gate of Tulkarem city and it is the only space that the city can expand in the area. This industrial zone will connect up the [illegal Israeli colonial] settlements in this area.”

The Canary provide historical context for the alarming territorial annexations by reporting that, “In 1949, the furthest advance of the Zionist forces onto Palestinian land became known as the Green Line, separating what the mainstream media now calls Israel and the West Bank. Then, in 1967, the Israeli military crossed the Green Line, occupying the West Bank, remaining an occupation force ever since. In the early 2000s, Israel built its illegal apartheid wall. A massive 85% of the wall is placed beyond the Green Line, stealing swathes of West Bank land. The new industrial zone will steal much more land. Dalbah said: The new industrial zone will be connected to the Green Line, cutting another Israeli corridor of land even further into the West Bank [isolating Palestinians from even more of their land].”

The Canary article highlights the additional Checkpoints saying that, “Dalbah argued that the plans will cut off Tulkarem city from other areas of the West Bank: It will isolate Tulkarem from the south region. Palestinian people will only be able to pass through under controls, checkpoints. Israel can claim that the industrial zone will provide work for thousands of Palestinian workers, but this is bullshit of course. According to the UN, Israel already imposes 58 obstacles such as roadblocks or checkpoints, on the Tulkarem area, preventing free movement for Palestinian people. And there are currently 593 obstacles all over the West Bank.” Netanyahu is increasingly coming under fire over corruption charges; he has only been able to avoid prosecution by remaining in office, but his luck may be running out. Bibi’s poor management of the Covid19 Pandemic has enraged Israeli citizens who are now taking to the streets in protest; he has thrown the red meat of sped-up expansion to his hard-core supporters in a desperate attempt to hang on.

Could Netanyahu’s waning popularity and the wrath of angry young protesters spell the end for Likud Party dominance, with a new opportunity to rescue the Palestinians from ethnic cleansing policies and a chance to salvage peace talks? The Canary make a heartfelt appeal to us, “Don’t forget the people of Palestine” They “asked Dalbah if the Israeli forces use the knee-to-neck tactic regularly on demonstrations. Dalbah replied: ‘Almost always.’ Israel’s brutal tactics are barely ever reported on in the mainstream media. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers and police officers continue to get away with extreme violence, knowing that there will be no consequences. The UN has reported that there have been at least 5,585 Palestinian people killed since 2008, and another 113,990 injuries. There have been many attempts by Israel and its supporters to smear Palestine rights campaigners as antisemitic. These attempts to shut down all criticism of the brutal Israeli occupation haven’t worked. Let’s all shout out for Palestinian rights.”

Written back when Boris Johnson chose his new cabinet, the Middle East Monitor Article entitled, “Priti Patel, who asked for UK aid for Israel army, now Home Secretary,” offers a stark warning based on Patel’s authoritarian beliefs and toxic connections. They reported that, “The UK’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed Priti Patel as Home Secretary despite the fact that she was forced to resign two years ago after holding secret, unofficial meetings with Israeli ministers. The former international development secretary made several unofficial meetings including with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was accused of conducting her own foreign policy in the Middle East. The meetings included a visit to an Israeli army field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights; Patel asked officials within her department to look into whether British aid money could be funneled into the medical centre. In her resignation letter Patel herself admitted she ‘fell below the high standards that are expected of a Secretary of State’.”

MEMO said, “Her appointment has drawn outrage across the board due to her record on key human rights issues. Despite the fact that her parents migrated to the UK in the sixties, Patel has voted for a stricter asylum system and against banning the detention of pregnant women in immigration jails.” They said, “The Essex MP has suggested using the potential of food shortages in Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit as leverage against the backstop being introduced. In 2011 Patel supported the death penalty on the BBC’s Question Time arguing it would ‘act as a deterrent.’ Before being elected as an MP in 2010, Patel worked for the PR company Weber Shandwick, whose clients included the government of Bahrain, which has been criticised for its high number of torture and forced disappearance cases. Shortly after being elected the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs flew Patel to Bahrain to meet several ministers. She has also been on a UAE-funded trip to the country and attended a conference in Washington paid for by the Henry Jackson society.”

MEMO said that, “Patel will replace former Home Secretary Sajid Javid who is now Chancellor. Earlier this year Javid ordered that Shamima Begum be stripped of her British citizenship and let her two-year-old son die of pneumonia in a refugee camp in Syria. At the time her family accused him of making the decision based on political gain.Last week Javid labelled a number of Muslim organisations as extreme, including Cage, the Islamic Human Rights Commission and MEND, saying of Cage that it was ‘one of the most prominent organisations that rejects our shared values.’ Two years after becoming MP Javid told the Conservative Friends of Israel annual lunch that as a British born Muslim if he had to go and live in the Middle East, he would not go to a Muslim majority country: ‘There is only one place I could possibly go. Israel. The only nation in the Middle East that shares the same democratic values as Britain. And the only nation in the Middle East where my family would feel the warm embrace of freedom and liberty’.”

In a Guardian Article, written when Patel was fired by former PM Theresa May her unapproved meetings while on holiday in Israel, was examined when they posed the question, “What did Israel hope to gain from Priti Patel’s secret meetings?” They said, “The international development secretary’s covert summer trip was a gift to Israelis who seek to influence British policy. For the second time in less than a year, Israeli efforts to discreetly influence British policy has been disclosed. In January, the embassy official Shai Masot was caught in an al-Jazeera sting to ‘take down’ politicians regarded as unfriendly to Israel.” We should all be deeply concerned that the Israeli Government have already been caught red handed, actively interfering in UK politics to suit their own warped PR agenda. Both this and US interference in our democracy pose a far greater threat than Russia and Vladimir Putin.

The Guardian reported, “This time a bigger fish has been caught: the UK’s international development secretary, Priti Patel. Official visits to Israel by senior British political figures are common, but the sensitivities are usually acute; embassy and consulate staff carefully vet the locations and personnel visited by British diplomats and ministers. Visits are always accompanied by diplomatic staff, with agendas designed to reflect UK policy – for example, making sure to include meetings with Palestinians and groups and individuals who may not be popular with the Israeli government. Patel’s summer trip, organised with the head of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group, skipped all those protocols, despite a timetable that was highly orchestrated – including a reported visit to an Israeli field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights, which could have taken place only with both Israeli military and political clearance.”

According to the Guardian, “To Israeli officials her private visit would have seemed like a gift, not least because those involved would have been immediately aware that, unaccompanied by diplomats, Patel was operating freelance. Embedded in the more humdrum elements of her tour were three key encounters. The first was with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was ‘interested’ in meeting her, officials told the Guardian. Also significant were meetings with Yuval Rotem, the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry (a key appointment for Netanyahu, who is also Israel’s foreign minister), and Gilad Erdan, the abrasive minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party, who is in charge of public security, strategic affairs and information. They say Gilad Erdan, who is in charge of Israel’s attempts to counter the global BDS movement.”

The Guardian stated that, “The three – as Lord Polak would have known – represent key pillars of Israel’s international diplomacy.
‘[Lord Polak] has his own network,’ one senior figure involved in Israeli-British advocacy told the Guardian. The source was unaware of Patel’s visit, and suggested it had been clumsily handled. Israel’s interest in Patel is less hard to fathom. As well as wanting to promote Israel’s image, Patel’s department is at a key intersection of Israeli interest. The Department of International Development (DfID) gives aid to the Palestinian Authority as well as human rights groups that criticise Israel, including Amnesty International. Israel has pressed DfID to cut aid to the Palestinians due to the payments given by the Palestinian Authority to the families of people killed or jailed for involvement in attacks on Israeli targets. Patel ordered a review of some funding in 2016. Netanyahu also raised the issue of (it turns out, non-existent) UK funding for the Israeli civil rights group Breaking the Silence with Theresa May earlier this year.”

The Guardian said, “it is Erdan’s presence in meetings with Patel that is most telling because his role is largely unconnected with the work of DfID. As public security minister he has oversight of Israel’s police; as information minister he has a propaganda role; but of most interest is his position as strategic affairs minister. Erdan has emerged as the key figure in Israel’s international efforts against the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement [BDS], and against other groups and movements that Israel accuses of seeking to delegitimise it through criticism of its human rights record. In that context, Erdan’s ministry was asked in 2015 to ‘guide, coordinate and integrate the activities of all the ministers and the government and of civil entities in Israel and abroad on the subject of the struggle against attempts to delegitimise Israel and the boycott movement’.”

The Guardian reported that, “Most controversially, Erdan has been put in charge of large-scale efforts to target foreign individuals and organisations, reportedly including staff recruited from the Mossad foreign intelligence agency, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and the military intelligence directorate. Among those who have fallen foul of Erdan’s ministry have been Isabel Phiri, a Malawian official in the World Council of Churches who was detained arriving at Ben Gurion airport and deported for alleged involvement in the BDS movement.” The Guardian said that, “Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International – some of whose international projects are supported by DfiD – was prevented from crossing from Jordan into the West Bank. A spokeswoman for Israel’s interior ministry said Erdan had recommended he be denied entry.”

The token appointments of ethnic minority Tory MPs to Cabinet positions should not have us fooled when their toxic beliefs are equally as seriously xenophobic as the worst of the wealthy elitist lily white toffs infecting the Tory Party with alt-right nationalism right now. Their allegiance is to Israel and to Trump, who will feast on this nation as vultures prey on rotting carrion! As long as the catastrophic impact of crash-out Brexit only devastates the poor and disenfranchised the hard core Johnson/Cummings Brexiteers will keep steaming full speed ahead towards the ‘Titanic Brexit Iceberg!’ Real news heralding this horrendous impending disaster is being drowned out by the relentless propaganda and ‘Handyfloss’ news spin. We must ignore the ‘bums on beaches’ tripe, the success of ‘eat out to help out’ and complex lockdown restrictions deliberately designed to confuse. Craig Murray and other outspoken journalistic outlets need our support or the bright flame of free press in an open and just democracy is extinguished. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

To fight the barrage of propaganda it is an urgent and vitally necessary priority that we change the pervasive toxic Tory narrative to disarm the dangerously hostile rhetoric of hate mongering on the far-right of our perilously endangered democracy. Cummings unleashed weapons grade PsyOps on unsuspecting and vulnerable ‘persuadables’ whose data was stolen by Cambridge Analytica and undoubtedly still remains in his grubby hands. For far too long we have gone into battle in this war of words and fake imagery without even the most rudimentary defence. “Cummings is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin!” Until the PM’s Machiavellian puppet master can be removed, we must disarm all the deceitful and damaging slogans and false promises with greater creativity in the language that we use and the slogans that we adopt until they become the dominant persuasive speech of our rebellion in the fight to rescue our democracy. As an innovator, there are few things more fun to invent than new words and slogans!

Covid 19 is dominating the airwaves right now, hence the reason I write so frequently of its evil menacing twin as the “Covert 2019 Rigged Election.” We need this alternative description of the corrupt 2019 Election to become so deeply embedded in people’s minds that they no longer question whether there might need to be a full Investigation into the postal votes. As people live to regret the painful consequences of shambolic toxic Tory rule, ‘Get the Tories Out’ must become a national priority. We cannot allow our Electoral System to remain so vulnerable to industrial scale fraud again in future, but only complete exposure and clear realization of this critical weakness will secure change to “Rescue our Watchdog” as people demand that “All Votes Must Count” because: “A Watchdog that cannot Watch is just a dog!” The frequent repetition of these slogans might seem tedious, but they make logical sense, they get an important message out there and they are absolutely essential to the new language of our robust fight-back.

The Tory claim of ‘landslide victory’ was in reality the ‘Seismic Sin’ of ‘Industrial Scale Fraud;’ before, during and still long after the Covert 2019 Rigged Election they are desperately trying to legitimize this by manipulating the Tory compliant BBC, tabloid press and alt-right media, utilizing an onslaught of further lies: urgently in need of ‘correction.’ We can no longer accept the grotesque lie about the ‘borrowed votes’ when we know full well that they were in fact ‘Stolen Votes.’ We cannot let the Tories crow about their assault on Labour’s solid and impenetrable ‘Red Wall.’ We must persuade those who will soon discover the extent of this hideous con that, if we do not remove them from power, this Government will turn the north into another neglected ‘Tory Sinkhole!’ The sickening lie of Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is already being exposed with the targeting of the exam results of disadvantaged students; but how many more examples will it take before the working poor realize that Boris’s real priority is ‘Decimating Down!’

How was the Covert 2019 Rigged Election somehow justified as valid to the point where the public actually bought into the scam? An obscene amount of money bought political influence, enabling Tories to use their wealth to solidify their perpetual stranglehold on power. With all that money came grotesque corruption: it funded the industrial scale fraud of Idox rigging of the postal votes, the PsyOps propaganda campaign to warp minds, deregulation and neutering of our compliance and monitoring organizations that left our democracy defenceless. The single greatest threat to UK democracy comes from malign forces within our current Tory Government who paid a fake Charity to dredge up toxic rumours and relentlessly spew out anti-Corbyn anti-Labour propaganda on the public tab. The Tory contract with the Institute for Statecraft’s misleadingly named ‘Integrity Initiative’ was a criminal misuse of public funds that alone is sufficient to delegitimize the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and oust the Tory Party on corruption charges!

The ‘London Laundromat’ of stolen money was embezzled from ordinary citizens from the former Soviet Union, but also a whole host of other corrupt regimes and Corporations from around the globe who use our secure British tax havens to hide their ill-gotten gains. Dirty oligarch money fed the Tory beast, but as we ranted about unproven ‘Russian interference’ we dismissed the far more obvious threats. The clandestine foreign intervention from the UK Zionist Lobby, on behalf of the Apartheid Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, was launched in an effort to silence all defence of the deliberately persecuted Palestinians! Fake allegations of anti-Semitism have been weaponized and need to be disarmed. The fabricated and pure fantasy allegation of ‘anti-Semitism are just ‘Fanti-Semitism’ or ‘fantisemitism!’ We can and must defeat the fake news with the new narrative of truth! We cannot continue to totally ignore this insidious Israeli and US manipulation of our elections in favour of a dangerous Trumpist, pro-Israeli agenda.

Why do I call Ware’s band of lying Labour traitors, those who collaborated in the defamatory Panorama documentary, ‘Poison Dart Blowers?’ They have no right to sully the noble title ‘Whistleblower,’ for which dedicated individuals have followed their conscience in the public interest, so often forced to make huge personal sacrifices and suffer career sabotage, destitution or take their own life after exposing genuine corruption, embezzlement, negligence, safety violations or other serious wrongdoing. Those who, out of malicious intent, selfish greed, an attempt to settle personal scores or seize power, deceitfully pose as Whistleblowers to spew their pernicious lies and fabricated allegations are as deadly as the Amazonian natives who blow poison darts to stun and kill their prey! We cannot allow them to bask in heroic victimhood when, by reason of their evil treachery, they have duly earned the title: ‘Poison Dart Blowers.’ We will coax the media into adopting this more accurate title for those who’ve so richly earned our contempt.

I feel my innovative mind is going into linguistic overdrive to tackle this Tory scourge; so while we’re at it there are a couple of those rousing jingoistic songs of Empire that need, ‘rewording’ shall we say. Boris Johnson wants us to sing “Land of hope and glory” as if British exceptionalism will be boundless after he makes a “Titanic success” of crash out Brexit. His words, not mine; did no one remind him that the ‘unsinkable vessel’ sank just as ‘get Brexit done’ will morph into ‘Get Brexit Dung!’ The Brexiteers much touted ‘sunny uplands’ have become the looming ‘Dystopian Nightmare’ of hardship, deprivation and torment for the working poor and the newly unemployed subsisting on Universal Credit. As unemployment rises, more ordinary people in once secure jobs will discover a Tory planed path to destitution and debt purposely built into what remains of our beleaguered social safety net. It is intentionally stressful and cruel, with unnecessary delays, punitive sanctions and paltry, wholly inadequate, provision: no longer fit for purpose.

It is time to give these odiously jingoistic songs a more realistic rewording for our neoliberal vulture capitalist age; to be sung to the distinctive tune of “Land of hope and glory” punctuated by an abrupt pause and emphasis on ‘Drop Dead’ for maximum effect.

Lost hope and past glory, never to be free,
Powerful privilege eternal, breads Tory cruelty.
Poorer still and poorer, while on the treadmill set,
Work until you – Drop – Dead – forever in their debt!
Wealth made Tories mighty, it makes them mightier yet!

I am not a talented lyricist so this was chucked together in a ‘fit of pique’ watching Boris Johnson defend Empire in all its obscene excesses of blatant criminal plundering and subjugation. Just as he defends the memory of Churchill: the man responsible for the Bengal Famine and the first use of chemical weapons in Iraq against the Kurds that he despised as ‘savages.’ Why should we continue to sing “God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,” when this represents ample reason to become an atheist? How could any merciful God genuinely endorse cruel persecution under British rule? Boris is still trying to make that one fit. I have also reworded the jingoistic song “Rule Britannia;” we sing: “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rules the waves – Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.” But in a cruel dystopian reality the 99% truly are slaves, due to chronic wage stagnation, zero hours contracts and an even more punitive payment system for younger workers that leaves them trapped unable to leave home. New words please…

Cruel Britannia! Vile Tories rule the Slaves…
Only by ousting Boris Johnson will lives be saved!

The priority must now be saving lives. We know that the discredited eugenics policy of ‘Herd Immunity’ has been exposed as a mass slaughter of the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, the ‘economically inactive’ elderly, disabled, homeless, Gypsies and other ethnic minorities or simply those now out of work, but all surplus to capitalistic requirements and a ‘burden on the state!’ Never mind that this Tory Government destroyed their jobs and forced them into destitution, Tory Government policies are being designed to drive vulnerable sectors into danger as they ramp-up their ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’. This time Herd Immunity will advance beyond the ‘Holocaust in Care’ using innocent school children as vectors to spread Covid to the vulnerable grandparents that poverty forces them to cohabit with. The rising death toll will be blamed on them, blamed on non-compliance, falsely blamed on obesity and diabetes, anything to deflect from the truth. In reality this is a deliberate Genocide we must call out as: ‘Covicide!’

Tell it like it is: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s not a giraffe!” The Tories drum home their deceptive messages over and over again until their expansive fake news becomes the latest hot topic news flash and blatant lies become the new truth. In reality a promise made by Boris Johnson is just a ‘Bromise’ that will never be kept; a Tory pledge is just… more “Boris-shit!” The content of BBC news broadcasts is increasingly crammed to capacity with irrelevant drivel, laboriously spun like candyfloss into a voluminous, but handy distraction tool; this neatly obscures the harsh reality of a truly dire situation here in the UK. This pervasive tripe of vacuous spin, masquerading as relevant news, is more appropriately referred to by me as: “Handyfloss!” If anyone ever dares to attack me as unpatriotic, I tell them that I am a “Peaceful Patriot of the Planet” and I will defend the integrity and diversity of this unique “Blue Planet” without fear, favour or fake boundaries of jingoistic nationalism: join me to become a: “#PPP.”

In a perverse constraint on honesty and accountability in the House of Commons it is forbidden for an MP to accuse another of lying in the Chamber, while the actual telling of horrendous lies and expounding on fanciful pledges has become the signature of Johnson and his corrupt Tory Ministers. We do not expect the PM or any MPs to tell “Porky Pies,” we must demand honesty, by criminalizing this conduct, starting with a campaign to get “Porkies out of Parliament” – “Scoop the POOP!” We failed to prevent Johnson from doubling down on the lie written on the side of the Brexit bus and his ‘Bromise’ of huge sums to be reallocated to our NHS. Capitalizing on our lack of resistance he Bromised UK voters “40 new Hospitals;” highly unlikely to materialize unless US Healthcare Corporations fully privatize our NHS. There was that “world-beating” Covid App that was scraped as a component of Tallyho Harding’s ‘world wanking,’ err, ‘ranking’ Test and Trace! We must aggressively call the PM out on his outlandish Bromises.

I created posters for highlighting Johnson’s complicity in the Grenfell Tower disaster after decimating the London Fire Department for cash! I captured a simple message that could have evolved into a Gif to incite the ire of abandoned pensioners; it was entitled: “Get Rid of Nits” and featured Boris Johnson scratching his head in the hope of appearing innocently benign. This message really resonates with older people who remember nit infestation as well as calling very stupid people ‘nits’ back when they were in school. When Boris Johnson was insisting that he would rather “die in a ditch” than postpone Brexit, it was his second shallow pledge to perish in a ditch, but his pledge to protect against Heathrow expansion vanished in a heartbeat because Boris… just lies, has no conscience and no moral obligation to anyone! An imaginative Social Media contributor feminized Boris into a slightly pudgy blond called ‘Diana Ditch!’ It was a great image for my anti-Boris poster campaign, but I still lack the Social Media network to promote it.

Right now most major screw-ups consistently lead back to Dominic Cummings, yet he’s still in post: why? I believe he’s in a strong position to blackmail Boris Johnson and that if he is ousted he will drag the entire Tory Party down with him as he owes no special allegiance to the Conservatives. He is the supreme egotist, who believes that his master plan must dominate and be implemented in full. If he loses control of the PM there is no need for continued loyalty that will no longer revolve around him. He wants us all to know the full extent of his brilliant deception, but that’s the ultimate Tory weakness as he could easily spill the beans: why not if he is excluded from the program? We must continue to demand his immediate removal; “Cummings is the grenade, oust him and you pull the pin!” Mr. D. Cummings, the ‘Herd Nerd’ soft brain behind the ‘hard rain,’ could have his name appropriately abbreviated to ‘Dummings!’ ‘Ditch Dummings’ has a certain ring to it! I’ve created a wee limerick featuring the infamous Johnson/Cummings pair:

Dummings and Diana Ditch,
Insisted on making their pitch,
But the goal they were after,
‘Titanic’ Brexit disaster,
This pair is just too dumb to switch!

It is time to ditch the futile defensive mode that has generated a truly obscene number of humble apologies over what is essentially fantisemitism. The poison of fantisemitism allegations now stands a strong chance of being fully exposed as a cruel hoax that does nothing to protect the Jewish community from genuine prejudice or persecution and potentially incites both while sidelining other areas of ethnic and religious targeting. For this reason, if for no other, Jeremy Corbyn must be persuaded to go against his natural ‘turn the other cheek’ instincts and aggressively countersue John Ware. Lawyer, Mark Lewis of Patron Law is expecting to rake in megabucks with multiple large out of Court settlements, but he is in for a rude awakening when Crowdfunded support for justice sees defendants robustly fight back: his ‘no win, no fee’ will become a no fee financial drain! When legal insurers are no longer prepared to accept the considerable financial risk of losing SLAPP cases this risk free back up plan will become untenable too.

The well funded broad public support of defendants like Jeremy Corbyn who has raised over £332,000, Paddy French at Press Gang, the Jewish Voice for Labour and Mark Sivier at Vox, will make fewer and fewer cases rich pickings for the out of Court settlements so necessary to avoiding any challenge to the unsubstantiated fantisemitism evidence. The pro-active battles need our support too because we do not want them to drop their cases due to lack of funds. Chris Williamson fighting EHRC to expose corruption and bias is one; another is the ‘Mark Howell for Justice,’ a case to expose misuse of Labour Party election funds and resources. Corbyn’s battle to expose the truth about ‘fantisemitism’ might also become a proactive fight if Ware’s Lawyer Mark Lewis realizes that the case is unwinnable in Court. SLAPP cases only win by avoiding Court and eliminating risk, but they still succeed by shutting down public scrutiny, investigative reporting and open public debate: we must not let this happen.

