Activists protest against insurance companies underwriting the arms trade, migrant detention facilities and climate destruction, March 25, 2025
INSURANCE firms complicit in climate disaster, human rights abuses and Israel’s genocide in Gaza were stormed by protesters as marches were held across the country today.
Two were arrested for climbing one of the Corinthian columns in front of the Royal Exchange in the City of London, dropping a banner bearing the legend “Boycott.”
Other protesters “crashed” insurers’ offices and occupied foyers as marches took place in city centres as part of the Boycott Bloody Insurance (BBI) campaign.
Activists targeted the offices of Aviva, AIG, Allianz and Axa for investing more £1.3 billion in companies supplying military equipment used by Israel since October 7 2023.
Protests took place in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Lancaster, Guildford, Blackburn and Preston.
Groups involved in the protests include Coal Action Network, Palestine Youth Movement (PYM), Parents 4 Palestine, Energy Embargo for Palestine, Tipping Point UK, Youth Front for Palestine and Axe Drax.
Andrew Taylor of BBI said: “Insurers underwrite weapons, detention centres and fossil fuels, causing environmental destruction, human rights abuses and genocide.
“We are calling on organisations across the UK to boycott deadly insurance companies.
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/QILgUHrdWREOrcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
BRITISH billionaires’ wealth surged by £35 million a day last year, new research reveals, as the rest of the nation worries about energy bills.
According to a report by Oxfam released today, the collective wealth of billionaires in Britain increased to a total of £182 billion in 2024.
The amount would be enough to cover the whole of Manchester in £10 notes one and a half times, the charity said.
The same report revealed that global billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion (£1.6bn) in 2024 — three times faster than the year before.
Oxfam inequality policy lead Anna Marriott said that the world is on course for the emergence of at least five trillionaires within a decade.
“The global economic system is broken, wholly unfit for purpose as it enables and perpetuates this explosion of riches while nearly half of humanity continues to live in poverty,” she said.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy.Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
If someone read out the following list of policies, which party would you think was in power? Depriving 2 million pensioners of the winter fuel allowance. Refusing to scrap the two-child benefit cap to lift nearly half a million children out of poverty. Raising tuition fees for students by more than the rate of inflation. Cutting overseas aid to the poorest people across the globe by half. Cutting £5bn from benefits for disabled people. Introducing a new round of cuts to government department spending and laying off 50,000 public sector workers.
I very much doubt even 12 months ago you would have thought that this would be the Labour party in government.
It is expected that in the spring statement, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will seek to justify this effective return to austerity by the necessity to maintain “iron” economic discipline through a rigid adherence to her fiscal rules. The chancellor’s argument will be that the world has changed, which is true, but this prompts the question: why, then, doesn’t the government’s strategy change to meet the situation it now finds itself in? Even Germany’s iron laws welded into its constitution are being adapted to the new economic realities.
Media briefings suggest that in her spring statement speech on Wednesday Reeves wants to be upbeat about Labour’s achievements so far. She is likely to cite the welcome rise in the minimum wage, but may fail to acknowledge that even working full-time on the minimum wage means a person is nearly £10,000 below the annual income, after tax, calculated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as necessary to secure an acceptable standard of living.
In recent interviews Reeves has already claimed this year’s above-inflation rise in wages as a government success, but has failed to mention that even with this long awaited rise, wages remain so low that 37% of people having to claim universal credit are actually in work.At least she will have some big numbers to cite on investment in the NHS and infrastructure. The problem is that much of the new NHS money could be drained away by the strains placed on it as disabled people find they are unable to cope without the support that has been taken away from them. This will include elderly people without adequate physical care and younger people without mental health support.
The problem with the increase in infrastructure investment is also that the memory of the cut in Ed Miliband’s green investment budget lingers in the mind and, as Reeves has repeatedly been warned, infrastructure investment takes a long time to feed into growth on any scale in the economy, and any benefit is likely to land after the next election.
The danger now is that the government’s standing could be irretrievably damaged as the Labour party is branded just another austerity party. This will provide the key that opens the door to the populist Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party doesn’t need to present a rational, implementable alternative economic policy programme. It will simply go full Trump to distinguish itself from both Conservatives and Labour by portraying itself as anti-establishment, the defender and voice of the working class – while targeting immigrants, wokeism and even some corporations.
