Tag: uk

We in the UK have to take Trump Seriously

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My Weekly Comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (28.2.25), delayed from its usual Tuesday slot for “technical reasons”, allowing for a Comment Column from the editor supporting more war with Russia, and then a military person writing on the need for emergency weapons production. Last week’s column was stopped by the editor, my call for peace being identified as similar to “seeking to appease Hitler” (ie Putin).
Last week I warned of Europe promoting world war three against Russia. Today my weaker and compromised column warns only of Trump, not NATO and Starmer. Bizarrely, by the evening of the 28th, Trump had been broadcast across the world bullying and condemning Zelenskyy to his face in the Oval Office.
So when Trump spoke again of World War Three I kinda feel vindicated, while wishing I’d argued harder and stuck to my guns. I should have learnt by now – don’t compromise!

This week’s column:

We have to take Trump seriously. However you wish to caricature, disparage or mock him, Trump is at the head of a very powerful cabal, an administration that has well-formed and long-prepared plans from a coherent ideological framework.
The Trump administration has at its heart, far-right nationalism, separate from the Project for New American Century of the 1990’s. It is not a set of policies opposed to war, reference Iraq and Afghanistan, but rather focussed upon the benefit of any war to the United States plc.
Any presentation of Trump as a peacemaker must be considered in this regard – what benefits do his group within the American ruling class secure through any conflict or peace deal? This is not particularly a question of likes and dislikes, just what’s in it for the US corporations. Trumpism offers nothing to the working classes of the USA or anywhere else.
At this juncture, the acknowledgement of the third year of war in Ukraine, the Trumpian propaganda surrounding a peace deal can be falsely considered as an alliance with Putin or abandonment of Ukraine. Rather it is a negotiating platform. The USA has given more than $100billion to Ukraine to fund the war, plus Musk’s Starlink satellite communication systems and much else of the essential military infrastructure, and Trump wants to see a return on the investment.
Trump has said he wants the mineral wealth of Ukraine in return for continued provision of arms. This is not to be condoned, but is not the same as abandonment. It is possible to imagine deals that ensure new military investment. It is also possible to imagine European countries stepping-up to take-over from the USA, from much of the same motive were they able to afford it. The current economic stagnation makes rearmament a very long-term project.
Trump says his country is shielded by a beautiful ocean, the Atlantic, making Russia, a much smaller economy than the USA, of little or no threat to him. By contrast, America’s corporate core recognises China as a very present threat, economically and culturally across the world, and potentially militarily across the Pacific.
Making America Great Again means pushing back against China and its BRICS alliance. Europe will have to deal with Russia.
So where does Britain stand? It is not difficult to perceive of the UK as tThe USA’s 51st State. We are heavily dominated by US culture and military alliance despite having far fewer economic ties than would at first appear.
Prime Minister Starmer’s audience with the President this week should expose his country’s political dependence on the USA, Trump’s nationalism notwithstanding. And for this, Starmer will step-up as America’s watchdog in Europe, bragging to replace the armaments of the US with those of the UK and challenging Europe to do the same.
Starmer has already pledged an increase in UK military spending from 2.3 to 2.5% of GDP, the highest in Europe, representing an extra £3bn in the past year. The coming Strategic Defence Review will map increased investment in weaponry and soldiers towards the pie-in-the-sky “ideal” of 3% of GDP, despite high borrowing and crumbling social infrastructure.
Doing Trump’s bidding will come at a huge cost to our health service, housing stock, welfare benefits, transport systems and green energy transition. The expansion of the UK’s military-industrial complex, much already ownedd by US corporations, will not reflate our economy as a whole, just one section that is already enjoying record profits from tax-moneys.
The USA pulling-back from Ukraine will have heavy political and economic consequences for European countries, a situation to the benefit of the USA that has long wanted to curb the economic power of the continent. And politically, the accelerated rise of the far-Right here, feeding off the rise in poverty and insecurity, will encourage support for the Trumpian rhetoric, itself so two-faced in its true intention.
Some praise Trump for his transactional approach to power in a Capitalist world. His is an example of how Capitalism actually functions – as a constant competition between combatants, seeking to make offers that cannot be refused or actual hostile takeovers. Gangsters and the organised criminal gangs learnt all they know from the legitimate corporate players.
The challenge is this. If you oppose Trump you have to firstly oppose those with power in the UK who support him, and those he supports. The Trump administration is dominating a period going forward in which they can wield enormous power and impact across the world. They must be stopped.

Beware, Fascism is on the Rise.