Even without the SLAPP cases, rescuing free speech and restoring the integrity of our democracy face significant challenges. Keir Starmer’s lurch to the right has been noted approvingly by the vulture press, but the ‘Captain of Capitulation’ has proven himself a dangerous Trojan horse. Hopefully Starmer and his destructive faction of the Labour Party will be exposed and promptly ousted when the truth of the leaked Labour Report is validated in Court cases. Unjust legal attacks on investigative Journalists and honest publishers who hold Governments and Corporations to account are seriously worrying. Craig Murray will be travelling to London to try for a place in Court in support of Julian Assange at his hearing, while he too is still under attack from trumped up charges. Craig Murray will need funds to fight his own case and Assange requires our ongoing support. In the horrendous event the UK were to allow the US to extradite Julian Assange it would set a precedent for America to intimidate the free press into compliance globally! DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

The UK’s most relentlessly persecuted Political Prisoner, Whistleblower and Investigative Journalist Julian Assange will face yet another unjust hearing this week to authorize his extradition so that the US can set an alarming precedent as the universal arbiter of what news people are permitted access to worldwide. This excessive overreach is designed to terrify investigative Journalist into compliant silence on controversial issues by inflicting severe punishment on a global hero of free speech; it remains unreported in the disreputable ‘Murdoctored press!’ Half a dozen SLAPP lawsuits targeting outspoken individuals and progressive news outlets with intimidation are seeking to prevent exposure of the Labour ‘fanti-Semitism’ smears against Corbyn and the Left that helped to falsely validate the Covert 2019 Rigged Election. But, while Captain of Capitulation Starmer is pushing to get the Russia Today’s UK TV broadcasting shut down, a solitary day’s disruption of mainstream propaganda by XR is what has elicited major faux outrage!

Meanwhile the Captain of Capitulation was called out in the Skwawkbox who pointed out how. “Starmer campaigned on his record of defending workers against the predations of Rupert Murdoch in the Wapping dispute, with both tweets and his official campaign video leading with it. Even then, it was exposed as a manoeuvre when he was asked if he would refuse to give interviews to the Murdoch S*n – and responded carefully that he did not intend to give it interviews during the campaign. The mask slipped further when Starmer was interviewed recently and asked whether he wanted the S*n’s endorsement – and did not say ‘no’, instead answering that he wants ‘as many people to endorse the Labour Party as possible’.” But Skwawkbox say that, “after the ‘XR’ protest on Saturday, Labour’s official position, approved by its leadership, was to defend the ‘free press’ – which in post-truth UK is a collection of billionaire-owned rags dedicated to obscuring reality – and condemn Extinction Rebellion.”

For the ‘heinous crime’ of delaying distribution of these propaganda rags on a single day, Home Secretary Priti Patel is threatening to legally classify XR as an organized crime gang, to assist in their prosecution and stiff sentencing! In reality, the XR protest was more symbolic than seriously damaging to the so called “free press,” owned by the tiny wealthy click that manipulate and warp UK news to suit their political and financial goals. It would be far more accurate to designate the Tory Party as an organized crime gang for using state funds to pay a fake Charity to dredge up toxic rumours and blatant propaganda to be spewed out in their right-wing rags targeting Corbyn and Labour in a deliberate subversion of UK democracy. As stated before, “The Tory contract with the Institute for Statecraft’s misleadingly named ‘Integrity Initiative’ was a criminal misuse of public funds that alone is sufficient to delegitimize the Covert 2019 Rigged Election.” It represents one of many instances embezzlement fraud and criminal corruption!

We must aggressively call the Tories out on this obscene hypocrisy until it’s too great of an embarrassment to be raised anymore on the BBC or in print, but they have already made fools of themselves with the extent of their disproportionately agitated response so far. This huge boost to protesters was well summed up in Rupert Read’s exuberant tweet: “We’ve stopped the Sun. For one day, we’ve stopped the lies. For one day, a climate-denying foreign billionaire is not dominating the newsstands. It’s not a ‘free press’ when it’s controlled by a handful of hard-Right oligarchs!! WE are freeing the truth today. Join us…” A Canary Article points out that, “While XR disrupts the ‘free press’, the Tories are attacking independent media.” They say that, “As Extinction Rebellion (XR) shut down the print versions of major UK newspapers, an actual attack on the free press was taking place. It’s one which shows that the Tory government’s creeping authoritarianism is still alive and kicking – and growing more concerning by the day.”

“The Canary reported that on Saturday 5 September, XR activists blocked some corporate newspaper printing presses. This resulted in the deliveries of newspapers like the Sun and Telegraph being delayed in parts of England. As The Canary wrote: Under a banner reading ‘Free the truth’, XR tweeted that it was using the disruption to expose the newspapers’ ‘failure to report on the climate & ecological emergency, and their consistent manipulation of truth to suit their own agendas’. MPs and people on social media responded differently to XR’s actions. Some people were supportive of the blockade,” Rupert Read was among those whose tweets were highlighted. For XR protesters it is amazingly satisfying to know that their one day disruption had managed to cause such deep concern among politicians and the mainstream press; it genuinely magnified their effort to the status of a major incident.

The Canary remark that, “with both Priti Patel and Boris Johnson on the war path, the news that came out on Sunday 6 September may be of little surprise. The Telegraph (currently ‘free to read’ due to XR’s blockade) reported that the PM and home secretary are clamping down on XR. It said that the group: could be treated as an organised crime group as part of a major crackdown on its activities that may also include new protections for MPs, judges and the press… Whitehall sources said Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have asked officials to take a ‘fresh look’ at how the group is classified under the law. It continued: A Whitehall source said one option under discussion was for XR to be viewed as an organised crime group, which could result in its members being policed primarily by the National Crime Agency – Britain’s FBI.” While, despite the negative impact this has had on public confidence, the transgressions of Dominic Cummings remain ignored, this knee-jerk reaction could unleash the threat of significant prison sentences just for protesting. Although such extreme reactions have been tried in the past and failed, it could be a very different scenario after crash-out Brexit.

The Canary reveal that, “Under the 2015 Serious Crime Act an organised crime group ‘has at its purpose, or one of its purposes, the carrying on of criminal activities, and consists of three or more people who agree to act together to further that purpose’.” For me what bounced off the page when I read this definition was how easily this statement could be justifiably used to prosecute the current Tory Government for the multitude of deeply corrupt practices and serious endangerment of life deliberately inflicted on the British public. Even without a full Investigation into the stolen postal votes of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election there are so many other reasons they could be prosecuted under the Serious Crime Act, not least of which is for gross misuse of public funds during their Covid 19 cash giveaways to Corporate chums. The lack of tendering is suspicious enough, but this is compounded by grossly inappropriate contracts awarded to Tory cronies, despite obvious conflicts of interest, who have then repeatedly failed to deliver.

The Canary report that, “Labour’s former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott called the potential move by the government ‘ridiculous’: Whether or not you agree with XR’s action, tarring them with the ‘organised crime’ brush seems wholly excessive and somewhat authoritarian. Moreover, MPs’ views that the group’s actions stifled the ‘free press’ are also ridiculous. The Canary are quick to decry the term ‘free press’ in association with the news outlets that were targeted by XR saying, “As writer Alex Tiffin reported, across the world just 24 companies own ‘the majority’ of ‘the world’s most powerful’ media outlets. And as Novara Media‘s Aaron Bastani tweeted, the ‘free’ British press is hardly free from agenda and bias. But against the backdrop of the XR protests, the government is actively trying to stifle the actual ‘free’ press in the UK. And it reeks of yet more authoritarianism.”

“As The Canary previously reported, the independent media outlet Declassified UK recently broke a story. It was about the military police arresting a serving member of the army. They did this because he was protesting over the war in Yemen and the UK government’s involvement. But since then, the story has become about Declassified UK. The outlet claimed that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has ‘blacklisted’ it. An MoD spokesperson told Declassified UK: we no longer deal with your publication. This attracted some attention from press monitoring groups, other independent organisations, and industry publications. The site’s editor and co-founder Mark Curtis told Press Gazette that Declassified UK was considering legal action against the MoD. On 4 September, the Council of Europe officially issued a ‘media freedom alert’ over the situation.” This courageous Yemeni soldier should be hailed as a hero for daring to highlight the shameful atrocities the British are inflicting on the country of his birth.

According to the Canary, “this attempt by the UK government to sideline an independent, investigatory media outlet is nothing new.
In 2015, Disability News Service‘s (DNS) founder John Pring was blacklisted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).” As the National reported, “Pring: uncovered the first suicide case directly linked to the UK Government’s welfare cuts. As well as revealing: that the DWP had secretly investigated more than 60 deaths of benefit claimants since 2012, without publishing the findings or the more than 30 resulting recommendations for change. Yet, in Pring’s case there was little outcry from press freedom organisations, nor any action from the Council of Europe.” This well documented unnecessary death toll, started long before the most recent deliberate Tory cull of the ‘economically inactive’ during the avoidable ‘Holocaust in Care’ of the Covid 19 Pandemic. Repeatedly ignoring strong warnings from the UN Rapporteur this was the most serious crime attributable to the Tory Party.

The Canary report that, “it seems that while Declassified UK is the latest victim, it’s not the only one in the ongoing war against independent media. But there’s a particularly concerning narrative building from the government. The push-back to label the corporate media as ‘free’, while stifling the actual freedom of independent outlets, is Orwellian levels of propaganda. That, coupled with the BBC‘s appalling record as a public service, impartial broadcaster, paints a worrying picture for the future of the press in the UK.” The constant drivel focused on whose holiday was spoiled when they had to fly home early because they were too stupid to avoid foreign travel during a pandemic, all I can think of is what serious news is being replaced by what I now call: ‘Handyfloss?’ When I compare the vacuous spin of BBC “News from the UK and around the world” with the crammed news slots on RT it is like night and day. Even if you find fault with the Russian influence on RT at least they are telling the news not obscuring it with junk.

In the proactive fight-back that lies ahead XR must learn to use the tabloid press’s own weaponry to attack Murdock. After Dominic Cummings made a mockery of lockdown restrictions it must be harder to go after protesters for not obeying the Covid restrictions, but if ‘Social Distancing’ is manipulated by the police to break up demonstrations, then XR must steal the Covid guise to utilize in their own campaigns. There are footprints being painted on the pavement all over the country to remind us to stay separated, but they could be hijacked to get the XR message across. Create a stencil for spray paint of a ‘Dirty Carbon Footprint;’ say a black footprint with the distinctive iridescent green XR logo superimposed on the heal. Make it a similar size to the footprints already marked on our pavements and it will effectively bluer the lines between public protection and protest; the former is necessary messaging from the Tory Government, the latter is an important added reminder to the public from XR. If a campaign began gradually, it would start to get the message out before being fully identified as distinctive footprints approaching newsstands to target the propaganda press!

The Monty Python foot is much loved by people of my generation and it could be adapted with a black base to represent the ‘dirty carbon footprint’ that is so damaging to our planet. I heard that the Greta boat had been confiscated, but that was an object on the ground that could be targeted as ‘an obstruction.’ A giant ‘foot’ balloon would be dramatic and highly visible from a distance with a strong possibility of getting pictured just as the Trump baby did. This is the bait that the tabloid press cannot resist; it’s an attention grabbing picture for the front page: XR’s message out there, XR wins. XR immediately captivates the attention of the slightly older ‘Monty Python’ generation as this was a hugely successful comedy show back in the day. The bottom of the foot balloon could be black with carbon/oil with a tie in of the iridescent XR logo on the heal so that the public identify with the XR ground message.

XR must also create a way to convince those in total denial about the climate crisis that dirty fuel is not without significant harmful consequences and damaging impacts on society that could be mitigated in a green new deal. They do not need to be convinced about the harmful impact of climate change when their grandchild has a life threatening asthma attack due to city traffic pollution on the way to school! They do not need to make the direct connection between selective foreign interventions when their only son dies needlessly in a foreign conflict instigated to secure UK/US resources. It doesn’t take an ecological rocket scientist to figure out that foreign powers are being manipulated at the expense of ordinary people, devastated by growing global inequality; a driving force behind refugee flight. Even if you strip away an area of science that they are not convinced by, there are still other valid arguments you must use to get all of the public onside. Do not write climate deniers off as a lost cause in your battle for hearts and minds.

I hope that Vivian Westwood will put in a headline grabbing appearance at Julian Assange’s hearing this week. Seeking to decry any potential for personal attention seeking totally misses the point; the last time she dressed up as a canary trapped in a cage to highlight the injustice against Assange, she grabbed media attention with her quirky political appeal despite the initially media determination to dismiss the matter. Regardless of any personal opinions of Westward, her protest was successful in hitting the headlines seriously against the odds. It serves as a perfect example of what works to get a controversial subject that the media would much rather avoid, begrudgingly propelled onto the front page of rightwing tabloids: we must learn from this example.

What remains a very serious threat to freedom of speech globally is the US extradition of Julian Assange, for publishing truthful information about the war crimes of the US Government. The treatment and wretched demise of Assange in US custody will serve as a warning to others who consider uncovering the truth regarding US complicity in crimes against humanity. There will be no refuge from US revenge if investigative Journalists can be captured for alleged crimes committed outside the US and extradited to face trial in America. Assange needs us to continue voicing our outrage in protest against his unjust incarceration in Belmarsh and shout out loudly so that he cannot be extradited as this would severely endanger all investigative Journalists worldwide; we must also offer our Funding support. Craig Murray will be there this week to offer his support and report on the hearing, but it is precisely such action that has brought him into the legal crosshairs and he too needs our Funding right now to fight his own legal battle.

The furore over Extinction Rebellion’s minor disruption to the toxic waste pumped out by the Rupert Murdock rags that currently masquerade as our ‘free press’ offer an obscene parody of where our attention in offering protection should lie. With a progressive Government we would have had the Leverson 2 inquiry clean up this heavily corrupted industry that has seen the UK become one of the least respected press environments in Europe. We need proper regulation with Ofcom doing its regulatory job to properly monitor and pass harsh judgement on our now totally out of control biased Tory mouthpiece that used to be the trusted BBC. There can never be proper scrutiny or accountability of the Tories if they remain protected by a fully corrupted BBC covering up and condoning their mistakes. This is one of the key elements of establishing a lasting dictatorship: absolute control of all state broadcasting and the media – we must vigorously fight back because after crash-out Brexit it may be too late to protest our fate.

We must protect the progressive news outlets from the increasing onslaught that they will face as dictatorship takes grip in the UK. The SLAPP lawsuits have been stalled in their attempts to silence free speech by the overwhelming public support from those prepared to donate to defend the truth. The threat of legal action quickly disappears when there is a real prospect of a Court battle where they would lose due to lack of evidence, but those falsely accused like Corbyn must do more than calmly walk away. It is necessary to force these bluffing accusers into Court to face the consequences of their perjured testimony and disrupt the viability of their disreputable scam so that they can no longer silence free speech with shallow threats in future. Labour’s treacherous Captain of Capitulation could have his deceitful operation exposed by these lawsuits to remove him from the leadership role, while the lies that sabotaged former leader Corbyn will call into question the validity of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election when uncovered. DO NOT MOVE ON!

My last post contained an annoying typo in my alternative wording for “Land of hope and glory” It stands corrected here:

Lost hope and past glory, never to be free,
Powerful privilege eternal, breeds Tory cruelty.
Poorer still and poorer, while on the treadmill set,
Work until you – Drop – Dead – forever in their debt!
Wealth made Tories mighty, it makes them mightier yet!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

The vindictive delusion of John Ware continues apace as we await his next onslaught targeting Corbyn and the Labour Party over their refusal to admit guilt over ‘fantisemitism!’ In an Article he wrote for The Critic entitled, “The anti-Corbyn plot that never was” it misleadingly says, “John Ware looks at the hard facts behind Momentum’s claims of centrist betrayal” Ware attempts to debunk the findings of the leaked 851 page internal Labour Report entitled, “The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014-2019,” which he says, “also has a section on the alleged 2017 election plot.” He claims a devious motivation for drafting the Report but, in reality, the Report was commissioned as the required official Labour Party response to the EHRC investigation as directly requested by the EHRC. For the former Labour Leadership not to commission such a report in defence of the actions taken with regard to anti-Semitism responding to the EHRC would have been a serious dereliction of duty.

Ware’s Critic Article is crammed with far too much nonsensical thinking to warrant more than a few damning quotes here. He pleads, “Don’t be fooled by the portentous title. The report was written by some of Corbyn’s most loyal allies — by a faction for a faction.” It would be truly extraordinary for those working for the Labour Leadership team to fail to support the person who was overwhelmingly elected by the majority of the party membership to represent them on two separate occasions, however Ware tries to make this sound like a perverse form of treachery. He ridicules the Report saying, “It claims to be the result of an ‘in-depth and extensive investigatory work providing a ‘full and thorough account of the evolution of the Party’s disciplinary processes in relation to dealing with complaints of antisemitism.”

In his evidence-free reporting Ware claims, “It’s nothing of the sort, though the report continues to provide ammunition for those who cling to the belief that ‘Jeremy’ was betrayed rather than defeated in the same way that doomsday cult members blame the calendar when the world fails to end.” If only he had been able to add a sinister sound track as he did with his Panorama hatchet job… Ware refers sympathetically to ‘Poison Dart Blower’ Sam Matthews as “an open, intelligent, easy-going 28-year-old who, as an official in the Governance and Legal Unit was responsible for investigating complaints, including those relating to antisemitism.” As with all of the PDBs he fails to mention their strong commitments to the Israeli Lobby with its witch-hunt agenda of targeting the progressive Labour Left by weaponizing fantisemitism.

Ware writes that, “Having spent many hours interrogating Matthews and other party officials ahead of the Panorama broadcast, I regard him as a man of integrity.” Ware desperately wanted to believe the lies because of his obsession in hating Jeremy Corbyn, but I wonder how quickly he will throw the PDBs under the bus as evidence emerges to debunk their leis? Ware is using classic SLAPP tactics trying to dither and delay while building a case in the media that might pressure Corbyn into a truly dishonourable capitulation, but courageous Corbyn is no Starmer style traitor to the cause of Socialism and I doubt he will back down given the massive support of contributors to his Legal Defence Fund. he just doesn’t need to. But will Ware take it to the next stage given he will need to prove an unprovable case in Court. I doubt it, but how will he attempt to wriggle out gracefully without revealing the criminal extortion that was knowingly propagated by his collaborators that he supported in this criminal deception?

Ware has already made a criminal admission with regard to this case regarding the alternative use of Labour Campaign funds. Can you imagine if an exclusive click among the Tory Party decided to divert 12% of Party dnations and membership dues to an alternative agenda during an Election Campaign? There is absolutely no defence that might justify such clandestine manouvers no matter how they might be perceived as somehow beneficial to the Party. The members selected Corbyn and his team to lead the Labour Party, trusting in his judgement as to what was the correct strategy to win an election. Absolutely no other faction or group of individuals, no matter what their intent, had any authority what-so-ever to disrupt this election strategy even if they feared it might result in a catastrophic defeat. Ware’s documented admission that this was exactly what happened is proof positive of unlawful embezzlement of Labour Party funds for which the perpetrators should be held criminally liable.

In his meagre concession to the truth Ware admits that, “The leaked report, however, is correct to say there was a project, which it calls the ‘Ergon House project’, so named because it operated out of Ergon House, the party’s London regional office. The report is also correct in saying that the project was run by Matthews, although it was inspired by more senior officials who, like Matthews, had witnessed levels of ineptitude not experienced with any previous Labour leader and their private office. The project was also secret in as much as it was not disclosed to Corbyn or his office. But beyond reporting these facts accurately, the authors provide no evidence from scouring (they claim) 100,000 emails that the motivation was to sabotage Corbyn’s chances of becoming prime minister.” The motivation of these rogue staff members going out on a limb in support of a personal crusade that they obscured from the official Labour Party Leadership is completely immaterial, because their use of Labour Party campaign funds was illegal.

The above documented admission is evidence of embezzlement; would a Corporation allow a group of employees to wing-it using Corporate funds; no they would face criminal charges as should this group of traitors to the Socialist cause. Ware claims that, “The report’s authors ‘are trying to build a mythical ‘stab in the back’ conspiracy theory to absolve themselves of the consequences of their incompetence,’ one former official told the Guardian.” He states that, “The project was actually called the ‘Bespoke Materials Service’. Unite’s submission to Forde even misreports the amount the BMS spent which was £135,014, just 1.2 per cent of Labour’s reported £11 million election spend. Even if they had won the extra seats, this would still only have brought a ‘Rainbow coalition’ level-pegging with the Tories.” All of this is totally immaterial because there is absolutely no justification for unauthorized use of Labour Party campaign funds. Even those who support the centrist cause need to realize that illegal is illegal!

But Ware is so absorbed in the righteousness of his own warped delusion that despite the depth of the hole he has buried himself in he refuses to stop digging. In further desperate attempts at justification he claims that, “In fact, the rationale behind the BMS was this: with the Tories 19 points ahead when Theresa May called the 2017 election, officials in Labour’s senior management team (SMT) feared for the very survival of the party as a viable opposition. Based on information about where voter sentiment was moving away from Labour, all the party’s 231 seats were graded according to whether they were ‘key’, ‘should be OK’, or ‘not winnable’.” He blathers on in centrist neo-con justification, oblivious to the fact that he just betrayed his clients in print; they could even justifiably try to get him disbarred! Ware’s Layers must realize that without bluffing their way to an out of court settlement they have no chance of winning in Court. They are relying on the hostile tabloid press to push their case in the gutter press.

In a Guardian Article entitled, “Labour was warned antisemitism report was deliberately misleading, leak reveals…” Or not! “The Party’s lawyer said private messages were presented selectively and without context.” However Formby told the Guardian, “she authorised the search of the party’s internal systems, including WhatsApp groups, after the EHRC asked her to do so for its inquiry. Formby told the Guardian she had authorised the searches of emails and WhatApp messages, which were legitimately carried out at the request of the EHRC ‘As general secretary, I authorised the searches which were legitimately carried out. The information used in the internal report into the handling of antisemitism complaints came to light when searches were undertaken in response to EHRC requests,’ she said. ‘The EHRC asked the Labour party to search all its internal systems, including WhatsApp groups where possible, and the party’s staff handbook makes clear that staff communications on internal party systems can be searched in this way’.”

The critical piece of information from Jeanie Formby, exposed here to the dismay of conniving legal teams. is that this action was taken in line with what was permissible within the written contract of Labour Party employees regarding access to their internal communications for normal Labour Party business communications. The fact that these legitimate channels were hijacked by a dissident faction of the Labour Party who were exposed via the internal investigations is massively important. The “we had a better plan” defence is just deeply insulting to all of those who chose the progressive Labour Leadership with a very specific objective and were woefully betrayed by those who illegally embezzled Labour Party finds to pursue an alternative agenda against the will of the electorate.

The evidence of malfeasance is so blatantly obvious that few can have disregarded the call and contesting the evidence became a huge risk. All of the people involved in this conspiracy to subvert our Electoral System should be prevented from any and all future participation in future elections. It is telling that a Report that was directly requested by the EHRC was prevented from being submitted to the EHRC by Sir Keir Starmer the eminently legally qualified man who assumed the leadership of the Labour Party. He then promptly sold Labour Party members down the river in a cowardly capitulation that was against the advice of the Labour Party Lawyers working on the case. The Labour Party is being asked to accept the insult of fantisemitism and move on, accept the betrayal that obliterated Corbyn’s hopeful message and wait another decade to be free of Tory oppression! So as yet another Tory flunky ‘Tallyho Harding’ is appointed to take the reins of our precious NHS do we do nothing or protest? Thankfully Craig Murray made sure that EHRC got an unredacted copy of the Report.

The Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Corbyn legal crowdfund appoints trustees” gave details of the latest update No 7 posted by Carole Morgan the Organizer who first initiated the fund raiser which has now raised over £332,600. They said, “ The successful fundraiser, which like Corbyn has been frequently smeared by disgruntled right-wingers, has announced the appointments in a new update on its page.” Following an informative exert they add, “Any who wish to donate or to view the whole update can do so here,” and the imbed a direct Link. Following the Link the latest information on the fundraiser contains the following update posted the other day by Carole. She writes:

“Hello Everyone, I hope you are all staying safe and keeping well as we head towards autumn. The bank holiday certainly seemed to give us a taste of things to come! In spite of the chilly weather, I hope you all had a pleasant holiday weekend. I have received a couple of enquiries about John Ware’s threatened legal action. At this point we don’t know whether the case against Jeremy will proceed.” In Morgan’s update she does not indicate whether Corbyn’s Legal team are considering going on the offensive with a countersuit, instead focusing on how the considerable sum of money raised will be judiciously administered by a new Trust of reliable well known, reputable individuals. If only we could trust the reckless Tory Government to make such carefully chosen appointments in the public interest!

