Daily Archives: 14 April 2024

Musk Is Consistent in His Opposition to Internet Democracy

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Original article by ARI PAUL republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

“We can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” Musk has said (Wall Street Journal, 4/8/24)—unless, of course, he doesn’t like the government making the laws.

Elon Musk, the right-wing anti-union billionaire owner of Twitter (recently rebranded as X), has cast his defiance of a Brazilian judicial ruling as a free speech crusade against censorship. Such framing is, of course, bullshit. It is instead a political campaign by a capitalist to use social media to reshape global politics in favor of the right. And it’s important that we all understand why that is.

As Reuters (4/7/24) reported, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered “the blocking of certain accounts” on Twitter, prompting Musk to announce that Twitter would defy the judge’s orders “because they were unconstitutional.” He went on to call for Moraes’ resignation.

It isn’t clear which accounts are being targeted, but the judge is investigating “‘digital militias’ that have been accused of spreading fake news and hate messages during the government of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.” He’s also probing “an alleged coup attempt by Bolsonaro.”

The AP (4/8/24) then reported that the judge opened up an inquest into Musk directly, saying the media mogul “began waging a public ‘disinformation campaign’ regarding the top court’s actions.”

Musk claimed that he’s doing this in the name of free speech at the expense of profit, saying “we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there” (Wall Street Journal, 4/8/24). He added that “principles matter more than profit.”

Michael Shellenberger (Public, 4/8/24), an enthusiastic pro-Musk pundit, was less restrained, saying the judge “has taken Brazil one step closer to being a dictatorship.” To Shellenberger, it’s “clear that Elon Musk is the only thing standing in the way of global totalitarianism.”

‘Par for the course’

Verge (1/25/23): “The documentary’s ban isn’t an example of Musk violating a vocal ‘free speech absolutist’ ethos. It’s a reminder that Musk has always been fine with government censorship.”

Anyone with a memory better than Shellenberger’s will recall that Musk’s Twitter has been all too eager to censor content at the request of the Indian government, including a BBC documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Verge, 1/25/23). India under Modi, who heads the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP party, has seen a steep decline in press freedom, worrying journalists and free speech advocates (New York Times, 3/8/23; NPR, 4/3/23; Bloomberg, 2/25/24). At the same time Musk was pretending to defend free speech in Brazil, he was bragging about traveling to India to meet with Modi (Twitter, 4/10/24).

Musk suppressed Twitter content in the Turkish election in response to a request from Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, saying the “choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” This move, he insisted, was “par for the course for all Internet companies” (Vanity Fair, 5/14/23). Turkey, with its laws against insulting the Turkish identity (Guardian, 11/16/21), is a country that is almost synonymous with the suppression of free speech—it ranks 165 out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. Yet Musk didn’t seem to feel the need to intervene to save democracy through his social media network.

The impact of Musk’s decision to censor Twitter when it comes to Turkey and India isn’t just that it exposes his duplicity when it comes to free speech, but it robs the global public of vital points of view when it comes to these geopolitically important countries. In essence, the crime is not so much that Musk is hypocritical, but that his administration of the social media site has kept readers in the dark rather than expanding their worldview.

Grappling with balance

AP (10/25/22) reported that Brazilian social media posts claimed that Lula “plan[ned] to close down churches if elected” and that Bolsonaro “confess[ed] to cannibalism and pedophilia.”

The context in Brazil is that in the last presidential election, in 2022, the leftist challenger Lula da Silva ousted the incumbent, Bolsonaro (NPR, 10/30/22), who has since been implicated in a failed coup attempt that closely resembled the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol (Reuters, 3/15/24). Ever since, tech companies have bristled at Brazil’s attempt to curb the influence of fake news, such as a bill that would put “the onus on the internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material” (Guardian, 5/3/23).

Brazil experienced a flurry of disinformation about the candidates in the run-up to the election, inspiring the country’s top electoral court to ban “false or seriously decontextualized” content that “affects the integrity of the electoral process” (AP, 10/25/22).

The Washington Post (1/9/23) reported that social media were “flooded with disinformation, along with calls in Portuguese to ‘Stop the Steal,’” and demands for “a military coup” in response to a possible Lula victory. And while these problems existed in various online media, a source told the Post that this occurred after Musk fired people in Brazil “who moderated content on the platform to catch posts that broke its rules against incitement to violence and misinformation.”

While Turkey and India are brazenly attempting to suppress opinions the government doesn’t like, a democratic Brazil is grappling with how to balance maintaining a free internet while protecting elections from malicious interference (openDemocracy, 1/3/23).