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly column in the daily Plymouth Herald (27.2.24) trying to say too much in too little space. But the point is made, I hope, that the political games at Westminster about Gaza are intended to divide and rule us, at a time when polls and protests suggest more than two-thirds of the UK population want a Ceasefire. The unedited version is below:

Beware, Fascism is on the Rise.

For those of us concerned for the advancement of human rights and social justice, last week’s chaos in the Commons offered many warnings.

Parliament was supposed to debate a motion about the destruction of Gaza and deaths of at least 30,000 civilians, including no fewer than 12,000 children under the age of 14, all trapped without means of escape.

By the weekend we could all be excused for believing that the debate had actually been about the mortal threat to MPs at the hands of extremists and terrorists inside the UK. The original motion, tabled by the Scottish nationalists, deploring the very apparent “collective punishment” of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli State and calling for an immediate Ceasefire had been cancelled-out by self-interested politicking.

The shenanigans in the House of Commons saw both Tory and Scottish MPs walk out in disgust, leaving a Labour amendment to be voted for, unanimously by the Labour benches, declaring there should be a humanitarian ceasefire (without explanation of what that may look like), no military assault on Rafah, release of all hostages and immediate humanitarian relief.

There’s no sign of that happening amidst growing reports of hundreds of thousands now suffering malnutrition in a collective condition of enforced starvation. Instead, the UK’s Prime Minister accused the Speaker of the House of Commons to have “sided with terrorists”. 

The Tory Party had stood with Israel’s right to self-defence in opposition to the Scottish motion. The Labour Party had carefully manipulated the proposed debate to prevent the UK agreeing to an immediate Ceasefire, effectively condoning the continuation of the killing of civilians. 

It was later revealed that Keir Starmer spoke to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, before drawing-up Labour’s amendment, whilst the Speaker of the House, Lyndsey Hoyle recently visited Israel and that his father, Doug Hoyle, helped found Labour Friends of Israel. The complicity is obvious to all. Hoyle helped Starmer to block a vote on the humanitarian SNP motion, depriving the public of any voice.

Criticism of the policies and actions of the Israeli State is not a criticism or attack on Jews. Support for Palestinian rights – equal to the human rights of everyone else – is not anti-semitic. The level of active protests across Britain, numbering into millions of people on our streets since the 7th October proves beyond doubt that the majority opinion in Britain is of horror and outrage at the level of death and destruction in Gaza. Once again, Parliament has not represented The People, not just in Scotland but across the entirety of Britain, including England.

It is astounding, even in comparison with all the morally bankrupt political games of the past few years, that a debate on human rights – civilians should not be intentionally bombed in their thousands under any circumstances – has been used to introduce yet more laws against our freedoms and suffrage. 

This is political gaslighting: the psychological manipulation of the electorate, repeatedly challenging our understanding and perception of reality, seeking to confuse and create uncertainty, creating a passivity, giving-in to the perpetrators of the abuse.

Gaslighting can be a very effective tool for the abuser to control an individual. It’s done slowly so the victim writes-off the event as a one-off or oddity and doesn’t realize they are being controlled and manipulated.

Just as politicians impose ever-greater authority over us, they claim they are the victims. New laws are proposed for lawful assembly and protest to be further curtailed this week specially to protect MPs from us, adding to the most extreme laws against strike action and protest already enacted in the last year. Those supporting war abroad are also using it to force tighter social controls at home.

This is important. Democracy here is in chaos and being undermined daily. Authoritarianism is being advanced and ramped-up through a mix of gaslighting, warmongering and racism. Ministerial statements minimising the impact of war whilst dehumanising entire populations are used to promote the UK production and sale of ever-more deadly arms to dictatorships, warlords and gangsters on all sides.

The ramping-up of Islamaphobia by back-benchers such as Lee Anderson, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman calling for “direct action” against refugees, minorities and the Left – that is, those of us protesting for human rights – and praising the likes of Tommy Robinson, sees them empowering the home-grown fascist thugs to go on the attack, not only with their vile on-line threats and abuse but with violence on the streets. They are building a new Party of the Far-Right, of which Reform UK is seeking to become the mass vehicle. 

For the record, the majority of those here protesting for a ceasefire in Gaza are White working class anti-racists, not least because we know that racism divides and weakens us.  Our  protests for Freedom for Palestine need to be ramped-up. Those moved into action by the horror must recognise that this is not only a call for a ceasefire and international social justice but also human rights at home. 