Morgan reports that, “There has been some progress in terms of setting up the Trust for Jeremy Corbyn’s Legal Fund. I can now tell you the names of the three Trustees; Liz Davies, who has known Jeremy for more than 30 years. She works as a Barrister specialising in housing, and will be undertaking the role of Trustee in a personal capacity. The second Trustee is Andy Gregg. He is an experienced trustee and company director and has known Jeremy through human rights activity and community work in Islington for over 30 years. They first met when Andy was the General Secretary of Islington Voluntary Action Council in the late 1980s. Both Liz and Andy have worked with Jeremy in the political sphere over many years . As you might already have guessed, I will also be a Trustee and I am delighted to be joining Liz and Andy to ensure that your donations are kept safely within the Trust until such time as they are needed by Jeremy to fight the legal battles ahead.”

Carole Morgan offers a timeframe of when we might expect more definitive news regarding the Trust that hopefully will give some indication of whether there the potential for this case to go to Court will remain up to John Ware, who might back down, or will become more proactive in clearing the smear campaign that has blighted Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. She writes, “In terms of the Trust itself, as I mentioned in my previous update, this remains with Counsel and I hope to have more information on progress by the middle of next week. The aim is to have the Trust set up before the end of September. Of course the legal process needs to take whatever time is necessary to ensure that the Trust is legally watertight. Given the hostile reception our Fund received from the right wing press and anti Socialists within the various political parties I feel that this is particularly important.”

Morgan requests that we should be patient, writing, “Please bear with me while the Trust is being set up. I promise you that as soon as I have some definite news to report I will not delay in sharing it with you. My love and solidarity to you all, Carole.” I think it is time for people to become a great deal more vocal on the internet regarding the progression of this case so that Corbyn realizes that he has strong support not just to defend himself if necessary, but to force Ware to publically retract the ‘fantisemitism’ lies that continue to cause so much harm. Fantisemitism is extremely harmful to the Jewish community because the public have become weary of hearing the constant petty accusations and smears so really serious threats might go unnoticed. A massive amount of damage could spiral out of control with copycat SLAPP Lawsuits due to Starmer’s cowardly capitulation and this onslaught cannot be countered by continuing on the defensive; trying to disprove a negative is an uphill battle rarely won.

Yesterday David McNiven added this Comment, “I’m convinced Jeremy, given that Starmer was too cowardly, should countersue if Ware is foolish enough to throw away his future, those of his collaborators and possibly the rest of the MSM’s on this futile and duplicitous attempt at self-exoneration by the mere threat of legal action. In Jeremy’s place I’d initiate a suit myself to avoid the weasel weaselling out of his responsibility as his endless delaying tactics suggest is his intention. Admittedly it can take decades but like Grandma always said, ‘Truth will out.’ Anyone with any kind of social media profile should be linking to all four parts of the documentary “The Lobby” on YouTube at every opportunity – and anyone with the skills should be downloading them or uploading them to file sharing sites it in case Larry Page decides to suppress them.”

My comment is still awaiting moderation which can be quite slow with Skwawkbox, but in reply to David McNiven I wrote, “You are so right, these SLAPP cases are only won by intimidating the innocent into paying an out of Court settlement. Corbyn must be encouraged to overcome his, ‘turn the other cheek’ instincts. If he does countersue, refusing to allow Ware and the Labour traitors an easy out, then the lies on which they won their out of Court ransom can be used against them in Court. The staff in question do not have any right to claim victimhood as Whistleblowers; to me they are, PDBs, ‘Poison Dart Blowers’!” It would be great if a few of these more accurate titles, minor ‘adjustments’ and helpful additions to the public discourse could be more widely publicized on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, sadly a task beyond me where I need your help.

I then analysed the legal implication for Ware and the PDBs given that they would have needed to submit the substance of their legal claim as testimony that they would be prepared to swear to in Court under oath risking penalty of perjury. I continued my comment by elaborating on that point, writing, “Just because they didn’t go to Court to secure the huge payout from Labour, does not mean that they did not prepare sworn testimony that I believe would constitute an act of perjury in support of criminal extortion and fraud. This will be exposed if Corby takes Ware to Court and submits all of the factual evidence that debunks the total fallacy of rampant anti-Semitism in the Labour Party that I now call, ‘fantisemitism!’ The leaked internal report would then demonstrate the corruption and treachery that they relied on to fabricate their extortion racket that defrauded the Labour membership.” Are there any Lawyers among our circle of contributors who might be able to advise on this?

In conceding my weakness in this regard I wrote, “I am no legal eagle, but I think this might offer a means by which the Corbyn countersuit could potentially initiate the recovery of funds squandered by Keir Starmer in his cowardly capitulation. This would then call into question the selfish and equally corrupt motivations of the Captain of Capitulation and Starmer could then be forced out. If Corbyn is exonerated in Court and deliberate sabotage contributed to the loss of what I refer to as the “Covert 2019 Rigged Election,’ there should be no reason he couldn’t resume his leadership role or at least enter a new leadership contest which I have no doubt he would win. If you share my concerns about this damage to our democracy please sign my Petition…” I supplied the Petition link and reminded Skwawkbox supporters, “DO NOT MOVE ON!”

I think as the situation in the UK continues to deteriorate further the resistance to increasing Tory oppression will grow and the protests will not be deterred by petty restrictions from Priti Patel. However, I have noted an attitude of fatalistic complacency that must be strongly discouraged so sounding the alarm bells I wrote, “Progressive Labour members need to stop blindly accepting the toxic Tory propaganda that continues to support a fraudulent Tory grip on power that will morph into full-on dictatorship after the self-harm of their crash-out Brexit. Even those who strongly supported Brexit must now understand that once the Tories hijacked the negotiations it spelt disaster for the working poor. The Tories are prepared to break international treaties that will make any future trade deals highly unlikely. The Good Friday agreement and all humane options for a deal will be ignored. Our citizens will lose basic human rights in the emerging dictatorship so it is vitally important that we fight back.”

It is really hard to get any logical message across on the Skwawkbox because the hard core Brexiteers are still clinging to the pathetic life raft of betrayal concocted for them by an efficient Tory propaganda machine under the direction of the ‘Herd Nerd’ Dominic Cummings. ‘Dummings’ unleashed his weapons grade PsyOps on the persuadables who have continued to propagate Tory lies. I have learned to tread extremely carefully around these deluded individuals or they unleash a torrent of abuse that the Skwawkbox moderator is inclined to tolerate making me suspicious of their overall agenda. I then introduced a few nuggets of new wording in the hope the concept might catch on I wrote, “This battle starts with changing the narrative to disarm the Tory lies before the ‘Bromise’ of ‘levelling up’ becomes the cruel reality of ‘Decimating Down.’ For more new language options designed to hook the press with catchy headlines and slogans visit our Elections Aftermath Discussion Forum on Craig Murray’s Blog;”

I posted the Link to my page 8 Post # 58931, my last but one, which was full of alternative language. I then introduced another controversial contribution by saying, “Let’s start by rewording that rousing anthem of elitist imperialism: Land of hope and glory:

Lost hope and past glory, never to be free,
Powerful privilege eternal, breeds Tory cruelty.
Poorer still and poorer, while on the treadmill set,
Work until you – Drop – Dead – forever in their debt!
Wealth made Tories mighty, it makes them mightier yet!”

After adding, “Pause and emphasize ‘Drop Dead’…” I came up with a suggestion for where it could be sung for maximum impact, writing, “Take that to a vocal demo at the Proms or sing it to the PM at his Downing Street enclave. Soon he will wish the song had never been written or he had not made such a fuss defending the cruelty and exploitation of empire. There are my new words to ‘Rule Britannia’ that Boris might seriously object to, so easily learned for use at protests, but I lack the Social Media reach to make these ‘amendments’ go viral. Cruel Britannia! Vile Tories rule the Slaves… Only by ousting Boris Johnson will lives be saved!” It would be perfect if I could get these reworded versions taken up on Social Media; if you have Twitter savvy friends who might help, please forward these lyrics. If I was more tuned into this medium, younger and fitter my campaign ideas would be a lot more effective, but sadly this old sea dog has “swallowed the anchor!” If you can help out, please get in touch and: DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Justice within the rule of law is being heavily trampled upon both here in the UK and under the lawless authoritarian jackboot of the US stomping down on the collective necks of innocent citizens across the globe in just as lethal a manor as was used to extinguish the life of George Floyd. Britain’s incarceration and torture of political prisoner, outspoken Wikileaks Journalist Whistleblower Julian Assange is at the behest of the American Government determined to force through their illegal extradition hearing at all costs. The show trial is proceeding as expected with every move by defence Lawyers blocked, justice and human rights denied while public access limits the escape of real information. Craig made it into Court to report on the worst abuses, unprecedented restrictions and the Judge’s decisions formulate without hearing the arguments presented; she knows what is required of her: deliver the lamb to the slaughter. The global bully who decides all has passed judgement; subvert the law, whatever it takes: he will prevail.

Under Trump the US have ramped up their dictating to the world slapping sanctions on independent minded national leaders who would not bow to his demands and support the interests of US Corporations and subjecting the poorest citizens of those countries to untold hardship. With Iran it was the nuclear deal an Obama legacy had to be destroyed; Venezuela it was oil reserves he wants to control so he nominated a new Leader and organized coup attempts. He considers the whole of South America his territory to dominate and plunder resources; the ABC of Lithium wealth spells subjugation for Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. Never missing an opportunity, the Navalny incident might be Trump’s chance to sabotage the Nordstrom pipeline. What would that achieve? It will keep Germany beholden to Poland for gas supplies routed through their territory with Poland’s hard right Government willing to bribe and be bribed by the US. Increase manufacturing costs and limit power within the EU, plus he can sell American LPG.

Boris Johnson is deluded if he thinks he can stand up to Trump once the UK is severed from the EU after crash-out Brexit. Right now, as China becomes more powerful with economic success, the Trump wrecking ball has found a new target. He unleashed faux outrage over human rights, then the ‘Chinese’ virus, Huawei: Trump does not like China’s leading position in tech so he will try to sabotage all their business ventures, not just in the US, but globally through sanction bullying. Trump is desperate to maintain the dominance of the US dollar as the premier world currency, but steeped in debt the greenback might be on the wane according to the Keiser Report. Trump has few friends left, but his buddy Bibi Netanyahu is grateful for support and moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Trump favours corrupt, cruel despots like the sadistic Saudis who trimmed down the justice demanded for chopping Journalist Khashoggi into manageable chunks! Assange is in grave danger as Trump’s distain for Journalists is readily apparent.

But Trump is now attacking established global organizations like the WHO and now the ICC. In the Guardian Article entitled, “US imposes sanctions on top international criminal court officials,” they report that, “The US has imposed sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court, Fatou Bensouda, in the latest of a series of unilateral and radical foreign policy moves. Announcing the sanctions, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, did not give any specific reasons for the move other than to say the ICC ‘continues to target Americans’ and that Bensouda was ‘materially assisting’ that alleged effort. He also announced sanctions against Phakiso Mochochoko, the ICC’s director of jurisdiction, complementary and cooperation division. The US Treasury issued a statement saying Bensouda and Mochochoko had been deemed ‘specially designated nationals’, grouping them alongside terrorists and narcotics traffickers, blocking their assets and prohibited US citizens from having any dealings with them.”

Wikileaks contribution to the evidence exposed about US war crimes has angered Trump; silencing Assange in an inhumane way will send a message to Journalists globally. The Guardian report that, “In June, Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing sanctions on ICC officials involved in investigating Americans, in response to the court’s decision to open an inquiry into war crimes committed by all sides in Afghanistan. The US also opposes ICC scrutiny of potential Israeli crimes against Palestinians as part of an investigation that also looks at abuses carried out by Palestinian security forces. The US was roundly condemned for its anti-ICC campaign, which was not supported by any other western democracy or US ally apart from Israel. In a statement in response to the sanctions on Wednesday, the ICC said: ‘These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the Court…and the rule of law more generally’.”

According to the Guardian, “Richard Dicker, the international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the announcement ‘marks a stunning perversion of US sanctions, devised to penalize rights abusers and kleptocrats, to persecute those tasked with prosecuting international crimes’. ‘The Trump administration has twisted these sanctions to obstruct justice, not only for certain war crimes victims, but for atrocity victims anywhere looking to the international criminal court for justice,’ Dicker said. The decision to escalate its campaign against the ICC is one of a series of radical steps the Trump administration has taken on foreign policy that have left it isolated on the world stage. On Monday, it was alone in voting against a counter-terrorism resolution in the UN security council. On other recent council votes involving US efforts to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran, Washington has only managed to secure the support of the Dominican Republic.”

In another warped decision, the Guardian say that, “On Wednesday, Pompeo also confirmed that the US would not be taking part in an international effort to find a vaccine for Covid-19, because the World Health Organization was involved. The administration has sought to blame the WHO for the pandemic, against which the US has fared worse than any other major industrialised economy. ‘This administration wants multilateral institutions to function, to actually work, but multilateralism just for the sake of it, just to get together in a room and chat doesn’t add value,’ Pompeo said on Wednesday. ‘This should be a five-alarm fire for the UN,’ Mark Leon Goldberg, the editor of the UN Dispatch newsletter, said on Twitter. ‘It’s one small step from imposing sanctions against top WHO officials as part of Trump’s campaign to shift blame for his handling of Covid-19′.” Boris Johnson is emulating Trump: disbanding DfID was warped, but binning Public Health England in the midst of a Pandemic to avoid blame is insane.

In an Electronic Intifada Article entitled, “Trump goes nuclear against ICC,” they too report on how, “The Trump administration in Washington has placed economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and another senior official at the Hague. The move was announced on Wednesday by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said the US would ‘not tolerate [the court’s] illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.’ Pompeo’s announcement came shortly after returning from a trip to Israel, during which he boarded the first direct commercial flight between Tel Aviv and Sudan. The US and Israel face investigations by the court for suspected war crimes in Afghanistan and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively. The ICC’s probes, still in a preliminary stage, represent a challenge to the impunity of both states.”

According to EI this also represents a real “test of the credibility of the tribunal, which has so far only tried African nationals. The US and Israel reject the application of court jurisdiction that could see the indictment of their nationals and have teamed up to thwart the ICC’s scrutiny. The sanctions announced by Pompeo are by far the most severe measures taken thus far. The US Treasury now lists prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, director of the court’s prosecution jurisdiction division, among its “specially designated nationals.” By doing so, the Trump administration has put the court officials in the company of ‘terrorists and narcotics traffickers’ or individuals and groups working on behalf of countries sanctioned by the US.” However, under the Donald the US is becoming a lot more authoritarian and arbitrary about where they seek to impose sanctions and for the flimsiest of reasons, while expecting all other countries to unquestioningly follow the example of global tyrant Trump.

EI document the shocked reaction to the latest US “Attack on the rule of law.” They say that, “The ICC condemned the ‘coercive acts’ targeting its personnel as an attack on the court and ‘the rule of law more generally.’ Human Rights Watch accused the Trump administration of attempting to ‘block justice for the world’s worst crimes.’ The sanctions will ‘seriously affect’ Bensouda and Mochochoko, the New York-based group stated. They will lose access to assets in the US and be ‘cut off from commercial and financial dealings with ‘US persons,’ including banks and other companies.’ Human Rights Watch added that the sanctions will ‘also have a chilling effect’ on banks and companies outside the US ‘who fear losing access themselves to the US banking system if they do not help the US to effectively export the sanctions measures’.” Although there are expectations that Trump will lose the Presidential race and no longer be in a position to continue his damaging and disruptive coercion, we could face four more years!

EI say, “Amnesty International said that the move ‘penalizes not only the ICC, but civil society actors working for justice alongside the court worldwide.’ The sanctions on Bensouda and Mochochoko are extreme and unprecedented but not surprising. In June, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that threatened to impose such measures against parties that cooperated with the court’s probes into the situation in Afghanistan. The sweeping order declares that ‘any attempt by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute’ would constitute an ‘extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US.’ The order includes in its declaration of ‘a national emergency’ any investigation of ‘personnel of countries that are US allies and who are not parties to the [ICC’s] Rome Statute,’ an oblique reference to Israel. Amnesty International USA warned that the vague and broad language used in Trump’s executive order means that anyone cooperating with the court may find themselves ‘implicated’.”

EI report, “Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy were among only a handful of members of Congress who spoke out against the sanctions against court officials: Silence among the Trump administration’s usual critics in Congress is also not surprising. In May, a bipartisan grouping of members of Congress in both houses encouraged Pompeo in his efforts to thwart justice at the court by signing letters authored by the Israel lobby group AIPAC. The European Union, whose cooperation or lack thereof will determine the success of the Trump administration’s sanctions, said it was ‘unwavering in its support’ of the ICC. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who welcomed the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month, was more guarded. A spokesperson for Guterres’ office said they would ‘continue to closely follow developments on this matter’.”

EI reported that, “Others who closely observe developments concerning the court noted that the sanctions target the two African nationals among the five top figures in the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor. The three non-Africans with top-level posts in that office were not designated by the US order. Writing for the Just Security website, Haley S. Anderson states that the ‘relatively unknown Mochochoko’ may have been designated because he has ‘allegedly supported the inquiry into potential US wrongdoing in Afghanistan.’ She adds that Mochochoko’s remit of jurisdiction, which the court exercises in Afghanistan, and which a panel of judges is currently considering in the case of Palestine, is the US’s ‘core objection to the Afghanistan investigation’.” As the Black Lives Matter protester continue to take to the streets this is one more outrage that selectively targeted African’s on the ICC a body that seriously need to demonstrate that America, Israel, and yes the UK too, are not beyond the law.

According to EI, “The legal scholar Kevin Jon Heller told Al Jazeera that the US is hardly the first to object to its treatment by the ICC. ‘The only real difference is that the US has the power to do this kind of overt action against the court in a way that most African states that feel unfairly targeted don’t,’ he said. He stated that there are diplomatic and court mechanisms that the US could pursue if it ‘took these allegations of torture by the CIA [in Afghanistan] seriously’. In the case of both Israel and the US, credible investigations and prosecutions of alleged abuses by its forces would prevent any formal investigation at the ICC. As a court of last resort, the ICC only exercises jurisdiction ‘where national legal systems fail to do so.’ Trump’s predecessor, Barrack Obama, declined to prosecute the authors and executors of the Bush administration’s torture regimes in Afghanistan and beyond.”

EI report that, “The US has chosen instead to ‘use the dominance of US financial markets,’ as Anderson puts it, to undermine the court and consolidate its impunity – and that of Israel.” Obama might have wanted to keep Pandora’s box tightly closed while he was in office, but it is precisely this pandering to the military industrial complex condoning past atrocities that make future violations a lot more likely. Idi Armene, Pinochet and other ruthless tyrants have died quietly in exile, while in the UK Tony Blair is treated like a celebrity; if there is never accountability for atrocities and war crimes the violence will continue unabated. It is not about seeking vengeance it’s the requirement for even-handed justice, sending a harsh message that no one is above the law and restoring the trust of ordinary citizens who in a growing number of countries are treated as worthless. So many of the US police officers caught on camera dispensing lethal arbitrary justice are never charged that police forces believe they can kill with impunity.

The Israeli Government will continue to persecute the Palestinians if they know they will never be held accountable for their crimes. Increasingly in the UK one is not even permitted to mention the crimes of the Israeli Government because such blasphemy has now been effectively coapted into an obscure form of anti-Semitism. We are not permitted to express solidarity with the Palestinian population who are also ethnically Semitic. Those who dare to show sympathy for the historic inhabitants of West Bank whose land is being seized or concern for Palestinians trapped within the open prison of Gaza as they battle deprivation and bombing are just ladled anti-Semitic. The disgusting fantisemitism witch hunt has trapped, demonized and excluded some of our finest civil rights activists, destroying political aspirations and the progressive agenda for our country to hide the shame of crimes perpetrated by a foreign power. SLAPP lawsuits moneyterized this deceitful operation to gag the finest of our Leaders and wreck our democracy.

When the Tories froth in faux outrage over a minor one day disruption by Extinction Rebellion targeting their vile propaganda hate spewing rags, I can only cheer at the momentary success XR managed to score. This Tory Government would have freedom of speech selectively applied; freedom of the press for the RIGHT press and the Far-RIGHT Press, but not for alternative progressive voices. The BBC functioning unashamedly as a Tory mouthpiece, ignoring the need for balanced presentation, even right through Purdah and beyond with their lopsided far-Right agenda, but do not expect ofcom to reign them in no matter how excessive their abuse gets; the Tories appear to control Ofcom too. No instead there are calls to shut down RT by removing the broadcasting licence of Russia Today in case they venture to supply an alternative perspective on the news.

A Canary Article sounded the alarm, “Astounding,” they exclaimed over the, “admission as minister confirms proposed change to Brexit deal would breach international law. A government plan to override elements of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal with Brussels would breach international law, a senior minister has confirmed,” announcing it to the shocked the few MPs assembled in the Covid depleted House of Commons Chamber. “The comment by Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis provoked a furious reaction, including from some Tory MPs, and followed news that the head of the Government Legal Department had resigned amid reports he was ‘very unhappy’ with the proposal. Lewis told MPs legislation to ensure Northern Ireland could continue to enjoy unfettered access to markets in the rest of the UK would breach international law in a ‘very specific and limited way’.”

The Canary report that, “In the Commons, former prime minister, Theresa May warned the government was in danger of losing the trust of other countries that it would honour its international agreements. May said ministers were now seeking to change the operation of an agreement which the government had signed up to and parliament had passed into UK law and asked: ‘Given that, how can the Government reassure future international partners that the UK can be trusted to abide by the legal obligations of the agreements it signs?!” This is relevant to another piece of fantasy brinkmanship: the UK will end negotiations and write off unpaid EU debt: prospective new trade partners would be truly spooked by that. “May said ministers were now seeking to change the operation of an agreement which the government had signed up to and parliament had passed into UK law and asked: ‘Given that, how can the Government reassure future international partners that the UK can be trusted to abide by the legal obligations of the agreements it signs?”

The Canary report on the shocked responses, “Labour described the admission as ‘absolutely astonishing” Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy Tweeted, “Astounded to hear the Northern Ireland Secretary calmly confirm the UK Government’s plans do break international law. The rule of law keeps us safe, defends our national interest, and allows us to hold others to account. They are diminishing us on the world stage.” Meanwhile they say, “Downing Street has sought to play down the changes in the Internal Market Bill – to be tabled on Wednesday – insisting they were simply ‘limited clarifications’ to protect the peace process if they failed to secure a free trade deal with the EU.”

The Canary say, “pressed in the Commons by the senior Tory MP Bob Neill as to whether they were consistent with the UK’s international legal obligations, Lewis said: ‘Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way’. He said that the powers the government were taking would enable ministers to ‘dis-apply’ the EU legal concept of ‘direct effect’ – which requires the enforcement of EU law – in ‘certain, very tightly defined circumstances’. He added: ‘There are clear precedents for the UK and indeed other countries needing to consider their international obligations as circumstances change.’ However, Neill, who chairs the Commons Justice Committee, said adherence to rule of law was ‘not negotiable’. Tweeting, ‘Any breach, or potential breach, of the international legal obligations we have entered into is unacceptable, regardless of whether it’s in a ‘specific’ or ‘limited way’.” This is just like Johnson’s Proroguing Parliament fiasco – he tried to get away with it, he failed; no apology, no shame… move on.

There is no honourable admission of guilt, never an apology, no one steps down; defying the law is almost a Tory right of passage: we still have Cummings in post. But this corrupt Tory cabal want even less scrutiny and less accountability as they ram through their unjust laws. The Judiciary are under fire, as the Tories are determined to reduce their power and effectiveness in holding this dysfunctional Tory Government to account. This is not a good time to be going to Court while these lawless bandits are in power; there is little hope of Justice for Julian at this time. Craig is making a herculean effort to get into Court and at least try to keep us posted. He wrote, “I went to the Old Bailey today expecting to be awed by the majesty of the law, and left revolted by the sordid administration of injustice.” We must Continue to Support Julian’s fight to block extradition; Whistleblower protections and freedom of the press depend on the outcome of this case. We must also support Craig’s efforts to help Julian and to fund his own defence.
Please: DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

I had not realized quite how crucially important and extensive the impact of the Wikileaks disclosures were globally, until I read about the testimony of Clive Stafford Smith. It was a real eye-opener reading the latest of Craig Murray’s post on the Assange hearing, so if you haven’t read it do take a look now. Craig must be of a similar vintage to me, so I have no idea how he manages to maintain the stamina to be up at ‘sparrows fart’ in the morning to get a place to enter the court, keep pace with the note taking throughout the day in Court and then still have the energy to write his blog posts for us as well… I really appreciate his herculean efforts in support of Julian Assange and keeping us all informed. I hope he has a great team of logistical supporters down in London to keep him going like the Eveready Bunny so he doesn’t wear himself into the ground. In a more light-hearted vein I want to offer an Ausie jingle for Julian dedicated to:

“THE OLD BAILEY KANGAROO COURT”
Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport,
Tie me Kangaroo down,
Kangaroo Justice in this Court,
So tie me Kangaroo Down…

A Kangaroo ruling proceedings,
Let’s Kangaroos wallop defence,
No chance to bound away free now,
Julian’s tied-up inside the fence!

