My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (18.08.26), kinda repeating myself. So much evidence of climate change, so little protection for the people. It is difficult to focus on any key link that can pull the movement forward and back into action, yesterday heat, tomorrow floods, January freeze…Britain, shielded by the “Gulf Stream”, has infrastructure only resilient to weather between +5C and +25C. We are woefully ill-equipped for anything outside that, including the extreme weight of rain modelled and expected this winter. Pressure has be brought to bear on government for massive investment in both adaptation and mitigation – but the opposite is happening: more oil and gas extraction. A declaration that the bulk of working people are expendable. Protest!
The unedited version below, or spread the pic for the published article.
The fires are still not out yet already we are looking forward to Autumn floods. When the rains come, the hardened and baked soil will reject the drenching, water left standing on the surface and fast-flowing downhill. There shall be floods.
Five heatwaves on, Summer not yet finished, the section of the international culture-wars concerned with Climate Change has projected a grotesque level of disinformation. Despite all the evidence – record temperatures rising year-on-year; dramatic sea temperatures rise off-the-charts; acceleration of glacial melt and antarctic ice collapse the size of whole nations; a reverse of the decline in fossil fuel emissions – the deniers persist in negating the climate emergency.
Tory Leader, Badenoch, pledges to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act, which includes the target for net zero emissions by 2050, representing a U-turn from her party’s previous commitments to climate action. This is in response to Farage’s rants about “woke Britain” needing to embrace higher temperatures, pledging to scrap “net zero” to cut energy bills and replacing it with a focus on energy security and expanding oil and gas extraction, the precise opposite of what is needed.
The British Psychological Society has researched this media coverage, discovering one-third of the published heatwave images offered positive “fun in the sun” narratives. Our newspapers have overwhelmingly reflected the right-wing climate sceptics. Approximately 80% of UK media coverage of this Summer’s heatwaves has depicted people enjoying the weather, often overlooking the serious risks associated with extreme heat. It is a form of climate denial, a default propaganda downplaying the impact, the threats and the suffering. We must be “woke” to worry.
Pictures of burning houses have a commentary the omits to explore the lack of insurance coverage or government assistance. Film of exhausted fire fighters says nothing of the 30% cuts to this emergency service over the past 12 years which has left sparse protection despite heroic efforts. Coverage of wildfires barely mention not only the wildlife losses but the destruction of the local ecology. The loss of insect and plantlife would take 15-20 years to replace if, that is, there was a return to normal conditions. But there won’t be.
These images have a serious impact on how we understand and think about climate change. They’re shared and amplified by the conspiracy theorists and far-Right Climate deniers across all social media to glorify our descent towards catastrophe. And the broadcast “positive spin” is sponsored by the fossil fuel companies seeking to maintain their industry’s prestige and profits.
Such media-wide positive spin on this immediate and growing threat to life has had an impact. The question is asked, “where have all the climate protesters gone” at a time of the most obvious climate crisis? Draconian laws implemented against protesters from Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, and Extinction Rebellion has jailed or muzzled most of the most able activists. Corporate control of mass media has muffled the rest of us. And it has been too hot to run about!
Climate Change is no “Act of God”. The extra weather is a result of the accumulation of gases in the atmosphere that prevent the escape of excess heat from the planet. These gases are created by humans burning fossil fuels. Global heating emissions are rising again across the Earth’s North West, a direct result of the success of oil and gas corporations and their paid-for politicians to downplay and obfuscate the scale of destruction they are wreaking.
The crossing of the 1.5C global temperature increase means more heating is built-in. Geographic Europe is the fastest heating continent. Britains will increasingly suffer. The 3,000+ excess deaths from this summers heatwaves, reported by the Met Office, are a symbolic and very partial example of the disruption to come. This year’s harvest failures, food shortages and food price-hikes will be replicated and worsened next year.
We need emergency mitigation and adaptation in equal measure. For this to happen we need to shout out with all our might against the prevaricators, the distractors, the fossil fuel spinners and liars. This is a climate emergency, an existential crisis, the greatest threat to humanity across all our history according to the scientific consensus.
Amidst all this, the legal case for opening of the new Rosebank oil field and Jackdaw gas field in UK waters is still being pursued by the government. Whilst the public consultation closed yesterday, the corporate pressure continues. We must protest!
