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.