Here to see Assange bound over,
Bounced to torture in the US!
Kangaroo Justice in this Court,
They tied me Kangaroo Down…

There is a glaring connection between what I wrote yesterday with regard to the US targeting the ICC. I don’t doubt that Julian Assange would be willing to cooperate with the ICC and elaborate on many US atrocities in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This is a significant political reason that the US wants to take Assange out and do so in such a horrific way that it scares all investigative Journalists into silence for fear of the horrendous consequences. Nothing from the tabloid press, after all they have no need to fear reprisals if they continue functioning as the Tory mouthpiece here in the UK. So while Johnny Depp’s dirty dobie got done to death in the tabloids only a few short weeks ago, the demise of UK freedom of the press is not an issue of public concern; nothing to see here… so let’s move on! The press were not just excluded from the proceedings, but they were happy to be excluded, thus totally removing them from any serious obligation to report the case that the UK Government wants to keep well and truly under wraps.

While a couple of the mainstream news outlets managed to briefly mention the atrocities disclosed in the shocking Wikileaks files back when they were published almost a decade ago, they made no coherent connection to the massive social upheaval that the exposure of war crimes precipitated. For young people this was not their news; they fail to comprehend the relevance, although the determination of the US Government to prosecute and incarcerate Assange well beyond one hundred years of his life expectancy should prompt them to question why? Trump wants Assange’s head on a pike or the most sadistic modern day equivalent; this will act as a terrifying deterrent to shut down investigative journalism and silence dissenting voices worldwide, consolidating dictatorial US strength of aggression. The global bullying power of the America is under threat if Assange cannot be gagged, discredited and disempowered: all of Journalism will feel this lethal hammer blow on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Take note of my new abbreviation for Tory Government: Tor-Ment! Hey, tell it like it is! As if it were not hard enough to broadcast the truth, otherwise known as ‘progressive or alternative news;’ the Tor-Ment are using Covid 19 as a feeble excuse to shut down all public protests with restrictions to gatherings of less than six people, unless in the close vicinity of a cash register or a workplace time-clock. Apparently such iconic features miraculously confer special immunity protection from Covid 19 to all workers or those actively engaged in spending money! While the Tor-Ment distract us with news of parties so they can blame young people for the Government initiated surge in Covid cases, we need to be concerned about the real vectors spreading infection. The children, who although asymptomatic, will pass Covid on to vulnerable adults in poverty stricken three generation households are ignored. Those forced back into workspaces that aren’t Covid secure, travel to work on cramped public transport: the poor are meant to die!

How can we protest and still be heard? When we were clapping for carers it was highly visible and the sound carried to increase the cumulative impact. If we can no longer join protests without being punished and dispersed by the police we can chose a much louder and more effective alternative that no one need leave home to join. It could be “Tin Pot Tuesday,” “Tin Pot Thursday” or both when we go outside to bang pots; it could be “Sing Along Saturday” when we all go outside our front doors all over the UK and sing songs that represent how we are really getting shafted by this Tor-Ment! Small family groups of six people or less could record their rendition of “Lost hope and past glory” sending the PM into apoplectic dismay! How many can make it down to a protest in London under the current restrictive rules enforced to shut down protests? Those who can make token protests in key places need to carry an inflatable cash register to highlight the sheer hypocrisy of current regulations; the masses can create YouTube videos to post and share online.

The Government are hoping that restrictions on protests threatening huge fines will shut down all protest, but if we bring the protest right to peoples doors, every single home in the UK, it will engage huge numbers throughout the entire country with no one feeling excluded because they cannot travel or just cannot get down to London. We can see the Tory-Ment restrictions as strangling our right to protest or just moving protest into a more inclusive participatory format where no one is excluded from taking part. Create a huge press release to announce this triumph and thank the Government for offering a new way forward for those wishing to express their views! Extinction Rebellion should take Sunday with candles and death of the planet themes. There’s still “Morning Monday” for those who have lost family members; “Frugal Friday” for those who have lost jobs and been forced into destitution; leaving “Woeful Wednesday” for the homeless, Asylum Seekers Gypsies and the dispossessed! Either Tuesday or Thursday could megaphone the Brexit crisis.

We cannot be deterred by the Tor-Ment rules to shut down protest; we must embrace this change as a triumph that makes protest louder, more effective and inclusive nationwide. The Tories will wish that they had driven us onto the streets to protest when the daily cacophony can no longer be ignored. All I can offer is the Link to Donate to Craig’s Legal Fund which I was thankfully able to use without being sucked into a PayPal membership page; an obstacle encountered with the regular donate button on Craig’s site. I wanted to set up regular direct debit, but had my donation thwarted by PayPal: I detest PesterPal! But this link does not request PesterPal membership although they do handle the transaction. This represents Corporate giants muscling in to coerce people into unwanted PayPal membership and it’s not on, so I have contacted my bank to set up a PesterPal free direct debit. Those who have the means will find a way to chip in; the link to the Julian Assange Legal fund is here.

Until we remove this Tory Government, I do not believe that any of the most burning issues of the day will be addressed. From the criminalization of investigative journalism with the targeting of a prominent Whistleblower, to Extinction Rebellion, Grenfell Tower, Windrush, Black Lives Matter, humanity towards migrants, the persecution of Palestinians to our lethal arms trade bombing Yemen into oblivion will all be ignored. Covid 19 is a useful tool to help the Tories consolidate a new era of extreme oppression under the Johnson/Cummings dictatorship; the hardship accelerated by crash-out Brexit will finalize the dystopian nightmare that lies ahead. Poor people will be hit with fines while the elite remain immune, but we must shout out now, every one of us collectively in a safely separated chorus. Cummings remains a volatile wrecking ball ordering mayhem, but he is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin! We have to rebel to demand just reversal of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, Investigation, inquiry: regime change, jail time! DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson began Prime Minister’s Questions with a brutally blunt point that directly targeted the lawless Tory Government. She asked, “If Ministers think it is acceptable for this Government to not obey the law, how on earth can the Prime Minister expect the public at home to do so?” Boris Johnson briskly swatted her query aside like a bothersome fly, he curtly said, “We expect everybody in this country to obey the law.” Tory Sir Robert Neil asked the PM to pledge Government support for Gibraltar and he might well ask now the Tories have openly stated that they are prepared to renege on International treaties? Johnson failed to consider a connection as he praised the rock for choosing to remain British. There are other treaties and commitments our current EU partners might wish to tear up: France might leave the UK to handle migrants on arrival in the UK rather than dealing with a growing number of refugees on their shores: Johnson will soon discover that other countries can play dirty too.

Keir Starmer started into a familiar PMQ routine, saying, “Yesterday, I spoke to a mum who lives in London. She has a four-year-old daughter, who had a very high temperature yesterday morning. She phoned 111, and was told to get a test. She tried to book, and was told the nearest was Romford. That was 9 o’clock in the morning. She explored that, but there were no tests there. She was then told Haywards Heath, halfway to Brighton—on exploration, no tests there. By lunch time, this mum was told the nearest place was Telford or Inverness. A slot became available in Lee Valley in the afternoon—one slot—but, unfortunately, that was being offered across the country, including to people in Manchester, and it was impossible to book. At 9 o’clock last night, she was told the nearest centre was Swansea. This is, frankly, ridiculous. Who does the Prime Minister think is responsible for this?”

Johnson replied, “Clearly, I take responsibility, as I have done throughout, for the entire handling of the coronavirus crisis, but I would just say to those who attack NHS Test and Trace, and those who deprecate the efforts of the people who are doing their level best to keep us safe, that it is precisely because of the success of test and trace that capacity has gone up from 2,000 a month in March to 320,000 a day. We know, thanks to NHS Test and Trace, in granular detail, in a way that we did not earlier this year, about what is happening with this pandemic. We know the groups that are suffering, the extent of the infection rates, and we have been able, thanks to NHS Test and Trace, to do the local lockdowns that have been working.” No, actually it most certainly not clear that the PM takes personal responsibility for the shambolic mess the Tories have made of controlling Covid 19.

Johnson was following his familiar PMQ format, not answering the question, reframing the disaster as if it were a really resounding success, moving on to selecting a target for assigning blame and culminating with criticism of Starmer for not showering those who are managing a totally dysfunctional system with effusive praise. He continued, “We also know that, alas, some people have not been following the guidance in the way that they should and, therefore, we are seeing a rise in infections, and that is why today we are taking decisive steps to intensify our social distancing measures—the rule of six that will be familiar to the country—in order that we can keep our economy going, that we can keep our schools open and keep this virus under control. I hope that he will support those measures and, indeed, support NHS Test and Trace.” It’s an extraordinary tactic that takes a lot of gall!

Starmer compliantly supplied support saying, “I will hear the measures later on, but we will in principle support them, as I have supported all the measures the Prime Minister has introduced, as he well knows. It is the right thing to do, and I have asked people to follow Government advice at every opportunity. Nobody is attacking here. The Prime Minister needs to know how anxious hundreds of families are. In the past few weeks, they have been sent all over the country or told there are no tests. It cannot be brushed off. Earlier this year, the Health Secretary said: ‘Anybody who needs a test can get a test, and it’s the most important thing that you can do to stop the spread of this virus.’ This is a very serious issue, but the Government line on it seems to be changing all the time. Yesterday, the director of NHS Test and Trace said, ‘Can I…offer my…apologies to anyone who cannot get a covid test…it’s our laboratory processing’ that is the problem’.”

We patiently awaited a second question, but Starmer settled for a variant of the same question. He said, “This morning, the Health Secretary changed tack and appeared to blame the public. I note that he made a statement yesterday and faced questions but he did not say anything about the excuse that he puts forward this morning that emerged overnight. So who is right—the director of Test and Trace, who says it is a laboratory problem, or the Health Secretary, who says it is the public’s fault?” Johnson’s reply included more blame, bragging and ridiculous demands for approval. He said, “I, of course, sympathise with all those who are facing difficulties getting a test as fast as they want, but demand is at an unprecedented high, particularly because of demand for asymptomatic patients, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman should know that this country has done more tests—17.6 million—than any other country in Europe. He likes international comparisons.” Boris had not finished expansive bragging…

Johnson blathered on, “That is thanks to the efforts of NHS Test and Trace, which is, in my view, doing an absolutely heroic job in spite of the difficulties that it faces. It has massively raised its output and it will be up to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October. This is an organisation that is working heroically to contain the spread of the disease, and it requires the public to trust the organisation and to participate. Yesterday, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that it was on the verge of collapse. I think that those were ill-chosen words. I think he now regrets those words. I think he should reflect and he should take them back.” Sure why not try to get the opposition to apologise for not unreservedly praising the Tory Government failures, that’s ripe!

Starmer stuck to the first question, “Hundreds of families have been trying to get a test in the last week, and they cannot get one. I do acknowledge the number of tests overall, but this is basic stuff. People who have got covid symptoms are very anxious about themselves, their children, their families and what to do. It means they cannot go to work and they cannot send their children to school. It matters, and if they cannot get tests the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility and not just tell us about the future or something else, but address this problem.” He said, “I want to take it further, because it is not just that people are being told to go hundreds of miles. Somebody contacted me yesterday and said: ‘My wife has a temperature and they said we needed to isolate and get a test done. I have been trying to book a test’. This is yesterday, Prime Minister. They continued: ‘the site says, ‘No capacity’. Then I tried for a home test kit and they are telling me that there are no kits available at present.’ That is the situation yesterday. Yesterday, there were no tests available in London and it was the same the day before. Prime Minister, what is happening?”

Johnson indignantly replied, “I note that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not take back his criticism and his attack on NHS Test and Trace, and I regret that. I gave him the opportunity to withdraw his verdict that it was on the verge of collapse: it is not. It is doing a heroic job and testing hundreds of thousands of people. Yes, we will do more, and the world we want to move to as fast as possible is a world in which everybody can take enabling tests at the beginning of the day and antigen tests to identify whether or not we have the virus., like a pregnancy test, within 15 minutes or so, so that we know whether we are able to live our lives as normally as possible. That is the vision that the Health Secretary and others have been sketching out over the last few days and that is where we intend to get to.” Warning the Tories are about to trot out another fanciful unicorn to dance on the sunny uplands!

This back and forth banter was like watching tennis, equally boring and monotonous. One more hit from the PM, “In the meantime, NHS Test and Trace is doing a heroic job, and today I can tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that most people get an in-person test result within 24 hours, and the median journey is under 10 miles if someone has to take a journey to get one.” Starmer hit back still harping on the same unanswered question, he said, “We all want test, trace and isolate to succeed, and I have offered my support before. The Prime Minister is ignoring the problem: if people are being told to go hundreds of miles, something is wrong. This has got a lot worse in the past week or two—all Members of the House know that, because they have all had constituents telling them that. The Prime Minister talks about capacity. The latest Government figures were updated last night. They show that, on average, 75,000 tests are not being used every day. If 75,000 tests are not being used, why yesterday were people being told to go hundreds of miles for a test? Why yesterday were people being told that there is no capacity?”

Johnson returned with a weak excuse, “The issue at the moment is that there has been a massive increase in the number of people who need or want tests, particularly people who do not have symptoms. We need—I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman agrees—to prioritise people such as NHS front-line staff and our care workers who urgently need those tests. As we massively increase the number of tests, it is those groups who are getting priority.” Determined to defend Tallyho Harding, he said, “The right hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong in what he says about the failure of NHS Test and Trace, so let me tell him that of those contacts who supply details, 80% are reached, and 320,000 people have been persuaded to self-isolate and stop the spread of the disease. That is the British people ignoring the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s attempt to undermine confidence in test and trace. They are ignoring his attempt to undermine confidence, and working together to get this disease defeated.”

Starmer insisted, “I am listening carefully to what the Prime Minister says, and what is undermining confidence is families being told to go hundreds of miles and they cannot get a test. That is undermining confidence. I just want this fixed. We do not need to have an argument. What is the problem? The Prime Minister should accept that there is a problem, tell us what the solution is, and we will all muck in, try to make it better, and tell our constituents. I have been listening. Is the Prime Minister saying that too many people are coming forward for tests and that it is a capacity problem, or not? People are trying to do the right thing. They want to go back to work. We want children back in schools. The Prime Minister is encouraging that—quite right too—and we understand and support that. The Government side of the bargain was to deliver an effective test, trace and isolate scheme, but two weeks into September there is a glaring hole. Will the Prime Minister tell the House when he first knew about this particular problem of people having to go hundreds of miles, or that tests were not going to be available? It is in the last week that this issue has arisen. When did he first know that that was a problem?”

The return fire was yet more self-congratulatory Boris-shit, “It is obviously a function of the growing demand and growing public confidence in NHS Test and Trace that we have to supply more and more tests, and that is what we have been doing. I do not know whether you have been listening, Mr Speaker, but I have been trying to give the House the figures. Thanks to the heroic efforts of NHS Test and Trace, we have gone up from 2,000 tests a day in March to 320,000 a day today. That is thanks to the efforts of thousands of people, who are listening keenly to the words of the right hon. and learned Gentleman for some support, encouragement or belief in what they are trying to do. Thanks to them, on average, people have to travel less than 10 miles, and thanks to them, 80% of the contacts that they or a coronavirus patient identify are reached and told to self-isolate. That is what we are trying to do. It is hard work. It is a big job, and they are doing a fantastic job. I think that what they would like to hear is some praise, encouragement and support from the right hon. and learned Gentleman.”

Starmer wasted his last shot on “who’s a naughty boy then?” “Why can we not just hear from the Prime Minister an honest answer? If he stood at the Dispatch Box and said, ‘I know something’s gone wrong in the last couple of weeks. We have been getting hundreds of examples of people being sent all over the place or being told there is no test. I have looked into it. I have worked out what the problem is and here is my plan’, people might be reassured. But, as ever, he pretends the problem is not there. The infection rate is rising. This is the very point at which we need a functioning testing regime. Far from the ‘world-beating’ system we were promised, the Government cannot even get the basics right. The Government are lurching from crisis to crisis. They still lack even basic incompetence—They lack competence. Yes, Prime Minister, they lack competence, and that is what is holding Britain back. My final question is this: when is the problem with test, trace and isolate going to be fixed?” The score a pathetic six-love!

Johnson was free to whack the ball right out of the court now, “I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman was on the money when he said that this Government lacked incompetence. I just say to him that we are working flat out to address all the issues confronting us today, including trying to get the infection rate down, and we are getting on with taking the tough decisions and making the tough calls that will take this country forward.” PMQs became PMs assault as continued on the attack, “When it came to saying schools were safe, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was silent because he did not want to offend his union bosses. When left-wing anarchists tried to destroy the freedom of the press, he was silent because for some reason he did not want to offend crusty left-wing anarchists.” Despite the fact that Starmer had readily capitulated on both issues, Johnson reinvented his complicity.

Johnson was disappointed Starmer had not mentioned the latest cherry–bomb probably planted by Cummings. He had the answer ready to serve, but that ball wasn’t coming his way, “When it comes, by the way, to sticking up for our UK internal market and for delivering on the will of the British people—one of the most important issues facing us today—he is totally silent on the Bill that obsesses the rest of his Back Benchers. He is totally silent. A great ox once again has stood on his tongue. He has nothing at all to say about that subject today, because he does not want to offend the huge number of his Back Benchers who want to overturn the verdict of the people and take us back into the EU, which is of course what he wants to do himself.” Johnson was so pleased with the way Starmer let him turn PMQs into a perpetual self-congratulatory Spin show, but he felt let down over the one thing unasked.

Johnson continued bragging about issues that had not yet been raised by questioners, reframing the whole intent of PMQs. He said, “This Government get on and take the tough decisions on behalf of the British people, delivering thousands of jobs through our kickstart scheme, record-breaking investment in affordable housing with a £12 billion programme, and getting on with all our work, working with the British people and working with the right hon. and learned Gentleman—if he would only do so—to get coronavirus defeated and to take our country forward. We make the tough calls; all he does is sit on the sidelines and carp.” In a similar vein Tory Andrew Lewer sought praise for armed forces who had given logistical support of the NHS, councils and volunteers during the lockdown. Johnson responded to the ‘stroking’ saying, “Indeed, I salute the work of the entire armed services in what they have done across the whole of our United Kingdom to help us fight coronavirus.”

SNP Leader Ian Blackford asked, “Shortly, the Government will publish their internal market proposals. I have seen them. They are nothing short of an attack on Scotland’s Parliament and an affront to the people of Scotland. As we have already heard, this legislation breaks international law, but it also breaks domestic law. The Prime Minister and his friends—a parcel o’ rogues—are creating a rogue state where the rule of law does not apply. Why does the Prime Minister think that he and his friends are above the law? Johnson excelled at calling black, white with such conviction that the truth is supplanted by Boris-shit. He said, “On the contrary, the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill is about protecting jobs, protecting growth and ensuring the fluidity and safety of our UK internal market and prosperity throughout the United Kingdom. It should be welcomed, I believe, in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and throughout the whole country.”

Blackford raised the obvious question that Starmer was too cowardly to ask, sharply chastising the PM he said, “Of course, we saw the Prime Minister breaking the law last year with the Prorogation of Parliament. We have seen the behaviour of Dominic Cummings, and we know that the Government are prepared to break their international obligations. What the Prime Minister said is complete rubbish, and the Prime Minister knows it. His own White Paper was clear that state aid is going to be grabbed back from Scotland and handed to Westminster. If the Prime Minister will not listen to the Scottish Government, will he listen to the National Farmers Union Scotland president, who warned that the proposals ‘limit’ the devolved Administrations? The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee warned that they will ‘create new reservations in areas of devolved competence.’ The General Teaching Council for Scotland has warned that the proposals undermine devolved education functions. That, Mr Speaker, is the reality.”

He said, “Scotland is speaking out, and I state that the Scottish Parliament will reject this attack on devolution, so the question is: will the Prime Minister break domestic law, disregard the settled will of the Scottish people, ignore the concerns of Scotland’s communities and press ahead with this Bill? The time for Scotland’s place as an independent, international, law-abiding nation is almost here. Our time has come.” Johnson was adamant, “The answer is that yes, indeed, we will press on with the Bill, because I believe that the right hon. Gentleman’s attacks on it are totally illogical. It actually represents a substantial transfer of powers and of sovereignty to Scotland, to Wales, to Northern—it is a massive devolutionary act. What it also does is—I believe this is common ground across the Dispatch Box— It also ensures the integrity of the UK internal market. He speaks of a transfer of powers to the UK Government. On the contrary, what he would do is transfer powers back to Brussels not just over competition and state aid but, of course, over fisheries too. That is the policy of the Scottish nationalist party, and it would be a disaster for our country.”

The Speaker intervened saying, “I am sure that the leader of the SNP would like to withdraw that last comment about being a liar. No hon. Member would do that. Please withdraw it.” Blackford protested saying, “Mr Speaker, it is on the face of the Bill that the Government of the UK are going to trample over devolution. That is not a lie.” The Speaker replied, “Mr Blackford, you are a great Member of this House. You do the right things by this House, and I have accepted that you have withdrawn it.” The convention that no MP calls another a liar during debates in the chamber is quaint, but now insults those who are habitually lied to by the dishonest pathological liar who is our PM. It would be more appropriate to rule that the PM and all politicians should be harshly sanctioned for telling lies; get the “Porkies out of Politics:” time to “scoop the PooP!” If lies were already sanctioned we would not have this gang of charlatans in power because they no one would have believed the Covert 2019 Rigged Election result, we would have Investigated ant ousted them. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[SA]

Depressing. Johnson now knows that he can get away with anything because of the stolen elections. Rocky times ahead.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

SA – This bid to break an International Treaty bears all the classic signs of a horribly disruptive Dominic Cummings cherry bomb!
Whoever suggested Boris Johnson call his latest harebrained PR stunt “Moonshot” gave him a really ‘bum steer!’ It’s incredulous, he can’t instantly have recognized the potential for a seriously disgruntled population, with a strong reputation for course humour, to take this opportunity to post rudely exposed bums on the internet just to demonstrate their utter disgust with this new excuse to siphon state funding into elite Corporate coffers. It seems consultancy firm Deloitte will be trousering most of exorbitant 100 Billion budget for a hypothetical rapid testing system, still yet to be invented. Johnson’s promoting it with all the effusive positivity that he hailed the “Titanic success” of Brexit: now careening towards a crash-out disaster iceberg that will sink the UK economy into the depths of a prolonged recession! After a deprived decade of ideologically driven austerity that has forced millions into destitution and despair this corrupt Tory Government is set to squander untold billions on another worthless fantasy project doomed to failure.

It seems I am not the only one to cotton onto the potential for raunchy pictures being posted on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere on the Internet, that will make an absolute mockery of Johnson’s exceedingly poor choice of project name: Boris’s bare bum peeks out above his dropped trousers as pictured in a Canary Cartoon. The ‘cheeky’ cartoon title, “Operation moonshot laid bare,” also points to a Canary Article entitled, “Find out more about operation moonshot.” An image description of the cartoon says, “Boris Johnson is depicted standing on a podium with the words ‘operation moonshot’ on it. He’s holding a document with the words ‘100 billion on untested tech’ on the front. His trousers are down and his bare bum is exposed to a group of photographers. Johnson is depicted saying ‘Austerity was a lie we always have cash when we need it’. To the side of the podium, Dominic Cummings is depicted wheeling a wheelbarrow full of cash through a doorway marked with a sign that reads ‘secret tendering process’!”