My weekly Comment Column in the daily Plymouth Herald (14.7.26), considering the recent statement of Prime Minister Burnham apologising for Starmer’s support for genocide in Gaza. Written the same day as the Church of England Synod debates and supports a report critical of Israel and accepting the existence of Palestine and the need to actively defend Palestinian Christians. The conclusion has to be – Protest Works! The constant protest, indefatigable and massive demonstrations in London and campaigning across the UK, indeed the world, has isolated and exposed the Israeli State and Zionism to a point where it is now dangerous for politicians not to oppose Israel. But Israel and the Zionist cause has a job to do for the global system of Capitalism: the maintenance of nationalism, racism (especially Islamophobia) and the logic of imperialist competition. The mass protests must be sustained and increased, especially the direct challenges to the military-industrial corporations linked to Israel. So, to London 18th July and Elbit on the 23rd – 11am, 38 Bolingbroke Way, Bristol, BS34 6FE.
The edited version below or expand the pic for the printed edit (at least something got printed!)
They say the Lord’s Prayer in Westminster. The two Houses swear to the Christian God, and to the King, whose official title is the “Supreme Governor” of the Protestant Church of England. But we do not consider opposition to Government policies and practices as opposition to Christianity.
Britain is a secular, multi-cultural country, with less than 5% of the Nation’s 68 million citizens actively attending Christian church once a month or more. One in four British Muslims worship weekly in a Mosque, and one-in-three Jews attend a synagogue weekly. Majorities everywhere do not devote their lives to religion, and in Britain the majority are practical agnostics.
It stands to reason that being critical of “the State”; challenging Government policies and practices, isn’t the same as challenging a religion. If we condemn the Government’s stance against asylum seekers we are not condemning Christianity, indeed we may well be invoking Christian principles. If we protest against British Imperialism and Colonialism – the exploitation and colonialism subjugating peoples and nations – we are not implicating the Christian Church, necessarily.
Yet now, there is an attempt to declare that any criticism of the Israeli State is an attack on the religion of Judaism and an offence against all Jews worldwide. The Israeli State is presented as a special case, exempt from usual political rules. It is proposed that all Jews are Israelis, not British or American or Russian or Chilean Jews. Every Jew alive today is supposed to ascribe to the policies of the Israeli State. They do not!
So criticising the Israeli State is declared to be antisemitic – religious and political hatred of Jews. There is an attempt to criminalise any damning the destruction of the civilisation of Palestine and calling the extermination of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza genocide, alongside the illegal mass ethnic cleansing there and across the West Bank.
The creed of the Israeli State, the non-secular Apartheid politics of a country formed for a “single Race” called the Jews, to develop separately from the rest of humanity in their own interests, is documented as “Zionism”. Zionism is a political creed not a religion even if it refers to Judaism in the same way our State refers to Christianity. There are Christian Zionists, Hindu Zionists, Buddhist Zionists.
Zionism is a political ethno-nationalist far-Right philosophy steeped in the demand for each ethnic-religious group within humanity to have its own separate “homeland”. The State of Israel represents the military-industrial and cultural centre for this racist creed. This “separate development” explains why some fascist groups in Britain are supporting Israel’s military expansionism alongside their bigoted hatred of Muslims.
Today, Nurses and Doctors and Porters working in the National Health Service in England and Wales have now been told they face the sack if they declare or show any symbols of opposition to Zionism or to the Israeli State, as if they are acting from prejudice and racial hatred. In fact, they are expressing humanist principles for the valuing and protection of all life, echoing their Hippocratic Oath. Yet now, Palestine flags, attendance at protests and even portrayals of watermelons are banned, despite trade union policies in support of Palestine.
Little wonder that the British Medical Association has voted to reject The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-semitism (2016). The IHRA has been re-interpreted by police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service, the NHS, and local authorities across Britain to proscribe criticism of the actions and policies of the Israeli State or Zionism. This, despite the British State formally recognising the right of a Palestinian State to exist!
Such hypocrisy and injustice must not stand!
The overwhelming majority of governments across the world have condemned Israel’s atrocities. Spain has closed it’s embassy in Tel Aviv, the Israeli government calling the Spanish government “highly antisemitic”. Andy Burnham has declared that Starmer’s full support for Israel’s actions was wrong. He could put words to action by removing all charges against the 3,000 protesters labelled as terrorists. He could, as first act as Prime Minister, end the licences that allow the armed-drones manufactured here by the Israeli firm Elbit to be exported to Israel and used to kill civilians.
