Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch delivers a speech on the economy at Victory Services Club, central London, June 29, 2026
TORY leader Kemi Badenoch was accused today of a Trumpian obsession in a pro-oil and gas speech.
Ms Badenoch said the economy was “in limbo” while businesses waited to see what Andy Burnham would do if he became the next prime minister.
“Britain is facing a summer of chaos,” she said in a speech in London.
“It is time to get Britain drilling again and if Andy Burnham had any sense, he would sack [Energy Secretary] Ed Miliband, not make him chancellor.”
The MP for North West Essex has previously called for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
Uplift deputy director Robert Palmer said: “Kemi Badenoch’s Trumpian obsession with oil and gas is blinding the Conservative Party to the reality of how climate change is affecting Britain right now.”
He said last week’s heatwave had seen schools shut, trains stopped and people’s health suffering, with likely fatalities, arguing that continued fossil fuel burning is driving more frequent and intense heatwaves in Britain.
“The science is clear, there can be no new oil fields if we want to stay within safe climate targets,” Mr Palmer said.
“Yet Kemi Badenoch’s response is to want to abandon those targets and drill even more.
“Pushing ahead with this reckless approach will leave ordinary people paying the price, through more extreme heat, more damaging floods, and the rising costs that come with climate breakdown.
“Either Kemi Badenoch believes, like Trump, that climate change is a ‘con job’ or she is simply willing to ignore the consequences for us and our children.”
He warned more drilling would not cut energy bills but would increase oil company profits and worsen the climate crisis, calling it “profoundly irresponsible.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.UK Conservative Party leader Kemi ‘not a genocide’ Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dust
Andy Burnham delivers a speech at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, to pledge to give Britain the “circuit-breaker it needs” whilst unveiling his plans for devolution and the economy, June 29, 2026
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The lack of detail justifies caution for the left. “Greater public control” stops short of renationalisation of core sectors, a minimum requirement to stop the fleecing of the British people, water pollution and the protection of vested interests in fossil fuels.
Reindustrialisation will not happen by osmosis, nor will it be possible to deliver without a national industrial strategy and substantial public investment.
Regeneration dependent on the “public/private partnership” redolent of the Blair/Brown governments is likely to deliver the same PFI rip-off currently impoverishing the NHS and education. The power that Burnham wishes to devolve will be largely in the hands of directly elected mayors who will have the power to over-rule local authorities with minimal scrutiny or accountability between elections. In turn these mayors will be vulnerable to corporate lobbying, especially from a construction sector which has driven large-scale council estate and town centre demolition and redevelopment in the face of huge community opposition.
While the implied devolution of the “Whitehall machine” to local government may be a good thing, what will it mean for civil servants and quango employees, thousands of whose jobs may be redeployed around the country?
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A new programme to build council homes at scale while welcomed needs to answer how it will be delivered given the lack of design and build expertise in local authorities and over-reliance on large-scale private developers who are entirely profit-driven. Will the emphasis shift from demolition to refurbishment and retrofitting the existing stock and empty homes to bring them back into use?
The trade union movement and wider left must now pile on the pressure to ensure the lack of detail is not some devilish portent, but a promise of an end to neoliberalism as the first step to socialist renewal.
Sarah Cotte arriving at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, central London, where she is charged with two counts of expressing support for Hamas, March 24, 2025
PROTESTERS gathered outside the Old Bailey today as the jury began deliberating in the trial of 22-year-old pro-Palestine activist Sarah Cotte.
Supporters from the Defend the Soas 2 campaign held up a banner reading: “Defend the right to protest for Palestine — Drop charges now!” and waved Palestine flags.
Ms Cotte, a former student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), faces two counts under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for a speech she gave at the university in October 2023 on the right of the Palestinian people to armed self-defence.
The prosecution followed a complaint by UK Lawyers for Israel, leading to a police raid on her home in January 2024.
In her closing remarks on Friday, defence barrister Margo Munro Kerr reminded the jury that Ms Cotte’s speech was completely legal and that protecting solidarity with Palestine is “an absolute necessity in a democratic society.”
During the week-long hearing, many individuals and organisations have joined the protest outside the court.