The Open Democracy Article entitled, “Operation Moonshot could be the biggest NHS privatisation in history, and civil servants are shaking their heads in disbelief,” exposes the delusional project. They say, “The British government had plans to test everyone in the country for coronavirus every week by October – and it’s handed most of the work to the global accountancy firm Deloitte, openDemocracy can reveal. Labour MP Clive Lewis has dubbed the deal ‘potentially the biggest NHS privatisation in history’. Last week, civil servants were instructed to carry out the plan for all 68 million people in the UK to be tested weekly, according to a senior civil service source familiar with the conversations. The ambitious cross-departmental plan, dubbed Operation Moonshot, anticipated a second peak of COVID-19 in the winter.” The Tor-Ment’s warped decision making on Covid 19 restrictions strongly indicate that this resurgence is a purposely driven eugenics cull of the ‘economically inactive,’ a ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple!’

Open Democracy report that, “Civil servants greeted the scheme with widespread incredulity, given the government’s previous record on testing and tracing, which has lagged well behind most other leading economies. Those tasked with implementing the plan expressed doubt that it was even possible. One senior source told openDemocracy: ‘We all double-checked the figures,’ and they described the plans as ‘crazy’. The source also informed openDemocracy that Deloitte was being given the contract to deliver more than half of the work. Clive Lewis said: ‘Why not give the contract to the NHS?’ adding: ‘It’s too easy to get the impression that this government will hand out contracts to whoever happens to be mates with the right minister’.” Probably all these contracts have been awarded without tendering, as the Tor-Ment no longer feel the necessity for any level of accountability with regard to how public money is spent. This reckless allocation of contracts faces a Judicial Review, but Tories pledged to curtail this scrutiny.

Open Democracy say that, “In the week since civil servants were instructed to make plans for weekly testing, the government has already seriously scaled back Project Moonshot, from testing 10 million people a day to 4 million a day – a reduction of over 40 million a week. It has also pushed back the plan’s target delivery date to February 2021, in recognition of the incredible scale of the challenge: ‘Timelines have already slipped,’ conceded one source. Whilst there is widespread support for more aggressive action against the pandemic, openDemocracy understands there is considerable cynicism across government agencies at the resources being ploughed into ministers’ ambitious, headline-grabbing targets, which are widely seen as unrealistic. The original plan required UK testing capacity to rise from 326,000 tests a day at present to nearly 10 million. It would have involved the UK’s already overstretched labs multiplying their capacity by 31 times, within six to ten weeks.” The Tories will find a way to fudge the numbers.

Open Democracy say that, “Even the revised target involves completing twelve times as many tests a day. Asked about this capacity problem, a senior government planner sarcastically replied to openDemocracy: ‘Capacity is somehow solved by reducing the accuracy of the test’.” This is worrying enough without the Tor-Ment deciding to reinvent the wheel at the same time. They point out that, “All this comes in the midst of a major reorganisation of health authorities, with plans leaked in last week’s Sunday Times for Public Health England to be scrapped next month, and replaced with a new National Institute for Health. The new institute, designed by McKinsey consultants on a £563,000 contract, is likely to play a leading role in delivering the testing plans.” All this under the dubious leadership of serial failure Tallyho Harding who must be held responsible for the current shambolicly unreliable mishandling of track and trace that has seen infection rates skyrocket especially in newly reopened schools.

Open Democracy also warn that, “The scheme also raises questions around compulsion. Health secretary Matt Hancock has already said he does rule out compulsory testing, but the sheer scale of the new plan comes as a surprise, and there are serious concerns around forcing groups such as children to be tested. There are also huge uncertainties around how enforcement would work, what any new legislation would say, what criminal penalties could be applied for non-compliance and whether police forces have the time or inclination to enforce the scheme.” This project could see significant pushback from independently minded individuals in the UK. What it will effectively enable is the opening up of private data and personal health details to a private company who will then own a goldmine of data for sale to giant US Healthcare Corporations and that Johnson’s evil manipulator Dominic Cummings will have at his disposal for targeting with weapons grade PsyOps in future rigged voting opportunities.

Open Democracy remind us that in recent weeks they have “revealed a string of controversies around companies linked to the Conservative Party leadership being handed major contracts. There are currently fifteen workstreams within Project Moonshot. Eight have been handed to Deloitte. Other workstreams are in the hands of the Ministry of Defence, plus at least one other well-known private-sector consultancy.” This is an extremely concerning development in the race to privatize the NHS with an excuse to gather data during the Covid crisis that will compromise our future access to healthcare and the integrity of our rapidly fading democracy as we move ever closer to full scale Tory Dictatorship. They say, “Two days ago, Matt Hancock likened population-wide testing to a ‘moonshot’ – an acknowledgement of the government’s codeword for the plan.” How soon before people start baring their bums and posting ‘cheeky’ shots on the Internet along with gleeful salutation to Mat Hancock, Johnson and Cummings?

Open Democracy state that, “Deloitte didn’t provide a comment for this article, referring us to the Cabinet Office.” They include the following update, “22 Aug: the Cabinet Office passed our inquiries to the Department for Health and Social Care, who have now said ‘we will continue to challenge capacity, and have routinely set and met ambitious targets’, and that they have announced a series of testing pilots.” There is no excuse for this massive spend on a support system to deliver technology that has yet to be invented! Are the current delays in testing, and the phenomenally lengthy journeys people are expected to make to get a test, just a result of the continuing poor management and total incompetence of Tallyho Harding or a pretext to help justify this obscenely costly fantasy project that will invade our privacy to steal our personal healthcare data? It will be simply impossible for these private companies to test every person in the entire country without obtaining crucial contact and healthcare data at the same time.

This huge spending commitment comes at a time when children are being forced to return to school so that their parents are free to return to workplaces whether either of these spaces are Covid secure or not. This is driving the working poor onto public transport in unsafe numbers where the virus can easily spread. The token announcement of restrictions that will come into effect on Monday offer an equally nonsensical distraction from the reality of how and where Covid 19 is being openly encourage to spread within the population. There is an obvious priority for the Tor-Ment to reduce the contact, communication and support between families and friends, a modern take on a British tradition of divide and rule, with sectors of the population targeted for ‘othering’ to assign blame. Children studying together in class will be prevented from playing together beyond the school gates; those sharing a commute to the same place of work will be prohibited from meeting to socialize outside work except in the vicinity of a functioning cash register!

The Tor-Ment know that many poor families are forced to live in cramped multigenerational households where grandparents will be extremely vulnerable to children newly infected by Covid 19 in school. This is a deliberate strategy to cull ‘economically inactive’ pensioners who they know are more susceptible to the disease and have a poorer prognosis for survival. At the same time as elite executives and more affluent managerial staff will continue safely working from home, the poorly paid drones are being forced back to work, but the logistics of how ‘Social distancing’ can be enforced in a lift have yet to be explained! The UK will experience ‘social cleansing’ of epic proportions in line with the original eugenics policy of ‘Herd Immunity,’ pushed by Herd Nerd Cummings that has never been abandoned by his compliant puppet Boris Johnson to effect their ruthless ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’. As the NHS becomes overwhelmed, privatization will accelerate, and more people will be blamed and denied treatment in this Covicide.

A Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Well-distanced Johnson and advisers take press briefing questions by VIDEO – but it’s ‘safe’ for kids and workers to be back in classrooms and workplaces,” exposes the blatant Tor-Ment hypocrisy. They say, “Boris Johnson and his chief science and medical officers still took questions from journalists by video link in his press briefing on Wednesday afternoon – despite ample room for ‘social distancing.” They expose the incomprehensible lack of logic that treats the public as if we were all too stupid to realize we are getting duped by the pathological liar who stole votes to become our Prime Minister.

Skwawkbox point out that despite the obvious reservations of the presenters, “we’re supposed to believe that he thinks it’s safe:
• for kids and teachers to be un-distanced in tight classrooms, where outbreaks are happening too fast to keep track
• for workers to return to workplaces with the sick joke of ‘covid-secure’ to protect them, as the rate of infection turns exponential
• for people to eat indoors in busy restaurants or drink in busy pubs – as long as its with more strangers than friends or family – even though Matt Hancock has admitted that pubs act as epicentres of outbreaks.” They remind us that, “Actions speak louder than words, Bozo. You’re heaping guilt onto the already towering pile atop your head.”

Another Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Number of schools hit by virus passes 500,” is one of a growing number of alarming reports from them regarding the skyrocketing incidences of Covid 19 outbreaks hitting our UK schools. They warn that, “The number of schools hit by coronavirus outbreaks has reached 501 – up from 347 just yesterday morning. Reaching 347 after just a week of English schools opening was frighteningly fast, but an increase of 45% – and likely to beat 50% before the end of the day – in just a single day demonstrates what SAGE scientists have already termed the exponential growth in the prevalence of the virus in the community. Keeping schools open while the government tightens restrictions elsewhere is politically-driven madness that flies in the face of scientific knowledge. They must be closed and not re-opened until Boris Johnson’s boast of millions of instant at-home tests per day is a reality.” This insane discrepancy is not being challenged by the compliant BBC or the Mainstream Media, YET!

In another Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Exclusive: Dept of Health denies tests being withheld from children – but parents are told otherwise when they try to book and insiders say it’s true,” it includes a number of twitter posts from concerned parents that verify the phenomenon. They say, “Parents are reporting that they are being told that children are not being tested when they try to book a coronavirus test for their child. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the SKWAWKBOX that it is not true that children are being denied testing. However, health insiders say that it is true that many children are being turned away and that the rationing is driven by the government’s desire to reduce its widely-condemned backlog and delays – and to mask the incidence of the virus among children.” This is obviously motivated by the desire to drive the working poor back to their jobs while deliberately putting older family members in multigenerational households at risk in a call of the ‘economically inactive.’

Skwawkbox remind us that, “More than 500 schools have now been hit by coronavirus outbreaks, with England far in the lead in spite of its schools returning later than other UK nations. Children have been shown to carry the same viral load as adults and to transmit the virus within the school environment. Public health officials have also reported that children over ten are now as at risk as adults, while SAGE scientists say that the second wave is rapidly becoming exponential.” They say, “Parents are responding to the SKWAWKBOX’s article with their own experience of being denied tests for their children.” Visit Skwawkbox to see the reports from these parents and to get a true picture of the alarming trend of infection in school children that the Tory compliant BBC and Mainstream Media has endeavoured to keep hidden from the public.

Students will be heading to colleges and universities all over the UK with a predictable spike in cases that the Tor-Ment will blame on reckless youngsters partying, as if contact during lectures and in halls of residence would be completely irrelevant. Tor-Ment determination to intentionally ignore the blindingly obvious unexplained discrepancies and scapegoat young people to hide their consistent incompetence will only work if the public neglect to call out their repeated failings. The dramatic increase in grotesquely inappropriate outsourcing of contracts without tendering, under the guise of emergency necessity, is being challenged in Judicial Review. But the Tories have pledged to remove this essential curb on obscene Government excess severely restricting the checks and balances so vital to what remains of our vanishing democracy. The sudden replacement of Public Health England with a new, vaguely defined entity under the leadership of Tallyho Harding who has a track record of inappropriate data loss should alarm us all.

Data is the new gold, the single most valuable resource of the future and Dominic Cummings has a veracious appetite for stealing, abusing and maintaining control of our data. I have no doubt he is the driving force behind these drastic changes designed to grab our data so his removal remains an urgent priority. Cummings is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin! If he loses access to that data gold his power over us is extinguished. The plan to steal our data with an App failed miserably and had to be abandoned. Bumbling Boris has offered us a perfect opportunity to ridicule this latest plot as the rude and ridiculous “moon shots” posted online will help us to inform the public of the underlying danger of allowing a suspect private company unfettered access to our contact and healthcare data that they can sell off to US Healthcare conglomerates. We must demand proper scrutiny and an Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, because the only way to derail the deadly Tory Government agenda is to force them out of office. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[SA]

This is totally insane. Why has ‘Test and Trace’ become an end in itself? Of course because there is big money. The purpose is to identify those who will then go on to transmit the disease to others, but the actions taken at present to isolate is merely to advise self-isolation and not proper medical quarantine., unless test and trace is followed by strict quarantine, it is useless. I have been saying this until I am blue in the face, but nobody, not even the public health officials are saying it or asking for it!!!!
This is such a basic requirement in dealing with infectious disease I wonder whether the medical profession has become narcosed by the politicians. TEST. TRACE, QUARANTINE those should be the three slogans not this rubbish ‘Control the virus’ total meaningless garbage.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by modbot.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

SA – Track and Trace are for the purpose of data mining, but effective quarantine would sabotage the Tory ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple” agenda! Despite my strong personal interest in “Disruptive Concept and Design Innovation,” I wasn’t aware of the ‘think outside the box’ Tech experiments launched by the likes of Google under the name ‘Moonshot.’ Indeed, it is the selfish, narcissistic and ultimately ‘evil’ motivations of the Johnson/Cummings dictatorship that seriously discredit their latest project’s assignment to this category. In reality the teams at Google X do not wildly grasp at a fanciful idea to hijack as a deceptive publicity stunt for disguising the wanton plunder of massive amounts of state cash to be greedily absorbed by the Corporate entities least capable of delivering anything tangible at all, let alone technology for the public good! It is their sinister goal of nationwide data mining to increase the vulnerability of the entire population that makes the Tor-Ment’s ‘Operation Moonshot’ such a perverse object of well deserved criticism and derision worthy of crude ridicule capitalizing on the most base interpretation of a desire to ‘moon’ those still intent on exploiting us!

The name ‘Moonshot’ wouldn’t have attracted sneers, jeers and sleazy comments of cheekily exposed bare bums were it not for the overwhelmingly shambolic track record of failures sabotaged by the staggering levels of self-serving Tory greed that spawned the idea. But, it’s only fair to present the original thinking that motivated their seemingly bizarre choice of name; In a Wired Article entitled, “Inside X, Google’s top-secret moonshot factory” they explain the evolution of this concept. Revealing that, “X – formerly Google X – aims to pursue technological breakthroughs by taking crazy ideas seriously. When will its bets pay off?” They say, “X does not call itself a corporate research lab (it uses the term ‘Moonshot Factory’), but when it was founded in 2010, its remit wasn’t entirely clear.” Wired describes a visit to X on the most outlandish of days when those involved with the project were stretching their imaginations even further to arrive in costume on Halloween which is well observed in the States.

Wired report that, “X originally grew out of Chauffeur, Google’s self-driving car project, then spearheaded by the Stanford roboticist Sebastian Thrun. Page and Brin admired Thrun for his work on Streetview and turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps, and at X they offered him free reign to pursue similarly offbeat ideas. “Initially, the title was called ‘Director of Other’, Thrun is quoted as saying, “We wanted to push technologies in many different directions, including self-driving cars.” They report that, “For at least a year, X’s existence was a closely guarded secret. Other Google employees were denied keycard access. Even within Google, where bottom-up management is a founding principle and employees are allowed to spend 20 per cent of their time working on their own ideas, X had a free-wheeling, intellectually anarchic style.”

Wired reveal how, “Engineers from Project Chauffeur worked alongside those from Google Brain, Loon and a handful of other equally audacious projects.” They quote Thrun saying, “I wanted to get no bureaucracy, no PowerPoints, no financial reporting, no oversight, so that the people in charge could focus entirely on the challenge,” Thrun says. “Most of the early project ideas came from Page and Brin themselves, who took a close interest, and eventually moved into X’s building. (Teller once described X as Brin’s ‘batcave’.)” You can see how their model of “no bureaucracy, no PowerPoints, no financial reporting, no oversight” would fit perfectly with the Johnson/Cummings ‘wild west’ direction of zero accountability politics to abscond with public funds in support of absurd PR stunts with no determination driving follow-through of successful completion. The delivery of any tangible public benefit is immediately undermined by the Tories zero-tendering selection of serial failure profiteer Corporations and grossly inappropriate leadership.

The public still question the actions and policies of Google, but we are reminded of an earlier ethical commitment made by the company by Wired after describing some of the areas of innovation abandoned by X. They say, “These events have reignited debates about the responsibility that Alphabet has, in Google’s once famous phrase, to not be evil. Although these projects did not come under X, Teller says he thinks deeply about the ethics of his team’s work. His grandfather, after all, worked on the Manhattan Project. ‘There definitely have been things people brought up [at X] that are like, ‘Nope, that’s evil’.” That must be an extremely tough legacy to live with considering the catastrophic destruction and loss of life of the Atomic Bomb that resulted from the ‘Manhattan Project.’ Sadly in the UK, a huge amount of the available funding for groundbreaking innovative design supports the top engineers in the country focused of lethal weapons systems for our rapidly expanding arms industry. Where should we focus?

Wired highlight Kathryn Zealand’s novel idea to, “build a pair of assistive trousers that might help the elderly and immobile walk independently.” They quote Zealand, who is Australian, saying, “The space of ageing in general hasn’t had enough investment. The demographics mean it’s going to be a big thing in the future. The trousers, code-named Smarty Pants, are inspired both by recent advancements in soft robotics and Zealand’s own experience with her 92-year-old grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s.” I have tried to promote ‘Silver Sector Design’ myself as a member of the Seas2Grow collaborative initiative that spans several EU countries, that we hope won’t be jeopardised by crash-out Brexit. My despair over the Covert 2019 Rigged Election was driven in part by the callous attitude that led Cummings to declare that he was OK with old people dying as a consequence of his warped eugenics ‘Herd Immunity’ strategy. How can you promote innovation to assist the elderly to Tories intent on their annihilation?

One of the concepts that I have been working on targeted combating malnutrition in the elderly, which I identified not so much as one of poverty, but primarily a logistical problem. The program I called eat@treat would have signed up a wide variety of local businesses, restraints, pubs and take away outlets, as well as grocery providers large and small right across the country to focus on catering to an elderly clientele, offering the option of smaller portions of well balanced meals and easy to prepare grocery items. Due to existing morbidities there would be strict standards for sugar and salt content for participating businesses offering a special eat@treat menu or entre and recyclable packaging standards too. Pensioners would receive an eat@treat card to manage their payments and a visit from a coordinator to help them create a custom shopping matrix for call in of orders. The logistics of home delivery of meals, groceries and also carers in green-tech vans would be a coordinated service for all participating businesses.

Concerned elderly and compromised individuals were the first to remove themselves from the threat of infection; the last time I got on a bus was March 7th when I went into the city centre to cast my vote in the US Democratic primary. Fear of shortages caused by crash-out Brexit had already caused me to stock up on a few basics so, I was well prepared. Sadly many vulnerable people were the least well prepared and they really struggled to shop online. Computer savvy young people grabbed the delivery slots while those without family or neighbours were abandoned. Imagine if my eat@treat program had been in place before Covid hit! Ideas for compassionate governance that put the Health and welfare of ordinary citizens first are not a priority for this Tory Government The ‘Holocaust in Care’ and culling of the ‘economically inactive’ will no doubt trim down the demographic that I have focused on designing for to help maintain dignified independence. I feel compelled to stuff my brain in a matchbox until we get the Tories out!

As someone who is truly passionate about disruptive innovation and design I am not impressed by the squandering of funding on Moonshot. Wired admits that, “It’s also possible to see moonshots as something more cynical: attempts to dominate industries that don’t yet exist.” Never more true that the hairbrained scheme announced by Boris Johnson to distract from his most recent string of life threatening failures in tackling Covid 19! Wired report that, “The concept of moonshots is now used widely by both startups and governments. Massive venture capital funds, such as SoftBank’s Vision Fund, are enabling startups to take moonshot-sized risks of their own.” Wired cautiously warn that, “Genuine breakthroughs require both immense capital, creativity and, perhaps most important, patience.” I do not recognize ‘patience’ as one of ‘bull in a China shop’ Boris’s qualities, but then he has precious few qualities to choose from. His entertainment value as comic relief is overshadowed by the seriousness of the disasters he creates.

Wired report that, “‘If we define moonshots as trying to create something really radical… that’s really hard. The really big things, it’s tough to see who’s going to do it,’ Nathan Myhrvold, the former director of Microsoft Research and founder of Intellectual Ventures, told me. ‘But the flipside is if you’ve got those resources and you don’t do it, then we’ll never know if there was some fabulous technology that took that kind of effort’.” While certainly Government has the capacity and funding to take on radical ‘moonshot’ thinking, it is not an excuse for launching dubious vanity projects in a time of National crisis. When those who will ultimately pull together and implement the ambitious Moonshot testing program announced with such fanfare by heading up the team in charge gets thoughtlessly assigned to serial failure Oxford chum Tallyho Harding there is zero public confidence in any hope of success. There is also the sinister undercurrent of Dominic Cummings obsession with data mining and weapons grade PsyOps to consider.

Wired describe how, “Sitting in front of Teller-as-Gandalf, it’s hard not to think of an even earlier moonshot factory: the labs of Thomas Edison, known as the Wizard Of Menlo Park. It may be that the self-driving car, or one of X’s many other moonshots, will end up transforming society in ways we can’t yet foresee. It might save the world, or it might just help Alphabet grow ever richer and more powerful.” I have always been a huge admirer of the Menlo Park model of collaborative effort driving innovation, but while the innovators at X are focused on the public good, the bean counters are unlikely to be thinking of anything beyond power and money. Teller is quoted as saying, “The real test is 15 to 20 years from now, when the dust is settled and we look backwards. Then how are we doing?” Teller says. “Until then, there will always be more crazy ideas worth chasing. The world’s got more than enough problems, sadly.” The wealthy global elite are not focusing on funding support for those intent on solving the world’s problems.

The extensive Wired Article focusing on the origins of noble ‘Moonshot’ thinking is lengthy, but I found it reassuring and well worth reading as it elaborated on exciting future possibilities at a time when my on creative projects have ground to a standstill drowned out by the grotesque injustice of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election. However, we shouldn’t confuse this area of disruptive innovative technology with the deliberately destructive cherry bombs that appear to emanate directly from Dominic Cummings in his unelected position of power dictating to the PM and the Tor-Ment. He remains a credible theta to the future of our democracy as he continues his agenda of dismantling every bit of it brick by brick. The technology of the App that failed to provide security for our data has been replaced by a new scheme potentially allowing Cummings access to mine and manipulate our data for sinister purposes of unleashing his weapons grade PsyOps. But, Cummings is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin!

With an appalling track record of the huge data privacy debacle at Talk-Talk plus the failure and abandonment of the much touted ‘world-beating,’ track and trace App to the controversy over the current handling of track and trace Tallyho Harding is without doubt the absolute worst person to be placed in charge of the new body about to replace Public Health England. The toxic combination of Harding’s careless regard for privacy, the sinister undercurrent of Dominic Cummings’s warped obsession with data mining and weapons grade PsyOps and powerful private Corporations with a vested interest in selling of this precious NHS data goldmine should alarm us all. Boris Johnson is setting this project up for abject failure right from the start; sadly the demise of Operation Moonshine will harmfully taint and discredit other project that share this innovative concept. Shame on Johnson, Cummings and the whole corrupt Tory cabal they thoroughly deserve to be called out with ranchy pictures of bare bums as we vent our rage.

In the Canary Article entitled, “Moonshot or moonshine? Experts sceptical about government’s latest coronavirus plan,” they criticize the lunatic program and the unjustified massive spend. They say, “Boris Johnson’s government is considering shelling out up to £100bn for a mass at-home coronavirus (Covid-19) testing programme. But experts are sceptical about its ability to deliver. Known as ‘Operation Moonshot’, if it worked, up to 10 million tests could be carried out every day from the comfort of people’s own homes.” In explaining how Operation Moonshot would work they say, “Ministers and health officials are hoping for a test that doesn’t need processing in a lab. It would mean users get their results in a matter of minutes rather than days. The saliva test would mean people don’t need to travel to testing centres or wait for their result. Health secretary Matt Hancock says he hopes people can have ‘a happy and loving Christmas that people yearn for’, if a vaccine or mass testing becomes available.”

The Canary cautions that, “it doesn’t exist yet… The first problem with this is that, as yet, a reliable at-home test has yet to be developed. So it will be some time before we can rely on it to help us return to normal. Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said on Thursday: There are prototypes which look as though they have some effect, but they’ve got to be tested properly. We would be completely wrong to assume this is a slam dunk that can definitely happen.” They also question the massive price tag asking, “how much will it cost? Operation Moonshot would cost £100bn – almost as much as NHS England’s entire £114 billion budget in 2018/19. That’s according to documents seen by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).”