The Norwegian Football Association has donated all its income from the World Cup to Doctors Without Borders operating in Gaza, as a show of support for Palestine, The Egyptian team and fans flying the Palestinian flag. Yet these campaign statements are banned from our mainstream media. A brutal UK crackdown on our right to protest is happening right now, those standing in solidarity with Palestine bearing the brunt. We are being criminalised for daring to oppose the corrupt international war criminal, Netanyahu and his Zionist State. Throughout history, the greatest change has come from those brave enough to take to the streets. If we lose the freedom to speak out today, we lose the power to fight for anything tomorrow.
Let’s stand together to oppose Zionism and the perpetrators of genocide! Let’s defend our right to protest for Palestine, its land, its peoples and their rights. Saturday, 18th July, London and everywhere!
I have been challenged in formal complaints to the Plymouth Herald, now under legal review. The legal challenges are provided in italics. For the purpose of clarity, I offer reference points below:
a) Staunton writes that the IHRA working definition of antisemitism “has been interpreted by the NHS, police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service and local authorities across Britain to proscribe criticism of the actions and policies of the Israeli State or of Zionists.” The IHRA document itself contradicts this. Its accompanying illustrative examples state, in terms: “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” … the Herald has printed as fact a claim about British public institutions that is contradicted by the plain text of the document he is describing.
The issue of interpretation of the IHRA is not contested here – the complainant recognises there are conflicting interpretations, as do I in the piece. Indeed that’s the whole point. I posit that the IHRA is being used to define any criticism of the Israeli State as antisemitic. In practice, as seen by Police arrests of Palestine protesters, condemnation of the genocide has been used as “hate speech” and antisemitism. Interpretation is key here, anti-genocide protesters arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, UK citizens actively engaged in the genocide supported and free from challenge: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/london-police-refuse-investigate-british-nationals-accused-war-crimes-gaza Criticism of Israel is conferred by any support for Palestine and, indeed, opinion that the IDF assault inside Gaza is genocide. The UN has identified genocide since September 2025 (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
b) Staunton describes the Israeli state as built on “separate development”, for a supposed “single Race”. Both in quotation marks. Neither attributed.
The State of Israel is indeed, a racially hierarchical State: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, informally known as the Nation-State Bill or the Nationality Bill, is an Israeli Basic Law that specifies the country’s significance to the Jewish people. It was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature. “Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people”: https://www.knesset.gov.il/constitution/ConstP22_eng.htm
c) Staunton writes that nurses, doctors and porters in the NHS in England and Wales “have now been told they face the sack if they declare or show any symbols of opposition to Zionism or to the Israeli State.”
In particular, the British Medical Association with direct links to the Trades Union Congress has asked this month (its the reason I wrote the piece) for a pause in the implementation of the IHRA because of “the risk it poses to staff by the implication that criticism of Israel’s genocide is an act of antisemitism”: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/nhs-palestine/ My comment warns of the “…attempt to criminalise any opposition…the illegal Israeli settlements and mass ethnic cleansing.” That is how I read the BMA challenge, and as a trade unionist, interpret the current employment challenges:
d) He writes that Christian nationalists, naming the US Vice President and “Tommy Robinson”, are supporting Israel “to further their bigoted hatred of Muslims”…an unsourced assertion about private motive, stated as fact rather than opinion, and it is of a piece with the rest.
Tommy Robinson keeps on saying it, eg: https://news.sky.com/story/tommy-robinson-set-to-debate-suspicion-of-islam-at-oxford-union-despite-outcry-13553595 A UK High Court case record (2019) describes Tommy Robinson as an “anti-Islam activist” and notes he referred to people in a case using inflammatory anti-Muslim language (e.g., calling defendants “Muslim child rapists”), which was part of why he received a custodial sentence. European Union A UK Parliament written-evidence document also describes associations between him (aka “Tommy Robinson”) and Islamophobia, saying it is “well-documented.” UK Parliament 4.13
Perhaps I should have written more clearly, with sources taking-up much of the space. I try to link issues in my writing, which necessarily makes the word-count technically challenging. The complainant writes correctly the exact wording of the IHRA but that is not how it is being enacted. The IHRA guidance states antisemitism includes: “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” I clearly do not.