Despotic future

Brazilian Report (4/9/24): “Billionaire Elon Musk joined this week a campaign led by the Brazilian far-right to characterize Brazil as a dictatorship.”

Lula’s victory, in addition to being a source of hope for Brazil’s poor and working class (Bloomberg, 4/25/23), was seen as a blow to the kind of right-wing despotism espoused by people like Bolsonaro, who represents a past of US-aligned terror-states that use military force to protect US interests and suppress egalitarian movements in the Western Hemisphere (Human Rights Watch, 3/27/19). As Brazilian Report (4/9/24) put it, Musk has joined a “campaign led by the Brazilian far right.”

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal (4/10/24) noted that Musk’s tussle in the Brazilian judiciary was an extension of his alignment with the Brazilian right:

Supporters of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who gave Musk a medal during his visit in 2022 to announce plans to install satellites over the Amazon rainforest, have reveled in Musk’s defiance, declaring him a “hero,” as the dividing lines in Brazil’s culture wars deepen.

Erdoğan and Modi represent more successful iterations of neo-fascist ideology over liberal democracy. The dystopian societies they oversee make up the political model that the MAGA movement would like to impose in the United States, where a caudillo is unchecked by independent courts, the press and other civil institutions, while rights for workers and marginalized groups are eviscerated.

Musk isn’t simply displaying hypocrisy when he pretends to fight for free speech in Brazil while Twitter censors speech when it comes to India and Turkey. If anything, he is being consistent in his quest to use his corporate wealth to alter the political landscape against liberal democracy and toward a dark, despotic future.

Original article by ARI PAUL republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Continue ReadingMusk Is Consistent in His Opposition to Internet Democracy

The Online Speech Given by Yanis Varoufakis After German Police Raid Palestine Congress

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

German police move in to break up the Palestine Congress being held in Berlin on April 12, 2024.  (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“Friends, we are here because vengeance is a lazy form of grief. We are here to promote not vengeance but peace and coexistence across Israel-Palestine.”

Prominent Greek leftist Yanis Varoufakis on Friday condemned the German government’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza as well as its domestic crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy in an online speech originally meant to be delivered before a conference that was raided by Berlin police earlier in the day.

Varoufakis—a former Greek finance minister who heads the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25)—was scheduled to address the Palestine Congress, which was slated to run through Sunday in the German capital. However, hundreds of police officers blockaded the event venue on Germaniastraße in Templehof before storming the building and demanding organizers cut the livestream and end the event. Several people including at least one Jewish participant were led away by police.

“This is what democracy in Europe right now really looks like!” DiEM25 said on social media.

In his speech, Varoufakis lamented that “a decent people, the people of Germany, are led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out in their name, with their complicity.”

“You want to silence us. To ban us. To demonize us. To accuse us. You, therefore, leave us with no choice but to meet your accusations with our accusations,” Varoufakis said, referring to the German political establishment—including the leftist Greens.

“So, let’s be clear: We are here, in Berlin, with our Palestinian Congress because, unlike the German political system and the German media, we condemn genocide and war crimes regardless of who is perpetrating them,” Varoufakis said. “Because we oppose apartheid in the land of Israel-Palestine no matter who has the upper hand—just as we opposed apartheid in the American South or in South Africa. Because we stand for universal human rights, freedom, and equality among Jews, Palestinians, Bedouins, and Christians in the ancient land of Palestine.”

Varoufakis’ speech comes as Germany faces an International Court of Justice case brought by Nicaragua and which accuses Berlin of complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, where nearly 110,000 Palestinians—mostly innocent men, women, and children—have been killed or maimed by over the past six months.

The convening of the Palestine Congress, and the antagonism against it by authorities, coincides with a growing crackdown by German officials on pro-Palestinian voices in academic, artistic, literary, and other spaces.

Watch Varoufakis’ speech:

Read Varoufakis’ remarks as prepared for delivery:

Friends,

Congratulations, and heartfelt thanks, for being here, despite the threats, despite the ironclad police outside this venue, despite the panoply of the German press, despite the German state, despite the German political system that demonizes you for being here.

“Why a Palestinian Congress, Mr. Varoufakis?” a German journalist asked me recently. Because, as Hanan Asrawi once said: “We cannot rely on the silenced to tell us about their suffering.”

Today, Asrawi’s reason has grown depressingly stronger: Because we cannot rely on the silenced who are also massacred and starved to tell us about the massacres and the starvation.