The Canary report that, “Last week, the government pledged £500m for a community-wide repeat testing trial in Salford, Greater Manchester, as part of pilot scheme for a no-swab saliva test. A number of residents will go for a weekly test, with up to 250 carried out each day. Meanwhile existing trials of tests in Southampton and other parts of Hampshire will also be expanded.” The Canary ask, “why are they doing it? After limiting groups meeting indoors or outdoors to just six people, the government needs some good news. The hope is that, with widespread home testing, society can reopen fully and the economy can get up and running even before a vaccine has been developed. Prime minister Boris Johnson said the programme would allow Covid-negative people to ‘behave in a more normal way in the knowledge they can’t infect anyone else with the virus’.”

The Canary want to know why we are not building on what is in place right now, asking, “What are the problems with the current testing programme?” They say that, “The current testing programme faces considerable criticism for struggling to meet demand. On 8 September, NHS Test and Trace’s director of testing apologised to people who were unable to get a test. And many people who tried to access a test on Wednesday got an error message telling them to try again, and warning them not call the helplines. There are also numerous reports of people having to travel long distances to get a test, only to discover they don’t have an appointment. One man, from Maidstone, Kent made a 400-mile round trip for a test. Then his results were lost. On Wednesday, Hancock also blamed the shortage of testing slots on symptom-free people attending for a test. But people can be symptom-free and still spread the virus.”

The Canary point out Tory Government failures citing, “Not the best track record.” They report that, “Separate information, also seen by the BMJ, suggests Operation Moonshot will include plans for 10 million tests to be processed each day. But figures the government proposes and those they deliver tend to differ significantly. This has been the pattern since the start of the crisis. On 25 March, Boris Johnson said the government was ‘massively ramping up’ testing and hoped that ‘very soon’ 250,000 tests would be carried out each day. The government no longer publishes daily testing figures. But the latest available figures say 175,687 tests were reported on 2 September.” The Canary say that, “on the same date, the estimated total capacity reported by laboratories was 369,937. So almost six months later, the government has still not met its March targets.” Given the consistent failures it would have been wise to select a really competent person to head up the new project, but Tory cronies won out!

They report that, “in April, after intense scrutiny over failures in testing, Hancock set a target of achieving 100,000 daily coronavirus tests in England by the end of April. At the time, only about 10,000 tests were being carried out each day, but the health secretary remained confident that the government would meet its target. Around 80,000 tests were carried out on April 29. Then numbers jumped by 40,000 in the final 24 hours to just over 120,000. The government said it met its target, with Hancock heralding it as an ‘incredible achievement’. But there were plenty of questions over how those tests were counted, with last-minute changes meaning newer home test kits were counted as they were sent out. The overall total also included tests dispatched to ‘satellite testing locations’ – such as hospitals that had a particularly urgent need – but did not detail whether the tests were actually used. So the government figure was for the number of tests known to have been delivered. The number carried out in the 24 hours was only 81,978.”

According to the Canary Operation Moonshot is probably just, “Another bit of moonshine? On Wednesday 9 September, Johnson said officials are: working hard to increase our testing capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October. But by Thursday morning, when transport secretary Grant Shapps was sent out to defend the plans, he declined to give a time frame on Operation Moonshot. And he admitted the technology does not yet exist. He told Sky News: This is technology that, to be perfectly blunt, requires further development – there isn’t a certified test in the world that does this but there are people that are working on prototypes. Taking everything into account, it’s quite a jump to assume we can go from the current scenario to one where millions of tests, which provide a result in between 20 minutes and 90 minutes, are carried out daily.”

The way forward is fraught with danger; as stated before: “Data is the new gold, the single most valuable resource of the future and Dominic Cummings has a veracious appetite for stealing, abusing and maintaining control of our data. I have no doubt he is the driving force behind these drastic changes designed to grab our data so his removal remains an urgent priority.” The App failed, but, if Cummings loses access to that data goldmine altogether by being ousted, “his power over us is extinguished. Bumbling Boris has offered us a perfect opportunity to ridicule this latest plot as the rude and ridiculous ‘moon shots’ posted online will help us to inform the public of the underlying danger of allowing a suspect private company unfettered access to all of our contact and healthcare data that they can sell off to US Healthcare conglomerates. We must demand proper scrutiny and an Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, because the only way to derail the deadly Tory Government agenda is to force them out of office.” DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

Law? What Law? There is no Law only the politics of oppression! Julian Assange heads back to Kangaroo Court this week, facing the lengthy arm of US overreach to enforce total suppression of the truth by intimidation, subjugation and torture, with our lawless Tory Government fully complicit in facilitating these crimes. In stark contrast the Johnson/Cummings “rule of six” will constrain and criminalize those who dare to protest the injustices that are being implemented to stifle free speech in the UK. The imposition of lopsided regulations still force all children to attend school to enable the working poor to risk going back to work on crammed public transport, encouraged to spread infection wherever it drives the economy, but at the same time curtailing family life and friendships with crack-downs and threat of fines. As if these demands were not audacious enough, given the disgraceful exclusions offered to protect the elite, the PM announced his intention to break the law and violate an international treaty he signed only months ago!

The Assange case is not an isolated aberration it will firmly establish the ‘new normal’ for extinguishing all scrutiny of Governments around the world, eliminating accountability for war crime, torture and the persecution of civilians to maintain dictatorships and keep tyrants in power. This precedent will be veraciously seized by authoritarian despots; indeed Bolsonaro is already seeking to use this rogue power to silence critics of Brazil. If Assange, an Australian/Ecuadorian citizen, can be seized and extradited from a third country, the UK, for alleged espionage against the US, this would open up a wider world of possibilities for the global reach of persecution of the press. The Assange verdict could have a terrifyingly chilling effect on investigative journalism by criminalizing all controversial content damaging not just to the US and its allies, but to all national Governments prepared to abandon democratic principals of freedom of the press, free speech and the protection of human rights through robust scrutiny and accountability.

In an Amnesty International Article entitled, “Julian Assange extradition hearing: Punishing the publisher,” the lay out the stark reality of what lies ahead and the implications of loosing the fight to free Julian Assange. Announcing his return to Court, “for the resumption of proceedings that will ultimately decide on the Trump administration’s request for his extradition to the US,” but they warn that, “it is not just Julian Assange that will be in the dock. Beside him will sit the fundamental tenets of media freedom that underpin the rights to freedom of expression and the public’s right to access to information.” According to Amnesty, the world’s premier authority on political imprisonment, “Silence this one man, and the US and its accomplices will gag others, spreading fear of persecution and prosecution over a global media community already under assault in the US and in many other countries worldwide.”

Amnesty report that, “The stakes really are that high. If the UK extradites Assange, he would face posecution in the USA on espionage charges that could send him to prison for decades – possibly in a facility reserved for the highest security detainees and subjected to the strictest of daily regimes, including prolonged solitary confinement. All for doing something news editors do the world over – publishing public interest information provided by sources . Indeed, President Donald Trump has called Wikileaks ‘disgraceful’ and said that its actions in publishing classified information should carry the death penalty The chilling effect on other publishers, investigative journalists and any person who would dare to facilitate the publication of classified information of government wrongdoing would be immediate and severe. And the US would boldly go beyond its own borders with a long arm to reach non-citizens, like Assange, who is Australian.”

Amnesty report that, “The US government’s relentless pursuit of Assange – and the UK’s willing participation in his hunt and capture – has now landed him in a prison typically reserved for seasoned criminals. It has diminished him both physically and emotionally – often to the point of disorientation. Breaking him by isolating Assange from family, friends and his legal team, seems part and parcel of the US’s strategy – and it seems to be working. The 17 charges levelled by the US under the 1918 Espionage Act could bring 175 years in prison; add a conviction on the single computer fraud charge (said to complement the Espionage Act by dragging it into the computer era), and you get another gratuitous five years. Assange is the only publisher ever to bear the brun t of such espionage charges.”

Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on human rights in Europe, insists that, “You don’t need to know the vagaries of extradition law to understand that the charges against Assange are not only classic ‘political offences’ and thus barred under extradition law, but more crucially, the charges are politically-motivated.” Amnesty has said that, “There is no doubt that the charges are politically-motivated under this US administration, which has all but convicted Assange in the public arena. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Wikileaks is a ‘hostile intelligence service’ whose activities must be ‘mitigated and managed.’ The flagrantly unfair prosecution of Assange is an example of how far the US will go to ‘manage’ the flow of information about government wrongdoing and thus undermine the public’s right to know.”

Amnesty report that, “Assange was on Barack Obama’s radar, too, but the Obama administration declined to prosecute Assange. Current US Attorney General William Barr, however, has turned out not one, but two indictments since 2019, the latest at the end of June. That second indictment was a surprise not only to Assange’s defence team, but to the Crown lawyer and the judge who were also taken unawares by the new indictment.” In his 7th of September Post, Craig Murray, who went to heroic lengths to finagle a place in Court in order to truthfully report on the reality of this political trial to railroad Assange and abolish freedom of the press, accurately described the lengths the Judge was going to in order to subvert justice. After dumping a huge volume of additional charges on the defence team when it was too late to review the content and contact witnesses, it was grotesquely unfair for the Judge, despite this insurmountable challenge to refuse to grant the defence a reasonable postponement.

Amnesty International’s Julia Hall describes her well-founded concern over Assange’s deteriorating condition following months of inhumane confinement in Belmarsh that has been condemned by the UN Rapporteur as psychological torture. Hall recounts how, “Earlier this year, sitting 20 feet away from Julian Assange, I was struck by how much of a shadow of his former self he had become. He did spontaneously stand up several times during that week of hearings to address the judge. He told her he was confused. He told her he could not properly hear the proceedings. He said that barriers in the prison and in court meant that he had not been able to consult with his lawyers. He was not technically permitted to address the judge directly, but he did repeatedly, flashes of the aggressive tactics used in the past to advocate for himself and the principles he has espoused.”

Speaking for Amnesty, Hall warned that, “If Julian Assange is extradited it will have far reaching human rights implications, setting a chilling precedent for the protection of those who publish leaked or classified information that is in the public interest. Publishing such information is a cornerstone of media freedom and the public’s right to access information. It must be protected, not criminalized.” What this will mean is that Trump, the US Government, as well as other dangerous and deceitful global tyrants including our rapidly evolving dictatorship, will be able to spew their propaganda lies unchallenged, gagging the press to subvert the truth, effectively dodging scrutiny, exposure and accountability in a frightening new world order. Socialist Governments intent on equitably serving the fundamental needs of their population will be demonized and unjustly sanctioned and their leaders driven out to install puppet dictators willing to exclusively serve US interests. The Assange trial outcome heralds another major global crisis.

In the Canary Article entitled, “Assange extradition hearings see the defence expose the real reasons for his prosecution,” they elaborate on the underlying motivation driving the case. Reporting on the commencement of, “Formal hearings for the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday 7 September 2020,” they say, “Over three days, the defence fielded witnesses and presented legal arguments that cumulatively reveal some of the real reasons why Assange is being prosecuted.”

The Canary report that on, “Day one of the hearings saw the defence argue that “conduct from a fresh extradition request” [superseding indictment] recently submitted by the US should not be allowed to stand. The judge, however, disagreed. Former vice chairman of the New York Times James C Goodale and lawyer Timothy Cuffman referred to the possible reason why this indictment was presented: US prosecutors packed the newest indictment with paragraph after paragraph of allegedly conspiratorial activities of Assange and his Wikileaks associates that happened as recently as 2015 and are therefore timely. However, they added: But the supposedly conspiratorial “recruitment” activities on which the indictment depends are indistinguishable from standard journalistic practices and political expression, and they are thus not criminal at all.”

The Canary then report that, “On day two Professor Mark Feldstein told the court that soliciting information is the “lifeblood” of journalistic practice: Feldstein provided details of over 20 examples of published leaks from 1844 to 2018: here the Canary included excerpts from Feldman’s written testimony. Also on day two Reprieve human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith provided details of war crimes committed by the US that WikiLeaks helped expose. His testimony was accompanied by a written statement. In the statement he referred to how a court in Pakistan ruled that US drone strikes were a ‘blatant violation of basic human rights’.” He added that “evidence provided by WikiLeaks was key in the submission to that court. Moreover, he quoted US cables, published by WikiLeaks, regarding extraordinary renditions. Smith also mentioned how Trump announced an Executive Order that threatens sanctions against anyone who helps the I.C.C. [International Criminal Court] investigate American crimes”.

Continuing on day three the Canary say, “On the matter of whistleblowers and soliciting leaks, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) executive director Trevor Timm explained that SecureDrop, a ‘secure submission system’ developed by FPF, is used by 70 media outlets globally. These include: ‘the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, USA Today, Bloomberg News, CBC, and the Toronto Globe and Mail’. In other words, each of these media outlets encourage and facilitate leaks. Again from Goodale and Cuffman: In order to perform their core function, journalists of all sorts must have the latitude and flexibility to undertake the types of actions that the government now alleges amount to criminal conspiracy, at least in combination.”

Elaborating on what is being falsely portrayed as conspiratorial they say that, “These actions include associating with sources, communicating with sources, issuing broad invitations for sources to provide newsworthy information (including and especially classified information), telling potential sources what types of information would likely be newsworthy, promising to publish newsworthy content, receiving newsworthy information from sources, and publishing such information.” The Canary then report on testimony from, “Paul Rogers, emeritus professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, testified about the Iraq war and the conflict in Afghanistan. He pointed out the importance of the Iraq War Logs (aka War Diaries), published by WikiLeaks and the additional civilian deaths found.” Here the Canary include references to the organization known as “Iraq Body Count” who did a phenomenal job of bringing the brutal reality of the carnage callously dismissed as ‘collateral damage’ to public attention.

The Canary article includes a troubling film from Juan Passarelli which the say, “provides an overview of Assange’s prosecution. First, there is an ominous comment by journalist John Pilger on Assange: ‘what happens to him can happen to any journalist who does his or her job’.” The film highlights other quotes, “with regard to the soliciting of information, investigative journalist Barton Gellman comments: I solicit and I receive information. I ask questions and I hope to obtain answers.” They say that, “The video also provides examples of top officials in US, including Trump, who want to see Assange dead. Assange himself comments on the flawed charge of conspiracy he is facing: If I am a conspirator to commit espionage, then all these other media organisations, and the principled journalists in them, are also conspirators to commit espionage.”

Also included in this video presentation, “Journalist Matt Kennard provides an example as to why the prosecution case should be thrown out citing a historical precedent. When Daniel Ellsberg was on trial for the Pentagon Papers [leak] during the Vietnam War, his case was thrown out because it come up that Nixon had ordered a raid on his psychologist’s office to try and get information which was embarrassing to Ellsberg… Assange has been surveilled by the CIA. That by itself should mean the case is thrown out. Journalist and former intelligence officer John Kiriakou further explains how if the extradition of Assange proceeds, his trial will take place in the eastern district of Virginia, where the jury would consist of people: from the CIA, FBI, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and intelligence community contractors or their family members.” The Canary also highlight other reasons the case appears to have been corrupted by bias to the point where the legitimacy of the Judge’s verdict is in question.

The Canary say that, “As well as claims of US political interference in the case, there’s also the claim of bias by judge Emma Arbuthnot, who has overseen the hearings and sealed Assange’s fate in her 2018 ruling: On 6 February 2018, Lady Arbuthnot dismissed the request by Assange’s lawyers to have his arrest warrant for skipping bail withdrawn, after the Swedish investigation into sexual assault allegations was dropped. If this request had been granted, Assange may have been able to negotiate safe passage to Ecuador to prevent his persecution by the US government. A week later, in a second ruling, Lady Arbuthnot said: “I accept that Mr Assange had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings but… I do not find that Mr Assange’s fears were reasonable’.” Another irregularity is that “Arbuthnot’s husband has close connections with the Henry Jackson Society (HSJ), which was the subject of exposes by WikiLeaks.”

The Canary warn, “there’s the matter of extraterritorial overreach. Assange is an Australian who is currently in the UK. Yet if the US extradition goes ahead, this will have two major consequences. One: the US will find it a lot easier to seek the extradition of other journalists who publish information it considers secret. Two: other countries will also regard journalists, whether domestic or foreign based, as fair game. NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet believes if the extradition goes ahead it means journalists and publishers will be at greater risk: If this extradition is allowed, it will send a clear signal that journalists and publishers are at risk whenever their work discomforts the United States government. Media freedom the world over will take a significant backward step if Assange is forced to face these charges at the behest of a US president. In short, the wider reason for the prosecution of Assange is about making it easier for governments to conceal their criminal behaviour, including war crimes such as massacres, outright murder, and torture.”

The Canary article expresses concerns over “concealing government crimes;” they note that, “Home Secretary Priti Patel, who signs off on extradition cases, was a member of the Henry Jackson Society Council. But there are major flaws in the prosecution case that could form the basis for legal challenge.” However, Assange could remain incarcerated at Belmarsh for more than a year awaiting an appeal hearing which is further punishment for his ‘crime’ of exposing the truth. Meanwhile the Tor-Ment are trying to regularize their own lawlessness at the same time they bear down their heavy boot of authority on our necks. They used to say that, “An Englishman’s word is his bond,” but Boris’s word is Bogus and Cumming’s word is catastrophic; Tories dictate to the masses and break the law with impunity! We must demand proper scrutiny and a full Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, because the only way to derail the deadly Tory Government agenda is to force them out of office.” DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

I must say Peter Hitchens has to be the most unlikely crusader for the freedom of Julian Assange so I was absolutely gobsmacked to read his Daily Mail Opinion Piece, entitled, “My defence of Julian Assange – a man I abhor.” Writing in that most disreputable of tabloid rags and taking aim at the corrupt Court convened to hand Assange over to the Americans, Hitchens might just enlist support from a few of its bigoted fiercely nationalist readers most of whom don’t really give a toss about human rights! The Mail say, “It ended badly the time they met yet PETER HITCHENS argues extraditing the WikiLeaks boss to the US violates British sovereignty, threatens press freedom and is nothing less than a politically motivated kidnap.” Hitchens admits, “I can’t stand Julian Assange. He is almost everything I do not like. His world is not my world, and his people are not my people.” Although he couldn’t condone his jumping bail, he quickly dispensed with any further attempt at character assassination to move on to his strongly felt, well articulated, points of principle.

According to Hitchens, “The growth of an imperious, iron-bound security state in Washington DC has been one of the most dispiriting developments in this fast-darkening world. Mr Assange’s revelations exposed many of these bad things, plainly in the hope of stopping them – injustice, brutality, secret imprisonment, torture and rendition.” These are not points that resonate with most readers of the Daily Fail, but the US attempt to violate our precious British sovereignty will drive the Nationalistic Brexiteer masses into a frenzy. We have to move beyond just preaching to the choir and appeal to those who don’t yet realize the true value of press freedom. Moving on Hitchens insisted, “Now I have said that, I wish to add that I am wholly, furiously against the attempt by the United States government to extradite Mr Assange from this country, now under way at the Old Bailey. I think it is wrong in principle. I think it is clearly a political case and should be rejected on those grounds alone, if there were no others available.”

To educate the less informed, Hitchens points out that, “Extradition on political grounds is expressly prohibited by Article 4 (1) of the 2003 Anglo-US Extradition Treaty. But despite such protections, that treaty, agreed in the Blair era, was, like so much of that government’s actions towards Washington, weak, servile and unfair.” He says, “’the courts have not done very much to defend British national sovereignty when it has been invoked.’ Astonishingly, it allows the US to demand extradition of UK citizens and others for offences allegedly committed against US law. This is so even though the supposed offence may have been committed in the UK by a person living in the UK. Do we really want the hand of a foreign power to be able to reach into our national territory at will and pluck out anyone it wants to punish? Are we still even an independent country if we allow this?’ The Americans would certainly not let us treat them in this way.” Now Hitchens was hitting a raw nerve capable of inciting nationalist gammon rage!

Hitchens asserted that, “It is unimaginable that the US would hand over to us any of its citizens who had been accused of leaking British secret documents. Yet if Mr Assange is sent to face trial in the US, any British journalist who comes into possession of classified material from the US, though he has committed no crime according to our own law, faces the same danger. This is a basic violation of our national sovereignty, and a major threat to our own press freedom. I think that no English court should accept this demand. And if the courts fail in their duty, then I think that any self-respecting Home Secretary should overrule them. For this extradition is a lawless kidnap.” I can just imaging all those fiercely English Brexiteer types ranting about slinging those pushy bloody ‘Yanks’ out of our Courts accompanied by loud profanities and a resounding rendition of Rule Britannia! This unruly bunch might not be exactly the crowd you would ideally want by your side, but a huge number of people who share this mentality read the Daily Mail.

Hitchens continues his pitch saying, “I love the rule of law, one of the main guarantees of freedom in the world. I used to think that this was one of the things that made the US a great country. But I have watched the decline of their legal system in dismay, worse even than the decay of our own. The growth of an imperious, iron-bound security state in Washington DC has been one of the most dispiriting developments in this fast-darkening world. Mr Assange’s revelations exposed many of these bad things, plainly in the hope of stopping them – injustice, brutality, secret imprisonment, torture and rendition. The prevention of these things is not some wild revolutionary cause. It is the duty of Christians and conservatives to oppose such wrongs as much as it is the duty of anybody. If not more so.” ‘Christians’ have been coapted into the fake mantra of ‘Compassionate Conservative’ which is really an oxymoron, because no one whose politics condoned the brutal deprivation of a decade of austerity can be either Christian or compassionate!

But that is another battle and Hitchens is pitching to an audience most of us simply cannot reach, saying, “Let me explain why this extradition is wrong. First, the actions of Mr Assange, in publishing huge numbers of confidential US government files, are not a crime. He was acting under the protection of US law as a journalist, publishing information he had received.” Even more enraging, Hitchens correctly claims that, “If he were a US citizen, he would without doubt be protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution which declares: ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.’ Knowing this, Mike Pompeo, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said on April 13, 2017, of Mr Assange and his WikiLeaks colleagues: ‘They have pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. They may have believed that, but they are wrong.’
He also said: ‘Julian Assange has no First Amendment freedoms. He’s sitting in an embassy in London. He’s not a US citizen’.”

Hitchens says, “It is not clear quite how even the CIA director could make that judgment. He also made a long and excoriating personal denunciation of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks. Mr Pompeo has since been promoted by Donald Trump to the still more important post of Secretary of State. If any British official or Minister of similar standing had made these statements about a person accused of a crime in a UK court, the trial would have to be stopped on the grounds that it had been hopelessly prejudiced. It is hard to see, in this case, how an English court could place Mr Assange into the hands of a justice system where the equivalent of a Cabinet Minister can freely denounce the accused before a jury has even been sworn in.” Here Hitchens is referring to the importance of not trying a suspect in the Court of public opinion as this act, if proven, can derail even a very solid criminal case.

Hitchens recounts how, “Interestingly, a very similar event has happened before. During the Vietnam War, almost 50 years ago, the courageous and principled Daniel Ellsberg, a former lieutenant in the US Marines, did much the same. He supplied the so-called ‘Pentagon Papers’ to the New York Times. Eventually every court, of law and of public opinion and of history, concluded that Mr Ellsberg – a US citizen operating in the US – was not only innocent but justified in his actions. They also concluded that the US authorities of the time had behaved atrociously. Thugs hired by the White House even broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, looking for dirt on him (and failed to find any). The US government tried to prosecute him under that country’s Espionage Act, though he plainly was not a spy, just as Mr Assange is not a spy.”

Elaborating on the Ellsberg case Hitchens says, “The documents were of no military value to an enemy. But they were deeply embarrassing to the US government, showing that they had systematically lied to the American people and to Congress about the disastrous Vietnam adventure. Almost everyone now accepts that Ellsberg’s action did America a favour, and hastened the end of this futile and bloody episode. You can certainly argue that the WikiLeaks papers could have had a similar effect on the Iraq War and many other questionable foreign policies and actions. They were deeply inconvenient to many of the more worrying parts of the American state. That, not alleged espionage, is why the US government is now so angry with Mr Assange. Significantly, Daniel Ellsberg himself is now one of Mr Assange’s foremost supporters.” Even among the rampantly nationalistic in the UK, the Iraq
War was not a popular conflict and to most it is seen as an absolute disaster that may have increased our vulnerability to terrorism.