Referring to the shut down of shows of support for Palestine by staff across the public sector, I specifically wrote, “…now there is an attempt (my emphasis) to declare that any criticism of the Israeli State is an attack on the religion of Judaism and an offence against all Jews worldwide. Every Jew alive today is said to subscribe to the policies of the Israeli State. They do not!” Indeed, “many British Jewish people do not associate Zionism simply with support for the existence of Israel. Research published in 2015 by City University found that 90% of British Jewish people support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and 93% say that is forms some part of their identity as Jews, but only 59% consider themselves to be Zionists” Para 28: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/13605.htm
There is an enormous level of argument and controversy inside the British State about the laws and draconian impositions against the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and, specifically, the designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. More than 3,000 protesters have been arrested under terrorism legislation – why no outcry? (E.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp38z9lylddo )The Trades Union Congress specifically questions the designation as part of a questionable State assault on the right to protest (eg https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/10/trade-unions-demand-starmer-repeal-palestine-action-ban/), the issue I conclude with in the article: “This brutal crackdown on our right to protest against genocide must stop. We are being criminalised for daring to oppose the corrupt international war criminal, Netanyahu and his Zionist State.” I stand by that.
This Week’s column in the daily Plymouth Herald (14.10.25), stating the obvious about Trump’s Plan for Gaza – no plan at all for Palestinian sovereignty. It is not just that our protests against genocide need to continue, but they must grow and combine anti-imperialism and opposition to rearmament before we’re all treated like Gazans. Written on Monday morning whilst watching the Trump Show, by publication on Tuesday morning the spectacle had already been exposed as an empty fraud to be condemned. The Big Lie! Keep protesting!
Here’s the original unedited version (900 words) with the printed version (max 600) beneath.
So President Trump has proclaimed Peace in the Middle East and the end of the violence against the people of Gaza! Why, then, did 600,000 people march through London last weekend calling for Freedom for Palestine? They’ve won, haven’t they? No! This ceasefire is a respite, the third ceasefire in the two-years of assault upon Gaza. It does not represent peace or justice. It is not a Peace Agreement. Despite all living hostages being released, Israel has not agreed that this is a permanent ceasefire. Medical workers, doctors and nurses arrested without charge during the destruction of the hospitals of Gaza are not being released from detention. Gaza has no electricity, neither water nor sanitation, almost no food, medical supplies or any basic infrastructure whatsoever. No economy. At least 180,000 Palestinians dead including 20,000 children, 5 times that injured, the entire Gazan population of two-million traumatised. The seige conditions that may be be lifted were always illegitimate, inhuman and illegal under international law. Netanyahu’s Israeli Defence Force has violated one international law after another and is not withdrawing from Gaza. Netanyahu is a war criminal yet applauded by the most powerful rulers of the world. The Israeli State refuses to recognise Palestine and cannot be trusted. The first phase of the Peace Plan has no timetables and has no plan for self-determination or even representative government for the Palestinian people. The Board of Peace chaired by the President of the United States of America is now unlikely to be administered by Tony Blair, an architect of the illegal invasion of Iraq, and equally unlikely to replace the Israeli occupation with an international military force. In any case, Israel will maintain a security perimeter to Gaza’s borders, ensuring a militarised open-air impoverished prison. Any Palestinian civil authority will be fragmented and disempowered. The plan does not include any plan for reparations for the wholesale destruction of Gaza by Israel, and no accountability for Netanyahu’s war crimes. There will be no dismantling of all the Israeli settlements in and around Palestine’s West Bank – the larger part of Palestine not even recognised by the Trump Deal – gained by force and ethnic cleaning and declared illegal over decades by the United Nations Council. There’s