But there is another reason too: Because a proud, a decent people, the people of Germany, are led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out in their name, with their complicity.

I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. But I am incredibly proud to be here amongst Jews and Palestinians—to blend my voice for peace and universal human rights with Jewish voices for peace and universal human rights—with Palestinian voices for peace and universal human rights. Being together, here, today, is proof that coexistence is not only possible—but that it is here! Already.

“Why not a Jewish Congress, Mr. Varoufakis?” the same German journalist asked me, imagining that he was being smart. I welcomed his question.

For if a single Jew is threatened, anywhere, just because she or he is Jewish, I shall wear the Star of David on my lapel and offer my solidarity—whatever the cost, whatever it takes.

So, let’s be clear: If Jews were under attack, anywhere in the world, I would be the first to canvass for a Jewish Congress in which to register our solidarity. Similarly, when Palestinians are massacred because they are Palestinians—under a dogma that to be dead they must have been Hamas—I shall wear my keffiyeh and offer my solidarity whatever the cost, whatever it takes.

Universal human rights are either universal or they mean nothing.

With this in mind, I answered the German journalist’s question with a few of my own:

  • Are 2 million Israeli Jews, who were thrown out of their homes and into an open-air prison 80 years ago, still being kept in that open-air prison, without access to the outside world, with minimal food and water, no chance of a normal life, of traveling anywhere, and bombed periodically for 80 years? No.
  • Are Israeli Jews being starved intentionally by an army of occupation, their children writhing on the floor, screaming from hunger? No.
  • Are there thousands of Jewish injured children with no surviving parents crawling through the rubble of what used to be their homes? No.
  • Are Israeli Jews being bombed by the world’s most sophisticated planes and bombs today? No.
  • Are Israeli Jews experiencing complete ecocide of what little land they can still call their own, not one tree left under which to seek shade or whose fruit to taste? No.
  • Are Israeli Jewish children killed by snipers today at the orders of a member state of the United Nations? No.
  • Are Israeli Jews driven out of their homes by armed gangs today? No.
  • Is Israel fighting for its existence today? No.

If the answer to any of these questions was yes, I would be participating in a Jewish Solidarity Congress today.

Friends, today, we would have loved to have a decent, democratic, mutually respectful debate on how to bring peace and universal human rights for everyone, Jews and Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with people who think differently to us.

Sadly, the whole of the German political system has decided not to allow this. In a joint statement including not just the CDU-CSU or the FDP but also the SPD, the Greens and, remarkably, two leaders of Die Linke, joined forces to ensure that such a civilized debate, in which we may disagree agreeably, never takes place in Germany.

I say to them: You want to silence us. To ban us. To demonize us. To accuse us. You, therefore, leave us with no choice but to meet your accusations with our accusations. You chose this. Not us. You accuse us of anti-Semitic hatred. We accuse you of being the antisemite’s best friend by equating the right of Israel to commit war crimes with the right of Israeli Jews to defend themselves.

You accuse us of supporting terrorism. We accuse you of equating legitimate resistance to an apartheid state with atrocities against civilians which I have always and will always condemn, whomever commits them—Palestinians, Jewish settlers, my own family, whomever. We accuse you of not recognizing the duty of the people of Gaza to tear down the wall of the open prison they have been encased in for 80 years—and of equating this act of tearing down the Wall of Shame—which is no more defensible than the Berlin Wall was—with acts of terror.

You accuse us of trivializing Hamas’ October 7 terror. We accuse you of trivializing the 80 years of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the erection of an ironclad apartheid system across Israel-Palestine. We accuse you of trivializing Netanyahu’s long-term support of Hamas as a means of destroying the two-state-solution that you claim to favor. We accuse you of trivializing the unprecedented terror unleashed by the Israeli army on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Easr Jerusalem.

You accuse the organizers of today’s Congress that we are, and I quote, “not interested in talking about possibilities for peaceful coexistence in the Middle East against the background of the war in Gaza.” Are you serious? Have you lost your mind? We accuse you of supporting a German state that is, after the United States, the largest supplier of the weapons that the Netanyahu government uses to massacre Palestinians as part of a grand plan to make a two-state solution, and peaceful coexistence between Jews and Palestinians, impossible.

We accuse you of never answering the pertinent question that every German must answer: How much Palestinian blood must flow before your justified guilt over the Holocaust is washed away?