Supporters have also stood shoulder to shoulder with the “Filton 8” defendants, who are currently undergoing their own trial at the Old Bailey.
A Defend the Soas 2 spokesperson said: “This trial has never been about justice; it is about intimidation.
“The Terrorism Act 2000 is being deployed by a zionist-supporting Labour government precisely as it was intended: to systematically criminalise anti-imperialists and silence solidarity with liberation movements.
“While Israeli war criminals enter Britain fresh from committing genocide in Gaza without a glance from the police, a young woman is dragged through the courts for speaking the truth.
“Sarah did not break under the prosecution’s pressure, and neither will we.”
SOAS student charged under counter-terror laws speaks out:
“Really Draconian powers are in place to police and harass and repress people who stand up and speak out on behalf of Palestine and on behalf of other causes.” pic.twitter.com/8EQSkjvuq5
— International Youth & Students For Social Equality (@IYSSE_UK) November 10, 2025
Police allege Sarah was “inviting support for a proscribed organisation”, i.e., Hamas. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.
A guilty verdict would criminalise free speech and assembly in defence of the Palestinians on university campuses across Britain.
On the day Sarah was charged, police arrested her comrade, who was standing outside Hammersmith police station waiting for her release. Eyewitnesses say the student was targeted for holding Sarah’s bag, which contained her phone and other personal items later impounded by police. Together, they are known as the SOAS 2.
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Sarah: The maximum penalty I could get is 14 years of prison time, which is incredibly harsh. But more serious is the precedent it would set for expressions of support for the Palestinian resistance being treated as illegal speech under the Terrorism Act 2000, as expressions of support for proscribed organizations. We must fight back against this, because it would restrict our freedom of speech even further. The repercussions on the movement here would be far ranging and dangerous. We need to bring more awareness to these cases. All I ever did was speak about a right that the Palestinians have under international law, and for that I could go to prison.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
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Palestine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Riyad Mansour makes a speech after the adoption of the Gaza draft resolution submitted by the United States to the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York, United States on June 10, 2024 [Selçuk Acar – Anadolu Agency]
Palestine’s UN envoy Riyad Mansour called for an end to Israel’s illegal annexation of Palestinian land, saying “annexation is an act of war” that “kills all peace efforts” and “cannot be bargained with,” Anadolu reports.
“Israel has decided to entrench its occupation rather than bring it to an end; whether in the Gaza Strip, where it has unlawfully seized control over 70% of the Gaza Strip, or in the West Bank, where it has effectively annexed over 60% of the West Bank and all of East Jerusalem,” Mansour said at the UN Security Council.
He said Israel’s actions are “not only illegal” but also “contrary to President (Donald) Trump’s plan and resolution 2803, which explicitly states there should be no occupation and no annexation,” adding that they aim at “blocking the promised pathway for Palestinian self-determination and independent statehood.”
Mansour warned that Israeli colonial plans in the E1 area amount to “a death penalty for the Palestinian state and the prospect for peace in our region.”
He also said Israel is “dismantling the historic status quo through repeated assaults against the sanctity of the holy site while asserting control over them,” as Palestinian communities continue to be “terrorized by Israeli occupation forces and settlers with constant attacks, the demolition of their homes, their forcible removal from their ancestral land.”
On Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, Mansour said the move is “not only illegal and part and parcel of stealing our resources, whether financial or natural,” warning it “aims at the collapse of the PA (Palestinian Authority) and constitutes such a threat to peace and security, given the political, social, and human ramifications and the impact on regional stability.”
He stressed that, despite global opposition, “annexation is underway at a faster pace than ever, more publicly than ever,” with Israel “defying the international community and denying international declarations.”
“Annexation is an act of war. It kills all peace efforts; it cannot be bargained with. It must be stopped,” Mansour said, calling on the international community to act decisively rather than issue further condemnations.
Noting that “the time for condemning and rejecting annexation is over,” he added: “Now is the time to end it once and for all and to choose resolutely the path of Palestinian self-determination and independent statehood and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the states of the region, including Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, towards shared security and prosperity in our region.”
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Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch delivers a speech on the economy at Victory Services Club, central London, June 29, 2026