The polls and council byelection results are showing that there is a crisis of confidence in the government, reflecting the reactions and worries about recent policies among our supporters and even party members. But it is not too late to turn things around. In the very short term, a relaxing of the fiscal rules would enable the chancellor to raise sufficient taxes from those with the broadest shoulders to prevent a return to ongoing austerity.
It is not rocket science to implement a programme of marginal tax rises that would end cuts and fund the progressive policies any Labour government would aim to pursue. The list is obvious: equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates; a realistic rise in corporation tax; a financial transaction tax; the introduction of a small wealth tax on multimillionaires, called for by the Patriotic Millionaires group.
There are also many non tax measures to help people who are still struggling with the cost of living, such as fair rent controls, service charge caps, stricter controls on energy and water price rises, and reviews of food price rises to prevent price gouging. However, the spring statement and the subsequent public spending review in June should define what the long-term strategy of the government is rather than responding to the short-term political and economic mess it has created for itself. For this I urge the chancellor to look beyond just stabilising our economy and managing the existing system slightly more efficiently than the Conservative chancellors before her.
People want long-term change that provides everyone with a decent quality of life and addresses the grotesque levels of inequality in our society and the environmental crisis. Over the past 25 years, I have followed the work of Richard Wilkinson and subsequently his colleague Kate Pickett at the Equality Trust. Their detailed research has forensically revealed the impact of inequality on our society and economy. To quote the trust’s report timed to coincide with the election of the new government last year: “Biased public policies and flawed economic systems are serving a few wealthy people at the expense of the wellbeing of people and planet.”
The report went on to outline how the duty that was enacted in the Equality Act 2010 to reduce inequalities resulting from socioeconomic disadvantage could be implemented by redistribution power and wealth in our society. This includes new policy-making mechanisms that empower communities to identify and design the services to address their needs, wealth taxes to fund these, universal social security programmes and community wealth-building.
I thought and hoped, maybe naively, that this was the sort of programme that the incoming Labour government would implement. The track record of the government so far is, sadly, remarkably distant from this progressive approach. The spring statement could be the opportunity to change that narrative, not just by bridging the short funding gap with redistribution but more importantly to narrate and launch the longer term progressive path we need to achieve true Labour goals.
My remaining hope is that the chancellor will seize that opportunity, for I fear that if she doesn’t it will be impossible to recover the ground we have lost.
I am quoting the full article assuming that John McDonnell owns the copyright and intends that it is widely published. I will alter this post if asked to by the Guardian.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Hundreds attend an event to support calls for the release of Mahmoud Khalil (Photo: Wyatt Souers)
Hundreds attend event in support of detained Palestine activist and raise funds for Middle East Children’s Alliance
On Saturday, March 22, hundreds packed the concert hall of the New York Society for Ethical Culture in Manhattan for an event organized by the People’s Forum calling for the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention.
Weeks after his sudden arrest by plainclothes immigration authorities outside of his apartment building, Khalil still languishes in the notoriously violent ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana. Khalil, his family and friends, his legal team, and the growing movement for his release are currently battling the Trump administration in order to bring the activist home before the birth of his first child next month.
Activists and organizers of the event vowed to keep the struggle going for Palestine and Khalil’s release. “We will let the Trump administration know in no uncertain terms, that as they carry out their war on our right to speak, to assemble, they will have to deal with us,” said Layan Sima Fuleihan, Education Director at the People’s Forum, speaking at the event, titled “Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine”.
“We stand with Mahmoud and all the student activists daring to resist. We will stop business as usual, and we will never stop until Palestine is free,” said Manolo De Los Santos, People’s Forum Executive Director, at the event.
Last week, the Trump administration added new accusations against Khalil, in a move that appears to be intended to sidestep the anti-free speech accusations that have emerged from his case. Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that Khalil failed to disclose his work for UNRWA, and also some work he did for the UK government after 2022.
Hundreds packed into the concert hall at the New York Society for Ethical Culture (Photo: Wyatt Souers)
Legal battle continues
On Saturday, Shezza Abboushi Dallal, an attorney at the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project and part of Khalil’s legal team, provided some updates to his case. According to Dallal, Khalil’s legal team is fighting tooth and nail to have Khalil moved from Louisiana to ICE detention in New Jersey, and to have him released from detention on bail, to return home to his wife Noor Abdalla, who is due to give birth in less than a month. Khalil’s legal team is also fighting his immigration case in an administrative court in Louisiana.