So, let’ s be clear: We are here, in Berlin, with our Palestinian Congress because, unlike the German political system and the German media, we condemn genocide and war crimes regardless of who is perpetrating them. Because we oppose apartheid in the land of Israel-Palestine no matter who has the upper hand—just as we opposed apartheid in the American South or in South Africa. Because we stand for universal human rights, freedom, and equality among Jews, Palestinians, Bedouins, and Christians in the ancient land of Palestine.

And so that we are even clearer on the questions, legitimate and malignant, that we must always be ready to answer: Do I condemn Hamas’ atrocities? I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do not condemn is armed resistance to an apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning—but inexorable—ethnic cleansing program.

Put differently, I condemn every attack on civilians while, at the same time, I celebrate anyone who risks their life to TEAR DOWN THE WALL.

Is Israel not engaged in a war for its very existence? No, it is not. Israel is a nuclear-armed state with perhaps the most technologically advanced army in the world and the panoply of the U.S. military machine having its back. There is no symmetry with Hamas, a group which can cause serious damage to Israelis but which has no capacity whatsoever to defeat Israel’s military, or even to prevent Israel from continuing to implement the slow genocide of Palestinians under the system of apartheid that has been erected with longstanding U.S. and E.U. support.

Are Israelis not justified to fear that Hamas wants to exterminate them? Of course they are! Jews have suffered a Holocaust that was preceded by pogroms and a deep-seated antisemitism permeating Europe and the Americas for centuries. It is only natural that Israelis live in fear of a new pogrom if the Israeli army folds. However, by imposing apartheid on their neighbors, by treating them like sub-humans, the Israeli state is stoking the fires of antisemitism, is strengthening Palestinians and Israelis who just want to annihilate each other, and, in the end, contributing to the awful insecurity consuming Jews in Israel and the diaspora.

Apartheid against the Palestinians is the Israelis’ worst “self-defense.”

What about antisemitism? It is always a clear and present danger. And it must be eradicated, especially amongst the ranks of the global Left and the Palestinians fighting for Palestinian civil liberties around the world.

Why don’t Palestinians pursue their objectives by peaceful means? They did. The PLO recognized Israel and renounced armed struggle. And what did they get for it? Absolute humiliation and systematic ethnic cleansing. That is what nurtured Hamas and elevated it in the eyes of many Palestinians as the only alternative to a slow genocide under Israel’s apartheid.

What should be done now? What might bring peace to Israel-Palestine? An immediate ceasefire. The release of all hostages: Hamas’ and the thousands held by Israel. A peace process, under the U.N., supported by a commitment by the international community to end apartheid and to safeguard equal civil liberties for all.

As for what must replace apartheid, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to decide between the two-state solution and the solution of a single federal secular state.

Friends, we are here because vengeance is a lazy form of grief. We are here to promote not vengeance but peace and coexistence across Israel-Palestine. We are here to tell German democrats, including our former comrades of Die Linke, that they have covered themselves in shame long enough—that two wrongs do not one right make—that allowing Israel to get away with war crimes is not going to ameliorate the legacy of Germany’s crimes against the Jewish people.

Beyond today’s congress, we have a duty, in Germany, to change the conversation. We have a duty to persuade the vast majority of decent Germans out there that universal human rights are what matters. That “never again” means never again. For anyone, Jew, Palestinian, Ukrainian, Russian, Yemeni, Sudanese, Rwandan—for everyone, everywhere.

In this context, I am pleased to announce that DiEM25’s German political party MERA25 will be on the ballot paper in the European Parliament election this coming June—seeking the vote of German humanists who crave a member of European Parliament representing Germany and calling out the E.U.’s complicity in genocide—a complicity that is Europe’s greatest gift to the antisemites in Europe and beyond.

I salute you all and suggest we never forget that none of us are free if one of us is in chains.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingThe Online Speech Given by Yanis Varoufakis After German Police Raid Palestine Congress

Government spends more than £1 million of UK taxpayer money to advertise on GB News

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/government-spends-more-than-1-million-of-uk-taxpayer-money-to-advertise-on-gb-news/

GB News presenter Nigel Farage.

The government is the biggest spender on GB News advertising, spending more than £1 million of UK taxpayer cash on almost 10,500 ads since the channel launched in summer 2021, according to an investigation by Byline Times.

The right-wing channel, which is facing a number of investigations by media regulator Ofcom and which has platformed bigoted and racist views as well as conspiracy theories, has been receiving government cash for the placement of adverts.

…

Carol Vorderman posted on X: “Where is our money going? On ads on GB News

UK Tory Govt is biggest advertiser on GB News, spending more than £1 million of our taxpayer’s money on ads @BylineTimes

“So when that tax is coming out of your pay packet, think about that.”