no right-of-return for any of the 8 million Palestinian diaspora – those already forced from their own land and living in exile. Previous agreements surrounding Gaza, for example at Camp David or the Oslo accords, have been signed and then discarded by Israel. Earlier this year, the Real-Estate billionaire Steve Witkoff organised a deal accepted by not only by Hamas but a wide range of different regional liberation groups representing a much broader cross-section of Palestinian society. They all signed the Witkoff Deal on August 18th, only to have the entire negotiating team of Hamas targeted by Israeli air strikes hours later, bombing buildings in Doha, Qatar but failing to kill Hamas leaders. Israel can’t be trusted. Trump’s Plan is neo-colonialist. The racist apartheid military state of Israel wants the entire surrender and subjugation of the people of Gaza. Israel is creating open-air concentration camps of the most intense poverty, heavily restricting water and food aid as well as maintaining a visible and palpable atmosphere of disempowerment and fear. For the Zionist ultra-right nationalists, the Palestinian people are still the target for complete extermination, Palestine to be erased from the map and from history. This short pause is better than nothing. A respite. But it’s not over. No people can agree and sign-up for the end of their very existence. Israel remains wholly entrenched in Gaza. The people are traumatised and immiserised but have not surrendered. The potential for a viable Palestinian State, as already recognised by the UK and 148 other nations, is further away than the serious opportunity for “a land for all” – a secular and multicultural democratic state from the river to the sea. The Israeli people may not like Netanyahu but show no wish for a Palestinian State. The loss of support for Israel by the majority of people across the West and further afield is extensive and irreparable. Our protests have made Israel a pariah State. Gaza represents the most barbarous peak of the logic of the system we are all subjected to. The brutality of Capitalism. Why does no-one ask for Israel to disarm? Why is Israel allowed to produce, site, arm and aim nuclear weapons, threatening their imminent use, whilst all others in the region are banned? Why is the single-ethnicity state of Israel allowed to maintain an Apartheid constitution when the world previously damned and deposed the Apartheid State of South Africa? The answers are two-fold: the ideological commitment of western politicians to the racist elitist tenets of Zionism, and the capitalist economics clawing at the wealth of the region through imperialist militarism. So the genocide in Gaza has awoken peoples across the world to the nature of Israel and imperialism. There is a movement of millions across five continents that is focussed upon challenging Israel. This week’s meetings of the most powerful politicans and Corporate directors in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, will include business talks to carve-up the beach-front property rights and the gas and oil extraction off the coast. Trump wants this deal because he wants-in on the Gaza Riviera property developments, and his negotiators are in on the scam. We can’t easily access these facts of what’s happening. Trump’s friends, centibillionaire Larry Ellison and his son David, own Paramount and are buying media institutions including CNN and TicToc. The billionaire owners of global mass media control the narrative. They buy mass media to ensure it will report what they want said. And censor what they don’t want said. Trump’s Plan was represented by Trump’s son-in-law-law, the billionaire financier Jared Kushner, his US speculative land acquisitions once bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and with major shares in Israel’s finance firm Phoenix known as “the JPMorgan” of Israel. Yet he is portrayed as a neutral player negotiating for human rights. If the media and politicans can lie straight-faced and contiunously, if the big corporations are granted ever more power and control without challenge, and if the military is allowed to infiltrate public spaces to protect the rich and powerful, then we will all become Gaza – subjugated to the inhuman drive for wealth and power by the billionaire class, and terrorised if we resist. The Palestine protests will continue. We will apply boycotts, divestments, sanctions (BDS) against Israel to end the genocide and colonisation. We will expose the lies and slights-of-hand of the media spin and political machinations on behalf of the imperialists and colonialists. Freedom for Palestine, self-determination for the people, is the test for freedom for us all.