In these volatile times it is not difficult to imagine Britain falling into a totalitarian state. All that is needed is for working class people to be convinced of imminent risk and attack from a “foreign force” alongside personal risk from the “enemy within”. This falsehood, this “Great Lie”, is being enacted. Now.

Free Julian Assange!

Tony Staunton1 Comment

My weekly Comment in the daily Plymouth Herald newspaper (20.2.24). I note they chose a title not including the name of Julian Assange, the subject of the piece, nor acknowledging the piece as exposing the general distrust of all politicians by Britain’s electorate. The issue is really about the death of investigative journalism, the Assange case being just one part of the long-term drive to shut-down all opposition to capitalism and imperialism.

Free Julian Assange!

It is always a turning point, an historic watershed, when the majority of the people of a country no longer believe or trust their Government. Yet here we are.

The general lack of support for Britain’s Political Class was best exemplified by last week’s by-elections where only a small minority bothered to vote at all, and those that did overwhelmingly trounced Sunak’s Government.

It goes far deeper than that. In such a polarised, class-based society it is hard to find any majority agreement. After all, social being determines social consciousness: those with wherewithal live in a completely different and separate Britain from those without, resulting in conflicting interests and beliefs.

Nevertheless, most people don’t believe government promises on future economic growth, the official statistics on wage increases, Britain’s social security, or, for that matter, much else. We don’t believe Them.

Most of us inside the bottom 80% of the nation’s income levels are too busy surviving to do much about our political thoughts and aspirations. But the working classes do keep one eye on the Big Picture. 

Most of us know that the Government has diverted most of our taxes into the private sector, the very businesses they have personal shares in – the corporations that lobby them and buy their allegiance. We know they make wars for money, the global military-industrial complex wedded to to fossil fuelled economies caring nothing for the lives of ordinary people. We have a sense of the depth of corruption inside our current system.

But to recognise that the State is not only acting against our interests but is destroying our right to dissent raises more fundamental questions of Freedom, Justice and Democracy. Have we lost all our rights and any element of agency? In response, the government seeks constantly to change and influence the popular narrative in their favour, by controlling the propaganda and information in the public domain.

Today heralds Julian Assange’s court hearing against extradition from the UK’s high-security Belmarsh prison to the USA on grounds of espionage. This relates to the leaked  publication of military information released in the USA by a serving soldier, Chelsea Manning, which the Australian journalist Julian Assange published as part of the Wikileaks papers in 2010.

The 391,000 secret State papers exposed government lies alongside illegal and inhuman military conduct, including assassinations, extradition, detention and torture throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003-8. The Iraq War was an illegal invasion for oil and corporate control.

Assange is suffering the effects of psychological torture after 14 years of incarceration. He should be released forthwith. It is the case, as a matter of human rights law, that no-one can be extradited to another country for political offences. This is because one country’s laws will differ from another – one nation’s rules for “media coverage” is another nation’s censorship. 

Espionage is therefore a political offence – one country’s freedom fighter is another country’s terrorist. For example, Britain’s anti-Nazi Underground guerrilla fighters in France during WW2 were defenders of democracy, not terrorists.

There has always been propaganda and censorship. It took years for the proof to emerge that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because the only journalists allowed into the war zone were government-approved and “embedded” within US/UK forces. Those “unauthorised” were “disappeared”.

Governments had learnt the hard way from the Vietnam War, when freelance journalists and photographers effectively exposed the most horrific massacres of civilians, children and women, on the orders of government officials. A relatively Free Press had huge influence over the ending of that war, the TV images raising huge protests and an international movement for Peace.

Now we see the majority of journalists in Gaza being systematically killed – more than 170 in 110 days. This also kills access to facts of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, and the many day-to-day truths of illegal invasion and occupation.

For public knowledge and agency to be assured, investigative journalists need protection from threats and censorship.

Censorship is also a tool of “free” trade. Apart from war, more journalists are killed for investigating illegal environmental destruction than any other single issue. Publication of the Truth can be a threat to corporate profits. 

Of course, for decades, the UK has had a more back-room approach to such censorship. Journalists and publications have been issued “D” notices to prevent publication, not only of “State Secrets” but also of facts that may embarrass Ministers or Princes. At the same time, with fewer than 8 billionaire media moguls controlling more the 80% of all public information, their editorial control suppresses most of any news that might hold them to account.

The indictment of Assange, if successful, will further criminalise journalistic activities, scaring journalists into subservience and restricting free speech to ensure the dominant politics of our national government will decide what can be published and what cannot. Such control represents dictatorship.

Anyone who wants to know the facts and cares for human suffrage needs to challenge censorship and support Assange.