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/government-spends-more-than-1-million-of-uk-taxpayer-money-to-advertise-on-gb-news/

Continue ReadingGovernment spends more than £1 million of UK taxpayer money to advertise on GB News

Prospective GB News Board Member is Fossil Fuel Investor

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Conservative peer and prospective GB News board member Lord Theodore Agnew. Credit: GB News / YouTube

Lord Agnew is a shareholder in Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas firm behind the ‘carbon bomb’ Rosebank oil field.

A Conservative peer who is expected to join the board of broadcaster GB News has shares in Equinor, the oil and gas multinational behind the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea. 

According to his parliamentary register of interests, Lord Theodore Agnew has shares of at least £100,000 in Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy producer. Equinor has a majority stake in the Rosebank North Sea oil field, which has been dubbed a “carbon bomb” by environmental law charity ClientEarth. 

Agnew is set to replace hedge fund millionaire Paul Marshall on the board of GB News’s parent company All Perspectives Ltd, according to Sky News. 

Marshall is one of the key backers of GB News, holding a 45 percent stake in the company. He is reportedly planning to step back from GB News in order to launch a bid for the Telegraph Media Group, which includes The Telegraph newspaper and The Spectator magazine. 

His withdrawal could potentially throw GB News into turmoil. The startup broadcaster has lost £76 million since its launch in 2021 and relies on the resources of Marshall and its other big stakeholder, UAE-based investment firm Legatum, to survive. Sky News reported that GB News is now preparing to make job cuts as part of a “corporate reorganisation”.

This may have implications for how climate change is covered in the UK. An investigation by DeSmog found that one in three GB News presenters had spread climate science denial on air in 2022, while more than half had attacked climate action.

“It comes as no surprise that members of the GB News board have ties to the oil and gas industry, given the way its presenters have championed continued oil and gas expansion,” said Tessa Khan, director of environmental non-profit Uplift. 

Agnew, a former Cabinet Office minister under Boris Johnson, was in October appointed chair of UnHerd Ventures, another Marshall media vehicle. The company runs UnHerd, a publication founded in 2017 to give a platform to marginalised views.

Agnew also has shares in Carbon Plus Capital, a private investment company which specialises in carbon offsetting “based on the protection of forests”. This involves companies paying to plant trees to “offset” their greenhouse gas emissions. 

Carbon offsetting is a controversial idea that has been criticised by climate campaigners as a form of greenwashing. An investigation published last year by newspapers The Guardian, Die Zeit and non-profit SourceMaterial found that 90 percent of rainforest carbon offsets approved by the world’s largest certifier Verra were “largely worthless” and could actually increase global heating. 

Carbon Plus Capital partner Robin Warwick Edwards is a trustee of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank and the chair of its advisory council. The IEA, a free market group that has advocated for more fossil fuel extraction, received funding from BP for at least 50 years. 

Agnew and Edwards declined to comment. GB News did not respond. 

“Climate denial and investment in the fossil fuel industry go hand in hand”, said Carys Boughton of campaign group Fossil Free Parliament. 

“It makes complete sense that an expected new board member of GB News – a channel absolutely committed to attacking climate science and policy at every turn – is invested in Equinor, a company that, according to research by Oil Change International, ranks eighth worst in the world for its commitment to expanding oil and gas production.”

She added: “By spreading disinformation about the climate crisis, GB News is feeding into the fossil fuel industry’s licence to operate and thus helping to line the pockets of the industry’s shareholders.”

GB News in Turmoil

GB News hosts regularly attack climate policies and the science behind them. 

Numerous GB News presenters have also been vocal about their support for policies that would maintain and even extend the UK’s reliance on oil and gas. 

On 9 December 2022, host Mark Dolan praised West Cumbria Mining’s plan to open a new coal mine in Cumbria. He said the UK should “drill, baby, drill” for coal, oil and gas,  adding: “I think the push for net zero here is another element of liberal progressivism which is infecting the West.”

DeSmog revealed in October that Marshall Wace, the hedge fund run by Paul Marshall, had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuel companies as of June 2023. This included Chevron, Shell, Equinor, and 109 other fossil fuel companies. 

Marshall reportedly invested £10 million in GB News when it first launched two years ago and, in August 2022, joined the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group in a £60 million capital injection and buyout of GB News’s other major investor, Discovery. 

If he joins the All Perspectives board, Agnew would become the latest Conservative politician to be adopted by the right-wing broadcaster. GB News hosts include Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was business and energy secretary under Liz Truss, Lee Anderson, a former Tory deputy chair who defected to anti-net zero party Reform UK last month, as well as Conservative MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies.  