Hitchens says that, “The other powerful evidence that this is a political extradition, and not a genuine criminal case, is its extraordinary timing. The leaks took place in 2010. Around the same time, in a TV interview, Donald Trump said WikiLeaks was ‘disgraceful’ and suggested there be a ‘death penalty’ for its actions. But prosecutors working for the Obama administration (2009-2017) decided, for legal reasons, not to prosecute Mr Assange almost seven years ago. They concluded that charging Assange would have meant they would then have to prosecute any journalist who published information alleged to endanger national security. That would have violated the US constitution. A former spokesman for the Department of Justice, Matthew Miller, told the Washington Post in November 2013: ‘If you are not going to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, which the Department is not, then there is no way to prosecute Assange.”’

Hitchens says that, “by April 2017, with Donald Trump in the White House, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions had completely reversed this position. He announced at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, that the arrest of Mr Assange was now a ‘priority’. Mr Trump has, in fact, veered wildly on the issue. When WikiLeaks published emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Trump and his campaign gleefully seized on them. Mr Trump at one point even said ‘I love WikiLeaks’ and rejoiced that the source was ‘like a treasure trove’. But his love quickly faded once he was in the White House and increasingly reliant on Washington’s security and military apparatus.” However, typical Mail readers who might admire Trumps brash, belligerent style do not like the UK being pushed around by US bullying tactics, that is key to gaining widespread public support in this case.

Hitchens recounts that, “Then things became even odder. Mr Assange’s supporters say that in August 2017, a US Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, visited Mr Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, accompanied by a Trump associate called Charles Johnson. The Assange campaign say this strange delegation offered Mr Assange a pardon. In return he would have to say Russia was not involved in leaking the Democratic National Committee emails which Mr Trump had made such effective use of in the election campaign. Mr Trump has, unsurprisingly, denied that Mr Rohrabacher made any such offer on his behalf. Mr Rohrabacher was quick to back up the President. But what if this astonishing thing is true, along with the Assange team’s claims of surveillance and break-ins against them?” This is a mute point because Assange, who does not reveal any confidential sources, has always maintained that the leak did not emanate from a Russian source.

Hitchens recalls that, “By April 2017, with Donald Trump in the White House, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions had completely reversed this position. He announced at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, that the arrest of Mr Assange was now a ‘priority’. Mr Trump has, in fact, veered wildly on the issue.” Hitchens logically claims that, “A non-political criminal prosecution would not have been subject to such wild political veering and switching. Nor would it have been openly supported by senior government figures.” Our biggest battle is to convince the Judiciary that ‘the people’ fully realize Julian Assange is a Whistleblowing hero and political prisoner who exposed the inhumanity and corruption of the US Government. This extradition hearing represents the vile torture and persecution of an innocent reporter doing the standard job of an investigative journalist in uncovering the hidden scandals that have served to keep our families safe and cannot be placed under Government threat.

Has Hitchens stirred enough outrage to get Mail readers concerned over the unwarranted punishment he will face in the US? He says, “There is a final part of this which is deeply alarming. If the UK gives Mr Assange to the US Federal authorities, he passes for ever into a prison system quite different from ours. You may think, and I would agree with you, that our penal system has a lot wrong with it. But the USA’s has different faults. It can be astonishingly cruel to unconvicted defendants, placing them under special measures that mean they are almost wholly cut off from normal human society. If Mr Assange is then convicted by a US court, and this is statistically very likely, he could face decades in a modern dungeon such as the notorious ‘Supermax’ prison at Florence, Colorado, more or less buried alive with little hope of ever seeing freedom again. He is far from well at the moment. Those who know him fear that this might be more than he could bear.”

Peter Hitchens states categorically that, “Mr Assange is not a terrorist, a spy or a killer. There is as far as I know no evidence that any of his disclosures has, in fact, led to any harm being done to anyone. WikiLeaks redacted documents to avoid such harm, and tried to prevent unredacted publication of material in its possession. The idea that he should face the strong possibility of being entombed alongside terrorist killers does not really meet any test of justice.” I am not sure where such injustice stands with readers of the Daily Mail as they appear to lurch from one angry rant to the next, all too often, without engaging their moral compass; this makes them easily led by the divisive Tory propaganda spewed by Murdoch against the public good. But Hitchens enlists their support for his argument by saying, “Like me, you do not have to like him, or agree with him, to see this. It is easy to defend those we like and approve of. But it is in my view far more important to protect those we dislike and disapprove of, if they face injustice.”

I really do not like Peter Hitchens; in debates on drug policy he is bombastic, arrogant and holier than thou in totally dominating the argument in complete disregard of other people’s opinions. That said, once in a while he really shocks me, by coming out swinging for the good guy; even more impressive when he openly admits to not liking our political hero Julian Assange. Hitchens doesn’t even mention the concocted Swedish sexual assault charges that I’m sure a sleazy tabloid like the Daily Fail made a huge deal of; sex sells ‘presstitute’ style of reporting. What is so important about this piece is the readership Hitchens is able to reach, who often present as deeply intolerant of human rights issues. So when narrow-minded, hard to win over, acquaintances rip into our friend Julian, Craig Murray might be a hard sell so point them to Peter Hitchens in their own familiar rag. I’m very pleased Hitchens went out on a limb to write this for an otherwise extremely hostile news outlet; that is its unique value in convincing the unconverted!

It will be next to impossible to overcome the bias in Court that would sabotage this case and the US agenda for punishing Assange for ‘committing’ Journalism. There do appear strong grounds for appeal and how might the US resolve change under a different flavour of Hawk in the Whitehouse if Trump is defeated. I am not at all confident of a Biden victory, do not trust the man and doubt it would radically change US policy on this issue. We do need to apply pressure in the UK and I believe even just a few articles that incite a reaction from those who are so vocal about our national sovereignty will help. However, I am even more pessimistic about the demise of justice in this country with Priti Patel as Home Secretary in this rogue Tory cabal who are so eager to trash a legally binding agreement over Brexit. This is why I feel compelled to prioritize demanding a full Investigation of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election because the only way to derail the deadly Tory Government agenda is to force them out of office. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

In a response to a comment of mine to Craig’s post “Bayleaf” offered up a little known piece of information on our fast eroding freedoms. Bayleaf reported that, “Re. the plundering of personal data, the UK government has quietly used the Coronavirus Act 2020 to authorise the “Retention of Fingerprints and DNA Profiles in the Interests of National Security” It’s been done via a Statutory Instrument, so bypassing any parliamentary scrutiny. What other mission creep towards a harsh totalitarian agenda has whistled by us unnoticed as the public was wilfully distracted by the compliant BBC and Mainstream Media offering bucket-loads of ‘Handyfloss’ on safe bets for holiday getaways no one can afford? The Handyfloss on the minutia of Jonny Depp’s dirty dobie was sickeningly copious during weeks of tawdry hearings, but Assange extradition determining the ultimate demise of press freedom globally and the criminalization of investigative journalism to obscure atrocities committed by an all powerful state goes unreported.

Where are we going to? Look to history for a very strong clue! “The Enabling Act gave Hitler plenary powers and followed on the heels of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which had abolished most civil liberties and transferred state powers to the Reich government. The combined effect of the two laws was to transform Hitler’s government into a legal dictatorship.” Tories never let a good crisis go to waste; the plan was to exploit crash-out Brexit chaos, but Covid 19 has proved just as opportune a moment to consolidate power. The Pandemic was Johnson/Cummings’s ‘Reichstag Fire moment to impose draconian rules and penalties to keep the populous in check while they plundered state funds. Those innocuous sounding ‘statutory instruments’ will sneak in new laws by stealth without debate or Parliamentary consultation; these ‘Henry the eighth powers’ represent the Johnson/Cummings Enabling Act. But, the similarities with the strategy that facilitated the rise of Europe most infamous Dictator do not end there.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) outlines how Hitler seized power. They state that, “The Enabling Act allowed the Reich government to issue laws without the consent of Germany’s parliament, laying the foundation for the complete Nazification of German society. The law was passed on March 23, 1933, and published the following day. Its full name was the ‘Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich’.” Johnson/Cummings have chosen a briefer, but equally deceptive propaganda pitch with their lies about an agenda of ‘levelling up’. USHMM say the Enabling Act, “it became the cornerstone of Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship. The act allowed him to enact laws, including ones that violated the Weimar Constitution, without approval of either parliament or Reich President von Hindenburg.” The really frightening thing about comparing the radical authoritarian actions of Hitler with the situation we now face here in Brittan is that we do not even have a written constitution in the UK!

The USHMM Website states that, “On the day of the vote on the so-called Enabling Act, the Nazi leadership sent SS troops into the makeshift Reichstag building, formerly the Kroll Opera, to intimidate other political parties.” They say that, “Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party used intimidation and persecution to ensure the passage of the law.” So what did that require? USHMM report that, “They prevented all 81 Communists and 26 of the 120 Social Democrats from taking their seats, detaining them in Nazi-controlled camps.” Following the fake ‘landslide victory’ in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election the Johnson/Cummings Dictatorship do not need to resort to such drastic measures. Under the fraudulent guise of a legitimate Government they need only intimidate and threaten their own Tory MPs into complying with their will or having the Whip removed. Despite strong opposition to corrupt laws, like the one enable them to break an International Treaty, it only takes a simple majority to force toxic legislation through Parliament.

The votes needed for Hitler to pass his Enabling Act required extreme measures, “Since the passage of this law depended upon a two-thirds majority vote in parliament, Hitler and the Nazi Party used intimidation and persecution to ensure the outcome they desired. They prevented all 81 Communists and 26 of the 120 Social Democrats from taking their seats, detaining them in so-called protective detention in Nazi-controlled camps. In addition, they stationed SA and SS members in the chamber to intimidate the remaining representatives and guarantee their compliance. In the end, the law passed with more than the required two-thirds majority, with only Social Democrats voting against it.” Johnson/Cummings did not even enlist the help of Gavin Williamson and his pet tarantula to coerce the rebels into line. Johnson had sacrificed his own Commons majority to enforce his will before the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, but the theft of postal votes complemented by Cummings’s weapons grade PsyOps had secured his win.

According to the USHMM in 1933 Germany, “The Supreme Court did nothing to challenge the legitimacy of this measure. Instead, it accepted the majority vote, overlooking the absence of the Communist delegates and the Social Democrats who were under arrest. In fact, most judges were convinced of the legitimacy of the process and did not understand why the Nazis proclaimed a ‘Nazi Revolution.’ Erich Schultze, one of the first Supreme Court judges to join the Nazi Party, declared that the term ‘revolution’ did not refer to an overthrow of the established order but rather to Hitler’s radically different ideas. In the end, German judges—who were among the few who might have challenged Nazi objectives—viewed Hitler’s government as legitimate and continued to regard themselves as state servants who owed him their allegiance and support.” The heavy bias of the BBC and Mainstream Media convinced the British public that the totally unfathomable 2019 result was legitimate, but it requires robust investigation.

In reality Hitler faced a far tougher challenge than Johnson/Cummings because in Germany it was necessary to get a two thirds majority in the Reichstag to amend the Constitution; sorry for repeating this important point The UK doesn’t even have a written constitution! Taken from the USHMM Website and “Translated from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1933, p. 141. – The Reichstag has enacted the following law, which has the agreement of the Reichsrat and meets the requirements for a constitutional amendment, which is hereby announced: Article 1 In addition to the procedure prescribed by the Constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the Reich Government. This includes laws as referred to by Articles 85, Sentence 2, and Article 87 of the Constitution.” The PM didn’t need to debate or consult Parliament before ditching DfID, but there was no way to protest the demise of Public Health England in the middle of a Public Health crisis either, because the Johnson/Cummings Dictatorship is now all powerful.

USHMM report that in the Enablement Act, “Article 2 Laws enacted by the Reich Government may deviate from the Constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain undisturbed.” Hitler needed to design a way to circumvent the German Constitution, an inconvenience our PM doesn’t have to consider. Hitler then added his stamp of supreme authority with “Article 3 Laws enacted by the Reich Government shall be issued by the Chancellor and announced in the Reichsgesetzblatt. They shall take effect on the day following the announcement, unless they prescribe a different date. Articles 68 to 77 of the Constitution do not apply to laws enacted by the Reich Government.” Any attempt to reign in Hitler’s absolute power was prohibited. Johnson/Cummings do not even feel obliged to give the public more than a few hours to absorb and adhere to their dictates, unless the PM sees a commercial reason for postponement.

USHMM report that in the Enablement Act, “Article 4 Reich treaties with foreign states that affect matters of Reich legislation shall not require the approval of the bodies concerned with legislation. The Reich Government shall issue the regulations required for the execution of such treaties.” Even Tories who are drastically opposed to the latest Johnson/Cummings threat to the EU Brexit negotiations, authorizing the violation of an International Treaty signed just a few shots months ago, feel helpless to derail it. The stolen majority of THE Covert 2019 Rigged Election and the treat of being booted out of the Tory Party keep this crooked cabal in power and that power is growing by the day. USGMM include, “Article 5 This law takes effect with the day of its proclamation. It loses force on April 1, 1937, or if the present Reich Government is replaced by another.” It ain’t over until we say it’s over! Here in the UK there is nothing to stop Johnson/Cummings proroguing Parliament again, postponing or rigging the next election.

It might seem shockingly harsh to compare our Government with that of Nazi Germany, but all of the indications are that we are moving rapidly in that direction and we have even fewer protections in place at the onset. With the new “Rule of Six” our basic freedoms are being controlled even more drastically. Groups larger that this can work together, children and students can study together, we can travel on packed public transport and please keep spending money no matter how packed the venue. The elite are excluded as we cannot curtail their blood sports like thirty at a grouse shoot, but family get together are out. And we are encouraged to ‘shop’ our own neighbours. If your family of four or five casually come across another similar sized family in the open on the street and you stop to socialize Priti Patel wants to charge you with the crime of “mingling!” This draconian lopsided clampdown will target minorities and the working poor when not slaving for a pittance, but protests can be shut down too.

Gagging the press is an early priority for any rising Dictatorship so the Julian Assange trial is an opportunity to clamp down on Whistleblowers as we do the bidding of the US. I was appalled to discover that the Blair era 2003 Anglo-US Extradition Treaty, “allows the US to demand extradition of UK citizens and others for offences allegedly committed against US law.” According to Peter Hitchens, “This is so even though the supposed offence may have been committed in the UK by a person living in the UK.” He rightly argues, “Do we really want the hand of a foreign power to be able to reach into our national territory at will and pluck out anyone it wants to punish?” This extraordinary overreach comes at a time when the US have refused to extradite a woman who falsely claimed diplomatic immunity to escape to America after negligently killing one of our citizens. The UK continues to rant about independence from the EU while it remains week and servile towards US dominance, so where will we stand in a trade deal?

In a Spiked Article entitled, “Julian Assange: the press-freedom trial of the century,” they say, “America’s attempt to treat journalism as espionage poses a terrifying threat to the free press. Assange’s publication methods were certainly radical – he and Wikileaks became famous for their attitude to transparency, publishing vast quantities of classified documents, unfiltered by the usual editorial choices made by journalists. But had he worked for a mainstream outlet, many of his methods for obtaining information might have been understood as normal practice for investigative journalists.” They say, “what he is accused of amounts to his attempts to cultivate a source, to get more information out of them and to keep them anonymous. A key question for the current hearings is whether the extradition attempt is politically motivated. Extradition for political purposes is expressly prohibited in the most recent UK-US extradition treaty, signed in 2003. This surely is political.”

Spiked report that, “It is no secret that Assange is loathed by the US security state. He has been under investigation for 10 years now. In 2010, Wikileaks published its most significant leaks, including the ‘Collateral Murder’ footage, the ‘Afghan War Diary’, the ‘Iraq War logs’ and the US State Department’s diplomatic cables. These generated an enormous number of stories. Practically every news outlet in the free world has covered some aspect of what Assange made public, causing enormous headaches in Washington. At the time of those leaks, the Obama administration considered using the same Espionage Act to take down Assange, but in the end it declined to prosecute him. In the words of one Justice Department official, doing so would mean it ‘would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organisations and writers who published classified material, including the Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper’.” It is a great pity so few of them are vigorously defending Assange now.

I was excited about voting for Obama, but I have felt deeply let down by some of his decisions in office. Spiked report that, “The Obama administration was no friend of leakers and whistleblowers – it prosecuted three times as many whistleblowers under the Espionage Act as every prior administration combined. But it at least recognised the disastrous precedent prosecuting Assange would set for publishers and journalists, who uncover and publish classified information as a routine matter.” Spiked say, “the next administration took a different view. In 2017, Mike Pompeo was appointed as director of the CIA by Donald Trump. In April 2017, he delivered a menacing speech branding Wikileaks a ‘hostile intelligence service’. He attacked Assange as a ‘fraud’ and a ‘narcissist, who has created nothing of value’.”

Spiked report that, “Assange, Pompeo said, would have been on ‘the wrong side of history’ in the 1930s and 1940s. In a blistering attack on the First Amendment, Pompeo declared: ‘We can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free-speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now’.” What if conscientious journalists had relentlessly reported the needless loss of life during the Bengal famine, forcing the Government to act would they or beloved Winston be on the wrong side of history? “Pompeo has since risen to the role of secretary of state. A week after Pompeo’s tirade of smears, Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said that arresting Assange was a ‘priority’ as part of a broader crackdown on government leaks. Within hours of this announcement, the authorities began to prepare the charges. Can Assange expect a fair hearing given these pronouncements of hostility from on high?”

Spiked are equally scathing of our UK Judiciary saying, “The British state has behaved no better. Recently, it allowed the US to move the goalposts in the middle of the hearings. The first stage of the hearing began in February, though it was paused for the pandemic. In the interim, at the 11th hour, the US issued a brand new, wider indictment. Though it contained no new charges, it included additional accusations that Assange had recruited hackers and had conspired with hacking groups. His defence team was given just weeks to respond to the new allegations before the hearings resumed. The US Justice Department, in contrast, has had 10 years to get its story straight. The setting of the first half of the hearing spoke volumes as well: Woolwich Crown Court is adjoined to HMP Belmarsh and is usually used to try terrorists. Before any verdict had been delivered, it seems as if the UK was happy to give the impression that Assange was an enemy of the state. (The second half is taking place in the Old Bailey.)”

Spiked point out that, “You could be forgiven for wondering why there has been so little press coverage and commentary over what could well prove to be the most important press-freedom trial of the century so far. Wikileaks once provided journalists with a rich treasure trove of stories, and Assange’s conviction would pose a terrifying danger to press freedom.” They say, “at the same time, Assange’s leaks did not only expose the wrongdoings of governments and state agencies – in a way, their also exposed the journalists who had propagandised on governments’ behalf. These ‘official truth-tellers’, says veteran journalist John Pilger, were ‘exposed as collaborators’. Indeed, those journalists who continually bang the drum for the latest Western war against whichever foreign country the dartboard lands on probably ought not to fear the strong arm of the state. But journalists who are interested in exposing the lies and the wrongdoings of their governments should fear the precedent which could be set by Assange. If the US succeeds, it could turn investigative journalism into an act of treason.”

The alarming comparisons with the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany are intended to shock because we are marching steadily in that direction. The authoritarian dictates and harsh restrictions, lies, propaganda, ‘othering’ in a blame to avoid accountability massive misdirection of public funds, manipulation of the press, prohibiting protest this will all turn ugly very soon. When the deprivation of unemployment and mass evictions due to Covid 19 are compounded by the food shortages of crash-out Brexit we could see rioting on the streets. The Tories are prepared to draft in the army to hit back hard. Good democratically elected socialist Governments have lifted millions out of poverty; Tyrants have been responsible or actively killed tens of thousands and clung on to power for decades. The injustice faced by Assange should worry us all, who will be next? We must overturn the Covert 2019 Rigged Election because the only way to derail the deadly Tory Government agenda is to force them out of office. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[N_]

“Unwritten constitution” is bullsh*t. A constitution must be written. Saying otherwise is taking the p*ss. It would be amusing, were it not so sad, when this phrase gets parroted by British journalists, politicians, and experts. Not one of these idiots has ever considered whether or not it stands up.

It means “Don’t worry. Privately-schooled poshies have your best interests at heart; they know they can’t simply do whatever they want; and that’s the way they like it.” But of course if it were actually said like that, it would be a case of “I’m not lying to you”.

The phrase means “Don’t have a revolution”. It means “tradition is democratic”. See what I mean about taking the p*ss.

It is not surprising that it was coined around the time that revolution was going on across the Channel in France.

[N_]

And in particular, of course, it means “Don’t get rid of the monarchy”.

Everyone who repeats the phrase “unwritten constitution” unthinkingly is helping support the monarchy, nolens volens.

[SA]

N_
The unwritten constitution , together with state sovereignty being crown sovereignty, an unelected second chamber and a FPTP electoral system ensure that the ruling class will always continue to rule, even when ‘elected’ by a minority of the population. Where are these colour revolutions when you need them?

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

SA & N – I can see my comparisons between the “Enabling Act” in Germany that facilitated Hitler’s rise to Dictatorship with the frightening consolidation of power under the Johnson/Cummings Tory Government has struck a raw nerve. We should be afraid, very afraid because it was only when I was compiling the information for that post that I realized Hitler had overcome far greater obstacles on his journey towards full dictatorship and how little stands in the way of a rogue Government here in the UK. Yes it is precisely that absence of a written constitution that leaves us so vulnerable here now. We have relied upon a simple ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ in a place where traditionally “an Englishman’s word was his bond.” We can no longer afford to wallow in this blissful ignorance; Johnson, Cummings and the current Tory cabal are not ‘gentlemen,’ or respectable ladies for that matter, and their word is worthless as evidenced by their willingness to break an International treaty that Johnson signed only a few short months ago.

PsyOps allowed Cummings to creep inside the minds of society’s most vulnerable and persuadable, to warn them against thinking of self-preservation and survival in order to establish unquestionable support for the wealthy Tory elite. Do I really believe that this devious con trick was enough to cause a landslide victory for renewed Tory oppression? Obviously not, a massive incidence of Stockholm syndrome was highly unlikely, but the BBC and MSM pumped their propaganda. Cummings relied on stolen data to facilitate his coup without suffering the slightest protestation from opposing ranks. More data provided by private sector Track and Trace, Apps, and more, will help to build a far larger database for potential future exploitation which is covertly designed into the Governments corrupt Track and Trace program requirements. The system requests, not just the data needed for controlling the disease, but information that is saleable to US Healthcare Corporations and useful to those hoping to control all future elections.

In 1991 I was contracted to deliver a sturdy Han Christian cruising yacht across the northern north Atlantic from Ft. Lauderdale to Holland. One on my two selected crew was a young woman who had sailed with me to England on the US Women’s Challenge aboard ‘Inespal’ as we sought sponsorship to compete in the Whitbread round the world race. After a really fast crossing proving competitiveness of the newly designed and built boat, we still failed to secure a major sponsor for the team, but I was able to sail leg two of the 89/90 race aboard vintage Maxi ‘With Integrity’. On the trans-Atlantic my friend brought along a book that we both avidly read, fiercely vying for access when not on watch. This addictive page turner was Margaret Atwood’s haunting book “The Handmaids tale.” In the book it was an emergency situation that allowed the Gilead to seize control, but this scenario is no fluke of futuristic fantasy; it’s a well recognized opportunity for an authoritarian overthrow of legitimate Government to install dictatorship.

In a Smithsonian Magazine Article entitled, “The True Story of the Reichstag Fire and the Nazi Rise to Power; When the German parliamentary building went up in flames”, Hitler harnessed the incident to seize power. It says, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and where there’s fire, conspiracy theories are sure to follow. At least, that’s what happened in Germany on February 27, 1933, when a sizeable portion of the parliamentary building in Berlin, the Reichstag, went up in flames from an arson attack. It was the canary in the political coal mine—a flashpoint event when Adolf Hitler played upon public and political fears to consolidate power, setting the stage for the rise of Nazi Germany. Since then, it’s become a powerful political metaphor. Whenever citizens and politicians feel threatened by executive overreach, the ‘Reichstag Fire’ is referenced as a cautionary tale.”

The Smithsonian recount that, “Germany’s first experiment with liberal democracy was born of the 1919 Weimar Constitution, established after the conclusion of World War I. It called for a president elected by direct ballot, who would appoint a chancellor to introduce legislation to members of the Reichstag (who were also elected by popular vote). The president retained the power to dismiss his cabinet and the chancellor, dissolve an ineffective Reichstag, and, in cases of national emergency, invoke something known as Article 48, which gave the president dictatorial powers and the right to intervene directly in the governance of Germany’s 19 territorial states.” I find it somewhat ominous that the most worrying segments of the last Tory manifesto, including reinventing our Human Rights, all appear on page 48, but that is probably just a chilling coincidence.