In print:
President Trump has proclaimed Peace in the Middle East and the end of the violence against the people of Gaza! Why, then, did 600,000 people march through London last weekend calling for Freedom for Palestine? We’ve won, haven’t we? No! This ceasefire is a respite, the third ceasefire in the two-years of the current assault upon Gaza. It does not represent peace or justice. Despite all living hostages being released, Israel has not agreed that this is a permanent ceasefire. Gaza has no electricity, neither water nor sanitation, almost no food, medical supplies or any basic infrastructure whatsoever. At least 180,000 Palestinians dead, 5 times more injured, the entire Gazan population of two-million traumatised. The siege conditions are illegitimate, inhuman and illegal under international law. Netanyahu’s Israeli Defence Force has violated one international law after another and is not withdrawing from Gaza. The Israeli State refuses to recognise Palestine and cannot be trusted. The first phase of the Peace Plan has no timetables and has no plan for self-determination or any representative government for the Palestinian people. Any Palestinian civil authority will be fragmented and disempowered. A Board of Peace chaired by the President of the United States of America is yet to be organised, unlikely to include the hated Tony Blair or to replace the Israeli occupation with an international military force, the tensions high across the Region. However contrived, Gaza will remain a militarised open-air impoverished prison, the IDF securing its perimeter. The Plan does not include any details of reparations for the wholesale destruction of Gaza by Israel, and no accountability for Netanyahu’s war crimes. There will be no dismantling of all the Israeli settlements in and around Palestine’s West Bank, gained by force and ethnic cleaning and declared illegal over decades by the United Nations Council. There’s no right-of-return for any of the 8 million Palestinian diaspora – those already forced from their own land and living in exile. This short pause is better than nothing. A respite. But it’s not over. No people can agree and sign-up for the end of their very existence. The people are traumatised and immiserised but have not surrendered. The potential for a viable Palestinian State, as already recognised by the UK and 148 other nations, is further away than the serious opportunity for “a land for all” – a secular and multicultural democratic state from the river to the sea. Gaza represents the most barbarous peak of the logic of the system we are all subjected to: the ideological commitment of western politicians to the racist elitist tenets of Zionism, and the capitalist economics clawing at the wealth of the region through imperialist militarism. Today’s meeting of the most powerful politicians and Corporate directors in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, includes business talks to carve-up the beach-front property rights and the gas and oil extraction off the coast. Trump wants this deal because he wants-in on the “Gaza Riviera” property developments. The media and politicians obscure the facts. We are all at risk of becoming Gazans – subjugated to the inhuman drive for wealth and power by the billionaire class, and terrorised if we resist. The big corporations are granted ever more power and control without challenge, and the military is allowed to infiltrate public spaces to protect the rich and powerful. The Palestine protests will continue. We will apply boycotts, divestments, sanctions (BDS) to end the genocide and colonisation. We will expose the lies and slights-of-hand of the media spin and political machinations. Freedom for Palestine! Self-determination for the people! Gaza is the test for freedom for us all.
My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (7.10.25), challenging the Police powers in relation to protest. In particular, whilst there is no universally agreed definition of discretion given to Police as agents of the Capitalist State machine places democracy and all of us individually in danger. We must oppose, we must protest for the right to protest.
As printed:
Protest is political. Obviously. Politics, especially the decisions governing the distribution of power and resources, is always contentious. Democracy demands we debate and argue, vigorously! Any power seeking to curb or prevent protest is seeking to impose their preferred political position and belief. When protest is banned the cry of injustice rings loudest. Telling people they have no right to believe what they believe is symbolic of absolute power and control. It gets more complicated. Some political beliefs and actions are seriously threatening, harmful or perilous to other groups or individuals. Lines are drawn as to the acceptable levels of risk and threat, always prioritising openness and freedom over any upset to sensibilities. Prohibition has to be the last act set against only the most devastating threat to democracy. Current protests against the prohibition of the Palestine Action group are supported by the Quakers, a contemplative religious group encouraging peace, truth, justice, equality and simplicity. When their values are threatened they must act. Faith enters the political realm. Successive UK governments have changed the legal definition of terrorism in order to curb opposition, now proscribing Palestine Action as a terror group despite any published evidence of fact. The current Labour government attached Palestine Action, a protest group seeking to expose genocide in Gaza, to two tiny fascist organisations in order to compel Labour MPs to vote to proscribe all three together. A dirty trick. Those of us observing the complicity of the UK military and arms manufacturers in the genocide of Palestinian people of Gaza could only be outraged at such injustice. Many started to sit down, in silent and passive protest at the proscription, hand-writing cards stating “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. Thousands have been arrested for this “thought crime” of support for actions exposing a crime against humanity. The wider context, of openly fascist organisations now being allowed to parade on our streets with mass chants of racial and religious hatred without police action offers us evidence of a level of political bias both within the Home Office and the Police Force. It’s all too easy to expose the racist and misogynist culture ever-present in police stations and the plethora of private security firms. Every generation has seen scandals of organised fascist groups inside police and military services. The result is political bias in policing. Look at the racist bile spewed-out by tens-of-thousands at the London protest addressed by Elon Musk and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon on 11th September, inciting hatred and violence. Police hospitalised by the violent mobs throwing bricks and bottles resulted in only 27 arrests for common assault. Conversely, aged Christians sat silently protesting an injustice are roughly man-handled, thousands arrested under terrorism legislation for exposing mass murder. This week the Labour Government will further limit and ban the right to protest. In practice they are specifically targeting protests that are “left-wing” – protesters for equality, peace, universal human suffrage and social justice. Meanwhile, the ultra-nationalist flag-wavers terrorising asylum seekers in dilapidated hotels are given free reign to incite and threaten. The recent burning of mosques, street rape of Muslim women by white thugs, the racist gang murder of a Muslim man are not designated as terrorist. However more prescriptive and authoritarian Starmer’s government goes, the reactionary Tories and Reform UK will demand more restrictions and harsher punishments. Britain’s ruling class is letting the anti-democratic far-Right and fascist organisations off-the-leash here, copying the rampaging race-hate mobs on the streets across the USA. The trade unions better mobilise quickly, because we’re the next to be targeted and broken. There’s no time to lose. Protest to Survive.