The All Perspectives board also includes Tory peer Baroness Helena Morrissey and George Farmer, a Reform UK donor and the son of Conservative peer Lord Michael Farmer. 

GB News reported losses of £42 million in the year to May 2023, and £76 million since its launch in 2021. This comes as rival populist channel TalkTV is closing its TV operation and switching to YouTube, having suffered losses of £90 million since it launched in 2022. 

Agnew’s appointment has not been confirmed by Marshall, Agnew or the company. 

“With advertisers steering clear, GB News is haemorrhaging cash – yet they continue to push misleading messages on climate change,” said Richard Wilson, director of the Stop Funding Heat campaign.  

“In the last month alone, GB News commentators have claimed climate change is a ‘social mania’, dismissed climate harms as ‘hypothetical’, and attacked United Nations warnings about the need for urgent climate action as ‘hysteria’.

“Now we learn that a prospective GB News board member has fossil fuel investments”.

He added: “Britain urgently needs a media that supports the public interest – not the interests of a toxic industry that is putting all of our futures at risk”.

Fossil Fuel Projects

Equinor claims it supplies 27 percent of the UK’s energy from oil and gas, and is currently investing $6 billion (£4.8 billion) a year in fossil fuel exploration and drilling. It also says that it powers one million homes in Europe via renewable offshore wind. 

Rosebank is the UK’s largest undeveloped oil and gas field, and could produce around 300 million barrels of oil over its lifetime, emitting 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. 

In October, DeSmog revealed that Equinor urged the UK government to help promote the oil and gas industry, and was one of several companies which lobbied to water down the windfall tax on oil and gas company profits following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The UK government controversially approved the Rosebank project in September, despite the International Energy Agency stating that new oil and gas exploration is incompatible with the ambition to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Green Party MP Caroline Lucas labelled the decision “morally obscene”.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak used his address at the COP28 climate summit in December to claim that “climate politics is close to breaking point”, while stating that the UK will meet its net zero targets, “but we’ll do it in a more pragmatic way, which doesn’t burden working people”.

However, a 2023 court case found that the government’s plans only added up to 95 percent of the reductions needed to meet its net zero targets. The Conservative government has said it plans to “max out” the UK’s North Sea oil and gas reserves.

Tessa Khan added: “Those pushing for new oil and gas drilling, whether that’s the UK government, GB News or Equinor, are making things worse for the millions struggling with high energy bills and for those now struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change such as UK farmers – and all just to make a few oil and gas companies and their shareholders even richer.”

DeSmog has previously revealed that the Conservative Party received £3.5 million in donations from fossil fuel interests and climate science deniers in 2022, while two-thirds of the directors in charge of the party’s multi-million-pound endowment fund have a financial interest in oil, gas, and highly polluting industries.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

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.
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.
Continue ReadingProspective GB News Board Member is Fossil Fuel Investor

Welsh UKIP general election candidate calls Angela Rayner a ‘slag from Bolton’

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https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-ukip-general-election-candidate-calls-angela-rayner-a-slag-from-bolton/

Stan Robinson (left) and Dan Morgan (right). Image: Voice of Wales

A foul-mouthed fascist who will be UKIP’s Westminster candidate for Llanelli at the next general election has been condemned for referring to Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner as a “common oik” and a “slag from Bolton”.

Stan Robinson made the comments during a vlog he presented with his fellow “Voice of Wales” activist Dan Morgan, a convicted fraudster who was given a suspended prison sentence for his role in a multi-million-pound insurance scam that saw people duped into paying up-front fees with the promise of refunds that never materialised.

During a rant about Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, which is polling far higher than UKIP, Robinson refers to former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson, who recently defected to Reform, saying: “They’re so inextricably tied together, it’s like Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, a common oik. In order to personify [sic – presumably he means pacify] the working class, they have to have the slag from Bolton on.”

Ineptitude

Robinson’s rudeness is matched by his geographical ineptitude. Ms Rayner doesn’t come from Bolton. She was born in Stockport, on the other side of Manchester, and is the MP for nearby Ashton-under-Lyne.

In the vlog, Robinson also makes a fool of himself by confusing the Sussex constituency of Lewes with the Scottish island of Lewis.

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https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-ukip-general-election-candidate-calls-angela-rayner-a-slag-from-bolton/

Continue ReadingWelsh UKIP general election candidate calls Angela Rayner a ‘slag from Bolton’