Home Secretary Suella Braverman is to question the Metropolitan Police commissioner about the force’s response to incidents during a pro-Palestinian protest in London.
A video posted online appeared to show a man chanting “jihad” during a rally by an Islamist group on Saturday.
The Met said no offences were identified in the clip of the protest, which was separate to the main march.
But the home secretary wants an explanation from Sir Mark Rowley.
The meeting between Ms Braverman and the Met Police chief was already in the diary to discuss the ongoing protests and combating anti-Semitism.
But a source close to the home secretary said she would use it to question Sir Mark for his views on his force’s response to Saturday’s incident.
Conditions at a processing centre for asylum seekers who arrive on the Kent coast in small boats have been called unacceptable in a report from a watchdog that monitors the centre.
Representatives from the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) made a total of 85 visits in 2022 to three Home Office processing centres for small boat arrivals – Manston, Western Jet Foil and Kent Intake Unit – for its 2022 annual report into short-term holding facilities on the Kent coast. All three centres hit the headlines last year due to a variety of scandals and serious incidents.
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The report adds: “At Manston detained individuals were accommodated in marquees which we would describe as at best basic, at worst unsanitary and unacceptable.”
Western Jet Foil in Dover was subjected to a firebombing attack last November by Andrew Leak, 66, who police said was motivated by extreme rightwing terrorist ideology.
Kent Intake Unit, also in Dover, where lone child asylum seekers and families are processed after arriving on small boats, became embroiled in a row in July of this year after the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, was reported to have asked for cheerful cartoon murals for children to be painted over because they were “too welcoming”.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Many people will tell you that we have already reached the 1.5C ‘limit’ or target of increased temperature over the pre-industrial era. This is not strictly true because the target is an average. It will be passed imminently probably within a year or two but currently we are passing it on about 30% of days. Weather records are getting surpassed daily and monthly – the climate is in freefall.
Capitalists caused the climate crisis and are unwilling to tackle it. Instead of tackling it they are ramping up fossil fuel dependecy that will accelerate climate destruction. In UK, the Blue Labour Party’s policy is indistinguishable from the Conservative climate destroyers. We have to reject the Neo-Liberal Capitalists responsible for climate destruction and Keir Starmer is every bit engaging in anilingus with the fossil fuel industry as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
I expect these Neo-Liberal Capitalist shits to be deposed, the problem is how quickly, how much damage will they do before then? People will come to realise that their knee-jerk reaction of hostility to Just Stop Oil is mistaken and that they are instead their saviours. How angry are they going to be then? Individual acts targeting superyachts, private planes and excessively expensive cars are happening now. What’s going to be happening in 5 or 6 years time? It is the rich that are responsible for destroying our planet and I expect them to be held to account when many people start realising that their own and their childrens’ lives are fekked.
28 Oct 23:
Another reason that we need a new politics, that we have to ensure that neither Conservative or Starmer’s Labour are in power is that supporters of war crimes in Gaza should be prevented from being in positions of authority. They should properly be prosecuted for their complicity.
In 2022, the average global temperature was about 1.15 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the cyclical weather phenomenon La Niña recently contributed to temporarily cooling and dampening the effects of human-induced climate change. La Niña lasted for three years and ended around March of 2023.
In May, the WMO issued a report that projected a significant likelihood (66 percent) that the world would exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold in the next four years. This breach would likely be driven by human-induced climate change, combined with a warming El Niño — a cyclical weather phenomenon that temporarily heats up ocean regions and pushes global temperatures higher.
This summer, an El Niño is currently underway, and the event typically raises global temperatures in the year after it sets in, which in this case would be in 2024. The WMO predicts that, for each of the next four years, the global average temperature is likely to swing between 1.1 and 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Though there is a good chance the world will get hotter than the 1.5-degree limit as the result of El Niño, the breach would be temporary, and for now, would not have failed the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperatures below the 1.5-degree limit over the long term (averaged over several decades rather than a single year).
Major fossil fuel companies are among Onward’s “corporate partners”.
Onward has had a meteoric rise. Since its inception in 2018, five of its founding advisory board members have taken roles in Conservative cabinets and its reports regularly feature in print and broadcast media.
Onward, which describes itself as “a modernising think tank” with “bold and practical ideas for the centre right”, was ubiquitous at Tory conference in Manchester this week. It hosted two dozen fringe sessions, and it will be out in force at Labour conference in Liverpool this weekend.
