Campaigners outside the High Court in London where Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, is taking legal action against the Department for Business and Trade over decisions not to suspend licences for the export of weapons and military equipment to Israel, November 18, 2024
A HIGH COURT hearing will be scheduled on the government’s continued export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, it has been confirmed.
This is the latest development in a legal challenge to the arms sales brought by Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (Glan).
Last September, the Labour government failed to impose a full arms embargo as Israel continued its genocide in Gaza, suspending only 30 arms export licences out of 350 in total.
Among the goods still being exported were parts for F-35 warplanes, which are used to drop 2,000lb bombs on innocent civilians.
Court documents revealed in November that the government knew there was a “clear risk” that the exports could be used to violate international humanitarian law, but it did not suspend them, claiming that such action would “have a profound impact on international peace and security” and “undermine US confidence in the UK and Nato.”
In his latest ruling on the export of arms to Israel, Mr Justice Chamberlain noted: “There is a powerful public interest in a quick, final determination of its legality, one way or the other.”
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
General Basyuk (left) is one of Israel’s most senior military commanders. (Photo: IDF)
Israeli General Oded Basyuk and his delegation were given special diplomatic immunity to visit Britain last month, the UK government has confirmed.
Basyuk is the head of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Operations Directorate, which is responsible for preparing the Israeli military for war.
He was on the ground in Gaza during Israel’s most recent onslaught and presided over decision-making on last year’s offensive in southern Lebanon.
Declassifiedexposed Basyuk’s trip to London on 22 January, questioning the Israeli General and his delegation after they had finished meetings at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Whitehall.
The UK government has now revealed it “gave consent for special mission status for the visit to the UK on 21-22 January of Major General Oded Bassiuk… and delegation” to attend meetings with officials with the MoD, Foreign Office, and Cabinet Office.
The information was provided in response to a parliamentary question from Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth.
Jonathan Purcell from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) told Declassified: “It is not only an insult to the victims of the genocide in Gaza, but also a total disregard to the rule of law, for the UK to grant diplomatic immunity to senior Israeli officials who have been actively responsible for international crimes against the Palestinian people.”
While Basyuk is not currently sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC), it is possible to issue private arrest warrants in Britain under universal jurisdiction legislation, which allows for the most serious crimes to be prosecuted regardless of where they are committed.
However, the UK government blocked this avenue for judicial redress by issuing Basyuk and his delegation with a “special mission” certificate, granting them diplomatic immunity for the duration of the visit.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Labour’s new ambassador to the U.S. founded Global Counsel, a firm with major fossil fuel clients.
Labour’s top diplomat to Donald Trump’s United States leads a public affairs firm that has attempted to influence the new UK government on behalf of the oil and gas giant Shell, and the coal mining company Anglo American.
Peter Mandelson – who was a Cabinet minister under former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – has been accepted as the UK’s ambassador to the U.S. by Trump’s new administration.
In addition to his new diplomatic role, which he will formally begin in February, Mandelson is president and chair of Global Counsel, a London-based political consultancy and lobbying organisation. He will retain shares in the company even after taking up his new position in Washington DC, the Financial Times has reported.
According to official records, after July’s general election Global Counsel lobbied the new Labour government on behalf of Shell, one of the world’s most polluting companies.
Shell is still committed to exploring for new sources of oil and gas and does not have any plans to reduce the overall amount it produces by 2030, in contravention of climate science. In 2021, the District Court of the Hague found that the total CO2 emissions of the Shell group exceeded the emissions of many states, including the Netherlands.
Lobbyists must declare if they have attempted to arrange meetings or influence ministers or senior civil servants on behalf of their clients. However, the contents of these discussions are not publicly available.
Global Counsel seemingly has close ties to the Labour Party. Prior to the 4 July election, the company supplied a staff member to Tulip Siddiq, who served as financial secretary to the Treasury until 14 January, a donation in kind worth £35,835, according to the register of MPs’ financial interests.
Global Counsel is one of seven consultancies with a history of donating to Labour that have lobbied on behalf of fossil fuel clients since July’s election.
The client list at Mandelson’s lobbying firm also includes Anglo American, a British mining multinational which is a major producer of coal, and U.S. multinational bank JP Morgan, which has financed $430 billion in fossil fuel projects since the 2015 Paris Agreement, including $40 billion in 2023, according to the NGO Banktrack.
Another client, UK bank Standard Chartered, has financed $71 billion in fossil fuel projects in the same period, including $7 billion in 2023.
Other Global Counsel clients include food and beverage giant Nestle, which has emissions three times the size of its home country Switzerland, and the controversial tech firm Palantir, founded by Trump ally Peter Thiel.
Mandelson, who called Trump “reckless and dangerous to the world” in 2019, this week told Fox News his previous remarks were “ill-judged and wrong”, and that he has a “fresh respect” for the new U.S. president.
Global Counsel, and the Cabinet Office were approached for comment.
Transatlantic Ties
Mandelson’s appointment comes at a crucial time for climate policy, with a transatlantic network of political actors working increasingly closely to derail global action to achieve net zero emissions.
Since his inauguration last week, President Trump has removed the U.S. from the flagship 2015 Paris climate accord, banned offshore wind farms, and declared a “national energy emergency” in order to open new oil and gas projects.
His plans could add an extra four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to U.S. emissions by 2030, according to the climate publication Carbon Brief.
Trump received more than $32 million from the oil and gas sector for his 2024 campaign. The fossil fuel industry spent $445 million on political donations, lobbying and advertising between January 2023 and November 2024 to influence Trump and Congress, according to the green advocacy group Climate Power.
