https://www.declassifieduk.org/gaza-reveals-how-britain-is-run-and-why-we-must-change-it
The horror of Israel’s genocide exposes the UK’s oligarchic governance system, and implores us to transform our political system
This should be a pivotal moment in British history. Our political system has utterly failed to confront a genocide.
Rather, that system has allowed the British establishment to be complicit in one of the worst horrors of our time — Israel’s two-year offensive against Palestinians, complete with ethnic cleansing, systematic attacks on schools and hospitals, and crimes against humanity.
Now, under a current supposed ceasefire, Israel is still killing Palestinians and their plight in Gaza remains dire, as the world sees the extent of the mass destruction visited on them.
Throughout the attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, British leaders have actively cooperated with Israel in their military, trade and diplomatic policies.
Still now, significant sanctions on Israel are completely off the government’s agenda – a striking contrast to Russia – because the establishment chooses to back Israel even in its criminality.
There is little morality in British political and economic decision-making. But this doesn’t mean the system is “broken”; it’s working as it’s intended to.
What we’re witnessing is the pinnacle of ministerial impunity for complicity in crimes overseas, and the utter irrelevance of human rights and international law to UK policy-making. More important to the establishment than these has been protecting Israel, and the British and Israeli arms industries.
Gaza illustrates many deep problems in British governance and exposes the illusion that the UK is a democracy. A mass movement is needed to address ten major issues.
Upholding human rights
Most obviously, Gaza shows how Whitehall’s foreign policy-making doesn’t prioritise human life, or even take it seriously.
From the outset in October 2023, UK ministers put their strategic alliance with Israel above the lives of dehumanised Palestinians, even as the death toll mounted in the tens of thousands. Ministers in both Conservative and Labour governments overtly apologised for obvious Israeli breaches of international law and human rights.
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Upholding international law
Every UK government says it upholds international law but this is plainly untrue. Gaza highlights that ministers think they can behave like criminals, supporting the laws they like and ignoring those they don’t.
Whitehall has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Israeli war crimes and given ‘special immunity’ for Israeli military leaders to visit Britain. It has done nothing to support the various international bodies demanding the UK fulfils its obligations to stop aiding Israel’s occupation policies and “prevent and punish” it, as the Genocide Convention demands.
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Holding ministers accountable
We have to face the fact there is currently little chance of holding British ministers to account for their complicity in Israel’s genocide. The UK’s governance system has been designed so this cannot happen.
A mediaeval concept called ‘crown immunity’ makes ministers immune from prosecution for deaths overseas, as in Palestine, or at home due to Covid or austerity.
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Responding to popular pressure
The majority of the British public has opposed Israel’s attack on Gaza and sympathises with the Palestinians.
Public pressure – including dozens of big national marches – eventually forced the government to pull back (at least rhetorically) from its initial unadulterated public support for Israel’s mass attacks.
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Britain has all the fancy trimmings of democracy but little of the real practice of it. UK foreign policy is in reality made by an elite few and routinely doesn’t promote the national public interest or real national security.
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Greater MP accountability
What is parliament for? If our elected MPs cannot collectively ensure the establishment is not complicit in genocide – the most heinous international crime – or that governments uphold international law – another basic duty – then frankly the power they have is fictitious and they’ve lost the right to represent the British people.
MPs do not routinely hold ministers to account and have utterly failed to do so over Gaza.
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Barring a general election there are very few mechanisms at the disposal of UK citizens to formally hold their MP to account for their actions between elections.
MPs failing to challenge British backing for Israel’s genocide should be booted out of office by the electorate.
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Ending excessive government secrecy
The UK system thrives on official secrecy, the chief currency of Whitehall which has been described as the ‘English disease’.
We put up with the extreme state of official secrecy only because we’ve so far had to, because there has been no serious attempt by a political party to open up the system and make it less secretive.
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We have to finally address this ‘national security’ bullshit which all governments hide behind.
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Supporting independent media
Gaza clearly shows the media routinely function as de facto assets of the state, amplifying its views and failing to adequately report independent or contradictory narratives.
Compare Declassified’s numerous revelations about the extent to which the UK has been supporting Israel with Britain’s ‘mainstream’ national media, which regularly parrots Israeli propaganda.
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Public anger with the way the legacy media have reported on the genocide is palpable.
But there’s little genuine media accountability in the UK and outlets routinely publish false information with no comeback. Stronger democratic regulation that promotes higher media standards, whilst of course preserving free speech, is needed.
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Curbing the power of the Israel lobby
A foreign power wielding undue influence over UK politics is neither democratic nor acceptable – it’s why many people voted for Brexit. The government is rightly keen to prevent influence from states like Russia or China but actively welcomes it from Israel.
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Ensuring independence from the US
Britain’s kow-towing to Israel is substantially due to Whitehall’s unwillingness to offend the US, for whom support for Israel is a cardinal feature of foreign policy. This again shows that Britain is not truly an independent state.
Perhaps few needed reminding of this, especially those who lived through Tony Blair’s defiance of the public to work alongside Washington in the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.
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Protecting civil liberties
The government’s willingness to shelve some of our democratic rights on the altar of backing a foreign state, and one engaged in genocide, is an alarming sign of establishment priorities.
Faced with major opposition to its policies, the government has resorted to policing the opposition to them and in restricting civil liberties. The clampdown on the right to protest has included repeated attempts to restrict protest routes and the police questioning MPs under caution for breaching protest “conditions”. This shows elite contempt for free speech and reveals also the weakness of the establishment’s arguments.
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Building a movement against war, militarism and impunity
The establishment will not concede any of these changes willingly. It is obvious to say, but the UK needs an organised movement against war, militarism and impunity.
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UK complicity in the genocide endured. These last two years should cause a sober assessment of how the state responds to challenges and what is necessary to defeat the British war machine.
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I am not able to republish the entire article. See the original at https://www.declassifieduk.org/gaza-reveals-how-britain-is-run-and-why-we-must-change-it
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