Lake Titicaca in South America. Its water levels are receding, partly due to shifts in rainfall caused by Amazon deforestation. Photograph: Benjamin Swift/The Guardian
It took an FOI request to bring this national security assessment to light. For ‘doomsayers’ like us, it is the ultimate vindication
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When the report at last appeared, thanks to an FoI request lodged by the Green Alliance, The Times reported that it had been significantly “abridged”, I expect by the same goons. Some of its starkest conclusions had been omitted. Even so, the assessment – believed to have been compiled by the joint intelligence committee (on which the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ sit) – is not exactly reassuring.
It echoes warnings some of us have made for years, only to be dismissed as nutters, doomsayers and extremists. It tells us that “ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse (irreversible loss of function beyond repair).” This presents a threat to “UK national security and prosperity”. It says “the world is already experiencing impacts including crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks. Threats will increase with degradation and intensify with collapse.” The results will include geopolitical and economic instability, increased conflict and competition for resources. “It is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.” It also warns that “conflict and military escalation will become more likely, both within and between states, as groups compete for arable land and food and water resources”.
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But what was cut from the report is, according to The Times, even graver, including a warning that the shrinkage of glaciers in the Himalayas, causing declining river flow, would “almost certainly escalate tensions” between China, India and Pakistan, leading to the possibility of nuclear war. Again, some of us have been trying to persuade governments to focus on this threat with little success.
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The report, notably shorter than most of its kind, gives every appearance of having been hastily and crudely truncated.
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I know this government exists only to disappoint us. But its environmental failures are even more striking than its failures on other issues. When the ruling party compares unfavourably with the one that brought us Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, it’s worse than a betrayal. It’s a threat to our survival.
dizzy: It was difficult to select extracts from this article, suggest that you read the original.
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.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Entrepreneur Michelle Mone is admiited to the House of Lords as Baroness Mone of Mayfair, after being made a Tory peer, October 2015
A FORMER Conservative peer under investigation for her alleged role in a £148 million Covid equipment scandal was allowed to continue collecting an estimated £15,000 a week in rent.
A court amended a previous order to freeze £75m of British assets belonging to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband after one of his companies received £122m in government contracts for unsuitable medical gowns.
Baroness Mone and Doug Barrowman will now be allowed to keep the estimated £15,000-a-week in rent from a £25m mansion in Belgravia, central London, as the inquiry continues.
The National Crime Agency opened an investigation into the Covid-era deal, which supplied 25 million defective surgical gowns to the government, which Mr Barrowman’s firm imported from China.
A court first ordered the couple’s assets to be frozen two years ago, while the NCA looked into the deal with PPE Medpro.
Covid-19 signage at the entrance to Craigavon Area Hospital in Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, May 5, 2020
Tens of thousands of lives were lost as PM embraced a ‘toxic and chaotic’ culture in No 10, Covid inquiry finds
BRITAIN’S pandemic response was “too little, too late” with tens of thousands of lives were lost as absent PM Boris Johnson embraced a “toxic and chaotic” culture in No 10, a damning Covid inquiry report found today.
More than 23,000 lives could have been saved if ministers imposed a lockdown just a week earlier in March 2020, Baroness Heather Hallett found.
She said that by the end of January 2020 it “should have been clear that the virus posed a serious and immediate threat” but all four British governments failed to act until it was “too late.”
Baroness Hallett described February 2020 as “a lost month” involving an “inexcusable” lack of urgency overall in government as Mr Johnson was too optimistic in his outlook in the early months of 2020.
By failing to tackle the “toxic and chaotic culture” in No 10 throughout the pandemic “and, at times, actively encouraging it — Mr Johnson reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making,” the retired judge and cross-bench peer said.
There are more than 1,800 files in the leak of material from Boris Johnson’s private office. Composite: Getty Images/Guardian Design
[Guardian] Exclusive: Leak exposes how former leader has used publicly subsidised office to manage commercial interests
A trove of leaked data from Boris Johnson’s private office reveals how the former prime minister has been profiting from contacts and influence he gained in office in a possible breach of ethics and lobbying rules.
The Boris Files contain emails, letters, invoices, speeches and business contracts. They shine a spotlight on the inner workings of a publicly subsidised company Johnson established after leaving Downing Street in September 2022.
The trove reveals how Johnson has used the company to manage an array of highly paid jobs and business ventures. They raise questions for the former Conservative leader about whether he has breached “revolving door” rules governing post-ministerial careers.
The revelations have echoes of the Greensill Capital lobbying scandal that embroiled one of Johnson’s predecessors, David Cameron. They may also spark questions about the taxpayer-funded allowance that former prime ministers get to run their private offices.