As DeSmog revealed last month, Mandelson’s counterpart, Trump’s ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens, runs a firm with investments in several oil and gas companies, including one wholly owned by his family business.
The UK government is committed to removing fossil fuels from the UK’s power system by 2030, but this week approved a third runway at Heathrow Airport – the second most polluting airport in the world, according to a 2021 study – and pledged to remove environmental regulations on new building projects.
According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, the next few years are crucial if we want to limit the worst effects of global warming, including drought, flooding, and heat waves.
To keep within the 1.5C warming limit set by the Paris Agreement, the IPCC says that emissions need to be reduced by at least 43 percent by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, and at least 60 percent by 2035.
The Treasury is at the centre of a move to refocus the government’s agenda on ‘growth at all costs’ | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Exclusive: Government is inviting lobbyists and their clients to play a major role in the deregulatory agenda
“Growth comes from business, not the government.”
That was the message a government minister delivered to hundreds of corporate lobbyists, including those representing banks, arms companies and pharmaceuticals, during a webinar this morning.
Lord Livermore, the financial secretary to the Treasury, made the comments at the online event, which was the first in a series aimed at encouraging lobbyists to play a major role in the government’s ‘growth at all costs’ agenda.
In the call, which openDemocracy attended, Livermore made clear that Number 10 sees this agenda as being driven by corporations, while the government is a secondary actor that “work[s] in partnership with business”.
Also present among the 700 attendees were lobbyists representing tech firms, energy giants and consultancies, and those working for agencies including Hanbury, Headland, Lexington, Brunswick, Cavendish and Grayling.
These people and their clients are a “huge and important part” of the government’s plans, Livermore said, stressing that ministers are “really keen to draw on… the expertise that exists within your organisations and your clients”.
He added that the government’s focus is on getting rid of “stifling regulation that has for too long held business back” and “removing barriers to growth that we, in partnership with business, identify”.
The treasury minister also discussed Great British Energy’s role in “derisking investment” and providing capital for public-private partnerships, to make renewable infrastructure investment more attractive to the market.
While the government has been unapologetic about its outreach to business as a means to drive growth, Labour’s critics say an ever-closer relationship with lobbyists only heightens the impression of a government that does not have an agenda of its own.
Speaking to openDemocracy after the call, Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski said: “With inequality rife, the government should be listening to the people who keep our country running and those suffering, not hosting desperate mass Zoom calls with arms dealers and oil giants.”
Cutting red tape
Setting out the government’s priorities, Livermore put a particular focus on achieving major reform to the planning system to encourage more commercial and infrastructure projects, and getting rid of regulations that “stand in the way of businesses investing”.
Livermore talked up the recent ousting of the head of the competitions regulator and his replacement with a former Amazon executive as evidence that the government is taking seriously its deregulatory agenda.
He also mentioned the recent push for regulators to submit proposals for growth and said Labour’s National Wealth Fund will “help catalyse private investment into sectors where at the moment, perhaps there’s a too high degree of risk”.
“We can use the National Wealth Fund to help derisk some of those investments,” said the minister. Economists describe this process as the state stepping in to improve the private returns on infrastructure assets.
Livermore continued that the fund could be used to “guide investments, particularly into the kind of clean energy investments of the future that we want to see”.
The government-lobbyist calls are being led by a new partnerships team in No 10 fronted by James Carroll, who has previously worked for the party on external relations and business engagement.
Also on the call was a senior executive at Anacta UK, described by The Times as the “first Starmerite lobbying firm”, and a banking lobbyist who is also involved in the running of Labour in the City, a group which convenes Labour supporters who work in financial services.
Lobbyists were able to submit questions during the call. One criticised “some parts of the business community” which have been “vocally critical about the government’s handling of the economy so far,” describing it as “unhelpful”.
They then asked: “How can firms who don’t want to talk down the UK but would rather promote a more positive narrative about the many opportunities open to British businesses best work with the government to do so?”
This prompted Carroll to quip: “I promise I haven’t planted that question.”
Carroll then rounded out the call by reiterating the importance the government places on developing this relationship with lobbyists.
“Just to emphasise,” he said, “your clients [and] your expertise is critical to delivering these ambitious national missions the prime minister has set out and the chancellor reiterated this week.”
Polanski, the Green’s deputy leader, said the plans to derisk investment “amounts to privatising the rewards and socialising the risks”.
He added: “Regulation exists for a reason, Grenfell stands as a towering reminder of lives lost and the total failure of standards.
“This isn’t growth for the many, just more wealth for the super-rich while the rest of us are told to look up at their private jets and wait for the trickle down.”
General view of an Asda sign at the supermarket’s head office in Leeds
TENS of thousands of Asda workers, mostly women, could be on track to receive a historic payout after a decade-long battle in a landmark case for pay equality.
An employment tribunal has ruled that most shopworkers involved in the case have jobs of equal value to higher-paid positions in Asda’s warehouses.
GMB union, along with legal firm Leigh Day, brought the case against the supermarket, arguing that the predominantly female retail workforce is paid up to £3.74 per hour less than their mostly male warehouse counterparts.
The tribunal compared the jobs of 14 women lead claimants working on the shop floor with 17 warehouse roles.
It found 11 claimants to be in jobs of “equal value” to at least some of the warehouse roles, with the tribunal describing it as a “mixed picture.”
One other claimant, a section leader, was found to be equal to all of them.
The outcome means that the Asda workers have clinched victory in two out of three stages of their equal pay claim, first launched in 2014.