My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (8.7.25), written to evade censorship and to a deadline 12 hours before the Netanyahu/Trump talks. There, they finalised a plan to transport 600,000 of the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to the destroyed city of Rafah in the far South, as the first trenche of clearing North and Central Gaza completely. They are looking to create a beach-side Mediterranean holiday resort for the super-Rich, Trump part of the billionaire property-speculating investments. Partying on the bodies of tens-of-thousands of Palestinians. This is Capitalism/Imperialism on steroids. Quite beyond words, really. This is a catalogue of multiple war crimes, crimes against all humanity, undertaken in broad daylight, recorded and broadcast globally. We can and will hold these bastards to account. Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Netanyahu, not so surprising when you think of the previous warmongers who have won. But their sheer audacity and narcissism, their sociopathy, is a statement of absolute Power that exposes their real weakness. Our protests, our boycott, our worldwide outcry can build such a movement as to mobilise billions and overturn their entire system. Keep protesting. Build the Campaign. Free Free Palestine (and all of us)! We are all Palestinians!
The article (for what its worth):
It is OK to Protest for Palestine (Fly the Flag!)
Amidst all the confusion it is important to note that it is not illegal to offer support for the civilian population of Palestine, themselves subject to an illegal invasion and occupation. It’s OK to fly the flag! Palestine is recognised as a sovereign State by 147 countries of the United Nations, including Spain, Ireland, Norway, and the huge nations of Venezuela, Brazil, China, Russia and India. Palestine is recognised and politically supported by most countries of the Global South, and UK trade unions. Palestine sits at the UN General Assembly. Palestine is seemingly only not supported by the countries of the North West, especially the UK and USA. These two countries, more than the rest of the world put together, are arming Israel from their citizens tax-money, exporting munitions, military equipment and military advisers, training to facilitate the ongoing genocide (illegal under international law) in Gaza and settler colonialism in the West Bank. Palestine’s two non-contiguous territories have been separated by illegal military invasion, land clearances and military occupation over the past 77 years. Israel has constantly waged military and political warfare against its Palestinian neighbours before and since its inauguration. The current catastrophe of disproportionate death and destruction of Gaza by Israel – possibly 1500 Israelis killed and at least 60,000 Palestinians including 20,000 children (the bodies are there to be counted) since October 2023 means this is not a war of two sides, it is the drive towards the continuous extermination of just one people and an entire nation. Supporters of such Israeli action justify the ethnic clearance (illegal under international law) on the grounds of Israel’s right to exist, whilst critics of this genocide are labelled as “Islamist sympathisers” and even “terrorists” by some, for demanding an immediate ceasefire, help and reparations for the people of Palestine and security for the Palestinians’ homeland. Ironically, the fascist descendants of Hitler and Mussolini who systematically rounded-up and killed over 6-million Jews in the horrific Holocaust during the Second World War are now supporting Israel alongside far-right white supremacists and racists here and across the West. Why? Because Israel is a racist colonial Apartheid State with a constitution which render Israeli citizens much higher rights and powers than any non-Israeli citizen. The country’s laws are very similar to those of Apartheid South Africa which was supported by fascists everywhere as representing the separation of so-called human “races” and the domination of the superior “Whites”. In the Israeli context, the term “White” represents a political allegiance to Zionism rather than skin-colour. White-supremacists in the UK, including the notorious Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, would like Britain to develop an Apartheid system, Whites over Blacks, from a belief in racial superiority and genetic ethnic purity. They whip-up anti-Muslim hatred and blame refugees and migrants for the crisis of housing and health services that, in truth, have been sucked dry by privatisation and corporate greed. At this time, the overwhelming majority of the British people do not share such beliefs or sympathies, our friends and relations ethnically diverse and multicultural. The active support for Palestine by ordinary people includes Jews not affiliated to the political creed of Zionism – a world view distinct from Judaism. It is not anti-semitic to oppose Zionism. Across the West we have seen huge political protests for Palestinian rights. These must continue and grow. It is therefore of extreme concern that Starmer’s Government is clamping down on support for Palestine, targeting those of the progressive Left seeking Peace with Social Justice. It appears the government would prefer us proscribed rather than the far-Right. Democracy ensures the right to protest for Palestine. We are not illegal!