There are more than 1,800 files in the cache, including some that date back to Johnson’s tenure in Downing Street. The Guardian is the only UK media organisation known to have viewed the trove.
As British prime minister Keir Starmer vowed to “finally take back control of our borders” in a landmark speech on immigration on May 12, it felt a little like déjà vu.
Some nine years earlier, we had heard those exact words repeated over and over in the build-up to the Brexit referendum from former prime minister Boris Johnson and the Leave campaign. It was a refrain also used by Nigel Farage and UKIP.
Of course, this direct reference was the point. Starmer used it to claim that the Labour government’s white paper on immigration was finally going to deliver on what had been promised and desired for many years.
In these opening lines, the tone was set. And as the speech went on, there were echoes of far-right language and ideas reverberating throughout. Starmer lamented the “squalid” state of contemporary politics, the “forces” pulling the country apart, and the previous government’s so-called “experiment in open borders”.
This speech and the white paper that it unveiled are but the latest indication of the rightward direction of travel within UK politics, led by mainstream and far-right parties alike – as exemplified in recent months by the footage released of immigration raids and deportations.
Some will argue this is Labour’s response to the rising threat of Reform UK, with results in the recent local elections seen as evidence of the far right’s growing popularity. So the story goes, Labour is proving that they can be tough on immigration, showing would-be Reform defectors that they can be trusted after all.
This familiar narrative seems to follow a prevailing wisdom which is parroted in political, media and public debates – that appeasing the far right is the way to defeat it. Rather than beating the far right at their own game, however, research shows that these techniques simply legitimise their key talking points and further normalise exclusionary politics.
Starmer’s speech is a case in point. In using “take back control” from the outset, there was no hiding the intended audience or message. Starmer claimed that this project would “close the book on a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country”, implying that excessive immigration has directly caused these problems and that stopping it solves them. This chimes with classic far-right narratives where migration is framed as the root of all societal ills.
When these kinds of ideas are pushed by those in government, with great authority and influence, they are given greater credence and weight. A strikingly clear example of this came in the summer of 2024 when participants in racist riots waved posters containing the slogan “stop the boats” (a phrase popularised by the previous Tory government).
Another component of the speech that was reminiscent of far-right tropes was the idea that increased immigration was a deliberate tactic by the previous government. Starmer suggested that the Conservatives were actively pursuing a “one-nation experiment in open borders” while deceiving the British public of their intentions.
Far-right conspiracies are often premised on the idea that elites are deliberately encouraging mass immigration. It’s not hard to see how Starmer’s words could act as a dog whistle in this scenario.
These claims are especially damaging when we think about the draconian measures introduced under former Conservative governments, such as the Rwanda policy. Labour is now indicating that these proposals didn’t go far enough.
To justify bringing far stricter immigration rules, Starmer stated that “for the vast majority of people in this country, that is what they have long wanted to see”. As far-right parties so often do, Labour suggests that they are delivering on “people’s priorities”. Yet are they really a priority for people, or are we told that they are a priority which then makes them more of a priority?
Research by Aurelien Mondon, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Bath, illustrates how people’s personal and national priorities differ dramatically. When people in the UK were asked to name the two most important issues facing them personally, immigration didn’t even make it into the top ten.
However, when asked the same question about the issues facing their country, immigration topped the list. How can something that doesn’t affect you in your day-to-day life suddenly become a top priority for your country? We need to challenge the narrative that the government is simply acting on people’s wishes and acknowledge its own capacity to set the agenda.
Other priorities
Some will say that harsher anti-immigration policies are a necessary evil to defeat the far right. However, if people’s personal priorities are really the cost of living, housing and education, why is the government not focusing more of its energy on these things rather than scapegoating migrants?
What’s more, research shows that even based on these terms, these strategies are ineffective and can actually boost the success of the far right electorally. After all, its ideas are being repeatedly normalised.
In all this tactical talk, we lose sight of the fact that people are living the consequences of this rhetoric and policies right now. Rather than focus on Reform’s potential performance in a general election that is probably years away, we should recognise the immediate consequences of the rhetoric that has accompanied this white paper. Even if this did put a dent in Reform’s prospects, what is the meaning of defeating them if the policies they promote become part of the mainstream in the process?
The bottom line is that you do not beat the far right by becoming them. It doesn’t work electorally or ideologically, and even if it did, minoritised communities suffer the consequences regardless. The far right is not some threat lying waiting in the future – its normalisation is happening now.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Entrepreneur Michelle Mone is admiited to the House of Lords as Baroness Mone of Mayfair, after being made a Tory peer, October 2015