“The legal fight continues on all fronts,” Dallal addressed the crowd of hundreds. “And it will continue until Mahmoud is brought back here, home, with his wife, and soon his newborn child, and until his constitutional rights are vindicated.”
Dallal continued: “We know this is a test case for how far the government can take punishing organizers. And this administration says as much. They tell us plainly, that Mahmoud’s case is, ‘the blueprint.’”
“What’s at stake in this case is the very ability to dissent,” she said. According to Dallal, if Khalil’s case is the blueprint, “your collective refusal to accept it is too.”
Attendees at the event shared a willingness to fight for Khalil and the right to dissent. One attendee, Sasha, who like Khalil is a green card holder, told Peoples Dispatch that she attended to support the activist because she doesn’t believe that “expressing our right to free speech should be a punishable act, especially if it’s something in support of Palestine, a country that’s being oppressed.”
Shezza Abboushi Dallal, an attorney at the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project and part of Khalil’s legal team, provides updates Photo: Wyatt Souers)
Jewish activists stand against accusations of anti-semitism
“My entire life, I have been frustrated by the actions that Israel has taken in Gaza,” Montana, another attendee, told Peoples Dispatch. “I continue to be frustrated by them, and also angry. And this unconscionable arrest that was made a few weeks ago is further proof that our country is not doing what they are supposed to be doing and has always not done what they are supposed to be doing,” she continued. “I’m a Jew, and I proudly support Gaza, and do not support Israel.”
The movement for Palestine, and especially the wave of Gaza Solidarity Encampments that began at Columbia University and spread worldwide, have been accused of anti-semitism by right-wing and Zionist groups. This is also the pretext that the Trump administration is using to crack down on student activism at Columbia University.
On March 13, the Trump administration issued what has been called a “ransom note” against the institution, demanding the University take action against student protest and challenging the academic freedom of certain departments if the institution wanted to retain USD 400 million in federal funding that Trump was threatening to revoke.
Grant Miner president of United Auto Workers Local 2710, addressed crowd (Photo: Wyatt Souers)
Columbia expelled, fired, suspended, or revoked the degrees of 22 students over allegations of pro-Palestine protest activity on the same day that the Trump administration issued its threatening letter. And on the precise deadline issued by the Trump administration, March 20, the university capitulated to Trump’s demands, ending faculty control of the Middle East, South Asian, and African studies department and the Center for Palestinian Studies, declaring anti-Zionist policies of student clubs to be anti-semitism, and empowering campus police to arrest students.
One of those 22 sanctioned students is Grant Miner, who is the president of United Auto Workers Local 2710, which represents graduate student workers at Columbia. Miner himself is Jewish and is a Jewish studies scholar, making Trump’s accusations of anti-semitism against student leaders ring hollow. Miner also spoke at the event on Saturday.
“Many of the students who participated [in protest] were Jewish,” Miner told the crowd. “However, I would also like to dispel the myth that we, as Jewish people, hold special or necessary insight into this issue,” Miner continued. “More and more people realize everyday that what is happening in Palestine is wrong and students who protested stand on the correct side of the most important moral issue of our time.”
Artists speak out
Speakers also included filmmaker and artist Alana Hadid, who is Palestinian and the sister of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, celebrated actor Susan Sarandon, as well as poet and rapper Macklemore, who wrote the song “Hind’s Hall” inspired by Columbia student protesters who extended the Gaza Solidarity Encampment to Hamilton Hall, renaming it after the five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was targeted and killed by Israeli forces in January of 2024.
Macklemore spoke about his own fears of speaking out in support of the Palestinian cause, including fears centering around being labeled as anti-semitic. But ultimately, he reached the conclusion that “it is our moral obligation to adamantly protest the atrocities we are witnessing and funding or we are complicit.”
“I want to live in a world where standing up against genocide isn’t brave, it’s human,” said Macklemore.
Hadid, whose family members were victims of the Nakba, said that “what is happening [in Palestine] is not complicated.” Last week, Israel broke the ceasefire agreement and resumed the genocide in Gaza.
“This is a genocide, this is ethnic cleansing, this is the crime of the century yet we are the ones being silenced, we are the ones losing our jobs, we are the ones losing our homes, because we dare to speak the truth,” Hadid said. “But we refuse to be silent.”
Palestinian filmmaker and artist Alana Hadid speaks at event (Photo: Wyatt Souers)
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