My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (24.6.25), lambasting the government for proposing to ban the Palestine Action group as terrorists, and thereby make Non-Violent Direct Action illegal. This is a threat to us all, activists and citizens alike. It was written the day before publication, hours before the Minister announced in Parliament that the ban will go ahead, a complete travesty of the definition of terrorism, more literally applicable to Israel and the United States and their actions against Palestinians and Iran. Protests were held across the country last night against the ban, and must continue. Amnesty International, CND, StW and PSC have all lodged formal challenge, and that must continue. The fight for Freedom for Palestine and against imperialist war is one-and-the-same, and must be built louder and stronger.
Protesting can never be called Terrorism!
The right to self-defence is a rule of law. To be attacked without provocation is simply unjust, and we accept the use of reasonable force to defend ourselves in any explanation of violent or destructive behaviour, whether person-on-person or country-on-country. Another rule involves the recognition of complicity. To be a by-stander to an injustice and do nothing is, in effect, to accept the injustice and thereby be complicit with it. To not intervene to stop a crime when you know it’s happening can identify you as a party to the offence. These fundamental rules are now under threat. Humanity and civilisation is being tested to breaking-point by climate change: extreme weather conditions destroying entire regions, seasonal dissonance destroying agriculture, mass extinction of insect and wildlife; and social strife in the clamour for depleted resources. The fossil fuel companies and their friends are engaged in violent acts against the ecology, destroying entire communities. We are complicit if we knowingly watch and do not act. That has been the successful defence of many climate activists discharged by juries clear about our right to expose greater crimes. Unprincipled politicians and corrupt corporations have roared, red-faced at being challenged by direct action. They have lobbied weak judges to declare unjustly long prison sentences. The UK Government wants to end our defence, including banning the use of Non-Violent Direct Action in pursuit of the protection of life itself. As great a test today is the legitimacy of warfare. Aren’t we, at Law, all complicit with illegal mass murder if we do not try to intervene, expose and stop the slaughter? The USA bombed a sovereign country last weekend, a State that had made no threat against America and was actively engaged in negotiations at the time. The violent action of Trump is illegal. It follows on from the illegal destruction of Gaza by Israel, its key protagonists wanted to stand trial by the International Criminal Court. Their offensive and illegitimate violence continues. To stand aside and say or do nothing is to be complicit. Last week’s spraying of red dye on RAF bombers by the Palestine Action protest group not only exposed the poor security at the Base but also symbolised the prevention of a far greater crime, stopping the bombers from taking part in acts of genocide in Gaza and-or an illegal invasion of the State of Iran. To hide such a legal and political debate, the UK Labour government is trying to determine that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation and must be banned, its members and supporters tried as terrorists. The Irish music group, Kneecap, are artists who write and sing songs of rebellion against injustice, now likewise condemned as terrorists. This authoritarian paranoia is as bizarre as it is unacceptable – undemocratic attempts to shift the entire nation away from our basic human rights, including the right to protest. Trade unionists, above all, should be outraged at any attempt to repress collective political campaigning. Trade union organisation – the right to combination for mutual-protection from exploitation – has been hard-won. Not all laws are Just. Unjust laws and State activities must be challenged. Mass campaigns of defiance and opposition to unjust laws represent the entire history of our successful transition towards democracy and universal suffrage. We must not treat this lightly. We are facing war and climate collapse – the multi-faceted existential crisis of humanity. Non-Violent Direct Action is valid protest against illegitimate acts of violence and destruction against people and planet. Defend the campaigners of Palestine Action! They are not terrorists. They are attempting to stop State terrorism.
Emotional Climate 