While Tufton Street’s free market think tanks refuse to declare their donors, Onward is something of a novelty on Britain’s right-wing think tank scene – twice a year it publishes names of anyone who contributes £5,000 or more (although the value of donations is not declared, nor what the funding is for).
Fossil fuel giants Shell and BP are members of Onward’s “business network”, where for £12,000 (plus VAT) members get invites to networking opportunities, briefings and previews of reports.
Onward has been vocal on energy issues. It has called for the Tory government to apply windfall taxes on renewables rather than oil and gas giants and has proposed diversifying “energy supplies through greater use of oil and coal in the short term”.
Last week, another Onward donor, Equnior, received government approval to develop the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said that it’s “a huge concern to see that a think tank with so much influence right at the heart of the government and the opposition is funded by fossil fuel companies”, adding that “we need to get fossil fuel funding out of politics”.
Onward said it does not accept corporate sponsorship of research reports, noting that it published a report last week making the case for government to go further and faster on decarbonisation.
In all, Onward lists more than 20 “corporate partners”, including Al Altep Holdings Inc, a New York-registered holding company controlled by Len Blavatnik, according to 2021 US filings. Blavatnik made his fortune trading commodities in post-Soviet Russia and topped the Sunday Times Rich List in 2021.
Al Altep Holdings has donated millions of dollars to both Republicans and Democrats in the US, including GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Another company owned by Blavatnik previously donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration committee.
Blavatnik, a dual US-British citizen, is best known in the UK for his sponsorship of the Tate and the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. He has not made political donations in the UK, but he has funded the influential conservative think tank Policy Exchange.
Blavatnik did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Unparalleled Branding Opportunities’
Onward’s disclosures give a rare insight into how a think tank’s funding pool grows. Five years ago, Onward had only a handful of backers, including some charitable foundations and the Tory-linked public affairs firm WPI Strategy.
By 2021, the think tank had more than a dozen corporate partners, including Amazon, energy giant SSE, the National Union of Farmers, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The think tank has also received funding from leading Conservative funders, including mega-donors such as current party treasurer Graham Edwards, former Tory CEO Sir Mick Davis, and IPGL Limited, which is owned by Conservative Foundation board member Lord Michael Spencer.
Onward is well plugged into Tory circles. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien was a co-founder – along with former Theresa May staffer Will Tanner – and the think tank’s current director, former journalist Sebastian Payne, has put himself forward as a Conservative general election candidate.
At Conservative conference, Onward advertised drinks reception sponsorship deals for £30,000 that would give “unparalleled branding opportunities” at an event “for around 200 MPs, special advisers, journalists and industry leaders. It includes a speech from a senior Cabinet minister and remarks from our partner.”
But Onward has been building bridges with Labour, too. Onward’s pre-conference promotional material includes Labour MP Lucy Powell MP saying: “I think Onward are a fantastic think tank”.
At Labour conference, Onward is offering “partnering opportunities” that include funding a private roundtable “led by a senior MP or shadow minister”, priced at £17,500.
Responding to questions about its funding, an Onward spokesperson said that the think tank “is committed to openness about our funding.
“We are a not-for-profit organisation and rely entirely on the generosity of our network to support our research programme”.
This article was originally published on Peter Geoghegan’s Substack, Democracy for Sale. [a subscription site]
Injured child is taken to Suheda al-Aqsa Hospital (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital) in Deir al-Balah, Gaza as Israeli attacks on Gaza continue on the 15th day on October 21, 2023. (Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Collective punishment of two million people is a war crime and a moral outrage,” said one head of a medical relief group. “The siege must end, a ceasefire must be secured, and aid must be allowed to reach any who need it.”
Emergency aid groups and relief experts denounced the tiny “trickle” of humanitarian supplies that were finally allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing into Gaza on Saturday, especially as what was described by human rights watchdogs as a “loss of civilian life at a scale we have not seen in the modern history of Israel and Palestine” continues inside the besieged territory.
The 20 trucks authorized to deliver aid into Gaza through border with Egypt, said Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF in a statement, is “totally insufficient compared to the desperate needs of the people, who have been under complete siege and relentless bombing for two weeks.”
“Prior to the siege,” the group said, “hundreds of trucks with supplies entered Gaza every day as the Strip is crucially reliant on external aid. Food, water, and medicine are still desperately needed.”
“Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities. It is now catastrophic. The world must do more.” —UN Agencies
Guillemette Thomas, MSF’s medical coordinator for Gaza, said Saturday that inside Gaza “we have an extremely high number of injured people arriving in hospitals, very serious patients requiring complex care. According to our colleagues who still work at Shifa hospital, the hospital will soon run out of fuel and therefore electricity. This means that all the patients currently in intensive care units connected to ventilators and babies in incubators will die because of the lack of electricity. Operating theaters will no longer be able to function, patients will no longer be able to be operated on and the number of victims will increase significantly in the coming hours.”
Thomas warned that those in the intensive care were “just the tip of the iceberg,” warning that all injured and sick people Gaza remain at severe risk.
We are witnessing loss of civilian life at a scale we have not seen in the modern history of Israel and Palestine.
Human Rights Watch was among those who suggested that the refusal to allow fuel into Gaza—and the absence of efforts to restore or repair devastated the electricity grid or water systems—makes the paltry level stand out as intentionally inadequate.
“While aid agencies struggle to squeeze a few trucks of humanitarian aid into southern Gaza via Egypt, the Israeli authorities are keeping their crossings with Gaza closed and refusing to flick the switch for the water and electricity supply,” said Tirana Hassan, HRW’s executive director. “There is no excuse for denying water, food, and medicine to Gaza’s civilian population. It is cruel and contrary to international law.”
The “aid” trickle through Rafah crossing is a cynical public relations exercise to take your eyes off the ongoing genocide. “Israel” is committing the crime against humanity of cutting off Gaza’s supply of water, food, medicine and fuel. It must be stopped NOW. https://t.co/9Qk3FBSGhU
Melanie Ward, chief Eexecutive of the U.K.-based group Medical Aid for Palestinians said 20 trucks of supplies “does not even scratch the surface” of what’s needed in Gaza.
“It is appalling that fuel will not be allowed in, making the distribution of aid to the people who need it across Gaza impossible,” Ward said. “Without electricity, the lights will go out in hospitals, desalination and sewage plants will not function, and many more people will die.”
“Political leaders should remember that collective punishment of two million people is a war crime and a moral outrage,” she added. “The siege must end, a ceasefire must be secured, and aid must be allowed to reach any who need it.”
Ward’s group was also part of a Saturday effort to bring attention to 130 premature babies currently in hospitals throughout Gaza at risk of death if those facilities run out of power:
🚨 URGENT UPDATE: Doctors in #Gaza have issued an urgent warning that the lives of 130 premature babies are in imminent danger if fuel does not reach hospitals soon.
— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) October 21, 2023
In a joint Saturday statement, UN agencies—namely the UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO—said while the “limited, shipment of life-saving humanitarian supplies” provided by the United Nations and Egyptian Red Crescent would “provide an urgently needed lifeline to some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, who have been cut off from water, food, medicine, and other essentials,” it was “only a small beginning and far from enough” to address the depth of the crisis.
Citing the overwhelmed hospitals and acute shortages of power, food, and water, the agencies’ statement included a slate of demands, including a pause of Israel’s bombing campaign:
We call for a humanitarian ceasefire, along with immediate, unrestricted humanitarian access throughout Gaza to allow humanitarian actors to reach civilians in need, save lives and prevent further human suffering. Flows of humanitarian aid must be at scale and sustained, and allow all Gazans to preserve their dignity.
We call for safe and sustained access to water, food, health – including sexual and reproductive health, and fuel, which is necessary to enable essential services. “We call for the protection of all civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including healthcare facilities.
We call for the protection of humanitarian workers in Gaza who are risking their lives for the service of others. And we call for the utmost respect of international humanitarian law by all parties.
Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities. It is now catastrophic. The world must do more.
In a joint statement on Friday, top Human Rights Watch program directors—Omar Shakir, Yasmine Ahmed, and Akshaya Kumar—said that the world is “witnessing loss of civilian life at a scale we have not seen in the modern history of Israel and Palestine. With deadlock paralyzing international institutions, leaders should rise to the moment and act to prevent further mass atrocities before it’s far too late.”
HRW said Saturday that as the occupying power in Gaza it has the legal duty under international humanitarian law to “ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for” and that it is obligated to facilitate, not prevent, the flow of humanitarian aid.
“Israeli authorities need to act immediately,” said Hassan in her statement. “Lives are hanging in the balance.”