The Smithsonian tell how, “Following a stint in jail for his failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hitler poured his energy into attaining power through legal channels. He rose to the head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis), and by 1928 the group’s membership exceeded 100,000. The Nazis denounced the Weimar Republic and the ‘November criminals,’ politicians had signed the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty forced Germany to accept responsibility for World War I, pay huge remunerations, transfer territory to their neighbors and limit the size of the military. Despite its considerable growth, the Nazi party won only 2.6 percent of the vote in the 1928 election. But then the Great Depression hit, sending the U.S. and Europe into an economic tailspin and shooting the number of unemployed up to 6 million people in Germany (around 30 percent of the population). The sudden slump caused massive social upheaval, which the Nazis exploited to gain further political traction.”

The Smithsonian say, “By 1930, the Nazis won 18.3 percent of the Reichstag vote and became the second largest party after the Social Democrats, while the Communist party also grew to ten percent of the vote. The economic unrest of the early 1930s meant that no single political party had a majority in the Reichstag, so fragile coalitions held the nation together. Faced with political chaos, President Paul von Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag again and again. Frequent elections followed. The Nazis aligned with other right-leaning factions and gradually worked their way up to 33 percent of the vote—but were unable to reach a full majority. In January 1933, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor on the advice of Franz von Papen, a disgruntled former chancellor who believed the conservative bourgeois parties should ally with the Nazis to keep the Communists out of power. March 5 was set as the date for another series of Reichstag elections in hopes that one party might finally achieve the majority.”

The Great Depression, mass unemployment and political instability increased the vulnerability that allowed Hitler to seize power, but there is no doubt he had a steep hill to climb. The far right was counterbalanced by the far left until the propaganda of the day was able to demonize the Communists by blaming them for the Reichstag Fire. The progressive Left in the UK is not a Communist Party, in fact it is no more radical than some other EU countries. However, the concocted scourge of fantisemitism has been used by the British propaganda spewing rags and the compliant BBC to demonize and discredit the Labour Party in an effort to imply that they are entirely unelectable. This was vital to convince the public that the unfathomable ‘landslide victory’ result of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election was legitimate, which I sincerely doubt and still requires serious Investigation. The commitment to ‘othering’ is another commonality with totalitarian regimes, the people need an enemy to scapegoat: migrants, remainers, the so called ‘hard left’…

The Smithsonian say that, “Meanwhile, the Nazis seized even more power, infiltrating the police and empowering ordinary party members as law enforcement officers. On February 22, Hitler used his powers as chancellor to enroll 50,000 Nazi SA men (also known as stormtroopers) as auxiliary police.” If we think that here in the UK the Government could not mobilize a significant auxiliary police force we are living in la-la-land because the infrastructure for that force is already in place awaiting deployment right now. Both in the US and the UK there’s been an alarming rise in private security forces and the expansion of their use, companies like G4S that are running detention centres here is just one example. The use of private companies in all areas of public service requirement conveniently separates the Government from responsibility for their conduct which is an extremely serious concern. Privatizing Electoral Services and disempowering the Electoral Commission proved important factors in gaining control of ballots

In the Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) Article entitled, “Britain’s private military and security industry examined” they elaborate on this armed capability. It says,“Britain has led this privatisation of modern warfare. It leads the world in providing armed contractors to ‘hot spots’, be it combating terrorism in the Middle East or fighting pirates off the Horn of Africa. Some of their biggest clients are governments; since 2004, the British state has spent approximately £50 million annually on mercenary companies. The total worth of the global private military and security industry has been estimated to stand somewhere between £69 billion and £275 billion a year. Many of these companies will serve whoever can pay – from wealthy private individuals to faceless corporations. It is easy for them to do so. Despite the size of this mercenary industry, the entire sector is marked by secrecy. Men trained in the arts of subterfuge and counter-intelligence dominate this sphere, and the result is an industry that operates from the shadows.”

The Smithsonian recount how, “Two days later, Hermann Göring, Minister of the Interior and one of Hitler’s closest compatriots, ordered a raid on Communist headquarters. Following the raid, the Nazis announced (falsely) that they’d found evidence of seditious material. They claimed the Communists were planning to attack public buildings. On the night of February 27, around 9:00, pedestrians near the Reichstag heard the sound of breaking glass. Soon after, flames erupted from the building. It took fire engines hours to quell the fire, which destroyed the debating chamber and the Reichstag’s gilded cupola, ultimately causing over $1 million in damage. Police arrested an unemployed Dutch construction worker named Marinus van der Lubbe on the scene. The young man was found outside the building with firelighters in his possession and was panting and sweaty.” While he was tried, convicted and executed at the time there is considerable doubt that he was responsible and 75 years later he was exonerated.

This was the golden opportunity that Hitler needed. The Smithsonian quote his response as, “’This is a God-given signal,’ Hitler told von Papen when they arrived on the scene. ‘If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.’ A few hours later, on February 28, Hindenburg invoked Article 48 and the cabinet drew up the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press; legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence; and suspended the autonomy of federated states, like Bavaria. That night around 4,000 people were arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the SA. Although the Communist party had won 17 percent of the Reichstag elections in November 1932, and the German people elected 81 Communist deputies in the March 5 elections, many were detained indefinitely after the fire. Their empty seats left the Nazis largely free to do as they wished.”

We are already seeing significant curbs to our civil liberties applied due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, but many decisions are totally inconsistent with logic. We need to ask why are schools, universities, workplaces, public transportation and places we can spend money deemed safe, while personal contact outside these designated areas is severely limited and criminalized as ‘mingling’? We need to resist volunteering information except on a genuine ‘need to know’ basis. Hitler did not have the massive advantage of our huge modern-day proliferation of security cameras and it is now much easier to keep tabs on people via their mobile phones and the Internet. Our personal and private data has a significant monitory value and it is being pried away from us under the guise of infection control with Track and Trace. For instance the control of Covid 19 does not require access to your credit history and we must resist increasing our vulnerability to the state that is now under the absolute control of this rogue Tory Government.

Although the Covid 19 crisis could not have been anticipated well in advance the opportunity of causing unnecessary chaos by engineering crash-out Brexit had been carefully calculated. There is no intention to strike a deal with the EU because it would involve compromises and limit the chaos. We need to fully understand and be warned that for this Tory Government, the chaos is the end goal. Operation Yellowhammer has already laid out the need to deploy troupes on the streets to control food shortages and potential rioting after Brexit. The negotiations with the EU are a distracting sideshow that will be used to blame the EU for the disaster the Tories know will ensue. Meanwhile, the wealthy elite will be well prepared in advance and will cash in on hedge funds or manage their money offshore. Brexit will work very well for the most wealthy in our nation, but the working poor will become helpless victims of the new slave state under Tory Dictatorship with all the violent suppression needed to keep it in place long-term.

The Smithsonian recount how, “Later that year, a sensational criminal trial got under way. The accused included van der Lubbe, Ernst Torgler (leader of the Communist Party in the Reichstag) and three Bulgarian Communists. As the trial in Germany proceeded, a different kind of trial captured the public discourse. Willi Münzenberg, a German Communist, allied himself with other Communists to undertake an independent investigation of the fire. The combined research resulted in the publication of The Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror. It included early accounts of Nazi brutality, as well as an argument that van der Lubbe was a pawn of the Nazis. Hitler’s party members were the real criminals, the book argued, and they orchestrated the fire to consolidate political power. The book became a bestseller, translated into 24 languages and sold around Europe and the U.S.” The controversy over responsibility for the Reichstag Fire rumbled on for many years but van der Lubbe was exonerated in 2008.

The instigation of so many devastating conflicts and upheavals has later been proven to be based on lies. This should be the most important cautionary tale; should we believe the media or question their motivations based on who is paying them? I have no doubt that the fantisemitism smear campaign will be fully exposed in the near future, but will the revelations be enough to question the Tory Government using state funds to create this rabid propaganda? We need to remember that Hitler was also elected. Political prisoner Julian Assange encouraged Whistleblowers to expose the criminal activities of Governments who were working against the interests of their own people; he cannot be silenced as an example to gag investigative Journalists worldwide. There must be people who know the details of what took place in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and who was responsible, but discovering this in a few decades time will not rescue us from the dystopian nightmare of Tory Dictatorship: we need that Whistleblower right now! DO NOT MOVE ON!

[SA]

Kim. This as you say sends chills down the spine. But now the methodology is very subtle. There isn’t even the need to suppress the media for example, they have now become part of the military industrial information propaganda complex. As you say we also now have privatisation of the state’s monopoly of violence, not only directed at criminals but against those who break the newly invented laws that criminalise dissent. The covid-19 emergency laws have certainly been a perfect godsend to our new corporatist state where money flows seamlessly from the taxpayer to the tory crony businesses with no checks and balances to prevent fraud on a massive scale. Meanwhile, the opposition is fighting yesterdays battles, not even against the government, but against the so-called extreme left (really the true labour party) of the Labour party. But the real problem is that the electorate have been sedated, and I am not sure how this happened. Part of it has been the extremely toxic Brexit fueled nationalism and partly the gradual shift in the MSM towards corporate and billionaire ownership. The government is practicing boiling the frog and the stupefied electorate vote for the oppressors. I do not doubt that some rigging took place to produce the so-called landslide, but there is a very solid vote for the Tories amongst the working class, who are also staunch royalists which allows for this to continue.

[Kim Sanders-Fisher]

What exactly does Priti Patel mean by defining a chance encounter with another group of friends on the street as “Mingling?” She’s trying to criminalize protest, our right to ‘peaceable assembly’ as well as prohibiting all forms of personal socializing. While school infections skyrocket, with children knowingly used as vectors to infect vulnerable elders in multi-generational households, colleges, workplaces and proximity to a cash register deemed safe; the pleasures of the wealthy elite were prioritized and preserved. Groups of up to thirty of the upper crust can wave their riffles in the air to indulge a favoured blood-sport of the toffs where few restrictions apply: one rule for them another for the victims of this Tory Governments eugenics ‘herd immunity’ cull. Targeting the ‘economically inactive’ with a renewed ‘Holocaust in Care’ the ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’ will be as inhumanly brutal as their Grouse shoot! We cannot allow Patel to intimidate or silence us; rather than abandon protest we must be more innovative as we take it to a new level.

The Government are hoping that tight restrictions on all gatherings and threatening huge fines will shut down all protests, at a time when they may well be expecting vastly increased civil unrest. Not everyone can make it to a demonstration; the most vulnerable will worry about the risk of using public transport, but is there an ingenious way around the restrictions? I have written before about my plan to make a loud cacophony of protest heard, “If we can no longer join protests without being punished and dispersed by the police we can chose a much louder and more effective alternative that no one need leave home to join. We bring the protest to the people’s doors, every single home in the UK; it will engage huge numbers throughout the country. When we clapped for Carers it was highly visible and the sound carried increasing the cumulative impact. Observing the “rule of six,” “Sound-off Saturday at Six” we would step outside to drum up a din, bang pots, shout slogans, sing protest songs, honk car horns, just make a lot of noise!

We can see Tory Government restrictions as strangling our democratic right to freely protest or just an opportunity to move protest into a more inclusive participatory format where no one is excluded from taking part. Just to taunt the PM and his vile authoritarian cabal, Cummings, Hancock and Patel we should make a point of thanking them publically and profusely for inspiring us to become more creative while adhering to Social Distancing to remain well within the law as responsible citizens! We should generate a press release to announce this triumph offering our thanks for the new way forward for those wishing to express their protest views! I am a solutions oriented person with certain critical gaps in my abilities to publicize my opinions, ideas and potential solutions. I doubt that I have any regular cache of readers who might recognize large sections of this text as components of a previous post. But please do not be offended by this admitted repetition of information, as I feel it necessary to post right at the top of this new page.

I wrote, “To fight the barrage of propaganda it’s an urgent and vitally necessary priority that we change a pervasive Tory narrative to disarm the dangerously hostile rhetoric of hate mongering on the far-right of our perilously endangered democracy. Cummings unleashed weapons grade PsyOps on unsuspecting and vulnerable ‘persuadables’ whose data was stolen by Cambridge Analytica and undoubtedly still remains in his grubby hands. For far too long we have gone into battle in this war of words and fake imagery without even the most rudimentary defence. Cummings is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin! Until the PM’s Machiavellian puppet master can be removed, we must disarm all the deceitful and damaging slogans and false promises with greater creativity in the language that we use and the slogans that we adopt until they become the dominant persuasive speech of our rebellion in the fight to rescue our democracy. As an innovator, there are few things more fun to invent than new words and slogans!”

I wrote how, “Boris Johnson wants us to sing ‘Land of hope and glory’ as if British exceptionalism will be boundless after he makes a ‘Titanic success’ of crash out Brexit. His words, not mine; did no one remind him that the ‘unsinkable vessel’ sank just as ‘get Brexit done’ will morph into ‘Get Brexit Dung!’ The Brexiteers much touted ‘sunny uplands’ have become the looming ‘Dystopian Nightmare’ of hardship, deprivation and torment for the working poor and the newly unemployed subsisting on Universal Credit. As unemployment rises, more ordinary people in once secure jobs, will discover a Tory planed path to destitution and debt purposely built into what remains of our beleaguered social safety net. It is intentionally stressful and cruel, with unnecessary delays, punitive sanctions and paltry, wholly inadequate, provision: no longer fit for purpose.” Songs of Empire demand more realistic rewording for our neoliberal vulture capitalist age; sung to the tune of ‘Land of hope and glory’ with strong emphasis on the words ‘Drop Dead!’

Lost hope and past glory, never to be free,
Powerful privilege eternal, breads Tory cruelty.
Poorer still and poorer, while on the treadmill set,
Work until you – Drop – Dead – forever in their debt!
Wealth made Tories mighty, it makes them mightier yet!

I wrote of “watching Boris Johnson defend Empire in all its obscene excesses of blatant criminal plundering and subjugation.” I also ranted about the Hawkish PM, “he defends the memory of Churchill: the man responsible for the Bengal Famine and the first use of chemical weapons in Iraq against the Kurds that he despised as ‘savages.’ Why should we continue to sing ‘God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,’ when this represents ample reason to become an atheist? How could any merciful God genuinely endorse this cruel persecution under British rule? Boris is still trying to make that one fit.” Then I reworded yet another jingoistic Proms night favourite; “we sing: ‘Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rules the waves – Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.’ But in a cruel dystopian reality the 99% truly are slaves, due to chronic wage stagnation, zero hours contracts and an even more punitive payment system for younger workers that leaves them trapped unable to leave home. New words, Please…

Cruel Britannia! Vile Tories rule the Slaves…
Only by ousting Boris Johnson will lives be saved!”

I wrote of the priority to save lives. “We know that the discredited eugenics policy of ‘Herd Immunity’ has been exposed as a mass slaughter of the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, the ‘economically inactive’ elderly, disabled, homeless, Gypsies and other ethnic minorities or simply those now out of work, but all surplus to capitalistic requirements and a ‘burden on the state!’ Never mind that this Tory Government destroyed their jobs and forced them into destitution, Tory Government policies are being designed to drive vulnerable sectors into danger as they ramp-up their ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’. This time Herd Immunity will advance beyond the ‘Holocaust in Care’ using innocent school children as vectors to spread Covid to the vulnerable grandparents that poverty forces them to cohabit with. The rising death toll will be blamed on them, blamed on non-compliance, falsely blamed on obesity and diabetes, anything to deflect from the truth. In reality this is a deliberate Genocide we must call out as: ‘Covicide’!”

I wrote, “Tell it like it is: ‘If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s not a giraffe!’ Tories drum home their deceptive messages over and over again until their expansive fake news becomes the latest hot topic news flash and blatant lies become the new truth. In reality a promise made by Boris Johnson is just a ‘Bromise’ that will never be kept; a Tory pledge is just… more ‘Boris-shit!’ The content of BBC news broadcasts is increasingly crammed to capacity with irrelevant drivel, laboriously spun like candyfloss into a voluminous, but handy distraction tool; this neatly obscures the harsh reality of a truly dire situation here in the UK. This pervasive tripe of vacuous spin, masquerading as ‘relevant news,’ is more appropriately referred to by me as: “Handyfloss!” If anyone ever dares to attack me as unpatriotic, I tell them that I am a ‘Peaceful Patriot of the Planet’ and I will defend the integrity and diversity of this unique ‘Blue Planet’ without fear, favour or fake boundaries of jingoistic nationalism.” Help promote: ‘#PPP.’

I noted how “a perverse constraint on honesty and accountability in the Commons it’s forbidden for an MP to accuse another of lying in the Chamber, while the actual telling of horrendous lies and expounding on fanciful pledges has become the signature of Johnson and his corrupt Tory Ministers. We do not expect the PM or any MPs to tell ‘Porky Pies,’ we must demand honesty, by criminalizing this conduct, starting with a campaign to get ‘Porkies out of Parliament’ – ‘Scoop the POOP!’ We failed to prevent Johnson from doubling down on the lie written on the side of the Brexit bus and his ‘Bromise’ of huge sums to be reallocated to our NHS. Capitalizing on our lack of resistance he Bromised UK voters ’40 new Hospitals;’ highly unlikely to materialize unless US Healthcare Corporations fully privatize our NHS. There was that ‘world-beating’ Covid App that was scraped as a component of Tallyho Harding’s ‘world wanking,’ err, ‘ranking’ Test and Trace! We must aggressively call the PM out on his outlandish Bromises.”

I created posters for highlighting Johnson’s complicity in the Grenfell Tower disaster after decimating the London Fire Department plundering the budget for cash to fund his vanity projects! After the Grenfell fire Johnson’s role as former Mayor, eviscerating the London fire service was ignored; there was no scrutiny from the BBC or Mainstream Media on this point in the run up to the Covert 2019 Rigged Election. In the Skwawkbox Article entitled, Video: Dowden testimony shows Johnson’s fire cuts worsened Grenfell. Johnson: ‘Get Stuffed’ they revel the shocking truth. “Dowden had classified the fire as a ‘ten-pump’ incident – needing ten fire engines to fight it, even at that early stage – yet he had only six, forty percent down on what he needed. The BBC showed it, but skated past its significance. On the day of the fire last year, the SKWAWKBOX showed that the Tories had closed no fewer than three fire stations just in the immediate vicinity of Grenfell Tower – and had . reduced firefighter numbers by hundreds.

I say “The Tory claim of ‘landslide victory’ was in reality the ‘Seismic Sin’ of ‘Industrial Scale Fraud;’ before, during and still long after the Covert 2019 Rigged Election they are desperately trying to legitimize this by manipulating the Tory compliant BBC, tabloid press and alt-right media, utilizing an onslaught of further lies: urgently in need of correction. We can no longer accept a grotesque lie about the ‘borrowed votes’ when we know full well that they were in fact ‘Stolen Votes.’ We cannot let the Tories crow about their assault on Labour’s solid and impenetrable ‘Red Wall.’ We must persuade those who will soon discover the extent of this hideous con that, if we do not remove them from power, this Government will turn the north into another neglected ‘Tory Sinkhole!’ The sickening lie of Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is already being exposed with targeting of the exam results of disadvantaged students; but how many more examples will it take before the working poor realize that Boris’s real priority is ‘Decimating Down’!”

I wrote, “Right now most of the major Governmental screw-ups consistently lead back to Dominic Cummings, yet he’s still remains in post: why? I believe he’s in a strong position to blackmail Boris Johnson and that if he is ousted he will drag the entire Tory Party down with him as he owes no special allegiance to the Conservatives. He is the supreme egotist, who believes that his master plan must dominate and be implemented in full. If he loses control of the PM there is no need for continued loyalty that will no longer revolve around him. He wants us all to know the full extent of his brilliant deception, but that’s the ultimate Tory weakness as he could easily spill the beans: why not if he is excluded from the program? [y deems reasonable to global justice advocates We must continue to demand his immediate removal; Cummings is the grenade, oust him and you pull the pin! Mr. D. Cummings, the ‘Herd Nerd’ soft brain behind the ‘hard rain,’ could have his name appropriately abbreviated to ‘Dummings!”

I wrote of the need to, “ditch the futile defensive mode that has generated a truly obscene number of humble apologies over what is essentially ‘fantisemitism.’ The poison of fantisemitism allegations now stands a strong chance of being fully exposed as a cruel hoax that does nothing to protect the Jewish community from genuine prejudice or persecution and potentially incites both while sidelining other areas of ethnic and religious targeting.” This is the reason I say, “Jeremy Corbyn must be persuaded to go against his natural ‘turn the other cheek’ instincts and aggressively countersue John Ware. Lawyer, Mark Lewis of Patron Law is expecting to rake in megabucks with multiple large out of Court settlements. He is in for a rude awakening when Crowdfunded support for justice sees defendants robustly fight back: his ‘no win, no fee’ will become a no fee financial drain! When legal insurers are no longer prepared to accept the considerable financial risk of losing SLAPP cases this risk free back up plan will become untenable too.”

I said, “Covid 19 still dominates the airwaves, hence the reason I write so frequently of its evil menacing twin as the “Covert 2019 Rigged Election.” We need this alternative description of the corrupt 2019 Election to become so deeply embedded in people’s minds that they no longer question whether there might need to be a full Investigation into the postal votes. As people live to regret the painful consequences of shambolic toxic Tory rule, ‘Get the Tories Out’ must become a national priority. We cannot allow our Electoral System to remain so vulnerable to industrial scale fraud again in future, but only complete exposure and clear realization of this critical weakness will secure change to ‘Rescue our Watchdog’ as people demand that ‘All Votes Must Count’ because: ‘A Watchdog that cannot Watch is just a dog!’ The frequent repetition of these slogans might seem tedious, but they make logical sense, they get an important message out there and they are absolutely essential to the new language of our robust fight-back.”

I write “The Tory claim of ‘landslide victory’ was in reality the ‘Seismic Sin’ of ‘Industrial Scale Fraud;’ before, during and still long after the Covert 2019 Rigged Election they are desperately trying to legitimize this by manipulating the Tory compliant BBC, tabloid press and alt-right media, utilizing an onslaught of further lies: urgently in need of correction. We can no longer accept a grotesque lie about the ‘borrowed votes’ when we know full well that they were in fact ‘Stolen Votes.’ We cannot let the Tories crow about their assault on Labour’s solid and impenetrable ‘Red Wall.’ We must persuade those who will soon discover the extent of this hideous con that, if we do not remove them from power, this Government will turn the north into another neglected ‘Tory Sinkhole!’ The sickening lie of Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is already exposed with the targeting of the exam results of disadvantaged students; but how many more examples will it take before the working poor realize that Boris’s real priority is ‘Decimating Down!’”

I also said that, “Until we remove this Tory Government, I do not believe that any of the most burning issues of the day will be addressed. From the criminalization of investigative journalism with the targeting of a prominent Whistleblower, to Extinction Rebellion, Grenfell Tower, Windrush, Black Lives Matter, humanity towards migrants, the persecution of Palestinians to our lethal arms trade bombing Yemen into oblivion will all be ignored. Covid 19 is a useful tool to help the Tories consolidate a new era of extreme oppression under the Johnson/Cummings Dictatorship; the hardship accelerated by crash-out Brexit will finalize the dystopian nightmare that lies ahead. Poor people will be hit with fines while the elite remain immune, but we must become more vocal and shout out loudly now, every one of us collectively in a safely separated chorus. Cummings remains a volatile wrecking ball ordering mayhem, but he is the grenade; oust him and you pull the pin!” But he is not the only weakness of this Tory charade!

What would be the result if there was a tremendous very vocal reaction across the entire country? Iy would seriously challenge the legitimacy of the fake Tory claims. The claims of a ‘landside victory’ manufactured by the media to prop the Tories into a position of power would be debunked. These rely on biased ‘push poles’ that have no basis in reality, but manipulate the vote. The louder, more widespread and more well publicised these nationwide protests became the more bogus such scams as ”will of the people” would become. The Brexiteers are an irate minority who have been given a megaphone, but massive people power nationwide can drown them out. We have to now seriously rebel to demand the truth about the Brexit deception and just reversal of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, Investigation, inquiry: regime change, jail time!” I believe the EU will step in to offer an uncorrupted vote if we can demonstrate fraud in the in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and the EU referendum as well. DO NOT MOVE ON!

[Author]

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